WAR AND PEACE

by Leo Tolstoy

Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener

Assittant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

1864-1869

A FEW WORDS CONCERNING THE BOOK “ WAR AND PEACE”

In printing the work on which I have spent five years of constant and exclusive labour, under the best conditions of life, I should like in the introduction to this work to expound my view upon it and thus to disperse the misunderstandings which may arise in the readers. I wish my readers would not see or seek in my book what I did not want or could not express, and would direct their attention to what I meant to convey, but (considering the conditions of the production) did not think it suitable to dwell on. Neither my time nor my skill permitted me to do in full what I had intended to do, and I will make use of the hospitality of this special periodical for the purpose of expounding, even though briefly and incompletely, the author’s view of his production for those readers who may be interested in the matter.

1. What is War and Peace ? It is not a novel, still less is it a poem, still less a historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it is expressed. Such an announcement as to the author’s neglect to attend to the conventional forms of an artistic prose production might appear

as a bit of selfconfidence if it were intentional and if it had no precedent. The history of Russian literature since the time of Pushkin not only furnishes many examples of such a departure from the European form, but does not offer even a single contrary example. Beginning with Gogol’s Dead Souls and ending with Dostoevski’s Dead House, in the new period of Russian literature, there is not a single artistic prose production, which ever so little rises above mediocrity, that is completely arranged in the form of a novel, epic, or story.

2. The character of the time, as some readers said to me at the appearance of the first part in print, is not sufficiently defined in my work. To this rebuke I have the following answer to make : I know in what consists that character of the time which is not found in my novel,— the horrors of the serf right, the immuring of wives, the flogging of grown sons, Saltychikha, and so forth ; but this character of that time, as it lives in our imagination, I do not consider correct and did not wish to Express. In studying letters, diaries, and traditions, 1 did not find all the horrors of this savagery to any greater extent than I find them at present or at any other time. In those days they also loved, envied, searched after the truth and virtue, were carried away by passion ; there was also a complex, mental, and moral life, at times even more refined than at present in the upper class. If in our conception there has been formed an opinion of arbitrariness and brute force as regards that time, this is so only because in the traditions, memoirs, stories, and novels there have come down to us exaggerated cases of violence and brutality. To conclude that the prevailing character of that time was brutality is as incorrect as it would be for a man, who beyond a mountain sees nothing but the tops of trees, to conclude that in that locality there is nothing but trees. There is a character of that time (just as there is a character to every epoch), which results from a greater alienation of the upper circle from the other classes, from the ruling philosophy, from the peculiarities of education, from the habit of using the French language, and so forth. It is this character that I tried to express as well as I could.

3. The use of the French language in a Russian production. Why in my work do not only Russians but also Frenchmen speak partly Russian and partly French ? The reproach that persons speak and write French in a Russian book is like the reproach a man would make, who, looking at a picture, sees black spots (shadows) on it, which do not exist in reality. The artist is not to blame because to some the shadow which is made by him on the face of the picture appears as a black spot, which does not exist in reality ; the artist is to blame only if these shadows are put on Wrongly and coarsely. Busying myself with the epoch of the beginning of the present century, and representing Russian persons of a certain class of society and Napoleon and the French, who took s^ch a direct part in the life of that time, I was involuntarily carried away more than was necessary by the form of expression of that French manner of thinking. And so, without denying that the shadows put on by me are in all likelihood incorrect and coarse, I wish only that those to whom it will appear funny that Napoleon speaks now Russian and now French should know that this only seems so to them, because, like a man who is looking at a portrait, they do not see the face with its lights and shadows, but see a black spot under its nose.

4. The names of the acting persons, Bolkonski, Dru-betskuy, Bilibin, Xu ragin, and so forth, remind one of well-known Russian names. In confronting acting non-historical persons, with other historical persons, I felt the awkwardness for the ear of making Count Rostopchin speak with Prince Pronski, with Stryélski, or with some other princes and counts, of an invented double or single family name. Bolkonski or Drubetskéy, although they are neither Volkdnski nor Trubetskoy, sound familiar and natural in the Russian aristocratic circle. I was unable to invent for all persons such names as would seem to me to be false to the ear, such as Bezukhi and Rostov, and I was not able to avoid this difficulty in any other way than by taking at random names which were most familiar to the Russian ear and changing a few letters in them. I should be very sorry if the similarity between the invented names and the real ones could give any one the idea that I wanted to describe this or that actual person ; especially, since that literary activity which consists in the description of actually existing persons has nothing in common with the one I busied myself with.

M. D. Akhrosimov and Denisov are the only persons to whom I involuntarily and without thinking gave names that closely approach two extremely characteristic and charming actual persons of the society of that time. That was my mistake, which arose from the peculiar intrinsic character of these two persons, but my mistake in this respect is limited to the mere introduction of these two persons. All the other persons are purely invented, and have not even for me any definite prototypes in tradition or reality.

5. My divergence in the description of historical events from the narrative of the historians. It is not accidental, but inevitable. The historian and the artist, in describing a historical epoch, have two entirely different subjects before them. Just as the historian will be wrong if he shall try to represent a historical person in all his entirety, in all the complication of his relations to all the sides of life, so also will the artist not fulfil his work, if he always represents a person in his historical significance. Kutuzov did not always ride a white horse, with a field-glass in his hand, pointing to the enemy. Rostopchm did not always, with a torch in his hand, burn the Vorondvski House (he even never did that), and Empress Marya Fédorovna did not always stand, clad in an ermine mantle, leaning with one hand on the code of laws ; but it is as such that the popular imagination represents them to itself.

For the historian there are heroes, in the sense of people who contribute to some one purpose ; but for the artist there cannot and must not be a hero, but must be a man, in the sense of this person’s correspondence with all the sides of life.

The historian is at times obliged, by bending the truth, to subordinate all the actions of the historical person to the one idea which he has put into this person. The artist, on the contrary, in the very singleness of this idea finds an incompatibility with his problem and only tries to comprehend and show, not a certain actor, but a man.

In the description of the events themselves the distinction is still more sharp and essential.

The historian has to deal with the results of the event, the artist with the fact of the event. The historian, in describing a battle, says : “ The left flank of such and such an army was moved toward such and such a village, defeated the enemy, but was compelled to retreat; then the cavalry which was sent to the attack overthrew,” and so forth. The historian cannot speak otherwise. And yet these words have no meaning for the artist and do not even touch upon the event itself. Either from his own experience, or from letters, memoirs, and stories, the artist deduces his own conception about the course of the event, and frequently (as in the example of the battle) the deduction about the activity of such and such armies, which the historian permits himself to make, turns out to be the very opposite to the artist’s deduction. The difference of the results obtained is also to be explained from those sources from which the two draw their information. For the historian (we continue the example of the battle) the chief source is found in the reports of the private commanders and of the commanderin-chief. The artist can draw nothing from such sources, — they tell him nothing, explain nothing to him. More than that: the artist turns away from them, as he finds in them a necessary lie, to say nothing of the fact that every battle is described by the two enemies in absolutely opposite ways. In every description of a battle there is a necessity of lying, which results from the demand for a description in a few words of the actions of thousands of men scattered over several versts and acting under the strongest moral incitement, under the influence of fear, shame, and death.

In the descriptions of battles they generally say that such and such armies directed their attack upon such and such a point, and then they were commanded to retreat, and so forth, as though assuming that that discipline which submits tens of thousands of men to the will of one man on the parade-grounds will have the same effect where life and death are in the scale. Everybody who has been in a war knows how untrue that is ;1 and yet, on this assumption are based the reports, and upon them the military descriptions. Make the round of the troops immediately after a battle, even on the next day, or the day after, before the reports are written out, and ask all the soldiers, the superior and inferior commanders, hov the affair took place ; you will be told what all these men experienced and saw, and you will form a majestic, complex, infinitely varied and heavy, indistinct impression,

1 After my first part was printed with the description of the battle of Schöngraben, I was told of the words of Nikolay Nikolaevich Muravév-Kârski concerning this description of the battle, — words which confirmed for me my conviction. Nikolây Nikolaevich Muravév, the commanderin-chief, said that he had never read a more correct description of a battle, and that he had become convinced through his own experience that it is impossible during a battle to carry out the orders of the commanderin-chief. —Author’s Note. and from no one, least of all from the commanderin-cluef, will you find out how the affair took place. But two, three days later they begin to bring in the reports, the talkers begin to tell how that happened which they did not see ; finally a general report is made out, and from this report the general opinion of the army is formed. It is a relief for any one to exchange his own doubts and questions for this deceptive, but clear and always flattering representation. Question a man who has taken part in this battle a month or two later, and you will no longer feel in his story that raw vital material which there was before, for he is telling it now in accordance with the report. Thus 1 was told about the battle of Borodino by many wideawake, clever participants in the battle. They all told one and the same thing, in accordance with the incorrect description of Mikbaylovski-Danilévski, Glinka, and others ; even the details which they told, though the narrators were several versts distant from one another, were all the same.

After the loss of Sevastopol, the commander of artillery, Kryzhanovski, sent me the reports of the officers of artillery from all the bastions, asking me to make up a report from these more than twenty separate reports. 1 am sorry I have not described these reports. This was the best example of that naïve, unavoidable, military lie from which descriptions are made up. I assume that many of my comrades who at that time made up those reports will, as they read these lines, laugh at the recollection of how they, by order of the authorities, wrote what they could not know. All those who have experienced a war know how capable Russians are of doing their work in a war and how little fit they are to describe it with the necessary boastful lie. Everybody knows that in our armies this duty of writing out the reports is for the most part attended to by men of foreign birth.

All this I say in order to show the inevitableness of the lying in military descriptions, which serve as material for the military historians, and, therefore, to show the inevitableness of frequent disagreements between the artist and the historian in the comprehension of historical events. But besides the inevitableness of the untruth in the exposition of historical events, in the historians of the epoch in which 1 was interested, I observed (no doubt in consequence of the habit of grouping events, of expressing them briefly, and of complying with the tragic tone of the events) a special form of soaring diction, in which the lie and the distortion frequently pass, not only to the events, but even to the comprehension of the meaning of the events. In studying the two chief historical productions of this epoch, Thiers and Mikhayldvski-Danilévski, I frequently marvelled how such books could have been printed and read. To say nothing of the fact that they treated the same events in a most serious, significant tone, with references to materials, and yet were diametrically opposed to one another, I came across such descriptions in these historians that I did not know whether to laugh or weep, considering that these two books are the only monuments of this epoch and have millions of readers. I will adduce but one example from the book by the famous historian Thiers. After telling how Napoleon brought with him counterfeit assignats, he says, ” Relevant l’emploi de ces moyens par un acte de bienfaisance diyne de lui et de l’armée française, il fut distribuer des secours aux incendiés. Mais les vivres étant trop précieux pour être donné longtemps d des étrangers, la plupart ennemis, Napoléon aima mieux leur fournir de l’argent, et il leur fit distribuer des roubles papier.”

This passage is striking in itself by its stupendous, I shall not say immorality, but simply stupidity ; but in the whole book this is not so startling, because it fully corresponds to the general, soaring, solemn tone of the discourse, which makes no direct sense.

Thus the problem of the artist and of the historian in the description of events and persons in my book must not startle the reader.

But the artist must not forget that the representation of historical events, as formed among the people, is not based on fancy, but on historical documents, to the extent to which the historians have been able to group them ; therefore, though the artist understands and represents these persons and events differently, he must, like the historian, be guided by historical material. Wherever historical persons in my novel speak and act, I have not invented, but have made use of material of which during my work a whole library has been formed, the books of which I do not find it necessary to cite here, but to which I can always refer.

6. Finally, the sixth and most important consideration for me refers to the small significance which, according to my ideas, is to be ascribed to so-called great men in the historical events.

In studying that epoch, so tragical, so rich in the grandeur of its events, and so near to us, in regard to which there live so many varied traditions, I arrived at the evident fact that the causes of the historical events, as they take place, are not accessible to our reason. To say (what to everybody seems very simple) that the causes of the events of the year 1812 consist in Napoleon’s spirit of conquest and in the patriotic firmness of Emperor Aleksandr Pavlovich is as senseless as to say that the causes of the fall of the Boman Empire are these, that a certain barbarian led his nations to the west, and a certain Roman Emperor mismanaged the state, or that an immense hill which is being torn down fell because the last labourer struck it with his spade.

Such an event, where millions of people killed one another and in all killed half a million, cannot have for its cause the will of one man : just as one man could not have torn down the hill, so one man cannot cause five hundred thousand men to die. But what are the causes ? Some historians say that the cause was the French spirit of conquest, the patriotism of Russia. Others speak of the democratic element which Napoleon’s hosts carried abroad and of the necessity for Russia of entering into an alliance with Europe, and so forth. But how did millions of people begin to kill one another, — who told them to do so ? It is possible to make an endless number of retrospective conclusions as regards the causes of this senseless event, and these conclusions are actually made ; but the great majority of these explanations and their coincidence in one purpose only proves that there is an endless number of these causes and that not one of them may be called the cause.

Why have millions of people killed one another, when it has been known ever since the creation of the world that this is both physically and morally bad ?

Because that has been inevitably necessary, because, doing so, men have performed an elementary, zoological law, the one performed by the bees, when they destroy one another in the autumn, and the one according to which the male animals destroy one another. It is impossible to give any other answer to this terrible question.

This truth is not only apparent, but is so inherent in every man that it would not be worth while to prove it, if there did not exist another sentiment in man, which convinces him that he is free at any moment, whenever he is acting.

In viewing history from a common point of view, we are unquestionably convinced of the Bre-eternal Law according to which events take place. Looking at it from the personal point of view, we are convinced of the opposite.

A man who kills another, Napoleon who gives the order to moss the Nyeman, you and I, petitioning about a governmental appointment, raising and dropping our arms, are unquestionably convinced that every act of ours has for its base rational causes and our free will, and that it depended on us whether we should act in this manner or in that, and this conviction is to such a degree inherent in us and dear to every one of us that, in spite of the proofs of history and of the statistics of crimes (which convince us of the absence of freedom of the will in the acts of other men), we extend the consciousness of our freedom to all our acts.

The contradiction seems insoluble. In committing an act I am convinced that I commit it according to my will ; but viewing this act in the sense of its participation in the general life of humanity (in its historical significance), 1 am convinced that this act was predetermined and inevitable. Where is the error ?

The psychological observations concerning man’s ability on the spur of the moment retrospectively to find a whole series of imagined free ratiocinations for an accomplished fact (this I intend to expound at a greater length in another place) confirm the assumption that man’s consciousness of freedom, in the commission of a certain kind of acts, is erroneous. But the same psychological observations prove that there is another series of acts in which the consciousness of freedom is not retrospective, but sudden and unquestionable. No matter what the materialists may say, I am always able to commit an act or to keep from it, so long as the act refers to me alone. I have unquestionably by nothing but my will just raised and dropped my arm. 1 can at once stop writing. You can at once stop reading. Unquestionably 1 have by nothing but my own will and regardless of all obstacles just transferred myself mentally to America or to any desired mathematical question. I can, testing my freedom, raise and forcibly drop my hand in the air. I did so. But near me stands a child, and I raise my hand over him, and I want to drop it upon him with the same force. I cannot do so. A dog makes for this child, and I cannot help raising my hand against the dog. I am standing in the battle-line and I cannot help following the motions of the regiment. I cannot avoid in a battle making an attack with my regiment and running, when all men about me are running. When in the court-room I stand as a defender of a defendant, I cannot stop talking or knowing what 1 am going to say. I cannot help winking when a blow is directed against my eye. Thus there are two kinds of acts : some that depend on my will, others that do not depend on it. And the mistake which produces the contradiction is due only to this, that the consciousness of freedom (which legitimately accompanies every act that refers to my ego, up to the highest abstractions of my existence) is involuntarily transferred by me to my acts which are committed in conjunction with other men and which depend on the coincidence of other free wills with my own. It is very hard to determine the border between freedom and dependence, and the determination of this border forms the essential and only problem of psychology ; but, observing the conditions of the manifestation of our greatest freedom and greatest dependence, it is impossible to avoid seeing that the more our activity is abstract and therefore the less it is connected with the activities of other men, the more it is free ; and, on the other hand, the more our activity is connected with the activities of other men, the less free it is.

The most potent, indissoluble, heavy, and constant bond with other men is the so-called power exerted by one set of men against another, which in its true meaning is but the greatest dependence upon others.

Whether this is faulty or not, having become fully convinced of it in the course of my work, in describing the historical events of the years 1805, 1807, and especially 1812, in which this law of predetermination appears boldly in relief,1 I was unable to ascribe any significance to the acts of those men to whom it seemed that they guided the events, but who less than all the other participants of the events introduced into it a free human activity. The activity of these men was interesting to me only as an illustration of that law of predetermination which in my opinion guides history, and of that psychological law which compels a man who commits a most un-free act to find in his imagination a whole series of retrospective ratiocinations, the purpose of which is to prove his freedom to himself.

1 It is worthy of note that nearly all those who have written about the year ’12, have seen in this event something peculiar and fatal. — Author’s Note.

WAR AND PEACE

PART THE FIRST

I.

” Eh “bien, mon prince, Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des country estates, de la famille Buonaparte. Non, je vous préviens que si vous ne dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antéchrist (ma parole, j’y crois) —je ne vous connais plus, voïis n’êtes plus mon ami, vous riêtes plus my faithful slave, comme vous dites. Well, good evening, good evening ! Je voies que je vous fais peur, — sit down and talk to me!”

Thus spoke, in July, 1805, the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, lady of honour and intimate of Empress Mariya Fédorovna, upon meeting the dignified notable, Prince Vasili, the first to arrive at her soirée.

Anna Pavlovna had been coughing for a few days : she had the grippe, as she said (” grippe ” was then a new word, used only by a few).

The notes, which had been sent out in the morning by a lackey in red livery, were all, without exception, of the following contents :

” Si vous u avez rien de mieux à faire, M. le Comte (or Mon Prince), et si la perspective de passer la soirée chez une pauvre malade ne vous effraye pas trop, je serai charmée de vous voir chez moi entre 7 et 10 heures. Annette Scherer.”

“ Dieu, quelle virulente sortie ! ” answered the prince, upon entering, not in the least disconcerted by such a reception. He was clad in his embroidered court uniform, in stockings and shoes, and wore his stars ; there was a bright expression on his flat face.

He spoke in that laboured French in which our grandfathers not only spoke, but thought, and in those quiet, patronizing intonations which are peculiar to one grown old in society and to an important man at court. He walked over to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her the perfumed and shining bald spot on his head, and calmly sat down on the divan.

” Avant tout dites-moi, comment vous allez, chère amie ? Allay a friend’s fears,” he said, without changing his voice, and in a tone in which through propriety and sympathy there shimmered indifference and even sarcasm.

” How can one be well, when one suffers morally ? Can a person who has feeling remain calm in our day ? ” said Anna Pävlovna. ” I hope you will be with me all the evening ! ”

” And the fête of the English ambassador ? To-day is Wednesday. I must show up there,” said the prince. “ My daughter will come for me and will take me there.”

” I thought that tonight’s fête was postponed. Je vous avoue que toutes ces fêtes et tous ces feux d’artifice commencent à devenir insipides.”

“If they had known that you wanted the fête postponed, they would have done so,” said the prince, from habit, like a wound-up clock, saying things which he did not even wish to be believed.

” Ne me tourmentez pas. Eh bien, qu’a-t-on décidé par rapport à la dépêche de Novosilzoff ? Vous savez tout.”

” What shall I say ? ” said the prince, in a cold, dull tone. ” Qua-t-on decide ? On a decide que Buonaparte a brûlé ses vaisseaux, et je crois que nous sommes en train de brûler les nôtres.”

Prince Vasili always spoke indolently, like an actor speaking his part in an old play. Anna Pavlovna Scherer, on the contrary, in spite of her forty-five years, was brimful of animation and enthusiasm. Her social position consisted in being regarded as an enthusiast, and at times, even when she did not wish to be so, she became an enthusiast, only not to deceive the expectations of men who knew her. The repressed smile which was always playing on Anna Pavlovna’s face, though not in keeping with her faded features, expressed, as with spoilt children, a constant consciousness of her sweet defect, which she did not want, and was not able, and did not find it necessary to correct.

In the middle of her conversation about political actions, Anna Pavlovna grew excited.

” Ah, do not tell me about Austria ! It may be that I do not understand anything, but Austria never has wanted war. She is betraying us. Russia must be the saviour of Europe all by herself. Our benefactor knows his high calling and will be true to it. That is the one thing I believe in. Our good and charming emperor has the greatest rôle in the world before him, and he is so virtuous and good that God will not abandon him ; he will be true to his calling, which is to choke the hydra of the Revolution, which now is even more terrible in the person of the assassin and scoundrel. We alone must atone for the blood of the just — On whom may we depend, I ask you ? England, with her commercial spirit, will not and cannot understand all the elevation of soul of Emperor Alexander. She has refused to clear out Malta. She wants to see first, — she is looking for the mental reservation of our actions. What did they say to Novosiltsov ? Nothing. They did not understand, they cannot understand the self-renunciation of our emperor, who wants nothing for himself and everything for the good of the world. And what have they promised ? Nothing. And what they have promised will not be ! Prussia has already announced that Bonaparte is invincible, and that all of Europe is powerless against him — And I do not believe a word of Hardenberg’s nor of Haugwitz’s. Cette fameuse neutralité prussienne, ce n’est qu’un piège. I trust only in God and in the high destiny of our dear emperor. He will save Europe.”

She suddenly stopped, with a smile of ridicule at her own excitement.

” I think,” said the prince, smiling, “ that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode, you would have taken by assault the consent of the Prussian king. You are so eloquent. Will you give me some tea ?”

” Directly. A propos,” she added, again quieted down, ” to-day I shall have here two very interesting men, le Vicomte de Mortemart, il est allié aux Montmorency par les Rohan, one of the best families of France. He is one of the good emigrants, one of the real emigrants. And then I’Abbé Morio : you know that profound mind, don’t you ? He was received by the emperor. Do you know him ? “

” Ah ! I shall be very happy,” said the prince. “ Tell me,” he added, as though just recalling something and in an offhand manner, whereas that which he was asking was the chief aim of his call, ” is it true that l’impératrice-mère wishes to see Baron Funke appointed first secretary to Vienna ? C’est un pauvrt sire, ce baron, à ce qu’il paraît.”

Prince Vasili wanted to have his son appointed to the place which they were trying through Empress Mdriya Fédorovna to obtain for the baron.

Anna Pavlovna almost covered up her eyes, as a sign that neither she nor any one else could pass judgment on what the empress wished, or what pleased her.

” Monsieur le Baron de Funke a été recommendé à l’impératrice-mère par sa sœur,” was all she said in a sad, dry tone. As Anna Pavlovna mentioned the empress, her face suddenly assumed a profound and sincere expression of devotion and respect, united with sadness, which happened to her every time when she in her conversation had occasion to mention her high protectress. She said that her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d’estime, and again her vision was veiled with sadness.

The prince looked indifferent and grew silent. Anna Pävlovna, with the courtly and feminine agility and quick tact peculiar to her, wanted to sting the prince for having dared to refer in such terms to a person recommended by the empress, and at the same time to console him.

” Mais à propos de votre famille” she said, “do you know that your daughter, ever since she has been going out, fait les délices de tout le monde ? On la trouve belle comme le jour.”

The prince bowed in token of respect and recognition.

” I often think,” continued Anna Pavlovna, after a moment’s silence, moving up toward the prince and graciously smiling at him, as though to let him know that the political and worldly conversation was ended, and now was to begin an intimate chat, — ” I often think that the happiness of life is frequently distributed unjustly. Why has fate given you two such fine children (excepting Anatol, your youngest, — I do not like him,” she added without a chance of appeal, raising her eyebrows), ” such charming children ? And you value them less than, others do, and so you do not deserve them.”

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

” Que voulez-vous? Lof ater aurait dit que je n’ai pas la bosse de paternitésaid the prince.

” Stop jesting. I wanted to speak with you in earnest. Do you know, I am dissatisfied with your youngest son. Between us be it said ” (her face assumed a sad expression) ” they mentioned him to her Majesty and you are pitied — “

The prince did not answer, while she, looking significantly at him, waited silently for a reply. Prince Vasili frowned.

” What do you want me to do ? ” he finally said. ” You know that I have done everytliing a father can do for their education, and both have turned out des imbéciles. Ippolit is at least a quiet fool, while Anatol is a restless fool. That is the difference,” he said, smiling more unnaturally and more vivaciously than usual, and at the same time displaying something unexpectedly coarse and disagreeable in the sharp wrinkles gathered about his mouth.

” Why are children born of such people as you are ? If you were not a father, I should not be able to rebuke you for anything,” said Anna Pavlovna, thoughtfully raising her eyes.

“ Je suis votre true slave, et à vous seule je puis l’avouer. My children, ce sont les entraves de mon existence. They are my cross. That is the way I explain it to myself. Que voulez-vous ? “

He grew silent, with a gesture expressing liis submission to his cruel fate. Anna Pavlovna fell to musing.

” Have you ever thought of getting your prodigal son Anatol married ? They say,” she said, ” that old maids ont la manie des mariages. I do not yet feel that weakness, but I have a petite personne, who is very unhappy with her father, une parente à nous, une Princesse Bolkonski.”

Prince Vasüi made no reply, though he showed by a motion of his head that he took in the information with the rapidity of comprehension which is characteristic of men of the world.

” Really, do you know that this Anattfl costs me forty thousand a year ? ” he said, apparently unable to check the sad course of his thoughts. He was silent for awhile.

” What will happen in five years from now, if it keeps ou that way ? Voilà l’avantage d’etre père. Is she rich, your princess ? ”

” Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. Do you know, it is the famous Prince Bolkénski, who took his dismissal during the reign of the late emperor, and who is called the King of Prussia. He is a very clever man, but odd and hard to get along with. La pauvre est malheureuse comme les pierres. She has a brother, the one that lately married Lise, — Méynen, Kutuzov’s adjutant. He will be here this evening.”

“ Ecoutez, chère Annette” said the prince, suddenly taking the hand of his interlocutrice and for some reason turning it down. ” Arrangcz^moi cctte affaire, et je suis votre truest slave à tout jamais (slafe comme mon village elder m’écrit des reports : a-f-c afe). She is of a good family and rich. That is everything I want.”

And with these free, familiar, and graceful motions which distinguished him, he took the hand of the lady of honour, and, having kissed it, swung it, while throwing himself back in his armchair and looking aside.

“ Attendez,” said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting on something. “ I will this very evening speak with Lise (la femme du jeune Bolkonski), and maybe that can be arranged. Ce sera dans votre famille que je ferai mon apprentissage de vieille fille.”

IL

Anna Pavlovna’s parlour began slowly to be filled. There arrived the highest notables of St. Petersburg, the most varied of people as regards their ages and characters, but similar as to the society in which they lived. There arrived the daughter of Prince Vasili, beautiful Hélène, who came to take her father away, in order to go with him to the ambassador’s fête. She wore a ball dress with the decoration of a lady of honour. There also came the young little Princess Bolkonski, known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, who had married the winter before, and who now did not go out in grand society on account of her pregnancy, but who still appeared at small soirées. There came Prince Ippolit, the son of Prince Vasili, with Morteinart, whom be introduced; and there came also Abbé Morio, and many others.

” You have not seen ma tante ? ” or ” You have not met ma tante ? ” said Anna Pavlovna to each of the assembled guests, and very solemnly took them up to a small old woman in a tall headgear who sailed out of another room the moment the guests began to come. She told her their names, slowly transferring her eyes from the guest to ma tante, and then walked away. All the guests went through the ceremony of greeting the unknown, uninteresting, and unnecessary aunt. Anna Pdvlovna watched their greeting with a sad and solemn interest, silently approving of them. Ma tante spoke to all in the same set words about their health, about her own health, and about the health of her Majesty, which, ” thank God, was better to-day.” All who came up out of politeness showed no haste, but, after having performed the heavy duty, went away from the old woman with a feeling of relief, and did not go up to her again in the course of the whole evening.

The young Princess Bolkdnski arrived with some handiwork in a velvet, gold-embroidered bag. Her pretty upper lip, with a barely perceptible moustache, was too short for her teeth, but it opened up so much the more charmingly, and so much the more charmingly stretched and fell down on the lower lip. As is always the case with extremely attractive women, her defect — the shortness of her lip and her half-open mouth — appeared as an especial beauty, peculiarly lier own. It gave everybody pleasure to look at this pretty future mother, who, full of health and vivacity, bore her condition so lightly. Old men and lonesome, gloomy young men, looking at her, thought that they became like her, if they stayed and talked with her for a little while. He who spoke with her and at every word saw her bright little smile and her shining white teeth, which showed all the time, thought that he was uncommonly amiable just then. And thus thought all.

The little princess, in a waddling gait and with short, quick steps, went around the table, with her work-bag on her arm, and, merrily adjusting her garment, sat down on a divan, near the silver samovar, as though everything which she was doing was a partie de plaisir for her and for all who surrounded her.

“ Pai apporté mon ouvrage,” she said, unrolling her reticule and turning to all at once.

” Look here, Annette, ne me jouez pas un mauvais tour? she addressed the hostess. ” Vous m’avez écrit, que c’était une toute petite soirée ; voyez, comme je suis attiffée.”

And she moved her arms so as to show her elegant gray lace-trimmed dress, which a little below the breasts was girded by a broad ribbon.

” Soyez tranquille, Lise, vous serez toujours la plus jolie” replied Anna Pàvlovna.

” Vous savez, mon mari m’abandonne” she continued in the same tone, addressing a general, ” il va se faire tuer. Dites-moi, pourquoi cette vilaine guerre ? ” she said to Prince Vasili and, without waiting for an answer, turned to the daughter of Prince Vasili, to beautiful Hélène.

” Quelle délicieuse personne que cette petite princesse ! ” Prince Vasili said softly to Anna Pdvlovna.

Kight after the little princess there entered a massive, fat young man with closely cropped hair, in spectacles, light-coloured trousers of the latest fashion, tall jabot, and cinnamoncoloured dress coat. This fat young man was an illegitimate son of a famous dignitary of the time of Catherine, Count Bezukhi, who was now on the point of death at Moscow. He had not yet served anywhere, having just returned from abroad, where he had been educated. He was for the first time in society.

Anna Pavlovna received him with a bow which belonged to people of the lowest hierarchy in her salon. Yet, in spite of this greeting of a lower order, Anna Pavlovna’s face expressed, at the sight of Pierre entering the room, restlessness and fear, something like what is expressed at the sight of something too large and out of proportion with the place. Although Pierre really was a little taller than the rest of the gentlemen in the room, that fear could have reference only to that intelligent and at the same time timid, observing, and natural glance, which distinguished him from all in the drawingroom.

” C’est bien aimable à vous, Monsieur Pierre, d’etre venu voir une pauvre malade,” Anna Pavlovna said to him, exchanging a frightened glance with her aunt, to whom she was taking him. Pierre mumbled something unintelligible and kept looking for something. He smiled joyfully, merrily, bowing to the little princess, as to a near relative, and walked over to the aunt. Anna Pavlovna’s terror was not in vain, because Pierre went away from her without waiting to hear about the health of her Majesty. Anna Pavlovna, terrified, stopped him with the words :

“ Do you not know Abbé Morio ? He is a very interesting man — “

” Yes, I have heard about his plan of an eternal peace ; that is very interesting, but hardly possible — ! “

“ Do you think so ? ” said Anna Pavlovna, in order to say something and again to return to her occupations as lady of the house, but Pierre now committed the opposite impoliteness. Before, he had gone away without listening to what his interlocutrice had to say ; and now he stopped his interlocutrice with his conversation, though she was in a hurry to get away from him. He bent his head and spread his big feet, and began to prove to Anna Pavlovna why he supposed that the abbé’s plan was chimerical.

“We will speak of it later,” said Anna Pavlovna, smiling.

Having freed herself from the tactless young man, she returned to her duties as hostess and continued to listen and look, ever ready to come to the rescue where the conversation was slackening. Just as the master of a spinning factory, having placed his workmen in their seats, walks up and down in the establishment, watching the immobility of a spindle, or some unusual, creaking, loud sound from it, hurriedly walks over to it, and holds it back or sets it into proper motion ; even thus Anna Pavlovna, marching up and down the drawingroom, went up to a silencing or overzealously chatting circle, and with one word or by permutations started again the even, proper talking machine. But through all these cares of hers appeared her fear of Pierre. She looked anxiously at him as he went up to hear what was being said in the circle about Mortemart, and passed over to the other circle where the abbé was talking.

For Pierre, who had been educated abroad, this evening at Anna Pävlovna’s was the first which he attended in Russia. He knew that all the intelligence of St. Petersburg was gathered there, and his eyes ran all around, like those of a child in a toy-shop. He was afraid lest he should miss some of the clever conversations which he might hear. Looking at the confident and elegant expressions of the faces of those assembled there, he was all the time waiting for something extremely clever. Finally he walked over to Mono. The conversation seemed interesting to him, and he stopped, waiting for a chance to express his ideas, being as eager to do so as all young men are.

III.

The soirée of Anna Pävlovna was running now. The spindles buzzed evenly and without interruption on all sides. Outside of ma tante, near whom sat only one middle-aged lady with a careworn, lean face, who was somewhat of a stranger in this brilliant society, the society broke up into three circles. In one, composed mainly of men, the abbé formed the centre; another, a younger circle, was gathered about the beautiful Princess Hélène, the daughter of Prince Vasili, and about the pretty, ruddyfaced, too plump for her youth, little Princess Bolkonski ; the third was gathered about Mortem art and Anna Pävlovna.

The viscount was a pleasant-faced young man, with soft features and manners, who evidently regarded himself as a celebrity, modestly offering himself to be used by the society in which he happened to be. Anna Pavlovna apparently served him up to her guests. Just as the maître d’hôtel serves as something transcendentally beautiful the piece of beef which no one would eat, if it were seen in the dirty kitchen ; even thus Anna Pävlovna on that evening served up to her guests first the viscount, then the abbé, as something transcendentally refined. In the circle of Mortemart they had just started to talk about the murder of Duke d’Enghien. The viscount said that Duke d’Enghien had perished through his magnanimity, and that Bonaparte had especial reasons for his rage.

” Ah ! Voyons. Contez-nous celà, vicomte,” said Anna Pävlovna with joy, feeling that there was something à la Louis XV. in that phrase, ” contez-nous celà, vicomte.”

The viscount bowed in token of obedience and smiled politely. Anna Pavlovna formed a circle about the viscount and invited all to listen to his recital.

” Lc vicomte a etc personellcmcnt connu de monseigneur” Anna Pavlovna whispered to some one. ” Le vicomte est un parfait conteur,” she said to another. ” Comme on voit rhomme de la bonne compagnie’,’ she said to a third, and the viscount was served up to the society in the most elegant and advantageous light for him, like roast beef on a hot platter, garnished with greens.

The viscount was on the point of beginning bis story, and he gave a refined smile.

” Come over here, chère Hélène ! ” Anna Pavlovna said to the beautiful princess, who was sitting a distance away, forming the centre of another circle.

Princess Hélène smiled ; she got up with the same unchangeable smile of an absolutely beautiful woman, with which she had entered the drawingroom. Lightly rustling her white ball dress, trimmed with ivy and moss, and gleaming in the whiteness of her shoulders, in the sheen of her hair and the splendour of her diamonds, she passed between the receding gentlemen and walked straight up to Anna Pavlovna, without looking at any one, but smiling at all, as though graciously giving each an opportunity to admire the beauty of her form, her full shoulders, her extremely bare bosom and shoulders, as was then the fashion, and as though bearing with her the splendour of the ball. Hélène was so good that, not only could one notice no shadow of coquetry in her, but, on the contrary, she seemed to be ashamed of her unquestioned and too powerfully acting and vanquishing beauty. She seemed to be anxious to minimize the action of her beauty, without being able to do so.

” Quelle belle personne ! ” said everybody who saw her.

As though startled by something unusual, the viscount shrugged his shoulders and lowered his eyes just as she was seating herself before him and shedding light upon him, too, with her unchangeable smile.

“ Madame, je crains pour mes moyens devant un pareil auditoire,” he said, inclining his head with a smile.

The princess leaned her full, bared arm on a little table, and did not find it necessary to say anything. She smiled and waited. During the whole time he was talking she sat straight, looking now and then at her beautiful full arm which from the pressure on the table had changed its form, and on her still more beautiful breast, on which she adjusted her diamond necklace, several times rearranged the folds of her dress, and, whenever the story made an impression, looked at Anna Pavlovna and immediately assumed the same expression which was on the face of the lady of honour, and then again quieted down in a beaming smile. After Hélène, the little princess, too, came up from the teatable.

“ Attendcz-moi, je vais prendre mon ouvrage,” she said. ” Voyons, à quoi pensez-vous ? ” she addressed Prince Ippolit. ” Apportez-moi mon ridicule ! “

The princess, smiling, and speaking with all, produced a stir among those seated, and, having seated herself, merrily adjusted her dress.

“Now I am all right,” she said, and, asking him to begin, took up her work again.

Prince Ippolit brought her her reticule, walked behind her, and, moving his chair up close to her, sat down by her side.

Le charmant Hippolyte had an uncommonly striking resemblance to his beautiful sister, which was the more startling since, in spite of this resemblance, he was unusually homely. His features were the same as those of his sister, but in her everything was lighted up by a joy of life, a self-satisfied, youthful, unchangeable smile of life, and an unusual, antique beauty of body ; while in her brother, on the contrary, the same face was dulled by idiocy, and invariably expressed selfconfident sulkiness, while his body was haggard and feeble. His eyes, his nose, «his mouth, — everything seemed to be compressed into one indefinite and dull grimace, while his hands and feet constantly took up an unnatural position.

” Ce riest pas une histoire de revenants ? ” he said, seating himself near the princess, and hastily fixing a pair of eyeglasses over his eyes, as though he could not begin to talk without that instrument.

“Mais non, mon cher” said the surprised narrator, shrugging his shoulders.

” C’est que je déteste les histoires de revenants,” he said, in such a tone that it was evident that he first pronounced these words, and then only thought what they meant.

From the selfconfident tone with which he spoke, no one was able to make out whether that which he had said was clever or stupid. He was dressed in a dark green dress coat, in trousers of a colour cuisse de nymphe effrayée, as he himself said, in stockings and shoes.

The viscount told very entertainingly of the current anecdote that the Duke d’Enghien had secretly been travelling to Paris in order to meet there Mlle. George, and that he there met Bonaparte, who also enjoyed the favour of the famous actress, and that, meeting the duke there, Napoleon accidentally had a fainting spell, to which he was subject, and was thus in the duke’s power, and that the duke did not make use of his power, but that Bonaparte later on avenged himself on the duke for his magnanimity, by killing him.

The story was charmingly told and interesting, especially where the rivals suddenly recognized each other, and the ladies seemed to be agitated.

” Charmant ! ” said Anna Pavlovna, glancing interrogatively at the little princess.

“ Charmant ! ” whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into her work, as though to indicate that the interest and charm of the story kept her from continuing her work.

The viscount appreciated that silent praise and, smiling gratefully, continued his story ; but just then Anna Pdvlovna, all the time eyeing the terrible young man, noticed that he was talking rather heatedly and loud to the abbé, and so she hastened to the rescue in the dangerous place. Pierre had indeed succeeded in starting up a conversation with the abbé about the political equilibrium, and the abbé, apparently interested in the simple-hearted zeal of the young man, was expounding to him his favourite idea. Both listened and spoke too vividly and naturally, and it was that which displeased Anna Pavlovna.

” The means is the European equilibrium and the droit des gens” said the abbé. “One mighty country, such as Russia, which has a reputation for barbarism, need only unselfishly take the lead in a union, having for its aim the equilibrium of Europe, — and she saves the world ! “

“ How are you going to find that equilibrium ? ” Pierre began, but just then Anna Pavlovna came up and, glancing sternly at Pierre, asked the Italian how he stood the Russian climate. The Italian’s face was suddenly changed and assumed an offensively and feignedly sweet expression, which apparently was customary with him in his conversations with women.

” I am so entranced by the charms of mind and culture of society, especially of feminine society, into which I have had the honour of being received, that I have not yet had the time to think about the climate,” he said.

Anna Pavlovna no longer permitted the abbé and Pierre to get away from her, and, for convenience of observation, brought them to the common circle.

Just then a new person entered the drawingroom. This new person was the young Prince Andréy Bolkdnski, the husband of the little princess. Prince Bolkonski was of low stature, a very beautiful young man with distinct, lean features. Everything in his figure, beginning with his wearied, irksome glance and ending with his soft, measured gait, presented the very opposite of his small, vivacious wife. Not only were all those in the drawingroom evidently familiar to him, but they had evidently become so tiresome to him that it vexed him even to look at them or to listen to them. He turned away from them with a grimace which spoiled his pretty face. He kissed the hand of Anna Pavlovna and, blinking, surveyed the whole company.

” Vous vous enrôliez pour la guerre, mon prince ? ” said Anna Pâvlovna.

” Le Général Koutouzojffsaid Bolkonski, accentuating the last syllable zoff, like a Frenchman, ” a bien voulu de moi pour aide-de-camp—”

“ Et Lise, votre femme ?”

” She will go to the country.”

” Aren’t you ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife ? ”

“André!” said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish tone with which she addressed strangers, ” What a story the viscount told us about Mlle. George and Bonaparte ! ”

Prince Andréy blinked and turned his face away. Pierre, who from the time Prince Andréy had entered the drawingroom had not taken his gay and kindly eyes off him, walked over to him and took his hand. Prince Andréy, without looking around, contorted his face in a grimace expressive of annoyance with him who had touched his hand, but, upon noticing Pierre’s smiling face, he unexpectedly smiled a good and pleasant smile.

” Oh, I see ! — You, too, are in grand society ! ” he said to Pierre.

” I knew that you would be here,” replied Pierre. ” I will come to take supper with you,” he added, speaking in a soft voice so as not to disturb the viscount, who went on with his story. ” May I ? ”

” No, you may not,” said Prince Andréy, laughing and letting Pierre know by the pressure of his hand that the question was superfluous.

He wanted to say something else to him, but just then Prince Vasili and his daughter got up, and two young men rose to make way for them.

” You will pardon me, my dear viscount,” Prince Vasili said to the Frenchman, graciously pulling him by the sleeve so as to prevent his getting up. “ That unfortunate fête at the ambassador’s deprives me of a pleasure and interrupts you. I am very sorry to be compelled to go away from your charming soirée,” he said to Anna Pavlovna.

His daughter, Princess Hélène, passed between the chairs, lightly holding the folds of her dress, and a smile shone even more brightly upon her beautiful face. Pierre looked at this beauty, as she passed near him, with eyes expressive both of terror and of ecstasy.

” She is very beautiful ! ” said Prince Andréy.

” Very,” said Pierre.

Prince Vasili grasped Pierre’s hand, as he passed by him, and, turning to Anna Pavlovna, he said :

” Educate this bear for me,” he said. “ He has been living, a month with me, and this is the first time I see him in society. A young man needs nothing more than the society of clever women.”

IV.

Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take care of Pierre, who, she knew, was related to Prince Vasili on his father’s side. The middle-aged lady, who had been sitting with ma tante, rose hurriedly and caught Prince Vasili in the antechamber. All the feigned interest which had been expressed in her face had disappeared. Her good, tearful face now betrayed nothing but restlessness and terror.

” Prince, what will you tell me about my Boris ? ” she said after she had caught him in the antechamber. (She pronounced the word ” Boris ” by accentuating strongly the letter ” o.”) ” I cannot remain in St. Petersburg any longer. Tell me what news I may take to my poor boy.”

Although Prince Vasili listened to the elderly lady with displeasure and almost with impoliteness, she smiled a kind, touching smile at him and took hold of his hand in order to retain him.

” It would not hurt you to say one word to the emperor, and he would at once be transferred to the Guards,” she implored him.

” Believe me that I will do everything I can, princess,” replied Vasili, ” but it is hard for me to ask the emperor to do it; I should advise you to turn to Rumyantsev, through Prince Golitsyn : that would be wiser.”

The elderly lady bore the name of Drubetskdy, one of the best Russian families, but she was poor, had long ago gone out of society, and had lost her former connections. She had come this time to get her only son an appointment in the Guards. She had made her presence known and had accepted the invitation to Anna Pavlovna’s soirée for no other reason than to meet Prince Vasili, and for this reason also she had been listening to the story of the viscount. She was frightened at the words of Prince Vasili ; her once beautiful face expressed rage, but only for a minute. She smiled once more and clasped Prince Vasili’s hand more tightly.

” Listen, prince,’’ she said, ” I have never asked you for anything, and I never shall ; I have never reminded you of my father’s friendship for you. But now I implore you to do that for my son, and I will regard you as our benefactor,” she added, hastily. “ No, don’t be angry, but promise me. I have asked Golitsyn, but he has refused. Soyez le bon enfant que vous avez été” she said, endeavouring to smile, whereas tears stood in her eyes.

” Papa, we shall be late,” said Princess Hélène, turning her beautiful head on her antique shoulders ; she was waiting at the door.

Influence in the world is a capital which must be taken care of, lest it disappear. Prince Vasili knew this, and, having considered that, if he were to intercede for all, he soon would be unable to ask any favours for himself, he rarely made use of his influence. However, in the case of Princess Drubetskoy, he felt, after this new appeal of hers, something like pricks of conscience. She had reminded him of the truth : he owed her father his first steps in his career. Besides, he saw from her manner that she was one of those women, more especially one of those mothers, who, having taken something into their heads, will not desist until their wishes are complied with, and who, in the contrary case, are ready any day and any minute to become persistent and even to make scenes. It was this latter reflection that made him waver.

” Chère Anna Mikhaylovna,” he said, with the usual familiarity and tedium in his voice, ” it is almost impossible for me to do that which you ask me; but to prove to you how 1 love you and how I honour the memory of your father, I shall do all I can : your son will be transferred to the Guards — you may take my word for it. Are you satisfied ? “

” My dear friend, you are our benefactor ! I never expected anything else of you — I knew how good you were.”

He wanted to get away.

” Wait a moment, I want to say two words to you. Une fois passé aiix Gardes — ” She hesitated. ” You are on good terms with Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov, so recommend Boris to him for adjutant. Then I would be satisfied, and then — “

Prince Vasili smiled.

* That I do not promise. You do not know how Kutuzov has been besieged ever since he has been appointed general-in-chief. He told me himself that all the Moscow ladies have conspired to send their sons as adjutants to him.”

” No, you must promise me — I will not let you off, my friend and benefactor — “

” Papa,” the beauty repeated, again in the same tone, ” we shall be late.”

” Well, au revoir, goodbye. You see ? ”

” So you will report to the emperor tomorrow ? ”

“By all means. But I make no such promise about Kutuzov.”

“ No, you must promise, you must, Basile,” Anna Mikhaylovna cried to him as he was receding, with the smile of a young coquette, which, no doubt, had once been characteristic of her, but which now was not in keeping with her emaciated face. She had apparently forgotten her years, and was now, from habit, putting into motion all lier old feminine means. The moment he left, her face again assumed the same cold and feigned expression. She returned to the circle where the viscount was still talking, and she again pretended to be listening, waiting only for a chance to leave, for her affair had been attended to.

” But what do you think of all that last comedy du sacre de Milan ? ” said Anna Pdvlovna. ” Et la nouvelle comédie des peuples de Gène et de Lucqucs, qui viennent présenter leurs vœux à Mr. Buonaparte assis sur un trône, et exauçant les vœux des nations ! Adorable ! Non, mais c’est à en devenir folle ! On dirait que le monde entier a perdu la tête.”

Prince Andréy smiled, looking straight into Anna Pavlovna’s face.

” Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche,” he said (Bonaparte’s words at his coronation). ‘ ” On dit qu’il a été très beau en prononçant ces paroles,” he added, and he again repeated these words in Italian : ” Dio mi la dona, guai a chi la toca ! ”

11 J’espère enfin,” continued Anna Pavlovna,(( que ça a été la goutte d’eau qui fera déborder le verre. Les souverains ne peuvent plus supporter cet homme qui menace tout.”

“ Les souverains ? Je ne parle pas de la Russie,” the viscount said politely and despairingly. ” Les souverains, madame ! Qu’ont ils fait pour Louis XVIII., pour la reine, pour Madame Elisabeth ? Bien” he continued, becoming animated. ” Et, croyez-moi, ils subissent la punition pour leur trahison de la cause des Bourbons. Les souverains ? Ils envoient des ambassadeurs complimenter l’Usurpateur.”

And, after heaving a sigh of disdain, he again changed his position.

Prince Ippolit, who had for a long time been looking at the viscount through his eyeglasses, at these words turned his whole body to the little princess, whom he asked to give him a needle ; with this needle he drew on the table the coat of arms of the Condé, and began to explain to her that coat of arms with an expression of importance, as though the princess had asked him to do so.

” Bâton de gueules, engrelé de gueules d’azur, maison Condé,” he said.

The princess smiled and listened to him.

“ If Bonaparte is left another year on the throne of France,” the viscount continued his story, with the expression of a man who is not listening to others, but who is following the march of his own ideas in a matter which he knows better than anybody else, ” then things will go quite far. Through intrigues, violence, expulsions, condemnations, society — I mean refined French society — will for ever be destroyed, and then — “

He shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands. Pierre wanted to say something, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna, who was watching him, intercepted him :

” Emperor Alexander,” she said, with an expression of sadness which always accompanied her speeches about the imperial family, ” has announced that he will leave it to the French to choose their own form of government. And I think that there is no doubt but that the whole nation, having freed itself from the Usurper, wall throw itself into the arms of its legitimate king,” said Anna Pavlovna, trying to be kind to the emigrant and royalist.

” That is doubtful,” said Prince Andréy. ” Monsieur le vicomte assumes quite justly that matters have gone too far. I think it will be hard to return to the past.”

” So far as I have heard,” Pierre broke in, blushing, ” nearly all the nobility have gone over to Bonaparte.”

” The Bonapartists say so,” said the viscount, without looking at Pierre. ” It is difficult now to find out the public opinion in France.”

” Buonaparte l’a dit” Prince Andréy said, with a smile. It was evident that he did not like the viscount and that he directed his remarks against him, though he did not glance at him.

” Je leur ai montré le chemin de la gloire,” he said, after a short silence, again repeating Napoleon’s words : ” Ils nen ont pas voulu ; je leur ai ouvert mes antichambres, ils se sont précipités en foule— Je ne sais pas à quel point il a eu le droit de le dire.”

“ Aucun’’ replied the viscount. ” After the murder of the duke even the most biassed partisans ceased to see a hero in him. Si même ça a été un héros pour certaines gens,” said the viscount, addressing Anna Pavlovna, ” depuis l’assassinat du duc il y a un martyr de plus dans le ciel, un héros de moins sur la terre.”

Anna Pavlovna and the others had not yet had time to express their appreciation of the viscount’s words with a smile, when Pierre again interposed, and Anna Pavlovna, who had a presentiment that he would say something unseemly, was unable to stop him.

” The execution of the Duke d’Enghien,” said Pierre, ” was a necessity of state, and I see only magnanimity in this act, for Napoleon was not’afraid to assume the whole responsibility of the deed.”

” Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! ” Anna Pavlovna said, in a whisper of terror.

” Comment, Monsieur Pierre, vous trouvez que l’assassinat est grandeur d’âme,” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her handiwork up toward her.

” Ah ! Oh ! ” said several voices.

” Capital ! ” Prince Ippolit said in English, striking his knee with the palm of his hand.

The viscount only shrugged his shoulders.

Pierre looked victoriously over his glasses at the audience.

” I say so,” he continued persistently, ” because the Bourbons ran away from the Revolution, leaving the nation to anarchy ; Napoleon was the only one who knew how to take the Revolution and how to vanquish it, and therefore he could not, for the general good, stop before the life of one individual.”

” Would you not like to pass over to that table ? ” said Anna Pävlovna. But Pierre, without answering her, continued his speech.

“No,” he said, becoming ever more excited. “Napoleon is great because he rose above the Revolution : he has crushed its abuses and has kept everything good that there was in it, the equality of the citizens, the freedom of the press and of speech, and thus he has won his power.”

” Yes, if he, after having obtained the power, had not made use of it for an assassination, but had transferred it to the legitimate king,” said the viscount, ” I should call him a great man.”

“ He could not have done so. The nation gave him the power in order that he might liberate them from the Bourbons, and because the nation saw a great man in him. The Revolution was a great thing,” continued Pierre, •with this desperate and provocative exordium betraying his extreme youth and his desire to be more explicit.

“ The Revolution and regicide are great deeds ? — After that — but won’t you go over to the other table ? ” repeated Anna Pavlovna.

” Contrat social ” the viscount said, with a meek smile.

” I am not talking about regicide. I am talking about ideas.”

“Yes, the ideas of rapine, murder, and regicide,” an ironical voice again interrupted him.

“ Those, of course, were extremes ; but the importance does not lie in them, but in the rights of man, in the emancipation from prejudices, in the equality of the citizens; and Napoleon has preserved all these ideas in all their strength.”

“ Liberty and equality,” contemptuously said the viscount, as though having finally made up his mind to prove to the youth the whole stupidity of his remarks. ” Those loud words have long ago become disgraced. Who does not love liberty and equality ? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality. Have people become any happier since the Revolution ? On the contrary. It was we who wanted liberty, but Napoleon has destroyed it.”

Prince Andréy looked, smiling, now at Pierre, now at the viscount, or at the hostess. In the first moment of Pierre’s sally, Anna Pavlovna was terrified, in spite of her being accustomed to the ways of the world ; but when she noticed that, notwithstanding the sacrilegious words enunciated by Pierre, the viscount did not lose his temper, and when she convinced herself that it was impossible to suppress those words, she gathered all her strength and, joining the viscount, made an attack upon the orator.

“ Mais, mon cher Monsieur Pierre ,” said Anna Pavlovna, ” how will you explain the conduct of a great man who allowed himself, without judicial procedure, to put to death a duke, or simply a man, who had committed no crime ? ”

“ I should like to ask,” said the viscount, ” how monsieur will explain the eighteenth Brumaire. Is that not a deception ? C’est un escamotage qui ne ressemble nullement à la manière d’agir d’un grand homme.”

“ And the captives in Africa, whom he killed ? ” said the little princess. ” It is terrible ! ” and she shrugged her shoulders.

” C’est un rôturier, vous aurez beau dire” said Prince Ippolit.

Pierre, not knowing to whom to reply, surveyed them all and smiled. His smile was not like that of other people, with whom it blends with their previous expression. When a smile appeared on his face, his serious

and somewhat gloomy expression suddenly disappeared, and another, a childish, kindly, even somewhat stupid expression, as though begging forgiveness, took its place.

It became clear to the viscount, who now saw him for the first time, that this Jacobin was less terrible than his words. All were silent.

” How do you expect him to answer all at once ? ” said Prince Andréy. ” Besides, in the actions of a statesman we must keep the acts of the private individual apart from those of the leader, or emperor. So it seems to me.”

” Yes, yes, of course,” Pierre hastened to say, rejoiced at this succour.

” I must admit,” continued Prince Andréy, ” Napoleon as a man was great on the bridge of Arcole, and in the hospital at Jaffa, where he shook hands with the plague-stricken, but — there are other deeds which it is hard to vindicate.”

Prince Andréy, who apparently was desirous of softening the impression produced by Pierre’s awkward speech, got up, being ready to depart, and giving his wife a sign to that effect.

Prince Ippolit suddenly rose and, stopping everybody with gestures of his hands and asking them to be seated, began :

“ Ah ! Aujozi/rd’hui on m’a raconté une anecdote moscovite, charmante ; il faut que je rows en régale. Vous m’excusez, vicomte, il faut que je raconte en russe. Autrement on ne sentira pas le sel de Vhistoire.”

And Prince Ippolit began to speak in Russian, pronouncing the language like a Frenchman who had, perhaps, passed a year in Russia. All stopped, because Prince Ippolit had with such animation and insistency demanded their attention for his story.

“In Moscou there is a lady, une dame. And she is very stingy. She had to have two valets de pied behind the carriage. And very big in size. That was to her taste. And she had une femme de chambre, another person big in size. She said — “

Here Prince Ippolit fell to musing, obviously finding it hard to get the rest.

“ She said — yes, she said, ‘ Girl (à la femme de chambre), put on livrée, and come with me, behind the carriage, faire des visites.’ “

Here Prince Ippolit snorted and burst out laughing way ahead of his audience, which produced a disadvantageous impression for the storyteller. Still many, and among them the elderly lady and Anna Pävlovna, smiled.

” She went. Suddenly there was a strong wind. The girl lost her hat, and her long hair unbraided — “

He could not hold himself any longer and began to laugh a broken laughter, and through his laugh remarked :

” And the whole world found out — “

That was the end to the story. Though it was not apparent what he told it for, or why he had to tell it in Russian, Anna Pavlovna and others appreciated Prince Ippolit’s worldly grace, with which he had so pleasantly put an end to Pierre’s disagreeable and ungracious sally After this anecdote the conversation broke up into petty, insignificant chats about the next ball and the one just past, about the theatre, and about where people would meet again.

V.

After thanking Anna Pavlovna for her charmante soirée, the guests began to depart.

Pierre was clumsy. He was fat, taller than the average, broad, and had immense red hands ; he, as they say, did not know how to enter a parlour, and still less did he know how to come out of it, that is, he did not know how to say something very pleasant before taking his leave. He was, in addition, absent-minded. Upon getting up, he picked up a three-cornered hat with a general’s panache instead of his own, and he held it in his hand and kept pulling the panache, until the general asked him to return it to him.

Anna Pavlovna beckoned to him, with an expression of Christian meekness, as though forgiving him his sally, and said to him :

” I hope to see you again, but I hope that you will also change your views, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” she said.

When she told him that, he made no reply, and only bent his head and again smiled on them all with a smile which said nothing unless this : ” Views are views, but you see that I am a good, nice fellow.”

And all, Anna Pavlovna included, instinctively felt tills to be a fact.

Prince Andréy went into the antechamber and, ottering his shoulders to the lackey who was throwing his overcoat over them, listened to his wife’s prattle with Prince Ippolit, who had also come out into the antechamber. Prince Ippolit was standing near the pretty, pregnant princess and boldly eyed her through his eyeglasses.

” Go, Annette, you will catch a cold,” said the little princess, taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. ” C’est arreté,” she added, softly.

Anna Pavlovna had found time to talk with Lise about the match which she was trying to make between Anatdl and the sister-in-law of the little princess.

“ I shall depend upon you, dear friend,” Anna Pavlovna said, also in a low tone of voice, ” you write to her and let me know comment le père envisagera la chose. Au revoir,” and she went out of the antechamber.

Prince Ippolit went up to the little princess and, swiftly inclining his head to her, began to tell her something in a half-whisper.

Two lackeys, one the princess’s, the other his, waiting for them to finish their conversation, and holding, one a shawl, the other an overcoat, were listening to their incomprehensible French conversation as though they understood what was being said, but did not wish to show that they did. The princess, as always, spoke smiling, and listened laughing.

” I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Ippolit. ” It is tedious — Fine evening, is it not ? Fine evening!”

” They say that it ■will be nice there,” replied the princess, twitching her downy lip. “All the beautiful society ladies will be there.”

” Not all, because you will not be there ; not all,” said Prince Ippolit, laughing gaily, and taking the shawl from the lackey ; he even gave the lackey a push and himself began to put the shawl on the princess. Either from gawkiness or from intention (nobody could tell which) he for a long time did not take his hands away, after the shawl was already on her, so that it looked as though he were embracing the young woman.

She moved back gracefully, smiling all the time, turned around, and glanced at her husband. Prince Andréy’s eyes were shut : he looked wearied and sleepy.

” Are you ready ? ” he asked his wife, barely looking at her.

Prince Ippolit hastily put on his overcoat, which was of the latest fashion and reached down below the heels, and, becoming entangled in its folds, he rushed out on the porch after the princess, whom the lackey was just seating in the carriage.

“Princesse, au revoir,” he cried, with a confusion of his tongue and his feet.

The princess picked up her dress and seated herself in the dark carriage ; her husband was adjusting his sabre; Prince Ippolit, under the pretext of helping them, was in everybody’s way.

” Excuse me, sir ! ” Prince Andréy in a dry and grating voice addressed Prince Ippolit, who was in his way.

” Pierre, I shall be waiting for you,” the same voice of Prince Andréy sounded kind and tender.

The outrider moved, and the carriage rumbled over the pavement. Prince Ippolit laughed nervously, standing on the porch and waiting for the viscount, whom he had promised to take home.

“Eh bien, mon cher, votre petite princesse est très bien, très bien” said the viscount, as he seated himself in Ippolit’s carriage. ” Mais très bien.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. ” Et tout-a-fait française.”

Ippolit blurted out in a laugh.

” Et savez-vous que vous êtes terrible avec votre petit air innocent?” continued the viscount. “Je plains le pauvre mari, ce petit officier, qui se donne des airs de prince régnant.”

Ippolit snorted once more, and then he said through his laughter:

” Et vous disiez que les dames russes ne valaient pas les dames françaises. Il faut savoir s’y prendre.”

Pierre, being the first to arrive, went, as a friend of the house, straight into the cabinet of Prince Andréy, and there, as was his habit, lay down on a sofa, picked a book from the shelf, — it happened to be Cæsar’s Commentaries, — and, leaning on his arm, began to read it from the middle.

” What have you done with Mlle. Scherer ? She will now be ill in earnest,” said Prince Andréy, upon entering the cabinet, and rubbing his white little hands.

Pierre moved his whole body toward him, so that the sofa creaked, turned his animated face to Prince Andréy, smiled, and waved his hand.

” Well, that abbé is very interesting, only he does not understand things right — According to my opinion eternal peace is possible, I do not know in what way, only not through the political equilibrium — ”

Prince Andréy was apparently not interested in these abstract discussions.

” It is impossible, mon cher, to say everywhere all you think. Well, have you finally made up your mind for anything ? Will you be of the Horse-guard or a diplomatist ? ” Prince Andréy asked him, after a moment of silence.

Pierre sat up on the sofa, crossing his legs under him.

” Just think of it ! I have not yet made up my mind. I like neither.”

” But you must make up your mind to something. Your father is waiting for you to decide.”

Pierre had been sent abroad with an abbé, his tutor, when but ten years old, and he there remained until his twentieth year.. When he returned to Moscow, his father dismissed the abbé, and said to his son :

” Now go to St. Petersburg, look around, and find something to do. I shall be satisfied with anything you may do. Here you have a letter for Prince Vasili, and here is money for you. Write to me about everything, — I shall help you in everything.”

Three months had passed since Pierre started out to find a career for himself, and he had not done anything yet. It was about this choice that Prince Andréy was talking to him. Pierre rubbed his brow.

” But he must be a Mason,” he said, meaning the abbé, whom he had met at the soirée.

” All that is drivelling talk,” Prince Andréy stopped him again. ” Let us talk about business now. Have you been in the Horse-guard ? “

“ No, I have not, but here is something that has occurred to me, and that I wanted to tell you about. There is now a war against Napoleon. If it were a war for liberty, I might understand it, — I would be the first to enter military service ; but it is not good to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world.”

Prince Andréy only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre’s childish speech. He looked as though it were impossible to reply to such foolishness; really, to such a naïve statement it was hard to give any other reply than the one Prince Andréy gave him.

” If all fought only from conviction, there would be no war,” he said.

” That would be nice, indeed,” said Pierre.

Prince Andréy smiled.

” It is very likely that that would be nice, but it will never happen — ”

” What are you going to the war for, anyway ? ” asked Pierre.

” What for ? I do not know. It is right to go. Besides, I am going — ” He stopped. ” I am going to the war because the life I am leading here, this life, is not to my liking.”

VI.

A woman’s dress rustled in the adjoining room. Andréy shook himself, as though just waking up, and his face assumed the same expression that it had in Anna Pavlovna’s drawingroom. Pierre let his feet down from the sofa. The princess entered. She now wore another, a home dress, which was as elegant and fresh as the other. Prince Andréy rose, and politely pushed an armchair up for her.

” I often wonder,” she said, as always, in French, hurriedly and cautiously seating herself in the armchair, “ why Annette has not married. How stupid you all are, messieurs, not to have married her. You will excuse me, you do not understand anything about women. What a debater you are, Monsieur Pierre.”

” I have just been debating even with your husband ; 1 cannot comprehend why he wants to go to the war,” said Pierre, addressing the princess without the least embarrassment, though such embarrassment would have been only natural in the relations of a young man with a young woman.

The princess shuddered. Pierre’s words apparently touched her to the quick.

” Ah, that is what I have been saying myself,” she said. ” I do not understand, I positively fail to understand why men cannot live without war. Why do we women wish nothing, ask for nothing ? Now you be my judge ! I keep telling him : here he is his uncle’s adjutant, — a most brilliant position. All know him well, and appreciate him so much. The other day I heard a lady at the Apraksina ask: ‘ O’est ça le fameux Prince AndréV Ma parole d’honneur ! “

And she burst out laughing.

” He is well received everywhere. He may easily be made aid-de-camp to the emperor. You know the emperor spoke very graciously to him. Annette and I have been saying that that might be done. What do you say ? “

Pierre looked at Prince Andréy, and, noticing that this conversation did not please his friend, made no reply.

” When are you going ? ” he asked.

” Ah ! ne me parlez pas de ce depart, ne m’en parlez pas. Je ne veux pas en entendre parler,” said the princess, in that capricious and playful tone which she had employed toward Ippolit in the drawingroom, and which was so obviously out of keeping in the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member. ” As I was thinking to-day that it would be necessary to break all those dear relations— And then, do you know, André?” She winked significantly to her husband. ” J’ai peur, f ai peur ! ” she whispered, making a shudder pass up her back.

Her husband looked at her as though he were surprised to discover that there was somebody else in the room besides himself and Pierre, and he addressed his wife with cold politeness :

” What are you afraid of, Liza ? I cannot understand it,” he said.

” What egotists men are, all, all of you are egotists ! Just to satisfy his fancy, God knows why, he abandons me, and locks me up all alone in the country.”

” You will be with father and sister,” softly said Prince Andréy.

” I shall be alone all the same, — without my friends — And then he expects me not to be afraid.”

Her tone now was that of grumbling ; her little lip was raised, giving her face not a joyous, but an animal, a squirrel-like expression. She grew silent, as though finding it improper to speak of her pregnancy in the presence of Pierre, though that formed the subject of her conversation.

” Still, I do not comprehend de quoi vous avez peur? Prince Andréy spoke in a drawling tone, without taking his eyes off his wife.

The princess blushed, and waved her arms in despair.

” Non, André, je dis que vous avez tellement, tellement changé — ”

” Your doctor commands you to go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andréy. “ You had better go to bed.”

The princess said nothing, and suddenly her short, down-covered lip began to quiver ; Prince Andréy arose, and, shrugging his shoulders, walked up and down the room.

Pierre looked naïvely and in surprise through his spectacles, now at him and now at the princess, and he stirred as though wishing to get up himself, but he changed his mind.

” What do I care if Monsieur Pierre is here,” the little princess suddenly said, and her pretty face was suddenly distorted by a tearful grimace. ” I wanted to ask you long ago, André, why you have changed so toward me. What have I done to you ? You are going to the army, and you do not pity me. Why ? ”

” Lise ! ” was all Prince Andréy said, but in this one word there were entreaty, and threat, and, above all, conviction that she herself would regret her words ; but she hastened to add :

” You treat me like a sick woman or a child. I see all. Were you like this half a year ago ? ”

” Lise, I ask you to stop,” Prince Andréy, said, with greater insistence.

Pierre, who was becoming more and more agitated during this conversation, rose and went up to the princess. It seemed he was unable to endure the sight of tears, and was ready to burst out into tears himself.

” Calm yourself, princess. It seems so to you, because, I assure you, I have experienced myself — for — because — No, pardon me, a stranger is out of place here — No, calm yourself — Goodbye — “

Prince Andréy took him by the hand and held him back.

” No, wait, Pierre. The princess is so good that she will not deprive me of the pleasure of passing an evening with you.”

” No, he is only thinking of himself,” said the princess, without repressing her evil tears.

” Lise ! ” Prince Andréy said, dryly, raising his voice to that pitch which shows that the patience is exhausted.

Suddenly the angry, scpiirrel-like expression of the pretty face of the princess was exchanged for an expression of terror, which both made her attractive and provoked compassion ; she furtively glanced with her beautiful little eyes at her husband, and her face assumed that timid and submissive expression that may be observed in a dog as it rapidly, but feebly, sways its lowered tail.

” Mon Dieu, mon Dieu ! ” repeated the princess, and, lifting up her dress with one hand, she went up to her husband and kissed him on the brow.

” Bon soir, Lise,” said Prince Andréy, rising and kissing her hand politely, as though she were a stranger.

The friends were silent. Neither the one nor the other began to speak. Pierre looked at Prince Andréy ; Prince Andréy was rubbing his forehead with his little hand.

” Let us go to supper,” he said, with a sigh, rising and walking toward the door.

They entered the dining-room, which was newly appointed in an elegant and luxurious manner. Everything — from the napkins to the silver, the china, and the crystal — bore that peculiar imprint of newness which is to be seen in the homes of newly married people.

In the middle of the supper, Prince Andréy leaned on his arm, and, like a man who for a long time has had something upon his mind, and who suddenly concludes that he must have it out, he began to speak, with an expression of nervous irritation, such as Pierre had never seen him in.

“ Never, never get married, my friend ! Here is my advice : don’t marry until you are able to say to yourself that you have done everything in your power, and until you have ceased to love the woman you have chosen for yourself, until you see her clearly, or else you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry when you are a worthless old man — Or else everything good and exalted that there is in you will be lost. Everything will be lost on petty things. Yes, yes, yes ! Don’t look at me with such surprise ! If you are expecting anything for yourself in the future, you will come to feel at every step that everything is ended for you, but the drawingroom, where you will be standing on the same floor with a lackey of the court and an idiot— What is the use?”

He waved his hand with force.

Pierre took off his glasses, which made his face look changed, showing even more kindliness than before, and glanced in surprise at his friend.

” My wife,” continued Prince Andréy, ” is a fine woman. She is one of those rare women with whom one may be at rest about one’s honour ; but, 0 God, what would I not give now if I were not married ! You are the first and the only one to whom I am telling this, because I love you.”

Saying this, Prince Andréy less and less resembled that Bolkonski who had been sitting comfortably in Anna Pavlovna’s armchair, blinking and speaking French phrases through his teeth. Every muscle of his lean face quivered from nervous agitation ; his eyes, in which the fire of life had seemed extinct, now glistened with bright splendour. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed under ordinary circumstances, the more energetic he was in these moments of almost morbid irritation.

” You do not understand why I am saying this,” he continued. ” It is a whole history of life. You talk of Bonaparte and of his career,” he said, although Pierre had been saying nothing about Bonaparte. ” You talk of Bonaparte, but Bonaparte worked and went step by step toward his aim, — he was free, and he had nothing but his aim, and he reached it. But tie yourself to a woman, and you lose all your liberty, like a fettered prisoner. And everything hopeful and vigorous that is within you will only weigh you down and will fill you with regrets. Drawingrooms, gossip, balls, vanity, pettiness,— that is the magic circle from which I cannot get out. I am now going to the war, to the greatest war that has ever been waged, but I know nothing, and I am not good for anything. Je suis très aimable et très caustiquecontinued Prince Andréy, ” and I am listened to at Anna Pavlovna’s. And that stupid society, without which my wife cannot exist, and those women —

toutes les femmes distinguées, and women in general are ! My father is right. Egotism, vanity, stupidity, pettiness in everything, — that is what women display when they show themselves as they are. You look at them in society, and you think that there is something in them, but there is nothing, nothing, nothing! Yes, don’t get married, my friend ! ” concluded Prince Andréy.

“ It seems ridiculous to me,” said Pierre, ” that you, you regard yourself as incapable, and your life as spoiled.

If you could only know what

You have everything, everything before you. And you — “

He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he esteemed his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.

” How can he talk that way ? ” thought Pierre. Pierre regarded Prince Andréy as a model of all perfections for the reason that Prince Andréy united in the highest degree all those qualities which Pierre was lacking, and which may most nearly be expressed by the concept of power of will. Pierre always marvelled at Prince Andréy’s ability to treat all people calmly, at his extraordinary memory and extensive reading (he read everything, knew everything, had an idea about everything), and still more at his ability to work and learn. If Pierre was frequently struck in Andréy by the absence of speculative philosophy, to which he himself was prone, he did not consider that a fault, but a source of strength.

In the best of friendly or simple relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary for wheels to make them turn.

” Je suis un homme fini” said Prince Andréy. ” What is the use of talking about me ? Let us talk about you,” he said, after a moment’s silence, and smiling at his consoling thoughts. This smile was for a moment reflected in Pierre’s face.

” What is there to talk about me ? ” said Pierre, opening his mouth in a careless and merry smile. ” What am I ? Je suis un bâtard ! ” and he suddenly blushed crimson. It was evident that he had made a great effort to say that. ” Sans nom, sans fortune — and really — ” but he did not finish the sentence. ” In the meantime I am free, and I am happy. The only trouble is, I do not know what to begin. I wanted to take serious counsel with you.”

Prince Andréy looked with kindly eyes at him. But in his friendly and gracious smile there was, nevertheless, expressed the consciousness of his superiority.

” You are especially dear to me because you are the only live man in all this society of ours. Choose what you please, it makes no difference. You will be all right everywhere, but I shall ask this one thing of you : stop calling on that Kurâgin and leading that kind of a life. All that comports so little with you, all those carousals, that life of the hussars, and all such things — “

” Que voulez-vous, mon cher,” said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders, ” les femmes, mon cher, les femmes ! “

” I can’t understand it,” replied Andréy. ” Les femmes comme il faut, that is another matter, but les femmes of Kurâgin, les femmes et le vin, I do not understand ! “

Pierre was living at the house of Prince Vasili Kurâgin and took part in the profligate life of his son Anatol, the one that they were endeavouring to get married to Prince Audrey’s sister, in order to have him mend his ways.

” Do you know,” said Pierre, as though a happy idea had suddenly struck him, ” I have seriously been thinking of it for some time. With that life I can decide nothing, and reflect on nothing. My head aches, and I have no money. He has invited me to-day, but I sha’n’t go.”

“ Give me your word of honour that you will not go.”

” I give it to you ! “

It was past one o’clock at night when Pierre left his friend’s house. It was one of those bright St. Petersburg June nights. Pierre seated himself in a hired cab, intending to be driven home. The nearer he approached his house, the less he felt able to fall asleep on such a night. It was more like an evening or a morning. He could see a long distance down the empty streets. On his way home, Pierre recalled that the usual company of players was to meet that night with Anatol Kurâgin, after which there would be a drinking bout that would end with one of Pierre’s favourite entertainments.

” It would be nice to go to Kurâgiu’s,” he thought. But he immediately thought of the word of honour which he had given to Prince Andréy that he would not be at Kurâgin’s house.

But, as often is the case with so-called characterless people, he had a passionate desire once more to try that familiar profligate life, so he decided to have himself driven there. And immediately it occurred to him that the promise he had given was meaningless, because before he had given it to Prince Andréy he had promised Prince Anatdl that he would be with him ; finally, he reflected that all those words of honour were mere conventions without any definite meaning, especially when he considered that he might die tomorrow, or that something so unusual might happen that there would be nothing honourable or dishonourable. Such reflections, which annihilated all his decisions and intentions, frequently came to Pierre. He drove up to Kurâgin’s bouse.

Having arrived at the porch of a large house near the barracks of the mounted guard, in which Anatol lived, he ascended the illuminated porch and the staircase, and entered through the open door. There was nobody in the antechamber ; scattered about were empty bottles, overcoats, galoshes ; there was an odour of wine, and there could be heard a distant conversation and shouts.

The game and the supper were over, but the guests had not yet departed. Pierre threw off his overcoat, and entered the first room, where stood remnants of a supper, and where one lackey, thinking that he was not observed, was gulping down the contents of half-empty glasses. In two rooms beyond could be heard a hubbub, the noise of familiar voices, and the growling of a bear. About eight young men were anxiously crowding near one of the open windows. Three were busy with a young bear, whom one of them was pulling by a chain and setting on his companions.

” I’ll wager one hundred for Stevens ! ” cried one.

” Be sure and don’t hold him ! ” cried another.

“lam for Ddlokhov ! ” cried a third.

” Lu ragin, you be the umpire ! “

” Bet the bear go, — there is a bet on ! “

” At one draught, or else the bet is lost,” cried a fourth.

” Ydkov, let us have a bottle, Yakov!” cried the host himself, a tall, handsome man, who was standing in the middle of the crowd, without a coat, and with his fine linen shirt open over his breast. ” Hold on, gentlemen ! Here he is, Petrushka dear,” he turned to Pierre.

Another voice, belonging to a short man, with clear blue eyes, who among these drunken voices startled one by his sober expression, called out from the window :

“ Come here, and be the umpire ! “

This was Ddlokhov, an officer of the Seménovski regiment, a famous gambler and blade, who was living with Anatdl. Pierre, smiling, looked about him.

” I do not know what is up ! “

” Wait, he is not drunk. Let me have the bottle,” said Anatdl, and, taking a glass from the table, he went up to Pierre.

” First take a drink ! ”

Pierre drank one glass after another, casting sideglances at the drunken guests, who were again assembled at the window, and listening to their talk. An at61 poured out the wine for him, and told him that Dolokhov was betting Stevens, an English sailor, who was with them, that he, Ddlokhov, would drink a bottle of rum, sitting on a window-sill of the third story, with his feet dangling outside.

” Come now, drink it all ! ” said Anatdl, giving Pierre the last glass, ” or I will not let you alone ! “

” Ho, I do not want to,” said Pierre, pushing Anatél aside, and walking over to the window.

Ddlokhov was holding the Englishman’s hand and clearly and distinctly mentioning the conditions of the bet, addressing himself mainly to Anatol and Pierre.

Ddlokhov was a man of medium stature, curly-haired, and with bright blue eyes. He was about twenty-five years old. He wore no moustache, like all the officers of the infantry, and his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly visible. The lines of that mouth were curved most delicately. In the middle, the upper lip descended energetically upon the lower in the form of a sharp wedge, and in the comers there was something that resembled two constant smiles, one in each corner ; and all that, in conjunction with his firm, bold, and intelligent glance, produced such an impression that it was not possible to pass him by.

Ddlokhov was not a rich man, and had no connections. Notwithstanding the fact that Anatdl spent money by the ten thousand, Ddlokhov lived with him and bore himself in such a way that all who knew him, Anatdl included, respected Ddlokhov more than Anatol. Ddlokhov played all kinds of games, and nearly always won. No matter how much he drank, he never lost his clear head. Both Kurdgin and Ddlokhov were at that time celebrities in the St. Petersburg world of profligates and carousers.

The bottle of rum was brought. Two lackeys, who were apparently in a hurry, and intimidated by the counsels and the shouts of the gentlemen surrounding them, were demolishing the frame which made it impossible for one to sit down on the outer part of the windowcase.

Anatdl went up to the window with his victorious look. He wanted to smash something. He brushed aside the lackeys and jerked at the frame, but it did not give way. He smashed a pane.

” Try your hand at it, strong man,” he addressed Pierre.

Pierre got hold of the sash, gave it a jerk, and with a crashing noise jerked out the oak frame.

” Take the whole thing out, or else you will imagine that I am holding on to it,” said Ddlokhov.

” Is the Englishman bragging, eh ? Is it all right ? ” asked Anatdl.

« All right,” said Pierre, looking at Ddlokhov, who, taking the bottle of rum, was walking up to the window, through which could be seen the glamour of the sky with the evening twilight and the morning dawn blending upon it.

Ddlokhov, with the bottle of rum in his hand, jumped on the window-sill.

” Silence ! ” he shouted, standing on the sill with hie face to the room.

All kept silent.

” I am betting ” (he spoke in French, so that the Englishman might understand him, though he did not speak that language particularly well), — ” I am betting fifty imperials — Will you make it one hundred ? ” he added, turning to the Englishman.

” No, fifty,” said the Englishman.

” Very well, fifty imperials, that I will empty this bottle of rum at one draught, sitting outside the window, here in this place” (he bent down and pointed to the slanting projection of the wall outside the window), ” and without holding on to anything— Is that right ?”

“ Quite so,” said the Englishman.

Anatdl turned around toward the Englishman and, taking hold of a button of his dress coat and looking down at him (the Englishman was of small stature), began in English to repeat the conditions of the bet.

“ Hold on ! ” cried Ddlokhov, striking the bottle against the window, so as to draw the attention to himself, ” Hold on, Kurâgin, and listen ! If anybody does the same, I shall pay one hundred imperials. Do you hear ? “

The Englishman nodded, but without indicating whether he intended to take this new bet, or not. Anatol did not let go of the Englishman, and, although he made it known by a nod of his head that he had understood everything, Anatol kept translating Dolokhov’s words into English for him. A young, haggard lad, a hussar of the body-guard, who had lost at cards on that evening, climbed upon the window, leaned over, and looked down.

” Ugh ! Ugh ! Ugh ! ” he said, looking through the window down upon the sidewalk.

” Attention ! ” cried Dolokhov, pulling the officer away from the window. The officer became entangled in his spurs, and awkwardly jumped down into the room.

Placing the bottle on the window-sill so as to have it within reach, Dolokhov cautiously and softly climbed upon the window. Letting down his feet and bracing himself with both his hands against the window-posts, he measured the distance with his eyes, seated himself, dropped his arms, moved to the right, then to the left, and took the bottle.

Anatol brought two candles and placed them on the window-sill, although it was already daylight. Dolokhov’s back in a white shirt and his curly head were lighted up from both sides. All crowded near the window. The Englishman was standing in front. Pierre smiled and said nothing. One of the company, older than the rest, suddenly moved forward, with a frightened and angry face, and wanted to grab Ddlokhov by his shirt.

” Gentlemen, what foolishness ; he will be killed,” said this sensible man.

Anatol stopped him.

” Don’t touch him ! You will frighten him. Will he be killed, eh ? What then, eh ? ”

Ddlokhov turned around, adjusting himself, and again bracing himself with his hands.

” If anybody pushes up to me,” he said, slowly uttering the words through his clenched teeth, ” I will make him “et down here — that’s what ! ” o

Having said ” That’s what ! ” he again turned back, dropped his arms, took the bottle and carried it to his mouth, threw back his head, and moved his free hand up so as to balance himself. One of the lackeys, who had begun to clear away the broken panes, stopped in a bent position, without taking his eyes off the window and Ddlokhov’s back.

Anatol stood up straight, with his eyes wide open. The Englishman puckered up his lips and looked sidewise. The one who had attempted to hold Dolokhov back, went into the corner of the room and lay down on a sofa, with his face toward the wall. Pierre covered his face with his hands; a feeble smile was still hovering on his face, though now it expressed horror and fear. All were silent.

Pierre took his hands away from his eyes: Ddlokhov was still sitting in the same attitude, with only his head bent back, so that the curly hair of the back of his head touched his shirt collar, and the hand with the bottle was rising higher and higher, quivering and making an effort. The bottle was obviously getting empty and at the same time rising higher, so as to cause his head to bend back.

” Why does it take him so long ? ” thought Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had passed. Suddenly Dolokhov moved his back toward the room, and his hand quivered nervously ; this tremor was sufficient to make the body slide down from the projection of the window. He moved downward, and his hand and head, making an effort, trembled more still. One hand was raised to clutch the window-sill, but again fell.

Pierre again covered his eyes and said to himself that he would never open them. Suddenly he felt that everybody about him was in motion. He looked up : Ddlokhov was standing on the sill, his face looking pale and gay.

« It is empty ! “

He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it nimbly.

“Excellent! You are a brick! Now that is a bet! The devil take you ! ” they shouted on all sides.

The Englishman took out his purse and counted out the money. Dolokhov scowled and kept silent. Pierre jumped on the window.

” Gentlemen ! Who will bet with me ? 1 will do the same,” he suddenly cried. ” You don’t have to bet, either. Tell them to let me have a bottle ! I will — tell them to let me have it.”

“ Let him, let him ! ” said Dolokhov, smiling.

” What are you talking about ? Are you crazy ? Who will let you ? You get dizzy even on a staircase,” voices were heard on all sides.

” I will empty it, — let me have a bottle of rum ! ” cried Pierre, with a determined and drunken gesture, striking the table and making for the window. They took him by his arms; but he was so strong that he hurled one of those who were holding him far away from him.

” No, you won’t hold him back that way,” said Anatol. ” Wait, I will cheat him ! Listen, I will take the bet, but you will do it tomorrow, for now we will all go to––—”

” Let’s go,” cried Pierre, “ let’s go ! And let us take the bear with us.” And he grasped the bear, and, embracing him and lifting him up, began to circle through the room.

VIL

Prince Vasili kept his word which at Anna Pavlovna’s soirée he had given to Princess Drubetskoy, who had asked him to intercede in behalf of her only son, Boris. The report was made to the emperor, and he was granted the exceptional privilege of being transferred as an ensign to the Seménovski regiment. But Boris was not appointed an adjutant, or attached to Kutuzov, in spite of all Anna Mikhaylovna’s efforts. Soon after the soirée at Anna Pävlovna’s, Anna Mikhaylovna returned to Moscow, where she went directly to her rich relatives, the Kostovs, with whom she stopped, and where her worshipped Boris had been brought up from his childhood, and where he had lived for years, — that Boris who had but lately been admitted to the army, and who now was advanced to the rank of ensign. The Guard had left St. Petersburg on the 10th of August, and her son, who had remained in Moscow to get his uniforms made, was to catch up with it on its way to Radzivflov.

The Rostovs were celebrating the nameday of Natalya, mother and younger daughter. The whole day long there had been arriving carriages bringing a mass of congratulators to the large house of Countess Rostov in the Povärskaya Street, which everybody in Moscow knew. The countess and her beautiful elder daughter received the callers, who succeeded each other, in the parlour.

The countess was a woman with an Eastern type of a lean face, about forty-five years of age, apparently exhausted by the children whom she had born, and of whom there were twelve. The slowness of her motions and speech, arising from her feebleness, gave her an imposing aspect, which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskéy, being an intimate of the house, was also there, and helped to receive and entertain the callers. The younger people were in the back rooms, glad not to have to aid in the reception. The count met the callers and saw them off, inviting all to dinner.

” Very, very much obliged to you, ma chère” or “mon cher ” {ma chère and mon cher he said without the slightest shade of difference to all without exception, both to people who stood above him and those who stood below him) “in my own name and in the name of the dear nameday people. Be sure and come to dinner ! You will offend me, if you don’t, mon cher. I sincerely beg you in the name of the whole family, ma chère.”

These words, with the same expression on his full, gay, and cleanly shaven face, and with the same strong pressure of the hand and short, often repeated bows, were said by him to all without exception and without any change. After seeing a caller off, the count returned to such callers as were still in the drawingroom. He moved up a chair and, with the expression of a man who loves to live well and who knows how to do it, he spread out his legs in a dashing manner and placed his hands on his knees, and, swaying to and fro, propounded guesses about the weather, and inquired about the health of people now in Russian, and now in an exceedingly poor but selfconfident French ; again, with the expression of a tired man, who is firm in the execution of his duties, arranging his scanty gray hair on his bald head, he went to see out the callers and to invite them to dinner.

At times, upon returning from the antechamber, he walked through the conservatory and ” officiating ” room into a large marble hall where a table was set for eighty covers. After looking at the servants, who were carrying the silver and china, putting up the tables, and spreading damask table-cloths, he called up Dmitri Vasilevich, gentleman, who had charge of all his affairs, and said :

” Well, well, Dmitri, see to it that everything is right ! That’s it, that’s it,” he said, looking joyfully at the enormously extended table. ” The main thing is the service. That’s it — ” And he went away into the drawingroom, with a sigh of satisfaction.

” Mdrya Lvovna Karägin and daughter ! ” the countess’s enormous footman, coming up to the door of the drawingroom, announced in a heavy bass. The countess thought awhile and took a pinch from a golden snuffbox with the portrait of her husband.

“These visits are wearing me out,” she said. “She will be the last I will receive. She is so affected. Ask her in,” she said to the lackey in a sad voice, as though saying : ” Kill me and make an end of me ! ”

A tall, plump lady with a proud bearing, and her round-faced, smiling daughter, rustling their dresses, entered the drawingroom.

” Chère comtesse, il y a si longtemps — elle a été alitée, la pauvre enfant — au bal des Razoumovsky — et la Comtesse Apraksine —fai été si heureuse — ” were heard the animated voices of the women, interrupting each other and blending with the noise made by their dresses and the moving of chairs.

There began that conversation which lasts until the first pause, when people get up, rustle with their dresses, and say : ” Je suis bien charmée ; la santé de maman — et la Comtesse Apraksine,” and again they rustle with their dresses, walk to the antechamber, where they put on their fur coats or overcoats, and depart. The conversation was in regard to the chief bit of city news of that time, the illness of the famous nabob and handsome man of the time of Catherine, old Count Bezukhi, and of his illegitimate son Pierre, who had acted so outrageously at the soirée of Anna Pavlovna Scherer.

“ I am very sorry for the poor count,” said the guest. . « His health has been bad as it is, and now this sorrow about his son will kill him ! ”

” What is it ? ” asked the countess, as though she did not know what the guest was saying, and though she had heard at least fifteen times the cause of Count Bezukhi’s grief.

” That is what comes from our modern education ! While he was still abroad,” said the guest, ” this young man was left to himself, and now in St. Petersburg, they say he has been doing such terrible things that the police had to send him away from there.”

” You don’t say so ! ” said the countess.

” He has chosen bad company,” interposed Princess Anna Mikhdylovna. ” One of Prince Vasili’s sons, a certain Délokhov, and he, they say, did some dreadful things. And they suffered for it. Délokhov has been reduced in rank to a common soldier ; Bezukhi’s son has been sent away to Moscow ; Anatol Kuragin, — well, his father has squelched the matter. Still, he has been sent out of St. Petersburg.”

“But what had they been doing?” asked the countess.

” They are nothing but a lot of desperadoes, especially Dolokhov,” said the hostess. ” He is the son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhov, such a respectable lady ! Just think of it : the three of them got a bear, placed him in their carriage, and took him with them to some actresses. The police came to bring them to their senses. They caught the captain of police, tied him back to back with the bear, and let the bear loose into the Moyka; and there the bear swam with the captain on his back.”

” Ma chère, the captain must have cut a fine figure,” shouted the count, roaring with laughter.

“How terrible! What is there here to laugh about, count ? “

But the ladies involuntarily laughed themselves.

“ They had the greatest difficulty in saving the unfortunate man,” continued the caller. ” And that is the son of Prince Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhi, who is having such a nice pastime ! ” she added. ” And they say that he is so well educated and so clever ! That is what his foreign education has brought him to. I hope nobody here will receive him, in spite of his wealth. They wanted to introduce me to him, but I positively refused : I have daughters.”

” Why do you say that this young man is so rich ? ” asked the countess, leaning away from the daughters, who immediately acted as though they did not hear. “ He has only illegitimate children. I think — Pierre himself is illegitimate.”

The guest motioned with her hand.

“ I think he has some twenty illegitimate children.”

Princess Anna Mikhaylovna took part in the conversation, apparently desirous of showing off her connections and her knowledge of all society matters.

“ It is like tins,” she said, significantly, and also in a low voice. ” The reputation of Prince Kin’ll Vladimirovich is well known— He has lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favourite.”

” What a fine-looking old man he was,” said the countess, “ not later than last year. I have never seen a more handsome man.”

” Now he has changed very much,” said Anna Mikhaylovna. ” So I wanted to say,” she continued, ” that his direct heir through his wife is Prince Vasili, but the father has loved Pierre very much, has cared for his education, and has written to the emperor — so that nobody knows, in case of his death (he is so low now that his death is expected any minute, and Lorrain has arrived from St. Petersburg), who will get his enormous fortune, Pierre or Prince Vasili. There are forty thousand souls, and millions of money. I know this pretty well because Prince Vasili himself has told me so. Yes, Kirill Vladimirovich himself is, on my mother’s side, an uncle of mine, twice removed. He was Boris’s godfather,” she added, as though ascribing no importance to this circumstance.

“Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow last night. I was told that he is out on a tour of inspection,” said the caller.

” Yes, but entre nous,” said the princess, ” that is only an excuse ; in reality he has come to see Kirill Vladimirovich, having heard that he was so ill.”

” But, <ma chère, it was a fine trick ! ” said the count, and, noticing that the elder caller was not listening to him, he turned to the young ladies. “ The captain must have cut a fine figure, I imagine.”

And, representing how the captain must have swayed his arms, he again roared with his melodious and deep bass laughter, which shook his plump body, as people laugh who have eaten, especially who have drunk, well.

“ Be sure and come to dinner,” he said.

VIII.

There ensued a silence. The countess looked at the visitor, smiling pleasantly, but without concealing that she would not be in the least disappointed if her visitor got up and went away. The visitor’s daughter was already adjusting her dress, looking interrogatively at her mother, when suddenly in the adjoining room there was heard the tramp of men’s and women’s feet and the thud of a falling chair, and into the room rushed a thirteen-year-old girl, hiding something in her muslin skirt, and stopping in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had got so far only by accident, having gathered too much momentum. At the same time there appeared in the door a student with a crimson collar, an officer of the Guards, a fifteenyear-old girl, and a fat, ruddyfaced boy in a jacket.

The count jumped up and, swaying to and fro, put his arms around the running girl.

” There she is ! ” he cried out, laughing. “ The nameday girl, ma chère, the nameday girl ! “

” Ma chère, il y a un temps pour tout,” said the countess, pretending to be severe. ” You are spoiling her, Elie,” she added, speaking to her husband.

” Bonjour, ma chère, je vous félicite,” said the visitor. ” Quelle delicieuse enfant ! ” she added, turning to her mother.

The black-eyed, large-mouthed, homely, but lively girl, with her childish, bare shoulders, which her rapid running made move convulsively within her corsage, with her black locks thrown back, her thin, bare arms, her thin legs in lace pantalettes, and her feet in open shoes, was at that sweet age when a girl is no longer a child, and the child is not yet a young lady. Rushing away from her father, she ran up to her mother and, paying no attention to her stern remark, hid her reddened face in the laces of her mother’s mantilla, and burst out laughing. She told something by fits, through her laugh, about her doll, which she drew out from her skirt.

” Do you see ? — The doll — Mimi — Do you see ? ” Natasha was unable to say anything more, — everything seemed so funny to her. She fell down upon her mother and laughed out so loud and so sonorously that all, even the affected visitor, involuntarily laughed with her.

” Go, go away with your monster ! ” said her mother, pushing her daughter away with feigned anger. ” This is my youngest one,” she turned to the visitor.

Natasha for a moment tore her face away from the lace kerchief of her mother, looked up to her, through tears of laughter, and again concealed her face.

The visitor, who was compelled to take in the domestic scene, felt it her duty to take some part in it.

” Tell me, my dear,” she said, addressing Natdsha, ” how is this Mimi related to you ? Is she your daughter ? “

Natdsha did not like the condescending tone with which the visitor came down to her level. She made no reply and looked seriously at the visitor.

Meanwhile all the younger generation, the officer Boris, the son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, the student Nikolay, the count’s eldest son, Sonya, the fifteenyear-old niece of the count, and little Petrusha, his youngest son, all took up positions in the drawingroom, apparently trying to keep within bounds of propriety that animation and merriment which breathed in every feature of them. It was evident that there, in the back rooms, whence they had all darted, their conversations had been much jollier than here where they were talking about city gossip, about the weather, and about Comtesse Apraksins. Occasionally they looked at each other and with difficulty repressed a laugh.

The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from their childhood, were of the same age and both handsome, but unlike each other. Boris was a tall, blond young man, with a calm and handsome face, the features of which were fine and regular; Nikolay was a low-statured, curly-headed young man with an open expression on his face. On his upper lip short black hair had made its appearance, and his whole face expressed ardour and enthusiasm.

Nikolay blushed the moment he entered the drawingroom. It was evident that he was trying to say something, but could find no words ; Boris, on the contrary, at once found his composure and told calmly and jestingly how he had known that doll Mimi when she was still a young maiden, with an uncorrupted nose, how she had visibly aged in the last five years, and how her whole skull was now cracked. Saying this, he looked at Natasha. Natasha turned her face away from him, looked at her younger brother, who was blinking and shaking with soundless laughter, and, being unable to hold herself any longer, leaped up and rushed out of the room as fast as her swift feet could carry her. Boris laughed out loud.

” Maman, I think you wanted to drive out,” he said, turning with a smile to his mother.

“Yes, go and order the carriage for me,” she said, smiling.

Boris went softly to the door and followed after Natdsha ; the fat boy angrily ran after them, as though annoyed at the disturbance produced in his occupations.

IX.

Of the young people there were now left in the drawingroom Nikolay and the niece Sonya, beside the visiting young lady and the countess’s eldest daughter, who was four years older than her sister, and who acted like a young lady.

Sonya was a slender and petite brunette, with soft eyes, shaded by long eyelashes, a thick black braid which encircled her head twice, and an olive hue of skin on her face and especially on her bare, thin, but graceful and muscular, arms and neck. By the agility of her motions, the softness and suppleness of her small limbs, and her somewhat cunning and reserved manner, she reminded one of a beautiful kitten which gave promise of becoming a charming cat. She apparently regarded it as proper to express her interest in the general conversation with a smile ; but, against her will, her eyes looked under the thick eyelashes at the cousin, who was to depart for the army, with such girlish, passionate adoration that her smile could not for a moment deceive anybody, and it was evident that the kitten had seated herself, to give a more energetic leap and start playing with her cousin the moment they, like Boris and Natasha, should get out of the drawingroom.

“ Yes, ma chère” said the old count, turning to the visitor and pointing to his Nikolay. ” Here his friend Boris has been promoted to the rank of officer, and out of friendship for him he leaves the university and me, his old father, and enters the army, ma chère. And I had a place ready for him in the Archives. That’s what comes from friendships ! ” said the count.

” They say that war has been declared,” said the visitor.

” They have been saying so for a long time,” said the count. ” They will talk for awhile, and then they will stop. Ma chère; that’s what friendship brings one to! ” he repeated. ” He wants to enter a regiment of hussars.”

The guest, not knowing what to say, shook her head.

” Not at all from friendship,” replied Nikolay, flaming up and, as it were, trying to ward off a disgraceful calumny. “ Not at all from friendship, but because I feel a natural inclination for military service.”

He looked back at his cousin and at the visiting young lady : both looked at him with a smile of approval.

” We shall have with us at dinner Schubert, colonel of the Pavlogradski regiment of hussars. He has been here on leave of absence, and he will take him along. What is to be done?” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and speaking jestingly of an affair which apparently caused him much grief.

” I have told you, papa,” said his son, ” that if you do not wish me to go, I shall stay. But I know that I am not good for anything but military service ; I am not a diplomatist, nor an official, — I am unable to conceal that which I feel,” he said, looking all the time with the coquetry of handsome youth at Sonya and at the visiting young lady.

The kitten, riveting her eyes upon him, looked as though she was ready at any moment to start playing with him and expressing all her feline nature.

” Well, well, all right ! ” said the old count. ” He is all excited. That Bonaparte is turning everybody’s heads; they are all reflecting on his having become an emperor from a mere lieutenant. God grant them happiness,” he added, without noticing the visitor’s sarcastic smile.

The grown people began to speak about Bonaparte.

Julie, Madame Kardgin’s daughter, turned to young Rostdv.

” What a pity you were not at the Arkharovs on Thursday ! It was dull without you,” she said, smiling tenderly to him.

The flattered young man, with a coquettish, youthful smile, seated himself nearer to her and entered into a separate conversation with smiling Julie, without noticing that his involuntary smile cut with the knife of jealousy the heart of blushing Sonya, who was feigning a smile. In the middle of his conversation he turned around to look at her. Sdnya gave him a glance of passion and anger and, with difficulty repressing her tears, got up and went out of the room. Nikoldy’s animation was all gone. He waited for the first interruption in their conversation and went out with an anxious face to look for Sonya.

” How the secrets of these young people are sewn with white threads ! ” said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nikolay as he was leaving the room. ” Cousinage — dangereux voisinage,” she added.

” Yes,” said the countess, after the sun ray, which had penetrated the drawingroom together with the younger generation, had vanished, and as though in reply to the question which no one had put to her, but which all the time occupied her mind. ” How much suffering, how much worry one has to endure in order to take pleasure out of them ! One is afraid all the time. Particularly at that age in which there are so many dangers both for girls and boys.”

” Everything depends on the education,” said the visitor.

“Yes, you are right,” continued the countess. “So far I, thank God, have been the friend of my children, and I enjoy their full confidence,” said the countess, repeating the mistake of many parents who suppose that their children have no secrets from them. “ 1 know that I shall always be the first confidante of my daughters, and that if Nikolay, on account of his ardent nature, should ever be wild (a boy can’t get along without being wild), he will not be so wild as those St. Petersburg gentlemen.”

” Yes, fine children they are,” confirmed the count, who always decided complicated questions by finding everything fine. ” There you have it, he has taken it into his head to be a hussar ! What would you wish, ma chère ! ”

” What a dear creature your younger girl is,” said the visitor. ” She is a powder-box ! “

” Yes, a powder-box! ” said the count. ” She takes after me ! And what a voice ! Though she is my daughter, I must tell the truth : she will be a singer, a second Salamoni. We have engaged an Italian to teach her.”

” Is it not too early yet ? They say that it is injurious to teach them at such an early age.”

“Oh, no! Why should it be early?” said the count. “ Itemember that our mothers used to get married at twelve or thirteen years.”

” She is even now in love with Boris ! What do you think of that?” said the countess, smiling softly, as she looked at Boris’s mother. Apparently replying to the thought which always occupied her, she continued : ” Now, you see, if I were strict with her, if I forbade her — God knows what they would do in secret” (the countess meant to say that they would be kissing), “ but now I know every word of hers. She comes running in to me in the evening and tells me everything. It may be that I am spoiling her, but I think that is better. I was strict with my elder daughter.”

” Yes, I have been educated quite differently,” said the elder daughter, beautiful Countess Vyéra, smiling. But the smile did not make Vyéra’s face more beautiful, as smiles generally do ; her face, on the contrary, became unnatural and, therefore, disagreeable. The eldest, Vyéra, was pretty, not at all stupid, and a good student ; she was well educated, her voice was pleasing, and what she said was just and appropriate ; but, strange to say, all, including the visitor and the countess, looked surprised at what she had said, and felt awkward.

“ The eldest children are always experimented upon ; the parents want to make something unusual of them,” said the visitor.

“ There is no use denying it, ma chère ! My dear countess has been experimenting on Vyéra,” said the count. “ Well, after all, she has turned out a fine girl ! ” he added, giving Vyéra an approving wink.

The visitors arose and departed, promising to come again to dinner.

” ‘What bad manners ! They sat there as though they would never get away ! ” said the countess, after seeing the visitors off.

When Natdsha left the drawingroom and ran away, she went only as far as the conservatory. There she stopped, listening to the conversation in the drawingroom and waiting for Boris to come out. She was just beginning to become impatient and, stamping her foot, was getting ready to start weeping because he did not come at once, when she heard the nonchalant walk of the young man. Natdsha bolted behind some flower-pots and kept herself concealed.

Boris stopped in the middle of the room, looked around, brushed a particle of dust from his coat sleeve, and went up to a mirror to look at his handsome face.

Natasha kept silent, but looked out from behind her ambush to see what he was going to do. lie stood awhile before the mirror, smiled, and went up to the opposite door. Natasha wanted to call him back, but changed her mind.

” Let him look for me,” she said to herself.

Boris had hardly left when Sonya came out from the other door, all red in her face, and whispering something in anger through her tears. Natasha restrained her impulse to run out to her and remained in her ambush, looking out, as though underneath an invisible cap, at what was going on in the world. She experienced a peculiar new enjoyment. Sonya was whispering something and looking back at the door of the drawingroom. Nikolkiy stepped out from that door.

” Sonya, what is the matter with you ? How can you act that way ? ” said Nikolay, running up to her.

” Nothing, nothing, leave me alone ! “

Sdnya began to sob.

” Yes, I do know what it is.”

” If you do know, it is all right ! Then go to her ! “

” Sonya, just one word ! How can you torment me and yourself for such imaginary things?” said Nikoldy, taking her hands.

Sonya did not tear her hands away from him, and stopped crying.

Natäsha, who did not stir and who held her breath, looked at them from her ambush with burning eyes.

” What will happen now ? ” she thought.

” S6nya, I do not need the whole world! You alone are my everything,” said Nikoläy. “I will prove it to you.”

” I do not like you to talk that way.”

” Well, I won’t, forgive me, Sonya ! “

He drew her to him and kissed her.

” Ah, how good that is ! ” thought Natdsha, and when Sonya and Nikolay left the room, she followed them and called Boris out.

“ Boris, come here,” she said, with a significant and sly glance. ” I have to tell you something. Here, here— ” she said, and took him to the conservatory, to the spot behind the flower-pots, where she had been concealed. Boris smiled and followed her.

” What is that something that you have to tell me ? ” he asked.

She became embarrassed, looked about her, and, seeing her doll thrown away on a flower-pot, she picked it up.

” Kiss the doll,” she said.

Boris looked with an attentive and kindly look at her animated face, and made no reply.

” You won’t do it ? Well, then, come here !” she said, walking deeper among the flowers and throwing away her doll. ” Come near, nearer ! ” she whispered.

She caught hold of the facing of the officer’s uniform, and in her blushing face could be seen solemnity and terror.

“And will you kiss me?” she whispered, in an almost inaudible voice, looking furtively at him, smiling, and almost weeping from agitation.

Boris blushed.

” What a funny girl you are ! ” he said, bending down to her, blushing even more, but doing nothing and remaining in an expectant attitude.

She suddenly leaped on a flower-pot, so that she was taller than he, embraced him • with both her arms, so that her thin, bare little hands were clasped above his neck, and, tossing her hair back with a shake of her head, she kissed him right upon his lips.

She glided between the flower-pots to the other side of the flowers and, lowering her head, stopped.

” Natdsha,” he said, ” you know that I love you, but — “

” Are you in love with me? ” Natdsha interrupted him.

« Yes, I am, but please let us never do what we have just — Four years more — Then I will ask for your hand.”

Natäsha reflected something.

” Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen — ” she said, counting on her slender fingers. ” All right ! Is it settled, then?” And a smile of joy and calm lighted up her animated face.

“It is ! ” said Boris.

“ For ever ? ” said the girl. “ To death itself ? ”

And taking his arm, she with a happy face slowly walked with him into the sofaroom.

XI.

The countess was so tired from the calls that she gave orders not to receive any more callers, but the porter was instructed to insist that all the callers come to dinner. The countess was anxious to have an intimate chat with the friend of her youth, with Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not had a chance to talk to since her arrival from St. Petersburg. Anna Mikhäylovna, with her tearful and pleasing face, moved up to the armchair of the countess.

“ I will be quite frank with you,” said Anna Mikhaylovna. ” There are few of us old friends left ! It is for that reason that I esteem your friendship so highly.”

Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vyéra and stopped. The countess pressed the hand of her friend.

“Vyéra,” said the countess, turning to her eldest daughter, whom she evidently did not love, ” how little common sense you have ! Don’t you feel that you are a superfluous person here ? Go to your sisters, or — “

Beautiful Vyéra smiled contemptuously, apparently not feeling insulted in the least.

“If you had told me long ago, mamma, I should have left at once,” she said, going to her room. But, upon walking past the sofaroom, she noticed that two pairs were sitting symmetrically at the two windows. She stopped and smiled a contemptuous smile. Sdnya was sitting close to Nikolay, who was copying some verses for her, the first he had composed. Boris and Natdsha were sitting at another window, and they grew silent the moment Vyéra entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vyéra with their guilty and happy faces.

It was beautiful and touching to look at these girls in love, but the sight of them obviously roused no pleasant feelings in Vyéra.

• “ How many times have I asked you,” she said, ” not to take my things, — you have a room of your own.”

She took away an inkstand from Nikolay.

“ In a minute, in a minute,” he said, dipping his pen.

« You manage to do unseasonable things all the time,” said Vyéra. ” You came running into the drawingroom so that everybody was embarrassed on your account.”

Notwithstanding, or, perhaps, because of the fact that what she said was true, nobody made any reply to her, and the four only exchanged looks. She lagged behind in the room with the inkstand in her hand.

” What secrets can there be at your age between Natasha and Boris, and between you ? Nothing but some silliness.”

“What difference does it make to you, Vyéra?” Natäsha said, in a very soft voice, taking the part of all. She was evidently on that day more than usually kind and gracious to everybody.

” It is very stupid,” said Vyéra, ” and I am ashamed of you. What secrets have you ? “

“Everybody has his secrets. We do not bother you and Berg,” said Natasha, growing excited.

“ I suppose you do not bother me,” said Vyéra, ” because there never can be anything wrong in my acts. But I will tell mamma what you are doing to Boris.”

« Natälya Ilishna is treating me very well,” said Boris.

4 I cannot complain,” he said.

“Stop, Boris! You are such a diplomatist” (the word ” diplomatist ” was then quite current among children in the sense which they ascribed to it) •< it really makes me tired,” said Natäsha, in an offended and trembling voice. “ Why does she nag me so ?

« You will never understand it,” she said, turning to Vyéra, “ because you have never loved ; you have no heart, — you are only Madame de Genlis ” (this nickname, which had been applied to Vyéra by Nikoläy, was regarded as very offensive), “ and your greatest pleasure is to do something unpleasant to people. You flirt with Berg as much as you please,” she said, in a rapid voice.

” But I would certainly never think of running after a young man in the presence of visitors — “

“ Well, you have obtained what you have been after,” Nikolay now interposed, “ you have said a lot of disagreeable things to everybody, and you have put every one out of sorts. Let us go to the children’s room ! ”

All four arose, like a frightened flock of birds, and left the room.

” Disagreeable things have been said to me, but I did not do anything,” said Vyéra.

“ Madame de Genlis ! Madame de Genlis ! ” said the laughing voices from behind the door.

Beautiful Vyéra, who had produced such an irritable and disagreeable effect upon every one, smiled, and, evidently not touched by what had been said to her, went up to the mirror and arranged her scarf and her hair. As she looked at her beautiful face, she became apparently even more cold and calm.

In the drawingroom the conversation was continued.

“ Ah, chère ! ” said the countess, ” in my life, too, tout riest pas rose. Do I not see that du train que nous allons our fortune will not last long ? All that is caused by the club and by his goodness. We are living in the country, — do you suppose we are resting? There are theatres, and the chase, and God knows what. What is the use of talking about me ? But how did you manage it all ? I frequently marvel at you, Annette, when I see you, at your age, hurrying all alone in a carriage, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to all the ministers, to all the dignitaries.

I marvel how you know how to get along with all those people ! Well, how did you manage the matter ? I should be unable to do any such thing.”

” Ah, my darling ! ” replied Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. “ May God never allow you to find out how hard it is for a widow to get along without a support, and with a son whom she loves to distraction ! One will learn anything,” she said, with a certain degree of pride. ” My lawsuit has taught me it. When I have to see one of those important personages I write him a note, ‘ Princesse une telle wishes to see so and so,’ and I drive out in a cab twice, three times, four times, until I get what I want. I do not care what they may think of me.”

” Well, whom did you approach in the case of Boris ? ” asked the countess. ” Your son is now an officer of the Guards, while my Nikoldy will only enter as a yunker. We have no one whom we may ask. Whom did you ask ? “

“ Prince Vasili. He was very kind. He immediately consented to do everything, and he reported to the emperor,” said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna with enthusiasm, entirely forgetting the humiliation through which she had to pass in order to obtain her request.

” Is Prince Vasili grown old now ? ” asked the countess. ” I have not seen liim since our theatricals at the Rumyantsevs. I suppose he has forgotten me. Il nie faisait la cour” the countess recalled with a smile.

” He is still the same,” replied Anna Mikhaylovna, “amiable and obliging. Les grandeurs ne lui ont pas tourné la tête du tout. 11 am sorry that I can do so little for you, dear princess,’ he said to me, ‘ I am at your command.’ Really, he is a charming man and a nice relative. But you know, Natalie, my love for my son. I do not know what I would not do for his happiness. My affairs are now in such a bad condition,” continued Anna Mikhaylovna with sadness, and lowering her voice, ” in such a bad condition that I am in a terrible state. My unfortunate lawsuit is eating up everything I have, and does not move ahead. I have — will you believe it? — literally not a penny, and I do not know how to provide the proper uniform for Boris.”

She took out her handkerchief and began to weep.

” I need five hundred roubles, and all I possess is a twenty-five rouble bill. I am in such a state — The only hope I have is in Prince Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhi. If he will not support his godson, — it is he who was Boris’s godfather, — and will not give anything for his » maintenance, all my cares will have been in vain : I shall not have anything to fit him out with.”

The countess dropped a tear and silently reflected on something.

” I often think, maybe it is a sin,” said the countess, ” I often think that Prince Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhi lives all alone — that great fortune — and what does he live for ? Life is a burden to him, and Boris is only beginning life.”

” He will, no doubt, leave something to Boris,” said the countess.

“ God knows, chère amie ! These rich men and dignitaries are such egotists. Still, I will go to him at once with Boris and will tell him straight out how matters stand. Let them think of me what they please, — it makes no difference to me, so long as my son’s fate depends upon it.”

The princess got up.

” It is two o’clock now, and at four you dine. I shall have time to call on him.”

And displaying the manner of a St. Petersburg woman of business, who knows how to make the best use of her time, Anna Mikhaylovna sent for her son and with him went into the antechamber.

” Goodbye, my dear,” she said to the countess, who saw

her off as far as the door. ” Wish me success,” she added, in a whisper, so as not to be heard by her son.

« Are you going to Count Kirill Vladimirovich, ma chère?” said the count from the dining-room, himself walking out into the antechamber. ” If he is better, ask Pierre to come to my dinner. He has been at my house before, dancing with my children. Be sure and invite him, ma chère. We shall see whether Taras will distinguish himself to-day. He says that Count Orl6v never gave such a dinner as we are giving now.”

XII.

“Mon cher Boris” Princess Anna Mikhaylovna said to her son, when the carriage of Countess Rostov, in which they were sitting, drove over a straw-covered street into the spacious yard of Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhi, “mon cher Boris” said his mother, freeing her hand from underneath her old mantle and placing it on her son’s arm with a timid and caressing motion, ” be kind, be attentive ! Remember that Count Kirill Vladimirovich is your godfather, and that your future career depends upon him. Remember that, mon cher, — be as pleasant as you know how — ”

” If I knew that anything but humiliation would result from it — ” her son replied, coldly. ” But I have promised you, and so I will do it for you.”

Although there was a carriage at the entrance, the porter surveyed mother and son, who had entered the glass vestibule with its two rows of statues in niches, without having themselves announced ; upon noticing her old mantle, he asked them whom they wished to see, the princesses or the count, and, upon learning that they wished to see the count, he said that his Serenity was worse and could not receive any one.

” We may depart,” said the son, in French.

” Mon ami ! ” said his mother, in an imploring voice, again touching her son’s arm, as though this touch could soothe or irritate him.

Boris grew silent and looked interrogatively at his mother, without taking off his overcoat.

” My dear,” Anna Mikhaylovna said, in a tender voice, turning to the porter, ” I know that Count Kirill Vladimirovich is very ill — That is why I have come — I am a relative of his — I shall not disturb him, my dear— All I want is to see Prince Vasili Sergyéevich, who is stopping here. Announce us to him, if you please.”

The porter sulkily pulled the bell-rope which led upstairs and turned away.

” Princess Drubetskdy to see Prince Vasili Sergyéevich,” he cried to a valet in stockings, shoes, and dress coat, who had run down a few steps and was looking down over a projection of the staircase.

The mother adjusted the folds of her dyed silk dress, looked at herself in a large Venetian wall-mirror, and briskly stepped with her worn shoes over the staircase carpet.

” Mon cher, tous m’avez promis,” she again turned to her son, urging him on with a touch of her hand.

Her son walked by her side with lowered eyes.

They entered a parlour, from which one door led to the apartments set aside for Prince Vasili.

Just as the mother and the son, entering in the middle of the room, wanted to ask the way of an old valet, who leaped up from his seat as he noticed them, the bronze handle of one of the doors was turned, and Prince Vasili, dressed in a short velvet fur coat, with one decoration, which was his négligé attire, stepped in, accompanying a handsome, black-haired man. That man was the famous St. Petersburg physician, Lorrain.

” C’est donc positif ?” said the prince.

” Mon prince, ‘ crrare humanum est,’ mais — ” replied the doctor, speaking in a guttural voice and pronouncing the Latin words in French fashion.

” O’est bien, c’est lien — “

Upon noticing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Vasili dismissed the physician with a nod and walked over to them in silence, but with an interrogative glance. Boris saw that deep sorrow was suddenly expressed in his mother’s eyes, and he smiled a slight smile.

“ Under what sad circumstances we meet again, prince — Well, how is our dear patient?” she said, as though noticing the cold, offensive glance which he directed upon her. Prince Vasili looked interrogatively, almost perplexed, first at her, and then at Boris. Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili did not answer the greeting, but turned to Anna Mikhaylovna and answered her question with a motion of his head and lips, which meant that there was no hope for the patient.

” Is it possible ? ” cried Anna Mikhaylovna. ” Oh, that is terrible ! It is dreadful to think — This is my son,” she added, pointing to Boris. ” He wanted to thank you in person.”

Boris bowed politely once more.

” Believe me, prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you have done for us.”

” I am glad that I was able to do you a favour, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna,” said Prince Vasili, adjusting his jabot. By his voice and gesture he manifested here, in Moscow, in the presence of his protégée, Anna Mikhaylovna, much greater dignity than in St. Petersburg, at the soirée of Annette Scherer.

” Try to serve well and to show yourself worthy,” he added, turning sternly to Boris. ” I am glad— Are you here on leave ? ” he recited, in his impassionate voice.

” I am waiting for orders, your Serenity, to take me to my new destination,” replied Boris, expressing neither annoyance at the prince’s sharp tone of voice, nor any desire to enter into a conversation with him, but in such a quiet and respectful way that the prince glanced fixedly at him.

” Are you staying with your mother ? ”

” I am living at the house of Countess Rostov,” said Boris, again adding the words ” your Serenity.”

” It is that Ilya Rostdv who married Natalie Shinshin,” said Anna Mikhaylovna.

” I know, I know,” said Prince Vasili, in his monotonous voice. ” Je riai jamais pu concevoir, comment Natalie s est décidée à épouser cet ours mal-laiché ! Un personnage complètement stupide et ridicule. Et joueur à ce quon dit.”

” Mais très brave homme, mon prince remarked Anna Mikhâylovna, with a touching smile, as though she herself knew that Count Rostov deserved such an opinion, but asked Prince Vasili to pity the poor old man.

” What do the doctors say ? ” asked the princess, after a moment’s silence, and again expressing great sorrow in her saddened face.

“ There is little hope,” said the prince.

” I wanted so much to thank uncle once more for all his kindnesses to me and to Boris. C’est son filleul,” she added, in such a tone as though this news would give Prince Vasili extreme pleasure.

Prince Vasili fell to musing, and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna knew that he was afraid of finding in her a rival in the will of Count Bezukhi. She hastened to allay his fears.

” If it were not for my sincere love and devotion for uncle — ” she said, pronouncing that word with great confidence and carelessness. “ I know his noble and straightforward character ; but, only the princesses are with him — they are too young — ” She bent her head and added in a whisper : ” Has he done his final duty, prince ? How precious these last moments are ! It cannot be worse, — he must be prepared if he is so ill. We women, prince,” she smiled a tender smile, ” always know how to say these things. He must be seen by all means. However hard it would be for me, I am accustomed to suffer.”

The prince apparently understood, as he had understood at the soirée of Annette Scherer, that it would be hard for him to get rid of Anna Mikhaylovna.

” I am afraid this meeting may harm him, chère Anna Mikhâylovna,” he said. ” Let us wait until evening, –the doctors have promised a crisis.”

” We cannot wait at such a time, prince. U y va du salut de son âme— A h, c’est terrible, les devoirs d’un chrétùn — ”

The door of one of the interior rooms was opened, and one of the princesses, the count’s nieces, entered. She bore a gloomy and cold expression on her face, and her long waist was strikingly out of proportion with her legs.

Prince Vasili turned to her.

” How is he ? “

” The same. How can it be otherwise with this noise — ” said the princess, eyeing Anna Mikhaylovna • as a stranger.

” Ah, chère, je ne vous reconnaissais pas ! ” Anna Mikhäylovna said, with a happy smile, walking up to the count’s niece in a light amble. “Je viens d’arriver et je suis à vous pour vous aider à soigner mon oncle. J’imagine combien vous avez souffert,” she added, rolling her eyes with compassion.

The princess made no reply;.she did not even smile, and went out at once. Anna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves, and established herself in an armchair in an entrenched position, inviting Prince Vasili to sit down near her.

” Boris ! ” she said, smiling, to her son, ” I shall go in to the count, my uncle, and you go to Pierre, mon ami, and don’t forget to inform him of the invitation of the Rostovs. They are calling him to dinner. I suppose he will not accept the invitation ? ” she turned to the prince.

” On the contrary,” said the prince, who was evidently net in a good humour. ” Je serais très content si vous me

debarrassez de ce jeune homme — He is sitting here, and the count has not once asked for him.”

He shrugged his shoulders. A valet took the young man downstairs and up another staircase to Pierre’s room

XIII.

Pierre had not succeeded in finding a career for himself in St. Petersburg, and had really been sent away to Moscow for riotous conduct. The story which had been told at the house of Count Rostov was true. Pierre did take part in tying the captain of police to the bear. He had arrived a few days ago, and stopped, as always, at his father’s house. Although he assumed that his history was known in Moscow, and that the ladies who surrounded his father, and who were always ill disposed toward him, would use this opportunity of irritating the count, he, nevertheless, on the day of his arrival went to his father’s quarters.

Upon entering the drawingroom, the customary abiding-place of the princesses, he greeted the ladies, who were sitting over embroideryframes and over a book, which one of them was reading. There were three of them. The eldest, a clean-looking, long-waisted, austere maiden, the same who came out to see Anna Mikhaylovna, was reading ; the two younger ones, both ruddy and goodlooking, resembling each other, except that one of them had a birthmark over her upper lip which only enhanced her beauty, were embroidering on frames.

Pierre was met like a ghost or like a plague-stricken person. The eldest princess stopped her reading and silently looked at him with her terrified eyes ; the younger one, the one without the birthmark, assumed a similar expression ; the youngest, with the birthmark, who was of a jolly and scornful disposition, bent down to the

frame, in order to conceal the smile which, no doubt, was provoked at the idea of the coming scene, which promised to be interesting. She pulled a thread through and bent down as though to examine the design, with difficulty repressing her laughter.

” Bonjour, ma cousine.said Pierre. ” Vous ne me reconnaissez pas ? “

” I know you too well, too well.”

” How is the count’s health? ^lay I see him? ” Pierre asked, awkwardly, as usual, but without becoming confused.

” The count is suffering physically and morally and, it seems, you have taken care to cause him as many moral sufferings as possible.”

” May I see the count ? ” repeated Pierre.

“Hem — if you want to kill him, absolutely to kill him, you may see him. 61ga, go and see whether the broth is ready for uncle, it will soon be time,” she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while he was only busy making him unhappy.

Olga went out. Pierre stood awhile, looked at the sisters and, bowing, said :

” Then I shall go to my rooms. You will let me know when I may see him.”

He went out, and he could hear the sonorous, though not loud, laughter of one of the sisters, the one with the birthmark.

On the following day Prince Vasili arrived and located himself in the count’s house. He called Pierre and said to him :

” Mon cher, si vous vous conduisez ici comme à Pctcrs-bourg, vous finirez très mal, c’est tout ce que je vous dis. The count is very, very ill : you must not see him at all.”

Since then Pierre had not been troubled, and he passed his days all alone upstairs, in his room.

Just as Boris came in to see him, Pierre was walking up and down in his room, now and then stopping in the corners, making threatening gestures to the wall, as though piercing an invisible enemy with a sword, and looking sternly over his glasses, and again resuming his walk, pronouncing incomprehensible words, shrugging his shoulders, and waving his arms.

“L’Angleterre a vécu!” he mumbled, frowning and pointing with his finger. ” Monsieur Pitt comme traître à la nation et au droit des gens est condamné à—”

He had not finished the sentence which he was pronouncing on Pitt, imagining himself at that moment to be Napoleon himself and having already accomplished the dangerous passage across the English Channel and conquered London, — when he noticed the handsome, slender young officer, who had just entered. He stopped. Pierre had left Boris as a fourteen-year-old boy, and he positively had forgotten him ; but, in spite of it, he took his hand with his customary readiness and frankness of manner, and smiled a friendly smile at him.

” Do you remember me ? ” Boris said, with a pleasant smile. ” Mother and I have called on the count, but he, it seems, is not very well.”

” Yes, it seems he is not well. Everybody troubles him,” replied Pierre, making an effort to recall who that young man was.

Boris felt that Pierre did not recognize him, but he did not think it necessary to tell him who he was, and, without experiencing the least embarrassment, he looked him straight in the eyes.

” Count Rostdv asks you to come to his dinner to-day,” he said, after a prolonged silence, which was awkward to Pierre.

” Ah, Count Rostov ! ” Pierre exclaimed, cheerfully. ” So you are his son Ilya. You see, in the first moment I did not recognize you. Do you remember how we went with Madame Jacquot to the Sparrow Hills ? It’s long ago.”

” You are mistaken,” Boris said, without haste, and with a bold and somewhat scornful smile. ” I am Boris, the son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskoy. Kostov, the father, is called Ilya, and his son is called Nikolay. And I do not know anything about a Madame Jacquot.”

Pierre moved his hands and head, as though gnats or bees had fallen upon him.

” Oh, what is that ? I have mixed everything up. I have so many relatives in Moscow! You are Bons — oh, yes. Well, we have straightened it out now. What do you think of the Boulogne expedition ? It will go badly with the English if Napoleon gets across the Channel. I think the expedition is possible, if only Villeneuve makes no blunders ! “

Boris knew nothing of the Boulogne expedition, for he never read the gazettes, and this was the first time he had heard about Villeneuve.

” Here in Moscow we are more occupied with dinners and gossip than with politics,” he said, in his quiet, sarcastic tone. ” I know nothing about the whole matter, and I do not think about it. Moscow is more occupied with gossip,” he continued. ” Now they are talking about you and about the count.”

Pierre smiled his kindly smile, as though being afraid lest his interlocutor should say something which he would regret. But Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into Pierre’s eyes.

” Moscow has nothing to do but to gossip,” he continued. ” They are all interested to know to whom the count will leave his fortune, although he may outlive them all, as I wish he may with all my heart—”

” Yes, that is all very hard,” Pierre broke in, ” very hard.”

Pierre was all the time afraid that the officer would unexpectedly enter into a conversation which might be disagreeable to him.

” You must think,” said Boris, blushing slightly, but without changing his voice or pose, ” you must think that all are interested only in getting something out of the rich man.”

” That is right,” thought Pierre.

” I just wanted to tell you, in order to avoid misunderstandings, that you will be very much mistaken if you count my mother and me among their number. We are very poor, but — at least I am speaking for myself — I do not consider myself his relative because he happens to be rich, and neither I nor my mother will ever ask him for anything, nor shall we accept anything from him.”

Pierre could not understand him for quite awhile, but when he did, he jumped up from the sofa, with his customary rapidity and awkwardness clasped Boris’s hand, and, blushing much more than Boris, began to speak with a mixed feeling of shame and annoyance.

” Now that is strange ! Did I — who could have thought — I know very well — ”

But Boris again interrupted him :

” I am glad to have told you all. It may be unpleasant for you, in that case forgive me,” he said, putting Pierre at ease, instead of being put at ease by him, ” but I hope that I have not offended you. It is my habit to say everything frankly — What shall I tell them ? Will you be to dinner at the Rostdvs’ ? ”

Having now unburdened himself of a heavy duty, and having issued from an awkward situation by placing another in it, Boris again became very agreeable.

” Listen,” said Pierre, calming down. ” You are a remarkable man. What you have just said is very, very good. Of course, you do not know me. We have not seen each other for so long a time — since childhood —

He cannot be left that way. Every minute is valuable. I cannot understand why the princesses are so slow about it. Maybe God will permit me to find a means of preparing him. Adieu, mon prince, que le bon Dieu vous soutienne — “

” Adieu, ma bonne,” replied Prince Vasili, turning away from her.

“ Oh, he is in a terrible condition,” the mother said to her son, as they were again seated in the carriage. ” He can hardly recognize a person.”

” I cannot make out what his relations to Pierre are,” said her son.

“ The testament will show it, my dear. On it our fate, too, may depend — ”

” But what makes you think that he will leave us something ? ”

” Ah, my friend ! He is so rich, and we are so poor! ”

” But that is not a sufficient reason, mamma ! ”

” Ah, my God, my God ! How ill he is ! ” cried his mother.

XIV.

When Anna Mikhaylovna left with her son to call on Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhi, Countess Rostdv remained for a long time sitting with her handkerchief to her eyes. Finally she rang the bell.

” What is the matter with you, my dear ? ” she said angrily to the maid, who was a few minutes late in coming. “Do you not want to serve ? If not, 1 will find you a place.”

The countess was unnerved by the sorrow and the humiliating poverty of her friend, and therefore she was out of humour, a mood which always found its expression in her addressing the chambermaid as ” my dear.”

” Forgive me, madam,” said the chambermaid.

” Send the count to me ! “

The count walked up to his wife in a waddling gait, with a slightly guilty look, as always.

” Well, my dear little countess, you ought to see what a saute au madère of heath-cocks we are going to have î I have tried it: Taras is worth the thousand roubles I gave for him ! “

He sat down by his wife’s side, dashingly leaning one of his hands on his knee, and with the other tossing his gray hair. ” What is your wish, my dear little countess ?”

“It is this, my dear — what is that spot here?” she said, pointing to his waistcoat. ” It is, no doubt, the saute,” she added, with a smile. ” Count, I need some money.”

His face grew sad.

” Oh, my little countess ! ” And the count fumbled and drew out his pocketbook.

” I need a great deal, my count : I must have five hundred roubles.” And taking her cambric handkerchief she began to rub his waistcoat with it.

” Directly, directly. Hoa there ! ” he called out, in a voice in which people call who are convinced that those whom they are calling will rush headlong to them. ” Send Mitenka to me ! ”

Mitenka, that son of the gentry who had been brought up in the count’s house, and who now had charge of all his affairs, stepped with soft steps into the room.

“ Listen, my dear,” said the count to the respectful young man who had just entered, ” bring me—” he thought a moment, ” yes, seven hundred roubles, yes. But be sure the money is not so torn and dirty as it was last time., Bring me clean bills, — they are for the countess.”

“ Yes, Mitenka, let them be clean,” said the countess, with a melancholy sigh.

” Your Serenity, when do you wish me to bring it ? ” said Mitenka. “You must know that — Still, don’t trouble yourself,” he added, when he saw that the count was beginning to breathe heavily and frequently, which was always a sign of his incipient anger. “ I had forgotten — Do you wish me to bring it this very minute ? “

” Yes, yes, that’s it ! Give it to the countess ! “

” What a precious man this Mitenka is,” added the count, when the young man had left. ” There is no such thing as ‘ impossible ’ for him. I cannot bear that, anyway : it has to be.”

” Oh, the money, count, the money ! How much grief it causes in the world ! ” said the countess. ” I need that money very much.”

“ You, my little countess, are a well-known spendthrift,” said the count, and, kissing his wife’s hand, went back to his cabinet.

When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Bezukhi, the countess already had the money, all in new bills, under her handkerchief on the small table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that the countess was disturbed about something.

” Well, my friend ? ” asked the countess.

” Ah, what a terrible condition he is in ! It is impossible to recognize him : he is so ill, so ill ; I was only a minute there, and did not say two words to him — “

” Annette, for God’s sake, don’t refuse it,” the countess suddenly said, blushing, which did not comport with her old, lean, and dignified face, and taking the money out from underneath her handkerchief.

Anna Mikhäylovna at once understood what the matter was, and she bent down in order to embrace the countess at the proper moment.

” This is a present from me to Boris, to get his uniform with — “

Anna Mikhäylovna had already started to embrace her and to weep. The countess, too, was weeping. They were weeping because they were companions, and because they were good, and because they, friends of their youth, were occupied with such a low subject as money, and because their youth had passed — But the tears of both were agreeable.

XV.

Countess Rostov was already sitting in the drawingroom with her daughters and with a large number of guests. The count took the gentlemen guests to his cabinet, offering them his large collection of-Turkish pipes. Now and then he went out to ask whether she had come. They were waiting for Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimov, called in society le terrible dragon, a lady famous not for her wealth, nor for honours, but for the directness of her mind and the open-hearted simplicity of her address.

The imperial family, the whole of Moscow, and the whole of St. Petersburg knew Marya Dmitrievna, and both cities, while admiring her, secretly made fun of her coarseness and told all kinds of anecdotes* about her; nevertheless, all without exception admired her and feared her.

In the smoke-filled cabinet they were talking about the war which had been promulgated by a manifesto, and about the conscription. No one had as yet read the manifesto, but all knew of its appearance. The count was sitting on an ottoman, between two smoking neighbours who were conversing with each other. The count himself was neither smoking nor speaking ; he bent his head now to one side, and now to another, with evident enjoyment looked at the smokers, and listened to the conversation of his two neighbours whom he had set against each other.

One of the debaters was a private citizen, with a wrinkled, bilious, cleanly shaven, lean face, a man who was approaching old age, though dressed as a young man of fashion ; he was sitting with his feet on the ottoman, with the look of an intimate of the house, and, holding the amber mouthpiece deep in his mouth and on one side,. he kept putting at it by fits, and blinking. He was an old bachelor, Shinshm by name, a cousin of the countess’s, an evil tongue, as they said of him in the Moscow drawingrooms. He seemed to be condescending to his interlocutor.

The other, a fresh, rosy-cheeked officer of the Guards, faultlessly clean, faultlessly dressed and groomed, was holding his amber mouthpiece near the middle of his mouth, softly putting the smoke with his rosy lips and letting it out in rings from his red mouth. It was that Lieutenant Berg, officer of the Seménovski regiment, with whom Boris was going to the army, and with whom Natdsha had teased Vyéra, the elder young countess, calling him her fiancé. The count was sitting between them, listening attentively. The most agreeable occupation for the count, outside of the game of boston, of which he was very fond, was the attitude of a listener, especially when he had succeeded in setting two men against each other.

“Well, my little father, mon très honorable Alfons Kärlych,” said Shinshin, in ridicule, and combining the most popular Russian expressions with choice French sentences, a trick in which the peculiarity of his speech consisted. ” Vous comptez vous fair des rentes sur l’état, you want to have a wee little income from your company ? “

” No, Beter Nikoläich, I only want to show that in the cavalry the advantages are much smaller than in the infantry. Now, Peter Nikolaich, take into consideration my position — “

Berg always spoke very precisely, calmly, and civilly. His conversation had always reference to himself alone ; he always kept silent as long as the conversation had no direct relation to him. He was able to keep silent for hours at a time, neither experiencing himself nor producing upon others the least embarrassment. But the moment the conversation had reference to himself personally, he began to speak at length and with evident pleasure.

“ Take into consideration my position, Peter Nikolaich ; if I were in the cavalry, I should be getting not more than two hundred roubles each four months, even with the rank of lieutenant, whereas now I receive two hundred and thirty,” he said, with a joyous, pleasant smile, surveying Shinshm and the count, as though he were convinced that his success would always form the chief aim of the desires of everybody else.

” Besides, Peter Nikolaich, by going over to the Guards, I am in the line of promotion,” continued Berg, “and there are many more vacancies in the infantry of thé Guards. Then, consider how I was able to get along with two hundred and thirty roubles. Now I save money and send my father some,” he continued, emitting a smoke ring.

“ La balance y est — A German grinds his grain on the back of his axe, comme dit le proverbe,” said Shinshin, transferring his amber mouthpiece to the other side of his mouth, and winking to the count.

The count burst out into a laugh. Hearing that Shinshin was talking, some other guests came up to listen. Berg did not notice the ridicule, nor the indifference, but continued to tell them how by Ins transfer to the Guards he had already gained a promotion over his comrades from the military school, how the commander of the company may be killed in war-time, and how he, becoming thus the senior officer in the company, may be advanced to be captain, and how all in the regiment loved him, and how his father was satisfied with him. Berg apparently took delight in his recital and did not seem even to suspect the possibility of other people having interests of their own. But everything he told was so earnest and sweet, and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so evident that he disarmed his hearers.

“Well, my little father, you will be all right in the infantry and in the cavalry, — I promise you chat,” said Shinshin, tapping him on his shoulder and taking his feet oil the ottoman. Berg had a big smile on his face. The count, and the guests after him, went into the drawingroom.

It was that time before the festive dinner when the assembled guests do not start any lengthy conversation, expecting any moment to be called to partake of the appetizers, and yet consider it necessary to be stirring and talking in order to show that they are not in the least impatient to sit down at table. The host and hostess look at the door, and now and then exchange glances. The guests try to guess from these glances for whom or what they are waiting; whether for an important and belated relative or for a dish, which is not yet ready.

Pierre arrived just before the dinner and seated himself awkwardly in the first armchair he came across, in the middle of the drawingroom, in everybody’s way. The countess wanted to make him talk, but he looked naïvely through his glasses at all around him, as though searching for somebody, and answered all the questions of the countess in monosyllables. He was embarrassing to everybody, but he himself did not notice that he was. The majority of the guests, who knew the story about the bear, looked with curiosity at this tall, fat, and gentle man, wondering how such a clumsy and timid man could have played such a trick on the captain of police.

” Have you just arrived ? ” the countess asked him.

” Oui, madame,” he replied, looking around.

” Have you not seen my husband ? “

” Non, madame.”

He smiled for no reason whatsoever.

” I think you were lately in Paris. It must be very interesting there.”

” Very.”

The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. Anna Mikhaylovna understood that she was asked to engage the young man in a conversation, so she seated herself near him and began to speak about his father to him ; but he answered her, just as he had answered the countess, in monosyllables. The guests were all busy among themselves.

“ Les Razoumovsky— Ça a été charmant— Vous êtes bien bonne — La Comtesse Apraksine — ” was heard ou all sides. The countess rose and went into the parlour.

” Mdrya Dmitrievna ? ” was heard her voice in the parlour.

” She it is,” was heard in response a coarse woman’s voice, and immediately after Marya Dmitrievna entered the room. All the young ladies and even the grown ladies, including the elderly women, rose from their seats. Marya Dmitrievna stopped at the door, and from the height of her obese body, holding aloft her gray-locked head of fifty years, she surveyed the guests and, as though rolling up her sleeves for action, leisurely adjusted the broad sleeves of her garment. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian. •

” My congratulations to the dear nameday countess and to her children,” she said, in her loud, thick voice which drowned all other sounds. ” You old sinner,” she turned to the count who was kissing her hand, ” are you getting tired in Moscow ? No place to take the dogs out a-hunting, eh ? But what is to be done, my dear, since these little birdies are growing up ? ” She pointed to the girls. “Whether you want or not, you have to find husbands for them.”

” Well, how is my Cossack ? ” (Marya Dmitrievna called Natasha a Cossack) she said, caressing Natasha, who joyfully and without fear came up to kiss her hand. ” I know that she is a spitfire, but I love her.”

She drew out of her enormous reticule a pair of pear-shaped gem earrings and, giving them to the festively beaming and blushing Natasha, immediately turned away from her and addressed Pierre.

” Oh, oh, my dear ! Come here,” she said, in a feignedly calm and soft voice. ” Come here, my dear — ” and she threateningly rolled up her sleeves higher on her arms.

Pierre walked over to her, looking naïvely at her above his glasses.

” Come nearer, come nearer, my dear ! I was the only one who dared to tell your father the truth, when the chance presented itself, and God commands me to tell it to you, too.” She was silent for a moment. All were silent, waiting for something to happen, and feeling that that was only the introduction.

” A fine fellow he is, I must say ! His father is on his death-bed, and he is making merry, — putting a captain of the police astride on a bear. Shame on you, my dear, shame on you ! You had better go to the war!”

She turned away from him and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly hold himself from laughter.

” Well, I suppose it is time to go to dinner,” said Marya Dmitrievna.

The count and Marya Dmitrievna led the way ; then followed the countess, who was led * by a colonel of hussars,—a man much in demand, with whom Nikolay was to catch up with the regiment ; Anna Mikhaylovna with Shinshm ; Berg gave his arm to Vyéra; smiling Julie Kornakov went to dinner with Nikoldy. After them came other pairs, extending through the whole length of the parlour, and behind all came singly the children, the tutors, and the governesses. The lackeys began to burry around ; the chairs rattled ; the music began to play in the galleries, and the guests took their seats.

The sounds of the count’s home music gave way to the clatter of knives and forks, the conversation of the guests, and the soft steps of the lackeys. The countess presided at one end of the table. To the right of her was Märya Dmitrievna, to the left, Anna Mikhaylovna and the other lady guests. The count was sitting at the other end ; to the left of him was the colonel of hussars, to the right, Shinshin and the other male guests. On one side of the long table were the older young people : Vyéra by the side of Berg, Pierre by the side of Boris; on the other side were the children, the tutors, and the governesses.

The count peeped, behind the crystal bottles and fruit vases, at his wife and her tall cap with the blue ribbons, attentively filling the wine-glasses of his neighbours, and not forgetting himself either. The countess, too, entrenched behind pineapples and not forgetting her duties as a hostess, cast significant glances at her husband, whose bald head and face seemed more strikingly to stand out from his gray hair.

In the ladies’ corner there was carried on an even prattling ; but in the men’s corner voices grew louder and louder, especially the voice of the colonel of hussars, who ate and drank so much, getting ever more red, that the host quoted him as an example to the others.

Berg was speaking with a tender smile to Vyéra about love being not an earthly, but a celestial feeling. Boris was telling Pierre the names of the guests at the table and exchanging glances with Natasha, who was sitting opposite him. Pierre spoke little, eyed the new faces, and ate much. Of the two soups offered to him, he chose turtle soup, after which he took fish pie, and did not omit a single dish up to the heath-cock, nor a wine, which the butler offered to him in a napkin-covered bottle, mysteriously presenting it over his neighbour’s shoulder,

saying ” Dry Madeira,” or “ Hungarian wine,” or ” Rhenish wine.” He placed before him one of the four crystal wine-glasses with the count’s monogram, which were placed with each cover, and drank with zest, ever more and more eyeing the guests. Natdsha, who was sitting opposite him, was looking at Boris, just as a thirteen-year-old girl looks at a boy whom she has kissed for the first time and with whom she is in love. The same glance of hers was now and then directed at Pierre, and under the glance of that funny and vivacious girl he felt himself like laughing, and not knowing himself why.

Nikolay was sitting some distance away from Sdnya, near Julie Karägin, and was again speaking to her with his involuntary smile. Sdnya smiled a gala smile, but she was obviously tormented by jealousy : now she grew pale, now she blushed, and straining every muscle, she tried to catch what it was Nikoldy and Julie were talking about. The governess looked restlessly about her, as though preparing herself to foil any attack that might be made on the children. The German tutor endeavoured to retain in his memory all the dishes, desserts, and wines, in order to describe them in detail in a letter to his relatives in Germany, and he was very much offended when the butler, with the napkin-covered bottle, passed him by. The German frowned and tried to look as though he did not even wish to get that wine ; he felt offended because nobody wanted to understand that he needed the wine, not in order to slake his thirst, not from eagerness, but from good-hearted curiosity.

XVI.

At the male end of the table the conversation was growing ever more animated. The colonel was saying that the manifesto declaring war had been issued in St. Petersburg, and^ that the copy which he had seen had that very day been taken by a courier to the general-in-chief.

” Why does Satan urge us to make war on Bonaparte ? ” said Shinshin. “ Il a déjà rabattu le caquet à l’Autriche. Je crains que cette fois ce ne soit notre tour

The colonel was a plump, tall German of a sanguine temperament, apparently a faithful officer and a patriot. He felt insulted at Shinshin’s words.

” Because, dear sir,” he said, speaking in a German brogue, ” because the emperor knows why. He says in the manifesto that he cannot look indifferently at the dangers which threaten Russia, and that the security of the empire, its dignity, and the sacredness of the alliances — in speaking the colonel, for some special reason dwelt on the word ” alliances,” and with the impeccable official memory, which was peculiar to him, he continued to repeat the preamble of the manifesto, — ‘“and the desire to reestablish the peace of Europe on a firm foundation, which forms the only and unchangeable aim of the emperor, have decided him to move a part of the army across the border and to make new efforts in order to obtain that end.’ That is why, dear sir,” he concluded, drinking a glass of wine with aplomb and looking to the count for approval.

” Connaissez-vous le proverbe, ‘ Eréma, Eréma, if you had only stayed at home sharpening your spindles ? ‘ ” said Shinshin, scowling and smiling. ” Cela nous convient à merveille. Take even Suvorov, and he, too, was smashed à plate couture, but where are our Suvdrovs now ? Je vous demande un peu” he said, jumping continually from Russian to French.

” We must tight to our last drop of blood,” said the colonel, striking the table, “and die for our emperor, and then it will be well for everybody. There ought to be as little reflection as possible,” he said, drawing out the word ” possible,” ” as little as possible,” he concluded, again turning to the count. ” That is the way we old hussars judge, that is all. Aud how do you judge, young man and young hussar?” he added, turning to Nikolay, who, upon hearing that they were talking about the war, left his interlocutrice and strained his eyes, looking at the colonel, and trying to catch every word said by him.

“ I fully agree with you,” replied Nikoläy, all excited, twisting his plate and transposing his glasses with such a decisive and such a desperate glance as though he were just then undergoing some great danger. ” 1 am convinced that Russians must die or conquer,” he said, feeling, like the rest, after the words had been uttered, that they were too solemn and too pompous for the present occasion, and, therefore, awkward.

” C’est bien beau ce que vous venez de dire” said Julie, who was sitting by his side, with a sigh. Sdnya was all in a tremble ; she blushed up to her ears, behind her ears, and down to her neck, while Nikoläy was speaking. Pierre was listening to the colonel’s words, nodding his head in approbation.

” That is superb,” he said.

” A real hussar, young man ! ” shouted the colonel, again striking the table.

” What are you making such a noise about ? ” Marya Dmitrievna’s bass voice was suddenly heard across the table. ” Why are you striking the table in such a way ? ” She turned to the hussar. “ Who is exciting you so ? You must be thinking that the French are before you!”

” I am telling the truth,” said the hussar, smiling.

” They are talking about the war,” the count cried across the table. ” You know, Marya Dmitrievna, my son is going to the war.”

” I have four sons in the army, and I do not worry. God’s will is on everything ; you can die lying on the oven, and God may save you in the field of battle,” Marya Dmitrievna’s hollow voice rang out, without any effort, from across the table.

“ That is so.”

The conversation again became concentrated : the women returned to their chat, and the men to theirs.

“ I dare you to ask,” the younger brother said to Natäsha, ” I dare you ! ”

“ I will,” replied Natâsha.

Her face suddenly flamed up, expressing desperate and merry determination. She raised herself in her seat, with a glance inviting Pierre, who was sitting opposite her, to listen,- and turned to her mother :

” Mamma ! ” her childish chest tone rang out over the whole table.

“ What is it ? ” the countess asked in fright, but seeing by her daughter’s face that it was only a naughty sally, sternly shook her hand to her, making a threatening and negative gesture with her head.

The conversation died down.

” Mamma, what kind of a dessert shall we have ? ” sounded Natasha’s little voice, with even more determination and without faltering.

The countess wanted to frown, but could not Märya Dmitrievna threatened her with her finger.

” Cossack ! ” she said, threateningly.

The majority of the guests looked at the elders, not knowing how they ought to take that sally.

” Just wait ! ” said the countess.

« Mamma, what will the dessert be ? ” Natàsha cried boldly and with capricious merriment, being convinced in advance that her sally would be well received.

Sdnya and fat Petya tried to hide themselves and their laughter.

“ You see I did ask,” Natasha whispered to her younger brother and to Pierre, at whom she again cast a glance.

“There will be ices, only you won’t get any,” said Marya Dmitrievna.

Natasha saw that there was no cause for fear, and so she was not afraid even of Marya Dmitrievna.

” Marya Dmitrievna, what kind of ices ? I do not like ice-cream.”

” Carrot ice ! “

“No, what is it going to be? Marya Dmitrievna, what will it be ? ” she almost shouted. ” I want to know.”

Marya Dmitrievna and the countess laughed, and all the guests laughed with them. All laughed, not in response to Marya Dmitrievna’s answer, but at the incredible boldness and cleverness of the girl, who knew how to treat Marya Dmitrievna, and was not afraid to do so.

Natäsha did not stop asking until she was told that it was to be pineapple ice. Before the ice, champagne was brought. Again the music played ; the count kissed the dear little countess, and the guests got up and congratulated the countess, clinking their glasses across the table with the count, with the children, and with each other. The lackeys again ran in ; the chairs rattled, and the guests returned in the same order, but with redder faces, to the drawingroom and the count’s cabinet.

XVII.

The cardtables were opened, parties were formed, and the count’s guests took their seats in the two drawingrooms, the sofaroom, and the library.

The count spread a deck of cards before him in fanlike shape and, with difficulty vanquishing his habit of an afternoon siesta, was laughing at everything. The young people, urged on by the countess, were gathered about the clavichord and the harp. Julie, by common request, played a piece with variations on the harp, and joined the other young ladies in asking Natasha and Nikolay, who had a reputation for musicalness, to give them a song. Natasha, who was treated like an adult, was very proud of it, but at the same time she was timid.

” What shall we sing ? ” she asked.

” ‘ The Spring,’ ” replied Nikolay.

“ Come, let us sing it quick. Bons, come here,” said Natasha. ” But where is Sonya ? ” She looked around her and, seeing that her friend was not in the room, ran out to find her.

Natasha ran into Sonya’s room, but did not find her companion there ; she ran into the children’s room, — but she was not there either. Natasha knew that Sonya must be on the coffer in the corridor. That coffer was the place of grief for the feminine part of the younger generation of the house of Rostov. And indeed, Sonya, in her airy rose-coloured dress, was lying face downward on the coffer on the nurse’s dirty striped feather bed, her bare shoulders shuddering convulsively. Natasha’s face, which had been animated and festive the whole day long, suddenly changed : her eyes grew set, her broad neck twitched, the corners of her lips fell.

” Sonya, what is the matter with you ? — What, what is it ? Oo-oo-oo! ” and Natasha, opening her large mouth and becoming quite homely, bawled like a baby, not knowing why, and for no other reason than that Sdnya was weeping.

Sdnya wanted to raise her head and make an answer, but could not, and she only hid her head farther. Natasha sat down on the blue feather bed and wept, embracing her friend. Gathering her strength, Sonya sat up, began to wipe her tears, and started to talk.

” Nikolay is going away in a week, bis — document — has come — he himself told me so — I would not be weeping — ” she showed Natasha a scrap of paper which she was holding in her hand : upon it were written Nikolay’s verses — ” I would not be weeping, but you cannot — nobody can understand — what a soul he has.”

And she once more began to weep because he had such a soul.

” You are all right — I do not envy you — I love you, and Boris too,” she said, gathering her strength a little, ” he is dear — there is no obstacle for you. But Nikolay is my cousin — it is necessary — the metropolitan himself — and then it is impossible. And then, if she tells mamma ” (Sonya regarded the countess as her mother, and called her so) — ” if she tells her that I am spoiling Nikolay’s career, that I have no heart, that I am ungrateful, really — upon my word — ” (she made the sign of the cross) “ I love her so much, and I love all of you, only Vyéra— For what? What have I done to her? I am so thankful to you that I should like to sacrifice everything for you, but I have nothing to sacrifice — ”

Sduya was unable to say any tiring more, and again concealed her head in her hands and in the feather bed. Natasha was beginning to calm down, but it was evident from her face that she comprehended all the seriousness of her companion’s grief.

” Sdnya ! ” she suddenly said, as though guessing the real cause of her cousin’s »sorrow, “Vyéra must have been talking to you after dinner, — has she not ? ”

” Yes, these verses Nikoldy himself has written, and I have copied a good many others ; she found them on my table, and she said that she would show them to mamma, that I was ungrateful, that mamma would never let him marry me, but that he would marry Julie. You see how he is talking all day to her — Natasha, what is it all for? ”

And she burst out weeping worse than before. Natasha raised her up and, smiling through tears, began to console her.

” Sonya, do not believe what she says ! Do you remember when all three of us were talking with Nikolay in the sofaroom after supper ? We then decided how it would all be. I do not remember how it was to be, but you must remember how good it all was, and how it worked out well. Now, Uncle Shinshin’s brother is married to a cousin, while we are only second cousins. Boris, too, said that it was possible. You know I told him everything. He is so clever and so good,” said Natasha. ” Don’t cry, Sonya, my darling, my dear Sonya ! ” She kissed her, laughing. “Vyéra is mean, God be with her! But everything will come out all right, and she will not tell mamma. Nikolay will say it himself, — he is not even thinking of Julie.”

She kissed her head. Sénya raised herself a little, and the kitten became lively, her eyes glistened, and it looked as though she were ready to give a swish with her tail, jump on her soft paws, and again start playing with the ball of twine, as would be proper for her.

” Do you think so ? Really ? Truly ? ” she said, rapidly adjusting her dress and hair.

” Truly, upon my word ! ” replied Natäsha, fixing a strand of coarse hair that had freed itself from her companion’s braid. “ Come and let us sing ‘ The Spring.’ ”

” Come ! ” ♦

” Do you know, that fat Pierre, who was sitting opposite me, is such a funny fellow! ” Natésha suddenly said, stopping in her walk. ” I am very happy ! “

And Natasha ran down the corridor.

Sonya, shaking off the feathers and hiding the poem in her bosom, near her neck with its protruding chest bones, ran, with light, merry steps, and with a blushing face, down the corridor, behind Natasha, and into the sofaroom. At the i equest of the guests, the young people sang ” The Spring,” which everybody enjoyed ; then Nikolay sang them a song which he had just learned :

” In a beautiful night, when the moon is shining, What happiness it is to know for true That some one in the world for you is pining, That some one in the world is thinking of you I That with exquisite hand the golden harp strumming, And with passionate harmony an enticing song humming, She calls you! Your heaven will be here in a day, But, alas I your dear friend will not live until then —”

He had not finished the last words when the young people in the parlour were getting ready to dance, and there was a tramping of feet in the gallery, and the musicians cleared their throats.

Pierre was sitting in the drawingroom, where Shinshin, knowing that Pierre was late from abroad, began with him a tedious political discussion, in which others joined. When the music began to play, Natdsha walked into the drawingroom, and, walking up straight to Pierre, laughing and blushing, said :

« Mamma asks you to join the dancers.”

“I am afraid I shall mix up the figures,” said Pierre, ” but if you will be my teacher — ” and, lowering his fat arm, he offered it to the slender girl.

While the pairs took up their positions and the musicians tuned their instruments, Pierre sat down with his tiny lady. Natasha was quite happy : she was dancing with a big man, with one who had been abroad. She was sitting in sight of all, and was talking to him, as though she were a grown young lady. In her hand she had a fan, which a lady had asked her to keep for her. Striking a very worldly attitude (God knows where and when she had learned it), she spoke to her gentleman, while fanning herself, and smiling at him over her fan.

“What do you think of her? Just look!” said the old countess, as she passed through the parlour, and pointing but Natasha.

Natasha blushed and laughed.

“ Why do you do it, mamma ? Why ? What is there here to marvel at ? ”

In the middle of the third écossaise, the chairs in the drawingroom, in which the count and Marya Dmitrievna were playing, were moved, and the greater part of the honoured guests and the old men and women, stretching themselves after their long sitting, and putting away their pocketbooks and purses, walked up to the door of the parlour. The procession was headed by Marya Dmitrievna and the count, — both of them with beaming countenances. The count with jocular civility, as though at a ballet, offered his rounded arm to Marya Dmitrievna. He straightened himself up, and his face was lighted up by a peculiar, dashingly bold smile, and the moment the last figure of the écossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians, and called out to the gallery, addressing the first violin :

” Semén ! Do you know the Daniel Cooper ? “

That was the count’s favourite dance, which he used to dance in his youth. (Daniel Cooper was really one of the figures of the “ English.”)

” Look at papa,” Natasha called out so as to be heard throughout the parlour (she entirely forgot that she was dancing with a big man), bending her curly head down to her knees and making her melodious voice ring through the parlour. Everybody who was in the room looked, with a smile of joy, at the jolly old man who, by the side of his staid lady, Marya Dmitrievna, who was taller than he, was rounding out his arms, shaking them so as to keep time, arching his legs, tapping the floor with his feet, and, with an ever growing smile on liis round face, preparing the audience for that which was to come. The moment the merry, enticing sounds of the Daniel Cooper, which resembled a jolly, national ” trepak,” were heard, all the doors of the parlour were suddenly filled, on the one side with the male faces, on the other with the female faces, of the manorial servants, who came out to see their master making merry.

* Master ! What an eagle ! ” the nurse called out loud from one of the doors.

The count danced well, and he knew that he did, but his lady neither could nor would dance well. Her immense body stood stiff, with her stout arms hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess) ; all that there was dancing in her was her austere, but beautiful face. What was expressed in the count’s whole round figure, in Marya Dmitrievna found its expression only in her ever more smiling face and expanding nostrils. If the count, growing ever more agile, charmed the spectators by the suddenness of his nimble twists and by the light leaps of his soft feet, Marya Dmitrievna, with the slightest zeal, manifested by the motion of her shoulders or the arching of her arms during the turns and tappings, produced no less an impression on account of her effort, which all appreciated, taking into consideration her obesity and customary austerity of manner.

The dance became ever more animated. The vis-à-vis were unable to direct the attention to themselves, and did not even try to do so. Everybody was busy looking at the count and at Mdrya Dmitrievna. Natasha kept pulling the sleeves and garments of all the persons present, asking them to look at her papa, though they were straining their eyes at the dancers anyway.

In the intervals of the dance, the count breathed heavily, waved his arms, and called out to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster, ever more nimbly the count made his evolutions, now on tiptoe, now circling on his heels around Marya Dmitrievna, and, finally, turning his lady back to her place, he made his last steps, kicking up his soft feet, inclining Ins perspiring head with a smile on his face, and whirling around Ins right arm amid a thunder of applause and laughter through which Natasha could still be heard. Both dancers stopped, drawing their breaths with difficulty and wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.

” That is the way they used to dance in our day, via chère” said the count.

” That is a Daniel Cooper ! ” said Mdrya Dmitrievna, breathing heavily and rolling up her sleeves.

XVIII.

Düring the time that they were dancing the sixth ” English ” at the Rostovs’, to the sounds of the tired and falsely playing musicians, and while the tired lackeys and cooks were preparing the supper, Count Beziikhi was having his sixth stroke. The physicians announced that there was no hope of his getting well ; the sick man by signs made his confession and received his communion ; they were making preparations for the extreme unction, and in the house there was a hubbub and a turmoil, as is usual at such moments. Outside the house the undertakers, in expectancy of a big order for the count’s funeral, were crowding at the gate, though trying to hide from the carriages that were driving up. The commanderin-chief of Moscow, who kept sending adjutants to find out about the condition of the count’s health, on that evening himself came to bid goodbye to Count Bezukhi, the famous dignitary of the days of Catherine.

The magnificent reception-room was full. All rose respectfully, when the commanderin-chief, after having remained about half an hour all alone with the patient, came out, answering lightly to their bows and trying as quickly as possible to pass between the doctors, clericals, and relatives, whose glances were directed toward him. Prince Vasili, who during the last two days had grown thinner and paler, saw off the commanderin-chief, several times repeating something to him.

Having seen out the commanderin-chief, Prince Vasili sat down all alone on a chair in the parlour, crossing one leg high over the other, leaning his elbow on his knee, and covering his eyes with his hand. He remained there for a little while ; then he rose, and in an uncommonly fast gait, looking about him with frightened eyes, went over the long corridor to the back part of the house, where the apartments of the elder princess were.

Those who were sitting in the dimly lighted room were speaking with each other in an uneven whisper, and grew silent every time the door was opened, and with inquisitive and expectant eyes gazed at the door, which led to the room of the dying man, and which emitted a weak sound when some one went in or out through it.

” The limit of man’s age,” said an old priest to a lady who sat down near him and naively listened to what he was saying, ” the limit is reached which thou canst not pass.”

” Is it not too late to give him the extreme unction ? ” asked the lady, adding the proper clerical title, in a tone which indicated that she did not have the slightest doubt on that score.

” It is a great sacrament, my lady,” replied the clerical person, stroking his bald head, over which lay a few strands of combed down grayish hairs.

” Who was that ? Was it the commanderin-chief himself ? ” somebody asked at the other end of the room.

How young he looks ! “

” He is reaching his threescore and ten! They say the count can’t recognize faces any more. Have they given him the extreme unction? ”

“I knew a person who received the extreme unction seven times.”

The second princess came out of the patient’s room with tearful eyes and sat down near Doctor Lorrain, who was sitting in a graceful pose under the portrait of Catherine, leaning upon the table.

” Très beau,” said the doctor, in response to a question about the weather, ” très beau, princesse, et puis, à Moscou on sc croit à la campagne.”

“.N’est ce pas N’ said the princess, with a sigh. “So he may drink ? “

Lorrain thought awhile.

” Did he take the medicine ? ”

” Yes.”

The doctor looked at his Bréguet watch.

“ Take a glass of boiled water and put into it une pincée ” (he showed with his slender fingers what “une pincée” meant) ” of cream of tartar — “

“ Dere has peen no case,” a German physician said to an adjutant, “dat a man bass lifed after his dirt shtroke.”

“ What a vigorous old man he has been ! ” said the adjutant. “ To whom will all that wealth go ? ” he asked in a whisper.

” Dere vill pe dose who vant it,” the German replied, with a smile.

All looked once more at the door: it creaked, and the second princess took the potion, which the doctor had told her of, to the patient. The German doctor walked up to Lorrain.

” Do you think he will pull through until tomorrow ? ” asked the German, mispronouncing the French words.

Lorrain compressed his Ups and made a stern and negative sign with his forefinger before his nose.

“ Tonight — not later,” he said, softly, with a reserved smile of self-satisfaction at having so clearly comprehended and determined the patient’s position. Then he stepped aside.

In the meantime Prince Vasili opened the door to the room of the princess.

There was a semidarkness in the room ; only two lamps were burning before images, and there was an agreeable odour of incense and of Howers. The whole room was filled with small chifïonières, safes, and tables. Behind a screen could be seen the. white covers of a high feather bed. A little dog started barking.

” Oh, it is you, mon cousin ? “

She got up and adjusted her hair, which was always, even now, so unusually smooth that it looked as though made of one piece with the head and covered with lacquer.

” Well, has anything happened ? I have had so many frights ! ”

“ No, still the same. I have just come to talk with you about one matter, Katerina,” said the prince, sitting down, with a look of fatigue, in the armchair, which she had left. ” How you have warmed up the chair,” he said. ” Sit down here : causons ! ”

“ I thought something had happened,” said the princess, sitting down, with her unchangeable, stern, stone-like expression on her face, opposite the prince, in order to hear what he. had to say.

” I tried to fall asleep, but I could not, mon cousin ! “

“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasili, taking the princess’s hand and bending it down, as it was his habit to do.

It was obvious that the ” well ” referred to many things which they both understood, without naming them.

The princess, with her lean and straight waist, which was dreadfully out of proportion with her short legs, looked straight and impassionately at the prince with her bulging gray eyes. She shook her head and, heaving a sigh, looked at the images. Her gesture could have been explained as an expression of sadness and devotion, or as an expression of weariness and hope of near rest. Prince Vasili explained that gesture to himself as an expression of weariness.

” Do you suppose it is easier for me ? Je suis ereinté comme un cheval de poste, but I must speak with you, Katerina, and very seriously at that.”

Prince Vasili grew silent, and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now to one side, and now to another, giving his face an unpleasant expression, such as never made its appearance on the countenance of Prince Vasili when he was in a drawingroom. His eyes, too, were not as they always were : they either looked bold and jocular, or frightened.

The princess, holding a little dog in her lap with her lean fingers, was looking attentively into the eyes of Prince Vasili ; and it was evident that she would not interrupt the silence by a question, even if she had to keep silent until morning.

” You see, my dear princess and cousin, Katerina Seménovna,” continued Prince Vasili, apparently continuing his speech not without an inner struggle, ” in such moments as the present we must think of everything. We must think of the future, of you — I love you all like my own children, you know that.”

The princess looked just as immovably and dully at him.

” Finally, I must also think of ray own family,” continued the prince, angrily pushing away a small table from him and not looking at her. ” You know, Katerina, that you three sisters, the Mamdntovs, and my wife are the only direct heirs of the count. I know, I know how hard it is for you to speak and to think of such things. It is not easier for me to do so: but, my friend, I am going on sixty, and I must be ready for everything. Do you know that I have sent for Pierre ? that the count, pointing directly to his portrait, asked for him ? ”

Count Vasili looked interrogatively at the princess, but he could not make out whether she was reflecting over what he had told her, or whether she was just looking at him.

” There is one thing, mon cousin, I never stop praying for,” she replied, ” and that is that God may have mercy on him and may grant his beautiful soul calmly to leave this — “

” Yes, that is so,” impatiently continued Prince Vasili, rubbing his bald head and again angrily moving the little table up to him, ” but, in fine — in fine, the trouble is, as you know, that last winter the count wrote his will, by which he left all his fortune to Pierre, passing by all his direct heirs.”

” I suppose he has written a lot of wills ! ” calmly said the princess. ” He cannot leave anything to Pierre because Pierre is illegitimate.”

“Ma chère,” suddenly said Prince Vasili, hugging the table, becoming animated, and speaking faster : ” But what if he wrote a letter to the emperor, asking to have Pierre legitimized ? You understand that his request will be granted on account of his many deserts — ”

The princess smiled, as smile people who think that they know the affair better than those with whom they are speaking.

” I shall tell you even more,” continued Prince Vasili, clasping her hand. ” The letter was written, though not sent off, and the emperor knew about it. The question is whether that letter has been destroyed, or not. If not, then, as soon as all will be ended” Prince Vasili heaved a sigh, explaining thus what he meant by the words all will be ended, ” and the count’s papers will be opened, the testament will be sent to the emperor, with the letter, and his request will certainly be granted. Pierre, as a legitimate son, will get everything.”

” And our part ? ” asked the princess, smiling ironically, as though anything but that could happen.

” Mais, ma pauvre Catichc> c’est clair comme le jour. He is the only legitimate heir of everything, and you will not get so much as this. You must know, my dear, whether the will and the letter were written, and whether they were destroyed. If they were for some reason forgotten anywhere, you must know where they are, and you must find them, because — “

” What nonsense ! ” the princess interrupted him, smiling a sardonic smile and without changing the expression of her eyes. “ I am a woman, and according to your ideas we are all stupid; but I know enough to know that an illegitimate son cannot inherit— Un bâtard,” she added, imagining that by that translation she conclusively proved the absurdity to him.

” But, Caliche, why don’t you understand ? You are so intelligent ; why don’t you understand that if the count wrote that letter to the emperor, in which he asks to have his son made legitimate, Pierre will no longer be Pierre, but Count Bezukhi, and then he will get everything according to the will ? And if the testament and the letter are not destroyed, there will be nothing left for you but the consolation of having been virtuous, et tout ce qui s’en suit. That is true.”

” I know that the will was written, but I know also that it is inactive. You, mon cousin, regard me as an all-around fool,” said the princess with that expression which women have when they imagine that they have said something clever and offensive.

” My dear Princess Katerina Seménovna,” impatiently said Prince Vasili. ” I have not come to you to take advantage of you, but to speak to you, as to a relative, a good, kind, true relative, about your own interests. I am telling you for the tenth time that if the letter to the emperor and the will in favour of Pierre are among the count’s papers, you, my dear, and your sisters, will not be heirs at all. If you do not believe me, you may find it out from people who know : I have just been speaking with Dmitri Onufriich ” (that was the attorney of the house), ” and he says so, too.”

Evidently something suddenly changed in the princess’s views ; her thin lips grew pale (her eyes remained the same), and as she spoke her voice broke forth in such peals as she had never suspected in herself.

” That would be nice,” she said. ” I have wanted nothing, and I want nothing now.”

She threw the lap-dog down from her knees and adjusted the folds of her dress.

“ There you have gratefulness and recognition for having sacrificed everything for him,” she said. ” Beautiful ! Very nice! I need nothing, prince.”

” But you are not alone, you have sisters,” replied Prince Vasili.

But the princess was not listening to him.

” Yes, I knew all the time, but I forgot it, that I could expect nothing but baseness, deceit, envy, intrigues, nothing but ingratitude in this house — ’’

“ Do you know, or do you not know, where that will is ? ” asked Prince Vasili, twitching his cheeks even more than before.

” Yes, I was foolish ; I believed in people, I loved them, and sacrificed myself for them. I know whose intrigues they are.”

The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her back by her hand. The princess had the appearance of a man who suddenly becomes disenchanted with the whole human race ; she looked maliciously at her interlocutor.

” There is time yet. Remember, Catiche, that all that happened by accident, in a moment of anger and illness, and then was forgotten. It is our duty, my dear, to correct that error, to ease his last moments by not allowing him to commit that injustice, by not allowing him to die with the thought that he has made unhappy those people — “

“Those people who have sacrificed their all for him,” the princess interposed, again starting up, but the prince held her back, ” which he has never been able to appreciate. No, mon cousin,” she added, with a sigh, “ I will remember that in this world one must not wait for a reward, that in this world there is no honour, no justice. In this world one must be cunning and bad.”

” Come now, voyons, calm yourself ! I know your good heart.”

” No, my heart is bad.”

” I know your heart,” repeated the prince. ” I value your friendship, and I wish that you might have the same opinion of me. Calm yourself, and parlons raison, while there is time, — another day, or only an hour ; tell me all you know about the will, and, above all, where it is: you must know. We shall take it, and we shall show it to the count. He has, no doubt, forgotten about it and will want to destroy it. You understand that it is my desire sacredly to do his will ; that is the reason why I have come to Moscow. I am here only to help him and you.”

” Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigues they are. I know,” said the princess.

“ That is another matter, my dear.”

. ” It is your protégée, your dear Princess Drubetskdy, Anna Mikhaylovna, whom I would not have for a chambermaid, that nasty, contemptible woman.”

* “Ac perdons point de temps ! “

” Ah, don’t speak to me ! Last winter she insinuated herself here, and she told the count such horrible, nasty things about all of us, especially about Sophie, — I cannot repeat them, — that the count grew ill and did not wish to see us for two weeks. It was during that time, I know, that he wrote that nasty, horrible paper, but I thought that that paper was of no consequence.”

” Nous y voilà, why did you not tell me before ? ”

“In the mosaic portfolio, which he keeps under his pillow. Now I know,” said the princess, without answering. “ Yes, if I have a sin, a great sin on my conscience, it is the hatred I have for that contemptible woman,” the princess almost shouted, with a changed expression. ” Why does she insinuate herself here ? But I will tell her all, all. The time will come.”

XIX.

While these conversations were taking place in the reception-room and in the apartments of the princess, the carriage with Pierre (who had been sent for) and with Anna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the yard of Count Bezukhi. As the carriage sounded softly on the straw which was strewn under the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna, who turned to her fellow traveller with words of consolation, convinced herself that he was asleep in the corner of the carriage, and she awoke him.

Upon awakening, Pierre left the carriage together with Anna Mikhaylovna, and only then for the first time thought of the impending meeting with his father. He noticed that they drove up, not to the parade entrance, but to the back entrance. As lie stepped down from the carriage step, two men in tradesmen’s attire hastily beat a retreat from the entrance into the shadow. Pierre stopped and noticed several other figures in the shadow, on both sides of the house. But neither Anna Mikhaylovna, nor the lackey, nor the coachman, who certainly must have seen those men, paid any attention to them.

“That must be proper,” Pierre decided, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. Anna Mikhaylovna hurriedly ascended the dimly lighted, narrow stone steps, calling Pierre, who was lagging behind. Pierre did not understand why he should go to the count, and much less, why he should go by the back staircase ; but, judging from the determination and haste of Anna Mikhaylovna, he concluded that that was absolutely necessary. In the middle of the staircase they were almost knocked over by men with buckets, who, rattling with their boots, were running down toward them. These people pressed themselves against the wall, to make way for Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna, and did not show the least surprise to see them.

” Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments ? ” Anna Mikhaylovna asked one of them.

” Yes,” replied the lackey, in a bold and loud voice, as though any liberty might be taken. “The door on the left, lady.”

“ Maybe the count has not sent for me,” said Pierre, just as he reached a landing. “ I could go to my room.”

Anna Mikhaylovna stopped to let Pierre come up to her.

” Ah, mon ami ! ” she said, with the same gesture as in the morning, with her son, touching his hand : ” Croyez que je souffre autant que vous, mais soyez homme y

“ Shall I really go there ? ” asked Pierre, looking kindly at Anna Mikhaylovna through his glasses.

“Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu’on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c’est votre père —peut-être à l’agonie.” She sighed. “Je vous ai tout de suite aimé comme mon fils. Fiez vous à moi, Pierre. Je n’oublierai pas vos intérêts.”

Pierre could not comprehend a thing. Again it seemed to him more strongly than before that it ought to be that way, and he submissively followed Anna Mikhaylovna, who was already opening a door.

The door took them into the vestibule of the back entrance. In the corner sat an old servant of the princesses, knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in that part of the house, and did not even suspect the existence of these rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna asked a girl, with a decanter on a tray, who was rushing past them (calling her ” my dear,” and ” my darling ”), about the health of the princesses, and drew Pierre after her along the stone corridor.

The first door on the left led into the living-rooms of the princesses. The chambermaid, with the decanter, in her hurry (everything was just now being done in a hurry in the house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room, where, sitting close together, were the elder princess and Prince Vasili. Upon noticing them in the corridor, Prince Vasili made an impatient movement and threw himself back ; the princess leaped up and slammed the door with a gesture of despair.

The gesture was so unlike the usual calm of the princess, the terror which was expressed in the face of Prince Vasili was so out of keeping with his dignity, that Pierre stopped and interrogatively looked at his guide over his glasses. Anna Mikhaylovna expressed no surprise ; she only smiled and sighed slightly, as though to show that she had been expecting all that.

” Soyez homme, mon ami, c’est moi qui veillerai à vos intérêts” she said in reply to his glance, walking faster along the corridor.

Pierre did not understand what it was all about, and much less what was meant by ” veiller à vos intérêts,” but he understood that it had to be that way. They went through the corridor into a dimly lighted parlour which led into the count’s reception-room. It was one of those luxurious and cold rooms which Pierre knew from the main entrance. But even in this room there stood an empty bath-tub, and water was spilled on the carpet. They were met by a servant and a sexton with a censer, who were walking on tiptoe, and who paid no attention to them. They entered the reception-room with two Italian windows, which was familiar to Pierre ; it opened on a winter garden, and was adorned with a large bust and a full-sized portrait of Empress Catherine. The same people as before, almost in the same attitudes, were sitting in the reception-room and whispering to each other. All grew silent and looked at Anna Mikhaylovna with her tear-worn, pale face, and upon stout, tall Pierre, who, lowering his head, was meekly following her.

On Anna Mikhaylovna’s face there was an expression of consciousness that the decisive moment was at hand ; she entered the room, with the manner of a St. Petersburg lady of business, even more boldly than in the morning, and did not let Pierre out of sight. She felt that since she was bringing with her the one whom the dying man wanted to see, her reception was assured. Surveying all in the room with a rapid glance and observing the count’s confessor, she suddenly grew smaller in size, though she did not exactly stoop, at a light amble sailed out toward the confessor and respectfully received his benediction, and then the benediction of the other priest who was present.

” Thank God you have come in time,” she said to the priest. “ We, his relatives, have been so anxious about him. This young man is the count’s son,” she added, in a softer voice. ” A terrible moment ! ”

Having said these words, she went up to the doctor.

” Cher docteur,” she said to him, ” ce jeune homme est le fils du comte — y a-t-il de l’espoir ? ”

The doctor with a rapid motion raised his eyes and shoulders in silence. Anna Mikhaylovna raised her eyes and shoulders with the same motion ; she almost closed her eyes, drew a sigh, and went away from the doctor toward Pierre. She turned to Pierre with an expression of unusual respect and tender sadness.

“ Ayez confiance en Sa miséricorde I’ she said to him, and, pointing to a sofa, told him to sit down and wait for him, while she herself inaudibly moved toward the door, at which all were looking, and with a barely audible sound of the door disappeared inside.

Pierre, who had decided to submit to his guide in everything, went up to the sofa which she had indicated to him. The moment Anna Mikhaylovna had disappeared, he noticed that the glances of all persons in the room, were directed to him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that all were whispering, indicating him with their eyes, as though regarding him with fear and even servility. He was shown such respect as had never before been shown to him : the strange lady, who had been speaking with the clergymen, rose from her seat and offered it to him ; the adjutant picked up the glove which Pierre had dropped, and handed it to him ; the doctors sat in respectful silence as he passed near them, and stepped aside to make room for him.

Pierre at first wanted to sit down elsewhere, in order not to trouble the lady, wanted to pick up the glove himself, and to walk around the doctors, who were not even in his way ; but he suddenly felt that that would be improper ; he felt that on that evening he was a person that had to perform a certain awful and expected ceremony, and that, therefore, he had to accept homage from all. He silently received the glove from the adjutant, sat down in the lady’s seat, placing his large hands on his symmetrically placed knees, in the naïve pose of an Egyptian statue, and concluded that it had to be that way, and, in order not to lose himself and commit a number of foolish acts, he had to act on that evening, not according to his best judgment, but to give himself entirely over into the hands of those who were guiding him.

Less than two minutes passed when Prince Vasili, in his caftan with three decorations, majestically entered the room, bearing his head high. He looked thinner than in the morning ; his eyes were larger than usual when he surveyed the room and noticed Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (which he had never done before), and drew it downward, as though trying to find out whether it was firmly fastened.

“ Courage, courage, mon ami. Il a demandé à vous voir. C’est bien — ” and he wanted to go away. But Pierre deemed it necessary to ask him :

” How is the health — ” he hesitated, not knowing whether it was proper to call the dying man ” count,” while he felt embarrassed to call him ” father.”

” Il a eu encore un coup, il y a une demi-heure. He had another stroke. Courage, mon ami — “

Pierre was in such a state of muddled ideas that at the word ” stroke ” he could think of nothing but a blow with something. He looked in perplexity at Prince Vasili and only much later comprehended that “ stroke ” was the name of a disease. Prince Vasili in passing said several words to Lorrain, and went on tiptoe through the door. He could not walk well on tiptoe, and so bobbed with his whole body. He was followed at once by the elder princess ; then came the clergymen and the sextons, and the servants also walked through the door. Behind that door could be heard the movement of feet, and finally Anna Mikhaylovna ran out, her face being just as pale as before, but expressive of firmness in the execution of her duty. She touched Pierre’s arm and said :

” La bonté divine est inépuisable. C’est la cérémonie de l’extrême onction qui va commencer. Venez ! ’’

Pierre went through the door, walking on the soft carpet. He noticed that the adjutant and the strange lady and some servants followed after him, as though one no longer needed permission to walk into the room.

XX.

Pierre knew well that large room, which was divided up by columns and by a vault, and the walls of which were all hung with Persian rugs. The part of the room behind the columns, where on one side stood a tall redwood bed under a silk canopy, and on the other an immense shrine with the images, was brilliantly illuminated, as churches are illuminated during evening services.

Under the embossed images of the shrine stood a long easy chair, and in the chair, which was cushioned at the head by snow-white, smooth, apparently freshly changed pillows, lay, covered to his waist with a bright green coverlet, the familiar, majestic figure of Pierre’s father, Count Bezukhi, with the same gray mane of hair, which reminded one of a lion, over his broad brow, and with the same characteristically noble, large wrinkles on his beautiful, yellowish tanned face. He was lying directly under the images ; both his large, stout hands were thrust out from underneath the coverlet and were resting upon it. In his right hand, which was lying with the palm downward, there was placed, between the thumb and the forefinger, a wax taper, which an old servant, bending over the chair, was holding. Above the chair stood the priests in their splendid and majestic vestments, their long hair straightened out and flowing, with burning tapers in their hands, solemnly and slowly reading the service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses, with their handkerchiefs in their hands and over their eyes, and in front of them was the elder, Catiche, with a malicious and determined glance, not for a moment taking her eyes off the images, as though telling all that she was not responsible for herself if she for a moment took her eyes away from them.

Anna Mikhaylovna, with an expression of meek grief and all-forgiveness, was standing with the strange lady at the door. Prince Vasili was standing at the other end of the door, near the easy chair, behind a carved, velvet-covered chair, which he had turned with its back toward him, and, leaning his left hand with a taper upon it, made the signs of the cross with his right, every time lifting his eyes to the ceiling whenever he put his fingers to his brow. His face was expressive of calm piety and submission to the will of God.

” If you do not understand these feelings, so much the worse for you,” his face seemed to say.

Behind him stood the adjutant, the doctors, and the male servants ; the men and women separated as though in church. Everybody was silent ; one could hear only the leading of the prayers, the repressed, deep, bass singing, and, during a moment of silence, the shuffling of feet and the heaving of sighs. Anna Mikhaylovna walked across the room to Pierre, with that significant look which showed that she knew what she was doing, and handed him a taper. He lighted it and, distracted by his observations on the persons present, began to cross himself with the hand in which he held the taper.

The younger, ruddyfaced, and jolly Princess Sophie, the one with the birthmark, was looking at him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and for a long time did not show it again ; but, upon looking at Pierre, she again started to laugh. Apparently she felt it to be above her strength to look at him without laughing, and yet could not keep from looking at him, so, to avoid temptation, she softly stepped behind a column. In the middle of the service the voices of the clergymen suddenly died down, the priests said something to each other in a whisper, and the old servant who was holding the count’s hand rose and said something to the ladies.

Anna Mikhaylovna stepped forward and, bending over the dying man, behind his back beckoned to Lorrain to come to her. The French physician, who was standing without a taper, leaning against a column, in that respectful attitude of a foreigner which showed that, in spite of the difference of religious convictions, he fully understood all the importance of the ceremony which was being performed, and even approved of it, — with the cautious steps of a man in the vigour of his manhood walked over to the patient, raised his free hand from the green coverlet with his slender white fingers, began to touch the pulse, and looked lost in meditation. The patient was given a potion ; there was a stir about him, then all again took their positions, and the service was continued.

During that pause, Pierre noticed that Prince Vasili walked out from behind the back of his chair and, also with an air which showed that he knew what he was doing, and that it was so much the worse for the others if they did not understand him, did not walk over to the patient, but, passing by him, joined the elder princess and together with her went into the depth of the sleeping-room, to the high bed under the silk canopy. From the bed the prince and the princess disappeared through the back door, but before the end of the service one after the other they returned to their places. Pierre paid no more attention to this than to any other incident, having concluded once for all that everything which was taking place that evening was absolutely necessary.

The sounds of the church singing stopped, and there was heard the voice of the priest, solemnly congratulating the patient with having received the sacrament. The patient lay just as lifeless and motionless as before. Around him they began to stir ; there were heard steps and whispers, through which Anna Mikhaylovna’s whisper sounded sharpest of all.

Pierre heard her say :

” He must be by all means taken back to the bed, — here it will not be possible — “

The patient was so surrounded by the doctors, the princesses, and the servants, that Pierre no longer saw that reddish yellow head, with the gray mane, winch, though he saw also other faces, had not for a moment passed out of his sight during the divine service. Pierre guessed from the cautious motions of those who surrounded the chair that the dying man was being lifted and carried over.

” Hold on to my arm, or you will drop it,” he heard the frightened whisper of one of the servants, “from below — once more,” said the voices, and the heavy breathing and the steps of the people became more hurried, as though the burden which they were carrying were above their strength.

The bearers, among which number was also Anna Mikhaylovna, came in a Une with the young man, and for a moment there appeared to him, behind the backs and heads of the men, the high, fat, open chest, the fat shoulders, which were raised up by the men who were holding him under the armpits, and the gray, curly lion’s head. This head, with the uncommonly broad brow and cheek-bones, the beautiful, sensitive mouth, and majestic and cold glance, was not distorted by the proximity of death. It was just as Pierre had seen it three months before, when the count had sent him to St. Petersburg. But now the head shook helplessly under the uneven steps of the bearers, and its cold, indifferent glance was not directed at anything.

There were a few minutes of confusion at the high bed : the people who had carried over the patient dispersed.

Anna Mikhaylovna touched Pierre’s arm and said to him :

” Venez ! ”

Pierre stepped up with her to the bed, upon which, in festive attire, that apparently had some relation to the sacrament just performed, the patient was deposited. He lay with his head propped up high by pillows. His hands were placed symmetrically with their palms downward on the green silk coverlet.

As Pierre approached him, the count was looking at him, but with that glance, the meaning and purpose of which it is not possible for man to understand. Either this glance meant nothing at all, except that as long as there are eyes one must look, or it said a great deal. Pierre stopped, not knowing what to do, and looked interrogatively at his guide, Anna Mikhdylovna. Anna Mikhaylovna made a hurried gesture with her eyes, pointing to the hand of the patient, and throwing kisses at it with her lips.

Pierre carefully stretched his neck, so as not to catch in the coverlet, and followed her advice, by kissing the broad-boned and fleshy hand. Neither the hand nor a single muscle of the count’s face twitched. Pierre again looked interrogatively at Anna Mikhaylovna, asking her what to do next. Anna Mikhaylovna with her eyes indicated a chair which was standing near the bed. Pierre submissively sat down on the chair, again asking with his eyes whether he had done the right thing. Anna Mikhdylovna gave him an approving nod.

Pierre again assumed the naively symmetrical attitude of an Egyptian statue, apparently embarrassed because his fat, clumsy body occupied such a large space, and using all the powers of his soul in order to appear as small as possible. He was looking at the count. The count was gazing there where Pierre’s face had been when he was standing.

Anna Mikhaylovna showed by her attitude the consciousness of the touching importance of this last minute of the meeting of father and son. It lasted about two minutes, which seemed an hour to Pierre. Suddenly there appeared a convulsion in the large muscles and in the wrinkles of the count’s face. The convulsion grew stronger ; the beautiful mouth was contorted (it was then for the first time that Pierre understood how near death his father was) ; from the twisted mouth there issued a hoarse sound.

Anna Mikhaylovna looked fixedly at the patient’s eyes and, trying to guess what he wanted, pointed now to Pierre, and now to the potion, now naming Prince Vasili with an interrogative inflection of her voice, and now pointing to the coverlet. The patient’s eyes and face expressed impatience. He made an effort, in order to glance at the servant, who did not leave the head of the bed for a moment.

” The count wants to be turned over on the other side,” whispered the servant, getting up in order to turn the count’s heavy body toward the wall.

Pierre got up to help the servant.

As the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back helpless, and he made a vain effort to pull it over. The count must have noticed the glance of terror with which Pierre looked at that lifeless arm, or some other thought must have flashed through his dying head at that moment ; in any case, he looked at his arm which refused obedience, at the expression of terror in Pierre’s face, again at the hand, and on his face there appeared a weak, agonizing smile, which was badly out of keeping with his features, and which expressed, as it were, ridicule at his own impotence. Suddenly, at the sight of this smile, Pierre became conscious of a tremor in his breast, and of a tickling in his nose, and his tears dimmed his vision. The patient was rolled over to the wall. He heaved a sigh.

” Il est assoupi,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, noticing one of the princesses who came to take her place by the bedside. ” Allons ! “

Pierre went out.

XXL

There was no one left in the reception-room but Prince Vasili and the elder princess, who, sitting beneath the portrait of Catherine, were speaking with animation about something. The princess concealed something, as Pierre thought, and whispered :

” I cannot bear that woman ! “

” Catiche a fait donner du thé, dans le petit salon” Prince Vasili said to Anna Mikhaylovna. “Allez, ma pauvre Anna Mikhaylovna, prenez quelque chose, autrement vous ne suffirez pas.”

He said nothing to Pierre, but only feelingly pressed his arm below his shoulder. Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna went into the petit salon.

” H riy a rien qui restaure comme une tasse de cet excellent thé russe après une nuit blanche,” said Lorrain, with an expression of reserved animation, sipping his tea from a thin china cup, without a handle, as he was standing in the small round drawingroom at the table, upon which stood the tea service and a cold lunch. At the table were gathered, to brace themselves, all those who on that evening were at the house of Count Bezukhi. Pierre well remembered that small round drawingroom, with its mirrors and small tables.

When balls were given in the count’s house, Pierre, who could not dance, was fond of sitting in this small mirror-room and watching the ladies, in their ball dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare shoulders, as they, passing through this room, surveyed themselves in the brightly lighted mirrors, which several times repeated their reflections.

Now this room was barely lighted by two candles, and, in the night, on one small table the tea service and the dishes stood in disorder, and all kinds of people, who were not assembled for a fête, sat in the room and whispered with each other, showing by every motion and by every word of theirs that they did not forget what was going on now and was still to happen in the sleeping-room.

Pierre did not eat, though he was very hungry. He looked interrogatively at his guide and saw that she had gone out on tiptoe into the reception-room where Prince Vasili and the elder princess were sitting. Pierre supposed that that was proper too, and, waiting awhile, he followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing near the princess, and they were both talking in an excited whisper.

” Permit me to decide what is right and what not,” said the elder princess, being apparently in that agitated condition in which she was when she slammed the door of her room.

“ But, dear princess,” Anna Mikhaylovna said, humbly and persuasively, barring the princess’s way to the sleeping-room, ” would that not be too hard on poor uncle at such a moment, when he needs rest? At such moments a conversation about worldly matters, when his soul is already prepared — “

Prince Vasili was sitting in an armchair, in his customary attitude, crossing one leg high over the other. His cheeks were twitching nervously, and, hanging down, seemed fatter at the base ; he had the aspect of a man who was little interested in the conversation of the two ladies.

” Voyons, ma bonne Anna Mikhaylovna, laissez faire Caliche ! You know how the count loves her.”

« 1 do not know what there is in this paper,” said the elder princess, turning to Prince Vasili and pointing to the mosaic portfolio which she was holding in her hands. ” All I know is that his real will is locked up in his bureau, and this is some forgotten paper — ”

She wanted to pass by Anna Mikhaylovna, but Anna Mikhaylovna jumped up and again barred her way.

” I know, my dear and good princess,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, laying her hand so firmly on the portfolio that it was evident she would not let it go out of her hand so soon. ” My dear princess, I ask you, I implore you, have pity on him. Je vous en conjure — “

The elder princess was silent. One could hear the sounds of the struggle for the possession of the portfolio. It was apparent that if she was going to say something it would be something very uncomplimentary to Anna Mikhaylovna. Anna Mikhaylovna held on fast to the portfolio, but, in spite of that, her voice retained all its sweet attractiveness and softness.

” Pierre, my dear, come here ! I think be is not a superfluous man in the family counsel Is it not so, prince ? ”

” Why are you silent, mon cousin ? ” the elder princess shouted so loud that she was heard in the drawingroom, where people became frightened at her voice. ” Why are you silent while God knows who is allowing herself to meddle and to make scenes on the threshold of a dying person. She is an intrigante!” she whispered in anger, and jerked the portfolio with all her might, but Anna Mikhaylovna took a few steps in order not to let go of the portfolio, and caught her arm.

” Oh !” said Prince Vasili, in rebuke and surprise. He rose from his seat. ” C’est ridicule. Voyons, let it go, I tell you.”

The princess let the portfolio out of her hands.

” You, too ! ”

Anna Mikhaylovna paid no attention to him.

” Let it go, I tell you ! I take everything upon myself. I will go and ask him. I — is that enough for you ? “

“ Mais, mon prince,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, “after such a great sacrament you ought to give him a moment of rest. Now, Pierre, tell your opinion !” She turned to the young man, who, coming up close to them, looked in surprise at the malicious face of the princess who had lost all her dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasili.

“ Remember, you will be responsible for the consequences,” Prince Vasili said, sternly. “You do not know what you are doing.”

“ Nasty woman ! ” exclaimed the elder princess, unexpectedly rushing up to Anna Mikhaylovna and tearing the portfolio out of her hands.

Prince Vasili lowered his head and waved his hands.

Just then the door, the terrible door, on which Pierre had been looking so long and which had been opened so leisurely, was flung open with a noise, banging against the wall, and the second princess came running out, clasping her hands.

“ What are you doing ? ” she exclaimed, in despair. ” II den va et vous me laissez seule!

The elder princess dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna lurched forward and, grasping the object of dispute, ran with it into the sleeping-room. The elder princess and Prince Vasili, coming to their senses, went after her. A few minutes later the elder princess was the first to come back ; her face looked pale and haggard, and her lower lip was bitten. At the sight of Pierre, her face expressed irrepressible anger.

“ Rejoice now,” she said, “ that is what you have been waiting for.” And, bursting out into tears, she covered her face with her handkerchief, and ran out of the room.

Next came Prince Vasili. He tottered, and, reaching the sofa on which Pierre was sitting, fell down upon it, covering his eyes with his hand. Pierre noticed that he was pale, and that his lower jaw kept shaking, as in an ague.

“ Ah, my friend ! ” he said, taking Pierre’s elbow. In his voice there was sincerity and weakness, which Pierre had never before observed in him. “ How much we sin, how much we deceive, and for what ? I am going on sixty, my friend — I — Everything will end in death. Death is terrible.”

He burst out into tears.

Anna Mikhdylovna was the last to come out. She walked over to Pierre with slow, deliberate steps.

“ Pierre ! ” she said.

Pierre looked interrogatively at her. She kissed the young man’s brow, wetting him with her tears. She was silent for a moment.

” Il riest plus — ”

Pierre looked at her above his glasses.

“ Allons, je vous reconduirai. Tâchez de pleurer. Rien ne soulage comme les larmes.”

She led him into the dark drawingroom, and Pierre was glad that no one could see his face. Anna Mikhaylovna went away from him, and when she returned she found him asleep, with his head on his arm.

On the next morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre :

“ Yes, my friend, that is a great loss for all of us, not merely for you. But God will brace you ; you are young and now, I hope, the possessor of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well enough to know that that will not turn your head, but it imposes certain duties on you, and you must be manly.”

Pierre was silent.

“ Maybe later I will tell you, my dear, how, if I had not been there, God knows what would have happened. You know my uncle promised me the other day not to forget Boris, but he has not been able to keep his promise. I hope, my dear friend, that you will fulfil your father’s wish.”

Pierre did not understand a thing, and, blushing timidly, looked in silence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. Having had her talk with Pierre, Anna Mikhaylovna went back to the Rostdvs and lay down to sleep. When she awoke in the morning, she told the Bostdvs and all her acquaintances the details of the death of Count Bezukhi. She said that the count had died as she would wish herself to die ; that his end was not only touching, but even edifying ; that the last meeting of father and son had been so pathetic that she could not recall it without tears ; and that she hardly knew who acted better in those terrible minutes, — the father, who remembered everything and everybody in those last minutes, or Pierre, on whom it was a pity to look, for he was so crushed and yet tried to conceal his grief in order not to grieve his dying father.

“ C’est pénible, mais cela fait du bien ; ça élève Vâme de voir des hommes comme le vieux comte et son digne fils,” she said.

She also told disapprovingly, but under great secrecy and in a whisper, of the acts of the princess and of Prince Vasili.

XXII.

In Lÿsyya Gdry, the estate of Prince Nikolay Andreevich Bolkonski, they were daily expecting the arrival of the young Prince Andréy and the princess ; but the expectation did not disturb the harmonious order of life in the house of the old prince. The general-in-chief, Prince Nikolay Andréevich, nicknamed ” le roi de Prusse ” in society, had been living uninterruptedly at Lÿsyya Gory with his daughter, Princess Marie, and her companion, Mlle. Bourienne, ever since he had been exiled to his village by Emperor Paul. During the new reign he had been granted permission to return to the capital, but he continued to live uninterruptedly at Lÿsyya Gory, saying that if anybody needed him, he would not mind driving 150 versts from Moscow to Lÿsyya Gory, but that he himself was not in need of anybody.

He used to say that there were only two sources of human vices, — idleness and superstition, and that there were but two virtues, — activity and intelligence. He himself looked after the education of his daughter, and, in order to develop in her the two chief virtues, gave her lessons in algebra and geometry up to her twentieth year, and mapped out all her life in uninterrupted occupations. He himself was all the time busy writing his memoirs, or solving problems in higher mathematics, or turning snuffboxes on the lathe, or working in the garden and watching the progress of buildings that were going up all the time on his estate. Since the chief condition for activity is regularity, regularity was carried to the highest degree of exactness in his manner of life. His appearances at the table took place invariably under the same conditions, and not only at a given hour, but even at a given minute.

To the people who surrounded him, from his daughter down to the servants, the prince was harsh and extremely exacting, and, as he was not cruel, he elicited fear and respect, such as the most cruel man could never have obtained.

Although he was now out of service, and was of no importance in matters of state, every chief of the Government, where the estate of the prince was, regarded it as his duty to call on him. On these occasions, like any architect, or gardener, or like the prince’s daughter Marya, he would have to wait for the appointed hour when the prince made his appearance in the high-studded ” officiating” room. Everybody experienced in that officiating-room the same feeling of respect, and even fear, when the enormously tall door of the cabinet opened and there appeared, in a powdered wig, the small figure of the old man, with his small, lean hands, and gray, arching eyebrows, which at times, when he frowned, concealed the splendour of his bright eyes, that shone as though they were still young.

On the day of the arrival of the young pair, Princess Marya in the morning, as usual, came during her study hour to the officiating-room to bring her morning greeting. She made the signs of the cross in dread and inwardly pronounced some prayers. Every day she entered there with a prayer that her daily meeting might pass without an accident.

An old servant, in powdered wig, who was sitting in the officiating-room, rose with a soft motion, and said in a whisper, “If you please.”

Behind the door could be heard the even sound of a turning lathe. The princess timidly pressed the handle of the door that opened smoothly and easily, and stopped in the entrance. The prince was working at the lathe, and, looking back, continued to work.

The enormous cabinet was filled with things which, evidently, were in constant use. The large table, on which lay books and plans ; the tall glass book-safes, with keys in the doors ; the high table for writing in a standing posture, on which lay an open note-book ; the turning lathe, with the shavings lying all around, — everything testified to constant, varied, and orderly activity. In the motion of the small foot, which was clad in a silver-embroidered Tartar boot, in the firm pressure of the muscular, lean hand, could be seen the persistent and much-enduring strength of vigorous old age. Having turned a few circles, he took his foot off the pedal of the lathe, wiped off the turning gouge, which he threw into a leather bag attached to the lathe, and, walking over to the table, called up his daughter. He never pronounced a benediction upon his children, and so he now only offered her his bristly, unshaven cheek and said sternly, and at the same time tenderly and attentively surveying her:

” Are you well ? Then sit down ! “

He took the geometry note-book, written by himself, and with his foot moved up a chair.

“For tomorrow!” he said, rapidly finding the page and marking it from paragraph to paragraph with his rough nail.

The princess bent down over the note-book on the table.

“ Hold on, there is a letter for you,” suddenly said the old man, taking out of the pocket, which was hanging over the table, a letter written in a feminine hand, and throwing it on the table.

The face of the princess was covered with red spots at the sight of that letter. She took it hurriedly and bent down to it.

“From Héloise?” «asked the prince, displaying his sound yellowish teeth in a smile.

“ Yes, from Julie,” said the princess, looking up and smiling timidly.

” I will let pass two more letters, but the third I will read,” the prince said, sternly. ” I am afraid you are writing too much nonsense to each other. The third I will read.”

” You may read this one, mon père ,” replied the princess, blushing even more and handing him the letter.

” The third I said, the third,” the prince cried, abruptly, pushing away the letter, and, leaning on the table, he took down the note-book with the geometrical figures.

” Well, my lady,” began the old man, bending down over his daughter’s note-book and placing one arm on the back of the chair on which the princess was sitting, so that the princess felt herself on all sides surrounded by that pungent odour of tobacco and of old age, which she knew so welL ” Well, my lady, these triangles are similar ; you may see that the angle ABC — “

The princess looked in fright at the eyes of the father, which were gleaming near by ; she blushed in spots, and it was evident that she did not understand anything and that she was afraid that fear would keep her from comprehending all the further explanations of her father, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher’s fault or the pupil’s, — each day one and the same thing was repeated : the eyes of the princess grew dim and she could not see nor hear anything ; she only felt the proximity of the lean face of her stern father, she felt his breath and was conscious of his odour, and thought all the time of how to get away as soon as possible from the cabinet and go to her freer apartments, where the problems would become clear to her. The old man lost his patience. He moved the chair on which he was sitting, with a rattling noise, made efforts over himself to keep from becoming excited, and nearly always grew angry, scolded, and sometimes flung the note-book on the floor.

The princess made a mistake in her answer.

” What a silly girl ! ” shouted the prince, pushing away the note-book and swiftly turning away. He immediately got up, took several steps, touched the princess’s hair with his hand, and again sat down. He moved up to her and continued his explanations.

” That won’t do, princess, that won’t do,” he said, as the princess, taking the note-book with the new lesson, was getting ready to leave. ” Mathematics is a great thing, my lady. I do not want you to be like our stupid young ladies. You will like it when you know it better.” He tapped her cheek with his hand. ” It will knock all stupidity out of your head.”

She was on the point of leaving, but he beckoned her to stay and took down a new, uncut book from the high table.

” Here is some ‘ Key of Mystery ’ which your Héloise is sending you. It is religious. I do not interfere with anybody’s faith. Have looked it through. Take it ! Well, you may go ! ”

He tapped her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.

Princess Marya returned to her room with a sad, frightened expression which rarely left her and made her homely, sick face look more homely still, and seated herself at her writing-desk, which was covered with miniature portraits and note-books and printed books. The princess was as disorderly as her father was orderly. She put down her geometry note-book and impatiently broke the seal of the letter. The letter was from the closest friend of her childhood ; that friend was the same Julie Karägin who had been present at the nameday party of the Rostovs.

Julie wrote in French, as follows:

« My dear and precious Friend : — What a terrible and appalling thing separation is ! However much I repeat to myself that half of my existence and of my happiness is in you, that, in spite of the distance which separates us, our hearts are united by indissoluble ties, my heart revolts against destiny, and I am unable, in spite of the pleasures and the distractions which surround me, to overcome a certain hidden sadness which I have experienced in the bottom of my heart ever since our separation. Why are we not united as we were that summer in your large cabinet, on the blue sofa, — the ‘ confidential ’ sofa ? Why can I not, as I did three months ago, draw new moral forces from your sweet, calm, and piercing glance, — a glance which I loved so much, and which I imagine I see before me while writing to you ? ”

Having read up to that point, Princess Marya sighed and looked at the pier-glass which stood to the right of her. The mirror reflected a homely, feeble body and a lean face. Her ever sad eyes now looked with especial hopelessness at herself in the mirror.

« She is flattering me,” thought the princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie was not flattering her friend : the princess’s large, blue, and beaming eyes (as though beams of warm light now and then came out in sheaves from them) were so beautiful that often these eyes, notwithstanding the general homeliness of her face, became more attractive than beauty. But the princess never had seen the kindly expression of her eyes, that expression which they assumed in the moments when she did not think of herself. As with all people, her face assumed a strained and unnatural, a bad, expression whenever she looked at herself in the looking-glass.

She continued to read :

” All Moscow speaks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already abroad ; the other is with the Guards, who will soon start for the frontier. Our dear emperor has left St. Petersburg and, so they say, intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant that the monstrous Corsican, who is destroying the peace of Europe, should be dethroned by the angel whom the Almighty, in His mercy, has given us for a sovereign.’ Not to mention my brothers, this, war has deprived me of one of the relations which is dearest to my heart. I have in mind Nikolay Bostdv, who, with his enthusiasm, has not been able to endure inaction, and has left the university in order to join the army. Well, my dear Marie, I will confess to you that, notwithstanding his extreme youth, his departure for the army has been a great sorrow to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you last summer, has so much nobility, so much real youth, which is so rarely found in our age among our old men of twenty years ! He has, above all, so much frankness and so much heart ! He is so pure and poetical that my relations with him, however fleeting, have been to me one of the sweetest enjoyments of my poor heart, which has already suffered so much ! I will some day tell you about our parting and everything that was then said. All that is still too fresh— Ah, my dear friend, you are fortunate not to know all these poignant enjoyments and poignant griefs ! You are fortunate, because the latter are generally the stronger ! I know too well that Count Nikolay is too young ever to be anything more than a friend of mine, but that sweet friendship, those poetical and pure relations, have been a necessity of my soul. But let us not speak of them again !

“The great news of the day, which occupies all of Moscow, is the death of the old Count Bezukhi and his legacy. Just think of it ! The three princesses have received very little, Prince Vasili nothing, while Mr. Pierre has inherited everything. He has, besides, been declared his legitimate son, and thus Count Bezukhi is the possessor of one of the biggest fortunes in Russia. It is rumoured that Prince Vasili has played a very villainous part in this whole matter, and that he left for St. Petersburg in disgrace. 1 must confess that I understand very little about all these legacies and wills ; all 1 know is that ever since the young man, whom we all knew simply under the name of Mr. Pierre, has become Count Bezukhi and the possessor of one of the finest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to observe the change of tone and of manners of all the mammas who are burdened with marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves in respect to this individual who, in parenthesis be it said, has always appeared very insignificant to me. Since they have been amusing themselves for two years in giving me as fiancé young men whom I do not even know, the matrimonial chronicle of Moscow now makes me out a Countess Bezukhi. But, of course, you understand I am not anxious to be it.

” While on the point of marriages, do you know, the universal aunty Anna Mikhaylovna, has lately, under the seal of great secrecy, confided to me a plan of marriage for you. It is nothing more nor less than Anatol, the son of Prince Vasili, whom they want to provide for by getting him married to a rich and distinguished person, and the parents’ choice has fallen upon you. I do not know how you will take the matter, but I have thought it my duty to inform you of it. They say that he is very handsome, and a profligate ; that is all I have learned about him.

” But enough of prattling. I have finished my second sheet, and mamma has sent for me to go to dinner with her to the Apraksins.

” Read the mystic book which I send you and which is having enormous success here. Though there are things in it which are hard for a feeble human mind to comprehend, it is, nevertheless, an admirable book, the reading of which calms and elevates the soul. Goodbye ! My regards to your father, and my compliments to Mlle. Bourienne. I embrace you with all my heart.

«Julie.

” P. 8. Write to me about your brother and his charming little wife.”

The princess thought awhile, smiling thoughtfully (during which her face, lighted up by her beaming eyes, was completely transformed), and, rising suddenly and stepping heavily, she walked over to the table. She took some paper, and her hand soon passed rapidly over it. She wrote to her in French, as follows :

” My dear and precious Friend : — Your letter of the 13th has caused me much pleasure. You still love me, my poetical Julie. The separation, of which you speak so ill, has not had its customary influence upon you. You are complaining of the separation, — what should I say, if I dared to complain, I who am deprived of all those who are dear to me ? Ah, if we did not have religion to console us, life would be very sad ! Why do you suppose that I shall cast a severe glance when you speak to me of your affection for the young man ? On that point I am strict only with myself. I comprehend these sentiments in others, and if, having never exj)erienced them, I am unable to approve of them, I do not condemn them. But it seems to me that Christian charity, the love of your neighbour, the love of your enemies, is more meritorious, more sweet and beautiful, than the sentiments with which the beautiful eyes of a young man can inspire a poetical and loving girl, such as you are.

” The news about the death of Count Bezukhi has reached us before your letter arrived, and my father has been very much affected by it. He says that he was one but the last representative of the great century, and that now his turn has come, but that he will do his utmost to make that time come as late as possible. May God preserve us from that terrible misfortune !

” I cannot share your opinion in respect to Pierre, whom I used to know when a child. He always seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is a quality which 1 esteem most in people. As to his inheritance and the part which Prince Vasili has played in it, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, the words of our divine Saviour, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, are terribly true ; I am sorry for Prince Vasili, and still more so for Pierre. Being so young and so burdened by his wealth, he will have to withstand many a temptation. If I were asked what I should like best in the world, it would be to be poorer than the poorest of mendicants.

” A thousand thanks for the book which you are sending me and which has produced such a sensation with you. However, since you tell me that amidst many good things there are in it some that feeble human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me useless to busy myself with the reading of something unintelligible which for that very reason cannot be profitable. I have never been able to understand the passion which certain persons possess of muddling their reason by attaching themselves to mystic books which only raise doubts in their minds by exalting their imagination and giving them a character of exaggeration, which is quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us read the Apostles and the Gospel ! Let us not try to penetrate whatever mystery there is in these books, for how should we, miserable sinners that we are, dare to wish to be initiated in the terrible and holy mysteries of Providence so long as we bear that carnal shell which raises an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal One ? Let us limit ourselves to the study of the sublime principles which our divine Saviour has given us for our earthly conduct ; let us try to conform ourselves to them and to follow them, and let us be convinced that the less liberty we give to our feeble human understanding, the more agreeable it is to God, who rejects all knowledge which does not proceed from Him ; that the less we endeavour to brood over that which it has pleased Him to hide from our view, the sooner will He reveal it to us, through His divine Spirit.

“ My father has not told me anything about a fiancé ; he only told me that he received a letter, and that he expected a visit from Prince Vasili. As to the prospective marriage for me, I must tell you, my dear and excellent friend, that marriage is in my opinion a divine institution to which we must conform ourselves. However painful it may be for me, if the Almighty ever imposes upon me the duties of wife and mother, 1 shall try to fulfil them as faithfully as I can, without troubling myself to examine my sentiments in regard to him whom He will give me for a husband.

” I have received a letter from my brother, who informs me of his intention of coming to Lÿsyya Gory with his wife. It will be only a short-lived joy, for he will leave us in order to take part in that unfortunate war into which we are drawn God knows how or why. Not only in your city, in the centre of affairs and of the world, do they speak of nothing but war ; even here, amidst the labours of the field and the calm of Nature, which city people generally imagine in the country, the echo of war is heard and painfully felt. My father speaks of nothing but marches and countermarches, of which I understand nothing ; and the day before yesterday, while taking my customary walk through the village street, I was a witness to a heartrending scene. It was a party of recruits enlisted in our village and on the way to the army. You ought to have seen the state iu which were the mothers, the wives, the children of the men who were departing, and to have heard the sobs of either ! One might have thought that humanity had forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, who taught us to love each other and to forgive our neighbours’ offences, and that it found its greatest merit in the art of killing each other off.

” Adieu, my good and dear friend ! May our divine Saviour and His Most Holy Mother keep you under Their holy and powerful protection.

” Marie.”

” Ah, vous expédiez le courrier, princesse ! Moi j’ai déjà expédié le mien. J’ai écris à ma pauvre mère,” said smiling Mlle. Bourienne, in her rapid, agreeable, sonorous little voice, and with a strong guttural pronunciation of her rs. She brought into the concentrated, sad, and gloomy atmosphere of Princess Marie an entirely different, frivolously merry, and self-satisfied world.

” Princesse, il faut que je vous prévienne,” she added, lowering her voice, ” le prince a eu une altercation, altercation” she said, in her strong guttural voice, and taking pleasure in hearing herself speak, a une altercation avec Michel Ivanoff. Il est de très mauvaise humeur, très morose. Soyez prévenue, vous savez — ”

” Ah, chère amie” replied Princess Märya, “je vous ai priée de ne jamais me prévenir de l’humeur dans laquelle se trouve mon père. Je ne me permets pas le juger, et je ne voudrais pas que les autres le fassent.”

The princess looked at the clock, and, upon noticing that she had wasted five minutes which she was to have used in playing on the clavichord, she with a frightened face went to the sofaroom. Between twelve and two o’clock, the prince, following his regular order of the day, took a nap, and the princess played the clavichord.

XXIII.

The grayhaired valet was sitting and listening through his drowsiness to the snoring of the prince in the immense cabinet. In a remote part of the house, behind closed doors, difficult passages from a sonata by Dussek were being repeated for the twentieth time.

Just then a coach and a calash drove up to the entrance, and from the coach stepped Prince Andréy, who took out his little wife and made her precede him. Grayhaired Tikhon, in his wig, stuck his head out of the door of the officiating-room and informed him that the prince was resting, and hurriedly closed the door. Tikhon knew that neither the arrival of his son nor any other unusual occurrences were permitted to disturb the order of the day. Prince Andréy apparently knew that just as well as Tikhon ; he looked at his watch, as though to ascertain whether the habits of his father had changed during the time in which he had not seen him, and, upon having convinced himself that they had not changed, he addressed his wife :

” He will be up in twenty minutes. Let us go to the princess,” he said.

The little princess had grown stouter during that time, but her eyes and her short, down-covered Bp and her smile were as sweet and merry as ever.

“Mais c’est un palais” she said to her husband, looking around her with the expression with which one praises the host at a ball. ” Allons, vite ! “

She looked about her, and smiled at Tikhon, and at her husband, and at the lackey who was accompanying them.

” O’ est Marie qui s’exerce ? Allons doucement, il faut la surprendre.”

Prince Andréy followed her with a polite and sad expression on his face.

” You have grown older, Tikhon,” he said, in passing, to the old man who was kissing his hand.

As they reached the room in which they could hear the sounds of the clavichord, the pretty, blond Frenchwoman leaped out from a side door. Mlle. Bourienne seemed to be beside herself with enthusiasm.

” Ah, quel bonheur pour la princesse,” she said. “Enfin, il faut que je la prévienne.”

” Non, de grâce — Vous êtes Mlle. Bourienne, je vous connais déjà par Vamitié que vous porte ma belle sœur” said the princess, kissing the Frenchwoman. “Elle ne nous attend pas ? ”

They went up to the door of the sofaroom, from which could be heard the same passage repeated for the twentieth time. Prince Andrey stopped and frowned, as though expecting something disagreeable.

The princess entered. The passage broke in the middle ; there were heard a shout, the heavy steps of Princess Marya, and the sound of kisses. When Prince Andréy entered, the two women, who had only met once for a short time at the wedding of Prince Andréy, were embracing each other and pressing their lips hard on any spot they happened to fall upon. Mlle. Bourienne was standing near them, pressing her hand on her heart and smiling a pious smile, being evidently as ready to burst out into tears as into a laugh.

Prince Andréy shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as frown lovers of music when they hear a false note.

The two women dropped each other ; then, as though fearing to be late, they again grasped each other’s hands, began to kiss and pull away their hands, then once more began to kiss each other’s faces and, quite unexpectedly to Prince Andréy, they both began to weep and again to kiss each other. Mlle. Bourienne, too, started to cry. Prince Andréy obviously felt uncomfortable ; but to the two women it seemed quite natural to weep ; it seemed as though they could not even imagine this meeting without tears.

“ Ah, chère ! — Ah, Marie ! ” suddenly said both women bursting out into a laugh.

” J’ai rêvé cette nuit — ”

” Vous ne nous attendiez donc pas ? Ah, Marie, vous avez maigri — ”

” Et vous avez repris — ”

“ J’ai tout le suite reconnu madame la princesse,” interposed Mlle. Bourienne.

” Et moi qui ne me doutais pas ! ” exclaimed Princess Marya. ” Ah, André, je ne vous voyais pas.”

Prince Andréy embraced his sister and kissed her, saying that she was the same blubberer she had always been. Princess Marya turned to her brother, and the warm, meek, and loving glance of her just then beautiful, large, beaming eyes was directed, through tears, at the face of Prince Andréy. Andréy’s wife spoke without cessation. Her short upper lip with the down kept falling and touching her ruby lower lip wherever it was necessary, and again was there revealed a smile, whereat her teeth and eyes sparkled.

The princess was telling them of an accident they had on Spasskaya Hill, which might have ended badly for her in her condition, and immediately afterward informed them that she had left all her dresses in St. Petersburg, and that she would have to dress here God knows how, and that Andréy was altogether changed, and that Kitty Odÿntsev had married an old man, and that there was a fiancé for Princess Mérya pour tout de bon, but ” of that we will speak later.”

Princess Märya kept looking silently at her brother, and in her beautiful eyes there was an expression of love and sadness. It was evident that she was interested in her thoughts, independently from what her sister-in-law was telling. In the middle of a story about the last fête in St. Petersburg, she turned to her brother :

” And so you are positively going to the war, André ?” she said, with a sigh.

Lise shuddered.

” Yes, tomorrow,” replied her brother.

” II m’abandonne ici, et Dieu sait pour quoi, quand il aurait pu avoir de Vavancement — “

Princess Marya did not hear the end of what she said, and, continuing the thread of her thoughts, turned to her sister-in-law, glancing with her kindly eyes at her abdomen.

“Is it sure ?” she said.

The face of the little princess changed. She sighed.

“ Yes, it is,” she said. ” Ah, that is very terrible — “

Liza’s upper lip fell. She put her face to that of her sister-in-law and suddenly burst out weeping again.

” She needs a rest,” Prince Andréy said, frowning. ” Is it not so, Liza ? Take her to your room, and I will go to father. How is he ? Still the same ? “

“ The same as ever, — I do not know how he will appear to you,” the princess replied, joyfully.

“ The same hours, and the walk down the avenue ? The turning lathe ? ” Prince Andréy asked, with a scarcely perceptible smile, which showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he fully understood his foibles.

“The same hours and the same lathe, and then his mathematics and my geometry lessons,” joyfully replied Princess Marya, as though her geometry lessons constituted one of the most joyous impressions of her life.

When the twenty minutes had passed, which were still lacking to the rising of the old prince from his nap, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father. The old man made an exception in his manner of life, in honour of his son’s arrival : he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he was dressing for dinner. The prince was dressed as of old, in a caftan and powdered wig. When Prince Andréy (not with that careless expression in his face and in his manners, which he assumed in the drawingrooms, but with that animated countenance which he had displayed in his conversation with Pierre) came in to see his father, the old man was sitting in his toilet-room on a broad, morocco-covered armchair, with a powder mantle around him, leaving his head in Tikhon’s hands.

“ Ah ! Warrior ! So you want to vanquish Bonaparte ? ” said the old man, shaking his powdered head, so far as the braid, which was in Tikhon’s hands, permitted him to do so.

“ Go for him in proper fashion, or else, you see, he will enter us as his subjects. Good day, son ! “

He offered him his cheek.

The old man was in a good humour after his prepran-dial sleep. (He used to say that a nap after dinner was of silver, and before dinner of gold.) He looked joyfully askance at his son from under his thick, arching brows. Prince Andréy walked over to his father, and kissed him in the spot indicated on his cheek. He made no reply to his father’s favourite conversation, which consisted in making light of the military men of the day, and especially of Bonaparte.

“ Us, I have come here, my father, with my wife, who is pregnant,” said Prince Andréy, with an animated and respectful glance watching the movements of every feature on the face of his father. “ How is your health ? “

“ Ill, my friend, are only fools and debauchees, but you know me : I am busy from morning until evening, I am temperate, and so — well.”

“ Thank God,” said his son, smiling.

” God has nothing to do with that. Well, tell me,” he continued, returning to his favourite hobby, “ how the Germans have taught you to fight with Bonaparte according to your science, yclept strategy.”

Prince Andréy smiled.

” Give me a chance to collect my senses, father,” he said, with a smile, which showed that his father’s foibles did not prevent his respecting and loving him. “ I have not even had time to find a room for myself.”

” Nonsense, nonsense,” cried the old man, tossing his head in order to see whether the braid was properly plaited, and taking his son by his hand. ” The house is ready for your wife. Princess Marya will take her there, and they will talk three baskets full. That is what women do. I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. I understand Mikhelson’s army, and Tolstoy’s too — a simultaneous attack — What will the army of the South do ? Prussia, neutrality — I know all that. What about Austria ? ” he said, getting up from his chair and walking through the room, while Tikhon kept running after him and handing him parts of his apparel. ” What about Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?”

Seeing the insistence of his father, Prince Andréy, at first unwillingly, and then getting ever more animated and instinctively passing during the recital from the Russian language to the French, as was his habit, began to expound to him the plan of the operations of the coming campaign. He told him how an army of ninety thousand men was to threaten Prussia, in order to get her out of her neutrality and draw her into the war ; how part of this army was at Stralsund to unite with the Swedish army; how 220,000 Austrians, in conjunction with one hundred thousand Russians, were to act in Italy and on the Rhine ; and how fifty thousand Russians and fifty thousand English soldiers were to land at Naples ; and how, taken all together, an army of five hundred thousand men was to attack the French from all sides.

The old prince did not express the slightest interest during the whole recital, as though he did not hear it, and, continuing to walk and to dress himself, he three times interrupted him. Once he stopped and cried out : ” The white one ! The white one ! ”

That meant that Tikhon had not handed him the right waistcoat. He stopped a second time and asked : “ How long before she is to have a baby ? ” and shaking his head in rebuke, he said : ” It is not good ! Proceed ! ”

The third time, when Andréy finished a description, the old man sang out, in an old man’s falsetto voice : ” Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra

His son only smiled.

” I cannot say that it is a plan which I approve of,” said his son, ” I have only been telling you how matters stand. Napoleon has already formed a plan which is not worse than this one.”

” Well, you have told me nothing new.” The old man thoughtfully and hurriedly repeated : ” Dieu sait quand, reviendra.”

“ Go to the dining-room ! “

XXIV.

At the appointed hour, the prince came, powdered and shaved, to the dining-room, where there were waiting for him his daughter-in-law, Princess Marya, Mlle. Bourienne, and the prince’s architect, who was admitted to table through a strange whim of the prince, although this man, who from his position was an insignificant man, had no reason to expect such an honour. The prince, who in life held strictly to the separation of the various classes of society, and who rarely admitted to table even important officials of the Government, suddenly tried to prove in the person of his architect, Mikhail Ivänovich, who cleared his nose in the corner in a checkered handkerchief, that all men were equal, and he more than once impressed upon his daughter that Mikhail Ivanovich was no whit worse than she or he himself. At table the prince very frequently addressed speechless Mikhail Ivanovich.

In the dining-room, which was as immensely high as all the other rooms of the house, the members of the family and the lackeys, who were standing behind each chair, were waiting for the appearance of the prince; the majordomo, with a napkin on his arm, surveyed the table service, beckoning to the lackeys, and constantly passing his restless glance from the wall clock to the door, through which the prince was to arrive.

Prince Audrey was examining an immense gilt-framed representation of the genealogical tree of the Bolkdnskis, which was hanging opposite another similar immense frame with a daub, apparently made by the hand of a domestic painter and representing a sovereign prince wearing a crown, who was supposed to be descended from Pturik and to be the ancestor of the race of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andréy looked at this unfamiliar genealogical tree, shaking his head and laughing with that peculiar look which one has when looking at a ridiculous portrait.

” How I recognize him in all that ! ” he said to Princess Märya, who had walked over to him.

Princess Marya looked in surprise at her brother. She could not understand what he was smiling at. Everything her father did roused in her a profound respect which was not subject to criticism.

” Everybody has his Achilles’ heel,” continued Prince Andréy. ” With his immense brain to donner dans ce ridicule ! ”

Princess Mârya could not understand the boldness of her brother’s condemnation, and was getting ready to reply to him, when the expected steps were heard in the cabinet ; the prince entered with a rapid and merry step, as he always did, as it were, purposely presenting with his hasty manners the opposite of the austere order of the house. At the same moment the large clock struck two, and another clock, with a thinner voice, followed this one in the drawingroom. The prince stopped ; Iris animated, glistening, stern eyes, peeping out underneath the overhanging, thick brows, surveyed all present and stopped on the young princess. She then experienced a sensation such as the members of the court experience at the appearance of the emperor, — that feeling of terror and respect, which that old man inspired in all who surrounded him. He stroked the princess’s head and then with an awkward motion tapped her on the nape of her neck.

“ I am glad, I am glad ‘ ” he said, and, looking once more fixedly into her eyes, he walked away with a rapid step and sat down in his chair. ” Sit down ! Sit down ! Mikhail Ivanovich, sit down ! “

Ile indicated a place near him for his daughter-in-law. A lackey moved the chair away for her.

” Ho, ho ! ” said the old man, surveying her enlarged waist. ” You have been in a hurry, — it is not good !”

He laughed dryly, coldly, disagreeably, as he always laughed, with his mouth only, and not with his eyes.

” You must walk, walk, as much as possible,” he said.

The little princess did not hear, or did not want to hear his words. She was silent and seemed to be embarrassed. The prince asked her about her father, and the princess answered and smiled. He asked her about common acquaintances: the princess became even more enlivened and began to talk more freely, telling the city gossip and mentioning those who had sent their regards to him.

” La Comtesse Apraksine, la pauvre, a perdu son mari, et elle a pleuré les larmes de ses yeux,” she said, becoming ever more animated.

The livelier she became, the more sternly the old man looked at her. He suddenly turned away from her, as though he had sufficiently studied her and had formed a clear idea of her, and addressed Mikhail Ivdnovich.

” Well, Mikhail Ivanovich, our Buonaparte is having a hard time. My son Andréy ” (he always spoke of his son in the third person) ” has told me there is a host gathered against him ! And you and I have been regarding him as a worthless man.

” He is a great tactician ! ” the prince said to his son, pointing to the architect, and the conversation again turned to the war, to Bonaparte, and to the contemporary generals and statesmen. The old man seemed to be convinced that all the important men of the day were mere boys who did not know as much as the ABC of military and state affairs, and that Bonaparte was a worthless Frenchman, who was successful only because there were no Potémkins and no Suvdrovs for him to meet ; he was also convinced that there were no political complications in Europe and no war, but some kind of a puppet-show, in which the men of the time were taking part, pretending that they were doing something important. Prince Andréy cheerfully endured his father’s ridiculing his contemporaries, and took special pleasure in inviting his father to talk, and listened to what he bad to say.

“ Everything that was formerly looks so nice,” he said. “ And was not that same Suvorov caught in the trap which Moreau had placed for him, •vyithout knowing how to get out of it ? “

” Who told you that ? Who ? ” shouted the prince. “ Suvorov ! ” and he brushed aside the plate which Tikhon caught nimbly. ” Suvdrov ! — Make a note of it, Prince Andréy: there were two, — Frederick and Suvorov — Moreau ! Moreau would have been made a captive, if Suvorov’s hands had been free ; instead he bad on his hand a Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnaps-rath. The devil would have hated that. When you go out, you will find out what these Hofs-kriegs-wurst-raths are like ! Suvorov was not able to get along with them. How, then, will Mikhail Kutuzov manage them ? No, my friend,” he continued, ” you will not avail against Bonaparte with your generals. You will have to get Frenchmen to fight the French. They have already sent the German Pahlen to New York, into America, to get Moreau,” he said, hinting at the invitation which had been sent out that year to Moreau, asking him to enter the Russian service. ” How strange ! Well, were Potémkin, Suvorov, and Orlov Germans? No, my friend, either you over there have lost your minds, or I have lost mine. God protect you, and we shall see. Bonaparte has suddenly become a great general among them ! Hem — “

” I do not say that all the dispositions that have been made are good,” said Prince Andréy ; ” but I cannot understand how you can judge in such a way about Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as you please, but Bonaparte is all the same a great general ! “

” Alikhail Ivanovich ! ” the old prince shouted to the architect, who, being busy with his roast, had hoped that he had been forgotten. ” Did I tell you that Bonaparte was a great general ? He says so himself.”

” Certainly, your Serenity,” replied the architect.

The prince again laughed his cold laugh.

“ Bonaparte was borne in a caul. He has excellent soldiers, and the Germans were the first whom he attacked. Only a lazy man could fail in coping with the Germans. Ever since the world has existed, the Germans have been beaten, while they never have beaten anybody but each other. He has made his reputation on them.”

The prince began to elucidate all the blunders which, in his opinion, Bonaparte had made in all his wars and even in matters of state. His son did not retort, but it was evident that, no matter what proof was adduced, he held as stubbornly to his opinion as the old prince did to his. Prince Andréy listened, refraining from replies, and involuntarily marvelling how that old man, who for so many years had not once left his estate, was able with such detail and clearness to judge all the military and political conditions of Europe for the last few years.

” You think that I am an old man and do not understand the real state of affairs,” he concluded. ” But it disturbs me : I lie awake nights over it. Tell me, where is it that your great general has shown himself ?”

” That would be a long story,” he answered.

” Go, then, to your Buonaparte. Mlle. Bourienne, voilà encore un admirateur de votre goujat d’empereur” he exclaimed, in excellent French.

” Vous savez que je ne suis pas bonapartiste, mon prince.”

” Dieu, sait quand reviendra” sang the prince in false voice ; he laughed even more unnaturally and left the table.

The little princess was silent during all the time the discussion lasted and during the rest of the dinner, looking in fright now at Princess Marya, now at her father-in-law. When they left the table, she took the arm of her sister-in-law and called her into another room.

” Comme c’est un homme d’esprit que votre père” she said. ” C’est à cause de cela peut-être qu’il me fait peur”

” Oh, he is so good ! ” said the princess.

XXV.

Prince Andréy was to leave on the following evening. The old prince did not depart from his regular order, and retired to his room after dinner. The little princess was with her sister-in-law. Prince Andréy, dressed in his travelling uniform without epaulettes, was arranging things in the rooms set aside for him, with the aid of a valet. He personally examined the carriage and watched the placing of the portmanteaus, and then ordered to hitch up. In the room only those things were left which the prince always took with him : a small casket, a large silver lunch-basket, and two Turkish pistols and a sabre, a present from his father which he had brought with him from Ochâkov. All these travelling appurtenances were beautifully arranged by Prince Andréy : everything was new, clean, in cloth covers, carefully tied with little ribbons.

In the moments of departure and of change of life, a serious mood generally comes over people who are able to reflect over their acts. In such minutes the past is generally gone over, and plans are made for the future. The face of Prince Andréy was very thoughtful and tender. He placed his hands behind his back and rapidly paced in his room from corner to corner, looking in front of him and thoughtfully shaking his head. He was either terrified at the thought of going to the war, or he felt so sad about abandoning his wife,— maybe both ; but, evidently, not wishing to be seen in such a position, he, upon hearing steps in the vestibule, rapidly freed his hands, stopped at the table, as though tying the covering on the casket, and assumed his usual quiet and impenetrable mien. Those were the heavy steps of Princess Märya.

” I was told that you have ordered the carriage to be got ready,”,she said, out of breath (evidently she had been running), ” but I should like so much to have a private talk with you. God knows for how long we shall be separated again. You are not angry that I have come, are you ? You have changed very much, Andryusha,” she added, as though in reply to such a question.

She smiled as she pronounced the diminutive “ Andryusha.” It apparently seemed strange to her to think that this stern, handsome man should be the same Andryusha, the slender, playful boy, the companion of her childhood.

” Where is Liza ? ” he asked, replying to her question with a smile.

” She is so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh, André, quel trésor de femme vous avez ! ” she said, seating herself on a sofa, opposite to her brother. “ She is a regular child, such a sweet and cheerful child. I love her so much ! ”

Prince Andréy was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and contemptuous expression which had appeared on his face.

” But one must be indulgent with her small weaknesses ; who has them not, Andréy ? You must not forget that she was bom and brought up in society. And just now her condition is not of the rosiest. We must enter into the condition of each person. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. Just think how the poor woman must feel, after the life to which she is accustomed, when parting from her husband and when she will have to stay all alone in the country, and in such a condition. It is hard.”

Prince Andréy smiled, looking at his sister, as we smile when listening to people whom, we think, we can look through.

« You are living in the country, and you do not find the life terrible,” he said.

” It is a different matter with me. What is the use of talking about me ? I do not wish any other life, nor can I wish it, because I know no other life. But, Andréy, think what it is for a young and worldly woman to be buried at the best years of her life in the country, all alone, because papa is always busy, and I — you know me — how poor I am en ressources for a woman used to better society. Mlle. Bourienne alone — ”

” I do not like her one bit, your Bourienne,” said Prince Andréy.

“ You are mistaken. She is very sweet and good, but, above all, such a pitiable girl. She has nobody, nobody. To tell the truth, I do not need her at all, and she embarrasses me. You know, I have always been a savage, and now I am one even more than ever. I like to be alone — Mon père loves her very much. She and Mikhail Ivanovich are the two persons to whom he is always kind and good, because they have both received his lienefits. As Sterne says, ‘We love people not so much for the good which they have done us, as for the good which we have done them.’ Mon père picked her up an orphan sur le pavé, and she is very good. Mon père loves her manner of reading. She reads aloud to him in the evenings. She is a good reader.”

” Now, in truth, Marie, do you frequently suffer from the character of our father ? ” Prince Andréy suddenly asked.

Princess Marya at first was surprised to hear this question, and then she was frightened by it.

“I ? — I ? — Do I suffer ? ” she said.

“ lie has always been harsh, and now, I suppose, he must be hard to get along with,” said Prince Andréy, evidently on purpose, in order to puzzle or try his sister by passing such judgment on his father.

” You are good in everything, Andréy, only there is a certain haughtiness in you,” said the princess, following the progress of her own thoughts rather than the progress of the conversation, ” and that is a great sin. How can one judge a father ? And even if it were allowable, what other feeling than vénération can such a man as mon père rouse in us ? I am so much satisfied and so happy with him ! I only wish we could all be as happy as I am.”

Her brother shook his head incredulously.

” The one thing that disturbs me, to tell you the truth, Andréy, is father’s opinion in religious matters. I cannot understand how a man with such an immense brain can help seeing that which is as clear as day, and how he can err so. That forms my one misfortune. But even here I have of late come to see a shadow of an improvement. Of late his ridicule has not been so stinging, and there is one monk whom he has received and with whom he has talked for a long time.”

“Well, my dear, I think that you and the monk are wasting your powder in vain,” Prince Andréy said, scornfully, but kindly.

” Ah, mon ami ! I only pray to God, and I hope that He will hear me. Andréy,” she said, timidly, after a moment of silence, ” I have a great request to make of you.”

” What is it, my dear ? “

“Promise me that you will not refuse me. It will cost you no labour, and there will be nothing unworthy of you in it. You will console me by such a promise. Promise, Andryusha,” she said, putting her hand in her reticule and holding something in it, without showing it, as though that which she was holding formed the object of her prayer, and as though she could not take out that something unless she had first received his promise. She looked timidly, with an entreating glance, at her brother.

you have always been. Do not judge Lise severely,” she began. ” She is so sweet, so good, and her condition is now a very hard one.”

” It seems to me, Marya, that I have not told you anything which should lead you to believe that I reproach my wife for anything, or that I am dissatisfied with her. Why do you say all that to me ? ”

The princess blushed in spots, as though she felt guilty.

” I have told you nothing, but you have been told something, — and that pains me.”

The red spots came out more strongly on the forehead, the neck, and the cheeks of Princess Marya. She wanted to say something and could not utter it. Her brother had guessed rightly : the little princess had wept after dinner ; she had said that she was having a presentiment of a hard childbirth and that she was afraid of it, and she had complained of her fate, of her father-in-law, and of her husband. After her tears she had fallen asleep. Prince Andréy was sorry for his sister.

” Know this much, Märya, I cannot reproach my wife for anything ; I never have reproached her, and never shall ; nor have I anything to reproach myself for in my relations to her, and that will always be so, no matter under what conditions I may be. But if you wish to know the truth — if you wish to know whether I am happy ? No. Is she happy ? No. Why so ? I do not know — ”

Saying this, he rose, walked over to his sister, and, bending down, kissed her on her forehead. His beautiful eyes shone with an intelligent, kind, and unaccustomed splendour, but he was looking, not at his sister, but into the darkness of the open door, above her head.

” Let us go to her, — I must take leave of her. Or, better still, go yourself and wake her, and I will come at once. Petrushka ! ” he called to his valet, ” come here and

pack things. This goes into the seat, and this on the right.”

Princess Marya rose and turned toward the door. She stopped.

” André, si vous aviez la foi, vous vous seriez adressé à Dieu, pour qu’il vous donne l’amour que vous ne sentez pas, et votre prière aurait été exaucée.”

” Yes, that alone might ! ” said Prince Andréy. ” Go, Màrya, I shall be there at once.”

On his way to his sister’s room, in the passageway which connected one house with another, Prince Andréy met sweetly smiling Mlle. Bourienne, who on that day for the third time had turned up in lonely places, with an ecstatic and naïve smile on her face.

” Ah, je vous croyais chez vous,” she said, for some reason blushing and lowering her eyes.

Prince Andréy looked sternly at her. On his face there was an expression of rage. He said nothing to her, but looked so contemptuously at her forehead and hair, glancing past her eyes, that she blushed and went away, without saying anything.

When he reached his sister’s room, the little princess was already up, and her merry little voice, in which one word crowded another, could be heard through the open door. She was talking as though she wished to make up for lost time, after a long period of restraint.

“Non, mais figurez-vous, la vieille Comtesse Zouboff avec de fausses boucles et la bouche pleine de fausses dents comme si elle voulait defier les années — Ha, ha, ha, Marie ! ”

Precisely the same sentence about Countess Zubov and precisely the same laughter Prince Andréy had heard at least five times before from his wife in presence of strangers. He softly entered the room. The princess, plump, ruddy, with work in her hands, was sitting in an armchair and talking without cessation, rummaging through St. Petersburg recollections and old phrases. Prince Andréy went up to her, stroked her head, and asked her whether she was rested from the journey. She answered him, and continued her conversation.

The coach and six was standing at the entrance. There was a dark autumn night without. The coachman could not see the shaft of the carriage. On the porch men were moving about with lanterns. The enormous house was lighted up by lights in the large windows. In the antechamber there was a crowd of manorial servants who wished to see the young prince off; in the parlour stood all the members of the household : Mikhail Ivanovich, Mlle. Bourienne, Princess Marya, and the little princess. Prince Andréy was called to the cabinet of his father, who did not want to see him in the presence of others. All were waiting for their return.

When Prince Andréy entered the cabinet, the old prince, in old man’s spectacles and in his white morninggown, in which he received only his son, was sitting at the table and writing. He looked around.

” Are you going ? ”

He continued to write.

” I have come to bid you goodbye.”

” Kiss me here ! ” He pointed to his cheek. ” Thank you,thank you ! ”

” What are you thanking me for? ”

“For not wasting your time and not holding on to a woman’s skirts. Service above everything else. Thank you, thank you ! ” And he continued to write so that the ink-sprays flew from the squeaking pen. “ If you have anything to say, say it. I can do these two things at the same time,” he added.

“About my wife — I feel bad to leave her on your hands — ”

” Don’t talk nonsense ! Say what you have to say ! ” ” When the time comes for my wife to be in childbed, send to Moscow for an accoucheur — I want one to be here.”

The old prince stopped and stared at his son with his stern eyes, as though not understanding what he was saying.

” I know that nobody can be of any use when Nature will not help,” said Prince Andréy, apparently confused. ” I agree with you that out of a million cases there is only one unfortunate one, but that is her fancy and mine. They have been talking to her, and she has had bad dreams, and is afraid.”

” Hem — hem — ” mumbled the old prince, continuing to write. ” I will do so.” He made a flourish under his name, suddenly turned to his son, and burst out laughing.

” It is a bad business, eh ? “

” What is bad, father ? “

” A wife ! ” the old prince said, curtly and significantly.

” I do not understand,” said Prince Andréy.

” What is to be done ? ” said the prince. ” They are all like that, and you can’t undo a marriage. Don’t be afraid,— I will not tell anybody, but you yourself know.”

He grasped his son’s hand with his small, bony hand, shook it, looked straight into his son’s face with his swift eyes that seemed to look through a man, and again laughed his cold laugh.

His son heaved a sigh, thus acknowledging that his father had understood him. The old man went on to fold and seal the letter, with his usual rapidity of motion, picking up and throwing down the sealing-wax, the seal, and the paper.

” What is to be done ? She is beautiful ! I will do everything. Be at rest,” he said by snatches, while sealing the letter.

Andréy was silent : it both pleased and annoyed him to see that his father had comprehended him. The old man got up and handed the letter to his sou.

” Listen,” he said, ” don’t worry about your wife ! Everything that can be done, will be done. Now listen : give this letter to Mikhail Ilarionovich. I write to ask him to use you in good places and not to keep you too long as an adjutant : it is a bad office ! Tell him that I remember him and love him. Write to me how he receives you. If he is good, serve him. The son of Nikolay Andréich Bolkönski will not serve anybody out of favour. Now come here ! “

He was speaking so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son was accustomed to making out his meaning. He took his son up to the bureau, threw back the top, moved out a box, and took out of it a note-book which was all written over with his large, long, and compressed handwriting.

“No doubt I shall have to die before you. Remember that my memoirs are here : hand them to the emperor after my death ! Now here is a bank-note and a letter : it is a premium for him who will write a history of the campaigns of Suvdrov. Send it to the Academy ! Here are my remarks. When I am gone, read them : they will be useful to you.”

Andréy did not say to his father that, no doubt, he would live long yet. He knew that it was not right to say that.

” I will execute everything, father,” he said.

” Well, now goodbye ! ” He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced him. ” Remember this much, Andréy ! If you are killed, it will pain me, old man — ” He suddenly grew silent, and then suddenly proceeded in a squeaky voice: “And if I find out that you have not acted like a son of Nikolay Bolkonski, I shall be — ashamed,” he shrieked.

“ You did not need to tell me that, father,” his son said, smiling.

The old man grew silent.

” Another thing I wanted to ask you,” continued Prince Andréy. ” If I am killed, and a son is bom to me, don’t let him away from you, as I told you last night. Let him be educated under your care, if you please ! “

“ Not to let your wife have him ? ” asked the old man, laughing.

They stood silently opposite each other. The old man’s rapid eyes were directed fixedly at the eyes of his son. Something quivered in the lower part of the old man’s face

” We have said farewell — go!” he suddenly said. “ Go ! ” he cried, in an angry and loud voice, opening the door of the cabinet.

” What is it, what ? ” asked the little princess and Princess Mérya, when they saw Prince Andréy and the old man in his white morninggown and his spectacles, without his wig, for a moment thrusting his head out of the door and crying in an angry voice.

Prince Andréy sighed and did not say anything.

” Well,” he said, turning to his wife, and that ” well ” sounded like cold irony, as though he said : ” Now do your tricks ! “

” André déjà ! ” said the little princess, growing pale and looking in terror at her husband.

He embraced her. She shrieked and fell senseless on his shoulder.

He cautiously removed the shoulder on which she was lying, looked into her face, and carefully seated her in an armchair.

” Adieu, Mariehe said softly to his sister. They embraced and kissed each other, and he left the room with rapid steps.

The princess lay in the armchair, and Mlle. Bourienne rubbed her temples. Princess Mdrya, who was holding up her sister-in-law, kept looking with her beautiful, tearful eyes at the door through which Prince Andréy had disappeared, and making the sign of the cross toward him. In the cabinet could be heard the frequently repeated angry sounds of the old man’s clearing of his nose, which sounded like reports of a gun. The moment Prince Andréy left, the door of the cabinet was quickly opened, and the old man’s stem figure in the white morninggown peeped out of it.

“ Is he gone ? All right ! ” he said, angrily glancing at the senseless little princess. He reproachfully shook his head, and slammed the door.

PART THE SECOND

I.

In October of the year 1805 the Russian troops occupied the villages and towns of the Archduchy of Austria, and new troops were all the time arriving from Russia and burdening the inhabitants upon whom they were quartered. They were located near the fortress of Braunau, where were the chief quarters of the commanderin-chief, Kutdzov.

On October 11, 1805, one of the regiments of infantry, which had just arrived at Braunau, stopped within half a league from the city, waiting to be reviewed by the commander-inchief. In spite of the unfamiliar locality and surroundings (the orchards, the stone enclosures, the tile roofs, the mountains visible in the distance), in spite of the strange people who were looking with curiosity at the Russian soldiers, the regiment had precisely the same aspect that any Russian regiment would have when getting ready to be inspected anywhere in the centre of Russia.

On the previous evening an order had been received at the last resting-place that the commanderin-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though the words of the order did not seem clear to the commander of the regiment, and there arose a discussion about how to understand the words ” in marching order,” it was decided in the council of the commanders of the battalions to present the regiment in parade order, ou the ground that it was

always safer to bow too low than not to bow low enough. The soldiers had not closed their eyes after a march of thirty versts, and had been all night getting themselves in order and cleaning up. The adjutants and the commanders of the companies counted their soldiers and rearranged them, and in the morning the regiment, instead of being a straggling, irregular crowd, such as it had been the day before, presented a well-formed mass of two thousand men, every one of whom knew his position and his business, and had every button and strap in place and glistening with cleanliness.

Not only the external appearance was satisfactory, but if the commanderin-chief took it into his head to look beneath the uniforms he would discover a clean shirt on each of them, and in every knapsack he would find the regulation number of things, ” Awl, soap, and all,” as the soldiers say. There was just one thing about which no one could be at ease, and that was the foot-gear. More than half the number of men had their boots torn in shreds. This defect was not due to any fault of the commander of the regiment, because, in spite of the repeated request made, the Austrian government had not furnished him with the necessary material, while they had marched a distance of one thousand versts.

The commander of the regiment was an elderly general of a sanguine temperament, with his eyebrows and whiskers streaked gray. He was plump and broad, deeper from chest to back than from shoulder to shoulder. He wore a brand-new uniform, with its folds strongly outlined, and thick gold lace epaulettes, which somehow raised his fat shoulders. The commander of the regiment had the aspect of a man who was happy to perform one of the most solemn acts of life. He marched up and down in front of the drawn-up regiment, and, walking, quivered at each step, with a slight bending of bis back. It was obvious that the commander took his delight in looking at his regiment, that his whole happiness lay in it, and that all the powers of his soul were spent upon it ; and yet, his quivering motion said that, in addition to military interests, not a small place in his heart was occupied by interests of a social nature and by the feminine sex.

“Well, my dear Mikhâylo Mftrich,” he addressed one of the commanders of a battalion, upon which the commander of the battalion moved forward with a smile. It was evident that they were both happy. “ We did catch it, though, last night. Still, I think, the army is all right, — not half-bad, eh ? “

The commander of the battalion understood the merry irony and burst out laughing.

” They would not be driven off the Tsaritsyn Field.”

” What ? ” said the commander.

Just then two men on horseback were seen approaching on the road leading from the city, along which vedettes had been placed. Those were an adjutant and a Cossack who was following him.

The adjutant had been sent from the staff to repeat to the commander of the regiment that which had been mentioned indistinctly in the order of the day before, namely, that the commanderin-chief wanted to see the regiment precisely in the condition in which it was on the march, — in their overcoats, their shakos covered, and without any preparation whatsoever.

On the previous day a member of the Hofkriegsrath had arrived from Vienna to Kutuzov, to ask him to unite as quickly as possible with the army of Archduke Ferdinand and of Mack ; Kutuzov, who did not regard this union as advantageous, among other arguments, adduced in favour of his opinion, wanted to show the Austrian general the sad plight in which the armies arrived from Russia. It was for this reason that he wanted to come out to meet the army, and the worse the condition of the soldiers would have been, the better it would have pleased him. The adjutant did not know these details, but he transmitted to the commander of the regiment the peremptory order of the commanderin-chief that the men should all wear their overcoats and cap covers, saying that if the commanderin-chicf should not find them so, he would be extremely dissatisfied.

Having heard these words, the commander of the regiment hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and waved his hands in excitement.

” A fine business we have done ! ” he said. ” I told you, Mikhdylo Mitrich, that to appear as on the march meant to wear the overcoats,” he turned with a reproach to the commander of the battalion. ” 0 Lord ‘ ” he added, and took a determined step forward. ” Gentlemen, commanders of companies ! ” he shouted in a voice used to command. ” Sergeants ! — How soon before he will deign to come ? ” he turned to the adjutant, with an expression of respectful civility, which obviously had reference to the person of whom he was speaking.

” In an hour, 1 think.”

” Shall we have time to change clothes ? “

” I do not know, general.”

The commander of the regiment himself stepped up to the ranks and gave the order to put on the overcoats. The commanders of the companies ran each to his company ; the sergeants began to hurry about (the overcoats were not quite in proper condition), and at the same moment the regular and silent squares suddenly began to sway, to stretch out, and to chatter. Soldiers ran to and fro on all sides ; they humped themselves, pulled their knapsacks over their heads, unrolled their overcoats, and, raising high their arms, slipped them over their sleeves.

In half an hour every tin ng came again into the former order, only the squares had become gray instead of black. The commander of the regiment stepped in front of the regiment, again walking up in his quivering gait, and examined it from a distance.

” What is that ? What is that ? ” he shouted, stopping in one spot. ” Commander of the third company ! ”

” Commander of the third company ! Commander of the third company ! The general wants to see the commander of the tliird company ! ” were heard voices along the ranks, and the adjutant hurried down to find the delaying officer. When the sounds of the officious voices, who, mixing up matters, cried, ” Send the general to the third company,” reached their destination, the officer in demand stepped out in front of his third company ; he was an elderly man who had got out. of the habit of running, but he raced at a gallop toward the general, awkwardly tripping himself up. The face of the captain expressed the consternation of a schoolboy who is asked to recite a lesson which he has not studied. On his nose, red from intemperance no doubt, there appeared spots, and his mouth was vainly trying to assume a certain position.

The commander of the regiment surveyed the captain from head to foot, as he was approaching him out of breath and checking his gait as he was getting nearer.

” I suppose you will soon have your men dressed in women’s jackets ! What is that ? ” shouted the commander of the regiment, thrusting forward his lower jaw and pointing in the ranks of the third company to a soldier in a cloth overcoat of a colour different from that of all the other overcoats. ” Where were you yourself ? The commander-inchief is expected, and you leave your place ! Eh ? — I will teach you to dress the men for inspection in short coats ! — Eh ?”

The captain did not take his eyes off his superior, and kept pressing his two fingers ever more firmly to his visor, as though in this pressure alone he now saw his salvation.

” Well, why do you keep silent ? Who is it there that is docked out like a Hungarian ?” the commander of the regiment jested sternly.

” Your Excellency — “

“ What do you want with ‘ your Excellency ‘ ? Your Excellency ! Your Excellency ! And what you mean by ‘ your Excellency,’ nobody knows.”

” Your Excellency, that is Dolokhov, the reduced officer — ” the captain said, in a soft voice.

” Well, has he been reduced to the rank of fieldmarshal, or to the rank of soldier ? And if he is a soldier, he ought to be dressed like the rest, in proper form.”

” Your Excellency, you yourself have given him permission to dress that way on the march.”

” Did I ? Did I ? That is the way you young men always are,” said the commander of the regiment, cooling off a little. ” So I have granted it ? One needs only say something, and you — What is it ? ” he said, again growing excited. “See to it that the men are properly dressed.”

The commander of the regiment looked at the adjutant and directed his quivering steps toward the ranks. It was obvious that he was glad of his own irritation and that he walked up and down in front of the regiment for the purpose of finding another excuse for his anger. After calling down an officer for an unburnished gorget, and another for an irregularity in the ranks, he walked over to the third company.

“ How are you standing there ? Where is your leg ? Your leg, I say!” shouted the commander of the regiment, with an expression of suffering in his voice, when about five meu distant from Dolokhov, who was dressed in a blue overcoat.

Ddlokhov immediately straightened up his bent leg, and looked straight into the general’s face with his bright and bold glance.

” What is that blue overcoat for ? Down with it — Sergeant ! Have him change his coat ! — Scoun— ” He did not have a chance to finish his sentence.

” General, I am obliged to execute your commands, but not to endure — ” hurriedly said Dolokhov.

“No talking in the ranks!— No talking! No

talking ! ”

“ I am not obliged to endure any insults,” Ddlokhov finished, in a loud and sonorous voice.

The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general grew silent, angrily pulling down his tightly fitting sash.

“ Please to change your coat, I beg you,” he said, walking away.

IL

“ He is coming ! ” shouted a sentinel.

The commander of the regiment grew red in his face, rushed up to his horse, with trembling hands took hold of the stirrup, straddled his body, adjusted himself, unsheathed his sword, and with a happy and determined countenance, opening his mouth sidewise, was getting ready to give a command. The regiment was agitated, like a preening bird, and became motionless.

” Atten-n-n-tion ! ” shouted the commander of the regiment, in a heartrending voice, winch was joyous in respect to himself, stern in respect to the regiment, and submissive in respect to the commanderin-chief.

Over the broad, tree-lined country road a tall, blue Viennese carriage, with horses in tandem, drove down at a rapid gallop, which made the springs produce a slight clattering sound. Behind the carriage rode the suite and a guard of Croatians. By Kutuzov’s side sat an Austrian general in a white uniform, which looked strange among the Russian black coats. The carriage stopped near the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were speaking about something in a low voice, and Kutuzov smiled slightly when, with heavy tread, he let down his foot from the carriage step, as though the two thousand men who breathlessly looked at him and at the commander of the regiment did not exist.

The word of command was given, and the regiment quivered with a clanking sound and presented arms. Through the dead silence could be heard the weak voice of the commanderin-chief.

The regiment shouted : “ Hail, your Ex-ex-ex-cy ! ” and again everything died down.

At first Kutuzov stood in one spot, while the regiment was in motion ; then Kutuzov, accompanied by the general in white and followed by the suite, began to walk down the ranks.

It was evident from the manner in which the commander of the regiment saluted the commanderin-chief, riveting his eyes upon him, straightening himself up, and rushing up to him, and from the manner in which he, bending forward, followed the generals down the ranks, with difficulty repressing his quivering motion, and the manner in which he, at each word or movement of the commanderin-chief, galloped up, — from all these it was evident that he executed his duties as a subordinate with even greater zest than those of commander. The regiment, thanks to the severity and care of its commander, was in a better condition than the majority of regiments which at that time came to Braunau. There were only 217 men who had fallen out or who were on the sick list, and everything was in good order but the foot-gear.

Kutuzov passed up and down the ranks, now and then stopping and saying a few kind words to such of the officers, and even soldiers, as he remembered from the Turkish war. As he looked at their foot-gear, he several times shook his head in sadness and pointed it out to the Austrian general with an expression as though he did not blame any one, but could not help noticing that it was bad.

The commander of the regiment kept rushing forward every time something was said in regard to the regiment, fearing lest he should lose a word. Back of Kutuzov there followed about twenty men of the suite, at such a distance that even every feebly pronounced word could be heard by them. Nearest to the commanderin-chief

followed his handsome adjutant. That was Prince Bolkonski. By his side walked his companion, Nesvitski, a tall, extremely stout oilicer of the staff, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvitski with difficulty held back a laugh which was provoked by a swarthy officer of the hussars, who was walking by his side. This officer of the hussars, without smiling or changing the expression of his arrested eyes, was looking with a serious face at the back of the commander of the regiment, whose every motion he imitated. Every time the commander quivered or bent forward, he quivered and bent forward in precisely the same manner. Nesvitski laughed, and nudged the others so that they might see the joker.

Kutuzov walked slowly and nonchalantly past a thousand eyes which bulged out of their sockets, straining to look at the commanderin-chief. Upon reaching the third company, he suddenly stopped. The suite, which had not foreseen this stop, moved up toward him.

“Ah, Timôkhin!” said the commanderin-chief, upon recognizing the captain with the red nose, who had suffered for the blue overcoat.

It seemed as though it was a matter of impossibility for Timdkhin to straighten himself up more than he had done when the commander of the regiment had been reprimanding him ; but at the moment when he was addressed by the commanderin-chief, the captain straightened himself up in a such a manner that it seemed that if the commanderin-chief looked at him a few moments longer, he would not be able to endure it; therefore Kutuzov, who apparently understood his condition and who, on the contrary, wished the captain nothing but good, hastened to turn away. A barely perceptible smile crossed Kutuzov’s puffed up, scarred face.

” He was a comrade at Izmail,” he said. ” A brave officer ! Are you satisfied with him ? ” Kutdzov asked the commander of the regiment.

The commander oi vue .

himself, was reflected in the officer of hussars, as m mirror, quivered, stepped forward, and replied :

” Very much satisfied, your Excellency ! “

” We are none of us without weaknesses,” said Kutuzov, smiling and walking away. ” He used to be devoted to Bacchus.”

The commander of the regiment was frightened, wondering whether that was not his fault, and made no reply. The officer just then noticed the face of the captain with the red nose and tight paunch and so cleverly imitated his face and pose that Nesvitski was unable to repress his laughter. Kutuzov turned around. It was evident that the officer had complete control of his face ; just as Kutuzov was looking back, the officer made a face, but he immediately assumed a serious, respectful, and innocent aspect.

The third company was the last, and Kutuzov stopped to think, as though trying to recall something. Prince Andréy stepped forward from the suite and softly said to him in French :

” You have commanded me to remind you of the degraded Délokhov, who is in this regiment.”

” Where is Dolokhov ? ” asked Kutuzov.

Délokhov, now dressed in a soldier’s gray overcoat, did not wait to be called out. The stately figure of the blond soldier with the bright blue eyes stepped in front of the ranks. He walked over to the commanderin-chief and saluted.

” A complaint ? ” slightly frowning, asked Kutuzov.

” This is Délokhov,” said Prince Andréy.

” Ah ! ” said Kutuzov. “I hope this lesson will mend you. Serve well ! The emperor is merciful, and I will not forget you, if you serve well.”

The bright blue eyes looked as boldly at the commanderin-chief as they had gazed at the commander of

the regiment, as though this expression tore away the curtain of conventionality which so widely separated the commander-iu-chief from the soldier.

” I ask but this, your Excellency,” he said, in his sonorous, firm, but hurried voice. ” I ask you to give me a chance to wipe out my guilt and to prove my devotion to the emperor and to Russia.”

Kutuzov turned away from him. Over his countenance there flashed the same smile of his eyes which was visible upon it as he turned away from Timdkhin. He turned away and frowned, as though wishing to say that everything Ddlokhov had told him, or still might tell him, was long known to him, that it had long ago made him weary, and that was not at all what ought to be said. He turned away and walked toward the carriage.

The regiment was broken up by companies ; they marched to the appointed quarters in the neighbourhood of Braunau, where it was hoped they would change their clothes and foot-gear, and get a rest after difficult marches.

” You have no grudge against me, Prokhor Ignätich ? ” said the commander of the regiment, riding around the third company which was on its way to quarters and coming up to Captain Timokhin, who was walking at its head. The face of the commander expressed unrestrained happiness, after the inspection had come off so successfully. ” I serve the Tsar — you know, I can’t help it — sometimes I call a man down — Then I am the first to ask pardon — lam myself very much obliged ! ” and he held out his hand to the captain.

” I beg you, general, how could I dare ? ” replied the captain, with a blush on his nose, smiling, and in his smile revealing the absence of two front teeth, knocked out with the butt of a gun at Izmail.

« Please inform Mr. Ddlokhov that I shall not forget him, and that he may be at ease on that point. By the way, I had intended to ask you about him, how does he conduct himself ? And all such — ”

” He is very prompt in his duties, your Excellency — but his character — ” said Timokhin.

” What is the matter with his character ? ” asked the commander of the regiment.

“ It comes over him on certain days, your Excellency,” said the captain. ” He is clever, and learned, and good, but at times he is a beast. In Poland he almost killed a Jew, your Excellency — “

” Oh, well, oh, well,” said the commander of the regiment, ” but we must pity a young man in misfortune. He has great connections— So you had better — “

“ Yes, your Excellency,” said Timdkhin, giving him to understand by a smile that he comprehended the wishes of his superior.

” Very well, very well.”

The commander of the regiment sought out Dolokhov in the ranks, and checked his horse.

” In the first action you get your epaulettes,” he said to him.

Dolokhov looked around, said nothing, and did not change the expression of his sarcastically smiling mouth.

” All right,” continued the commander of the regiment. ” Let the men have a cup of vddka in my name,” he added so that the soldiers might hear him. ” I thank you all ! Thank God ! ” and riding around the company, he approached another.

” Really, he is a good man, — it is a pleasure to serve under him,” Timokhin said to a subaltern officer who was walking by his side.

” In one word, he is ‘ hearts ‘ ! ” said the subaltern officer, smiling and applying the nickname ” king of hearts,” which was given to the commander of the regiment.

The happy frame of mind, in which the superiors were after the inspection, passed also to the soldiers. The company marched on cheerfully. The soldiers could be heard chatting on all sides.

“How is that? They used to say that Kutuzov was blind in one eye ?”

“ Of course he is ! “

” No, brother, he has sharper eyes than you have. He kept looking at my boots and foot-rags — ”

” As he was looking at my feet, I thought — “

” That Austrish man that was with him looked as though he was smeared with chalk. He was as white as Üour. I suppose they burnish him up like the guns !”

” Lay, Fédeshov, did he say anything about when the battles would begin ? You were standing nearer to him. They have been saying that Bunaparte is himself at Brunov.”

“ Bunaparte ! What bosh you are talking ! You don’t know a thing ! The Pmssians are now up in arms, and the Austrians are taking them down. As soon as they make peace, the war with Bunaparte will begin. What nonsense he is saying ! Bunaparte at Brunov ! What a fool you are ! You had better listen to what others have to say ! ”

“ What devils the quartermasters are ! The fifth company is now going into the village, and they will be getting their meal ready while we shall not have reached our resting-place.”

“ Let me have a piece of hardtack, the devil ! ”

” Did you give me any tobacco yesterday ? That’s it, brother. Well, take it, God be with you ! ”

“If we only halted awhile, but no! — they will make us walk another five versts on an empty stomach.”

“ It was fine when the Germans gave us carts ! We just travelled in great style ! ”

” Here, my friend, they are a worthless lot. Over there they seemed to be mostly Poles, all of them belonging to the Russian Crown, but now, my friend, the Germans come solid.”

“ Singers forward ! ” was heard the captain’s voice.

Above twenty men ran out from the different rows and took up their position in the van of the company. The drummer, who was also a song starter, turned his face to the singers and, waving his hands, started a drawling soldier’s song, beginning with the words, “ Did not the sun burst forth with the dawn,” and ending with ” Yes, we shall get glory with Kamenski, our father.” This song had been composed in Turkey and was now sung in Austria, except that ” Kamenski, our father,” was now changed to ” Kutuzov, our father.”

Having sung these last words with the dash of a soldier, and having swung his arms as though in the act of throwing something to the ground, the drummer, a slender, handsome soldier of about forty years, cast a stern glance at the singers and closed his eyes. Having convinced himself that the eyes of all were directed toward him, he pretended cautiously to be lifting some precious, invisible thing with both his hands above his head and holding it for a few seconds in that position, and then he suddenly threw it down with a violent motion :

“ Ah, my cottage, lovely cottage ! “

“ Ah, my new and lovely house ! ” twenty voices continued the song, and a spoon maker briskly leaped out from the ranks, in spite of the weight of his equipment, and made all kinds of evolutions with his back in front of the company, tossing his shoulders and threatening somebody with his spoons. The soldiers, swinging their arms in time with the song, walked at a long gait, instinctively keeping step.

Behind the company were heard the sounds of wheels, the creaking of carriage springs, and the tramp of horses. Kutuzov with his suite was returning to the city. The commanderin-chief made a sign for the soldiers to continue walking leisurely, and upon his face and upon all the faces of his suite was expressed pleasure at the sounds of the song, at the sight of the dancing soldier and of the other soldiers of the company walking along cheerfully and briskly. In the second row of the right flank, on the side on which the carriage was driving past the company, one could not help noticing the blue-eyed soldier, Ddlokhov, who was walking with unusual briskness and grace, in time with the song, and glancing at the faces of those who rode by him with an expression which seemed to say that he pitied all who at that time were not marching with the company. The ensign of hussars from Kutuzov’s suite, the one that had been imitating the commander of the regiment, separated himself from the carriage and rode up to Dolokhov.

The ensign of hussars, Zhérkov, had at one time belonged to that riotous company, of which Dolokhov was the leader. Zhérkov had met Dolokhov abroad, but had not thought it necessary to recognize him. Now, after the conversation which Kutuzov had had with the reduced officer, he turned to him with the pleasure of meeting an old friend.

« My dear friend, how are you ? ” he said, through the sounds of the song, checking in his horse so as to keep step with the company.

” How am I ? ” coldly replied Dolokhov. ” As you see.”

The brisk song added a special significance to the tone of nonchalant merriment with which Zhérkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of Délokhov’s replies.

” How are you getting on with the authorities ? ” asked Zhérkov.

” All right, they are good people. How did you scratch your way into the staff ? “

” I was attached to it : I am officer of the day.”

Both were silent.

” And she let the falcon fly, let it fly from her right hand,” said the song, involuntarily rousing a feeling full of animation and merriment. Their conversation would, no doubt, have been of a different character, if they had not been speaking to the sounds of the song.

” Is it true the Austrians have been beaten ? ” asked Ddlokhov.

” The devil knows them, — they say so.”

” I am glad,” replied Dolokhov, curtly and distinctly, in keeping with the demands of the song.

” Come to see us sometimes in the evening, and start faro,” said Zhérkov.

” Have you so much money ? “

” Come ! “

” I cannot. I have made a vow neither to drink nor to gamble before I am promoted.”

” Well, after the first action — “

” We shall see after that.”

They were again silent.

” Come to see us, if you need anything : you will receive assistance in the staff,” said Zhérkov.

Dolokhov smiled.

” Don’t trouble yourself. I need nothing, and shall ask nothing, — I will take myself what I need.”

“ Well, I only — “

” I only say so myself.”

“ Goodbye ! “

” Goodbye ! “

«… and both high and far away

To his native land he flew … “

Zhérkov put the spurs to the horse, which reared two or three times, stepped unsteadily, not knowing with which foot to start, finally discovered its gait and galloped away, beyond the company, and reached the carriage, all the time keeping time with the song.

III.

Upon returning from the inspection, Kutuzov, accompanied by the Austrian general, went into his cabinet and, calling up his adjutant, ordered certain papers to be brought to him, which referred to the condition of the newly arrived troops, and letters which had been received from Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of the army of the vanguard. Prince Andréy Bolkdnski entered the cabinet of the commanderin-chief with the papers required. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were sitting before a plan which was stretched out before them on the table.

“Ah,” said Kutuzov, looking back at Bolkdnski, as though inviting the adjutant with this word to wait awhile, and continuing in French the conversation which he had begun.

“All I have to say, general,” said Kutuzov, with an agreeable elegance of expressions and intonations, which caused one to listen to every one of his words, which were all leisurely pronounced, — apparently Kutuzov found pleasure in hearing himself talk, — “ all I have to say, general, is that if the matter depended solely on my personal wish, the will of his Majesty, Emperor Francis, would long ago have been done. I should long ago have joined Archduke Ferdinand. And believe my word of honour that for me personally it would be a joy to transfer the higher command of the army to a more capable and a more skilful general, such as Austria abounds in, and to free myself from this heavy responsibility. But circumstances are stronger than we, general.” Kutuzov

smiled with an expression which seemed to say : ” You have the full privilege of not believing me, and, really, it makes no difference whatsoever to me whether you do believe me or not, only you have no cause for saying so to me. And that is the main thing.”

The Austrian general had a dissatisfied look, but he could not help replying to Kutuzov, in the same tone :

” On the contrary,” he said, in a grumbling and angry voice, ” on the contrary, the part your Excellency is playing in this affair which we have in common is highly esteemed by his Majesty ; but we assume that the present delay is depriving the famous Russian troops and their commanders-in-chief of those laurels which they are in the habit of earning in battles,” he finished his phrase which, evidently, had been prepared in advance.

Kutuzov bowed, without changing his smile.

” Basing my conviction on the last letter which I have received from his Highness, Archduke Ferdinand, I assume that the Austrian army, under the generalship of such a skilful leader as is General Mack, must by this time have obtained a decisive victory and is no longer in need of our succour,” said Kutuzov.

The general frowned. Although there was no positive news about the defeat of the Austrians, there were many circumstances which only confirmed the general unfavourable reports ; for that reason Kutuzov’s supposition about thé victory of the Austrians very much resembled sarcasm. But Kutuzov smiled a meek smile, with the same expression as before, which seemed to say that he had a right to make such a supposition. Indeed, the last letter which he had received from Mack’s army announced a victory and an exceedingly advantageous strategic position of the army.

” Let me have that letter,” said Kutuzov, turning to Prince Andréy. ” You may see it yourself,” said Kutuzov and, with a scornful smile at the corners of his lips, read in German the following passage from the letter of Archduke Ferdinand to the Austrian general :

” < We have absolutely concentrated forces of about seventy thousand men, with which we are able to attack and vanquish the enemy, if he should pass the Lech. Being in possession of Ulm, we cannot lose the advantage of remaining in possession of both shores of the Danube, consequently can cross the Danube at any moment, if the enemy should not pass the Lech, throw ourselves upon his lines of communication, recross the Danube farther below, and at once thwart his purpose if he should direct all his forces against our true allies. Thus we shall courageously wait for the time when the Russian imperial army will be in proper trim, and shall in company find the opportunity of preparing a lot for the enemy, such as he deserves.’ “

Kutuzov drew a deep sigh when he finished this period, and looked attentively and graciously at the member of the Hofkriegsrath.

” But you know, your Excellency, the wise rule which enjoins us to expect the worst,” said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to make an end of jests and to approach the matter in hand. He involuntarily looked back at the adjutant.

” Pardon me, general,” Kutuzov interrupted him, and himself turned back to look at Prince Andréy. ” Take, my dear, from Kozlovski all the reports of our spies. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz, a letter from-his Highness, Archduke Ferdinand, and here,” he said, handing him several documents, ” are some more. F rom all of these compose a nice memorandum, in French, which may be used as a reference for all the news received about the actions of the Austrian army. And then present it to his Excellency.”

Prince Andrey bent his head in sign of having understood from the start, not only that which Kutuzov had told him, but also what he intended to tell him. He picked up all the papers and, making a general bow and stepping softly over the carpet, went out into the reception-room.

Though only a short time had passed from the time that Prince Andréy had left Russia, he had changed much during that time. In the expression of his face, in his motions, in his gait, one could hardly notice the former feigning, weariness, and indolence ; he had the aspect of a man who had no time to think of the impression which he was producing upon others, and who was busy doing a pleasant and interesting duty. His countenance expressed greater contentment with himself and with those who surrounded him ; his smile and glance were happier and more attractive.

Kutuzov, whom he had joined in Poland, received him very kindly, promised not to forget him, distinguished him among his other adjutants, took him along to Vienna, and entrusted more serious missions to him. From Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade, the father of Prince Andréy :

” Your son gives promise of becoming an unusually fine officer, as evidenced by his occupations, his firmness, and his executive ability. I deem myself fortunate to have such a subordinate at my command.”

In Kutuzov’s staff, among his fellow officers, and in the army in general, Prince Andréy had, just as in St. Petersburg society, two diametrically opposite reputations. The minority looked upon Prince Andréy as on something different from themselves and from all other men, expected great things from him, listened to him, took delight in him, and imitated him ; with these people Prince Andréy was simple and agreeable. Others again, forming the majority, did not like Prince Andréy, and regarded him as a haughty, cold, and disagreeable man. But Prince Andréy knew how to bear himself with these people so as to be respected and even feared by them.

Upon reaching the reception-room, Prince Andréy went up with the papers to his comrade, Adjutant Kozlévski, the officer of the day, who was sitting at the window with a book in his hands.

“ Well, prince ? ” asked Kozlovski.

” I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not advancing.”

” Why ? “

Prince Andréy shrugged his shoulders.

” Is there no news from Mack ? ” asked Kozlovski.

« No.”

” If it were true that he were beaten, we should have the news.”

” Very likely,” said Prince Andréy, and directed his steps toward the outer door ; but just then the door was slammed, and there entered, with rapid steps, a tall Austrian general in undress uniform, with a black kerchief wrapped about his head and the decoration of Maria-Theresa about his neck. He was apparently fresh from the road. Prince Andréy stopped.

” Commanderin-chief Kutuzov ? ” rapidly said the newly arrived general, in a sharp German pronunciation, looking to both sides and, without stopping, walking over to the door of the cabinet.

” The commanderin-chief is busy,” said Kozlovski, swiftly walking over to the strange general and barring his way to the door. ” How shall I announce you ? ”

The strange general contemptuously surveyed the undersized Kozlovski, as though being surprised at anybody’s not knowing him.

” The commanderin-chief is busy,” Kozlovski calmly repeated.

The general frowned, and his lips twitched and quivered. He took out a memorandum-book, rapidly

wrote something down upon it, tore out the page, gave it to the adjutant, with rapid steps walked over to a window, threw the whole weight of his body into a chair, and examined those who were in the room, as though asking them why they were looking at him. Then the general raised his head and stretched his neck, as though getting ready to say something, but immediately, as though beginning carelessly to hum something, produced a strange sound, which he broke off at once. The door of the cabinet was opened, and on the threshold appeared Kutuzov. The general, with his bandaged head, stooped, as though escaping a danger, and with long, rapid steps of his lean legs walked over to Kutuzov.

” Vous voyez le uiallieureux Mack” he said, in a broken voice.

The face of Kutuzov, who was standing at the door of his cabinet, for a few moments remained entirely motionless. Then a wrinkle passed over his face like a billow, and his brow cleared off ; he respectfully bent his head, closed his eyes, silently allowed Mack to pass in, and himself closed the door after him.

The rumour, which had been circulated in regard to the defeat of the Austrians, and the. surrender of the whole army at Ulm, proved to be true. Half an hour later adjutants were sent in all directions, which proved that soon the Russian troops, too, which until then had remained in inaction, were to meet the enemy.

Prince Andréy was one of those rare officers on the staff who found their chief interest in the general progress of the military affairs. Upon seeing Mack and hearing the details of his defeat, he understood that half of the campaign was lost, comprehended all the difficulty of the position of the Russian troops, and vividly presented to himself that which was in store for the army, and the part which he was to play in it. He involuntarily felt an agitating feeling of joy at the thought of the disgrace heaped upon selfconfident Austria, and that in a week, perhaps, he would take part in and see the conflict of the Russians with the French, the first since the conflict under Suvorov. He was afraid of Napoleon’s genius, which might prove stronger than the bravery of the Russian troops, and yet he could not admit disgrace for his hero.

Agitated and irritated by these thoughts, Prince Andréy went into his room to write to his father, with whom he communicated daily. In the corridor he met his roommate Nesvftski and the jester Zhérkov ; they were laughing at something, as usual.

” Why are you so gloomy ? ” asked Nesvitski, upon noticing Prince Andréy’s pale face and glistening eyes.

” There is no cause for joy,” replied Bolkonski.

Just as Prince Andréy met Nesvitski and Zhérkov, Strauch, an Austrian general attached to Kutuzov’s staff for the purpose of watching the proper distribution of the supplies among the Russian army, and a member of the Hofkriegsrath, who had arrived on the previous day, were walking toward them from the opposite end of the corridor. In the broad corridor there was enough room for the generals to pass by the three officers ; but Zhérkov, pushing Nesvitski away with his hand, exclaimed out of breath :

” They are coming ! They are coming, make a gangway ! Step aside, if you please ! ”

The generals were passing by with the evident desire of being freed from burdensome honours. On the face of jester Zhérkov there was suddenly expressed a stupid smile of joy, as though it were impossible for him to suppress it.

” Your Excellency,” he said in German, moving forward and turning to the Austrian general. ” I have the honour of congratulating you.” He. bent his head and began awkwardly to shuffle now with one foot, now with the other, like a child who is learning to dance.

The general who was the member of the Hofkriegsrath glanced sternly at him ; but, upon noticing the seriousness of the stupid smile, he could not refuse him a moment of attention. He blinked in sign of listening to him.

” I have the honour of congratulating you upon the arrival of General Mack. He is quite well, only he has a little scratch up here,” he added, beaming with a smile and pointing to his head.

The general scowled, turned away, and walked on.

” Gott, wie naiv,” he said angrily, moving away a few steps.

Nesvitski roared and embraced Prince Andréy, but Bolkonski grew even paler than before, with an angry expression on his face pushed him aside, and turned to Zhérkov. The nervous irritation, which was induced by his sight of Mack, by the news of his situation, and by the thoughts of what was in store for the Russian army, found its vent in his rage against Zhérkov’s misplaced joke.

” If you, dear sir,” he spoke in a piercing voice, with a slight quiver of his lower jaw, ” wish to be a jester, I cannot keep you from it ; but I inform you that if you dare a second time to act the clown in my presence, I will teach you how to behave.”

Nesvitski and Zhérkov were so much surprised at this sally that they looked at Bolkonski with their eyes wide open and without saying a word.

“ Well, I only congratulated them,” said Zhérkov.

” I am not jesting with you. Please to shut up ! ” shouted Bolkonski, and, taking Nesvltski’s hand, he walked away from Zhérkov, who was at a loss what to say.

” What is the matter with you, friend ? ” Nesvitski said, trying to soothe him.

” What is the matter ? ” said Prince Andréy, stopping from agitation. ” You must understand that either we are officers who serve our Tsar and our fatherland and who rejoice in the common success and sympathize with the common failure, or we are lackeys who have no care for our master’s affairs. Quarante mille homines massacrés et Vannée de nos alliés détruite, et vous trouvez là le mot pour rire,” he said, as though this French phrase confirmed his opinion. ” C’est bien pour un garçon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. Urchins only may take delight in such things,” said Prince Andréy in Russian, pronouncing this word ” urchins ” with a French accent, when he noticed that Zhérkov was still within hearing distance. He waited for the ensign to make a reply; but the ensign only turned around and went out of the corridor.

IV.

The Pavlogradski regiment of hussars was stationed within two leagues from Braunau. The squadron, in which Nikolay Rostov was serving as a yunker, was quartered in the German village of Salzeneck. The best lodgings in the village were reserved for the commander of the squadron, Captain Denisov, who was known in the whole division of cavalry under the name of Väska Denisov. Yunker Rostov had been living with the commander of the squadron ever since he had joined the regiment in Poland.

On the 8 th of October, on the very day when at chief quarters everybody was up in excitement at the news of Mack’s defeat, the camp life went on as usual at the staff of the squadron. Denisov, who had been playing cards all night long, had not yet returned home, when Rostov, early in the morning, returned on horseback from the foraging grounds. He was dressed in the uniform of a yunker as he rode up to the porch. He threw down his leg with an agile and youthful gesture, stood for a moment in his stirrup, as though hating to part from his horse, and finally jumped down from his mount and called an orderly.

” O Bondarénko, my dear,” he said to the hussar who was rushing headlong to the horse, ” take him out for an airing, my dear,” he said, with that fraternal and cheerful tenderness which all good young men display when they are happy.

” Yes, your Serenity .’ “

” Be sure and give him a good airing! “

Another hussar also rushed forward toward the horse, but Bondarénko already held the lines of the snaffle. It was evident that the yunker gave good pourboires, and that it was advantageous to serve him. Rostov stroked the mount’s neck and crupper, and stopped on the porch.

” Superb ! It will be a fine horse ! ” he said to himself, and, smiling and holding his sabre, he ran up the porch, clattering with his spurs. The German proprietor, in jerkin and nightcap, looked out of the cow stable, holding a pitchfork with which he had been cleaning out the manure. The German’s face suddenly lighted up the moment he saw Rostdv.

He gave a merry smile and winked to him :

“ Schön gut Morgen ! schön gut Morgen !” he repeated, evidently taking delight in greeting the young man.

” Schon fleissig ! ” said Rostov, with the same cheerful and fraternal smile, which did not leave his animated face. ” Hoch Oesterreicher ! Hoch Russen / Kaiser Alexander hoch!” he turned to the German, repeating the words which his host had so often used.

The German laughed, left the cow stable altogether, pulled off his cap, and, waving it over his head, called out :

“ Und die ganze Welt hoch ! “

Rostov swung his cap over his head like his host and, laughing, cried :

” Und vivat die ganze Welt ! “

Though there was no cause for any special rejoicing, either for the German who had cleaned out his stable, or for Rostov who had taken a detachment out to find hay, both men looked at each other with the enthusiasm of happiness and fraternal love, shook their heads in token of their mutual love, and, smiling, parted from each other ; the German went to the stable, and Rostdv to the room which he occupied with Denisov.

” Where is your master ? ” he asked Lavrushka, Denisov’s lackey, who was known in the whole regiment as a rogue.

” He has not been back since evening. No doubt he must have lost at cards. I know that when he wins, he comes home early to boast ; and if he is not at home before morning, it means that they have cleaned him out, and he will come home in a bad humour. Do you want some coffee ? “

” Yes, yes.”

Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee.

” He is coming ! ” he said, ” now there will be trouble.”

Rostdv looked out of the window and saw Denisov coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, black, glistening eyes, and black, dishevelled moustache and hair. His dolman was unbuttoned ; his long, wide pantaloons looked crushed ; his cap was crumpled and covered only the back of his head. He looked gloomy and hung his head, as he approached the porch.

” Lavrushka,” he called out, in a loud and angry voice. ” Take it off, blockhead ! “

” I will take it off anyway,” was heard Lavrushka’s voice.

” Ah, you are up already,” said Denisov, upon entering the room.

” I have been up quite awhile,” said Rostov. ” I have been out for hay, and have seen Fraulein Matilda.”

” Oho ■ But I lost heavily last night, my friend, like a son of a gun,” cried Denisov, pronouncing his r gutturally. ” Such a misfortune ! Such a misfortune ! It went against me the moment you left. Ho there, tea ! ”

Denisov frowned, as though smiling, and, showing his short, strong teeth, began with the short fingers of both his hands to bristle up his dishevelled black, thick hair.

” The devil has pushed me to go to that Rat ” (that was the nickname given to the officer), he said, rubbing his forehead and face with both his hands. ” Imagine, not a single card, not one, not one card did he give me.” Denisov took the lighted pipe handed to him, crushed it in his hand, and, scattering the burning tobacco, struck it against the floor. He continued to cry :

“ He would let me take the simples, and then he would beat me on the triples ; the simples to me, the triples to him ! ”

He scattered the fire, broke the pipe, and threw it away. Denisov was silent for awhile and then suddenly looked merrily at Rostdv with his black, shining eyes.

” If there were only some women here ! Otherwise there is nothing left here to do but drink ! If we only went into action as quickly as possible.”

“ Oh, who is there ? ” he turned to the door, upon hearing the arrested steps of heavy boots with the clatter of spurs and a respectful clearing of the throat.

” The sergeant-major ! ” said Lavrushka.

Denisov frowned even more than before.

” It is bad,” he said, throwing down his purse with a few gold coins in it. ” Rostov, my dear, count it up and see how much there is left of it, and stick the purse under the pillow,” he said, going out to the sergeant-major.

Rostdv took the money, and mechanically placing the old and the new gold coins in separate heaps, began to count them.

“ Ah, Telyanin ! Good morning ! They flayed me last night,” Denisov’s voice was heard from the other room.

” Where ? At Bykdv’s, the Rat’s ? I knew it,” said another, a thin voice, and immediately there entered into the room Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron.

Rostdv threw the purse under the pillow and pressed the small, moist hand offered him. Telyanin had just before the expedition for some reason been transferred to them from the Guards. He bore himself very well in the army ; but he was not loved, and Rostov in particular could not overcome or conceal his groundless loathing for this officer.

“Well, young cavalryman, how does my Raven treat you ?” he asked. (Raven was a young riding-horse which Telyénin had sold to Rostdv.) The lieutenant never looked into a person’s eyes, when speaking with him ; his gaze kept running from one object to another. ” I saw you out riding this morning — “

” All right, the horse is a nice one,” replied Rostov, notwithstanding the fact that he was not worth one-half the seven hundred roubles he had given him for the horse. ” He is a little lame in his right fore leg,” he added.

” The hoof is split ! That is nothing. I will teach you and show you how to put on a rivet.”

” Do show me, if you please,” said Rostov.

” 1 will, I will, it is no secret. You will thank me yet for the horse.”

” Then I will have the horse brought up,” said Rostdv, wishing to free himself from Telydnin. He went out to order the horse brought out.

In the vestibule, Denisov, with a pipe in his mouth, was sitting in a stooping posture on the threshold and listening to the sergeant-major’s report. Upon seeing Rostov, Denisov frowned, and, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb to the room in which Telyanin was sitting, he scowled and gave a shake of disgust.

” Oh, I do not like the fellow,” he said, not at all embarrassed by the presence of the sergeant-major.

Rostov shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say :

“Neither do I, but what is to be done?” and having given his order, he returned to Telyanin.

Telydnin was sitting in the same-indolent posture in which Rostdv had left him, rubbing his small white hands.

” There are such disgusting people ! ” thought Rostdv, as he entered the room.

” Well, have you ordered the horse to be brought out ? ” said Telydnin, rising and looking carelessly about him.

” I have.”

” Let us go. I just came in to ask Denisov about yesterday’s order. Have you received it, Denisov ? ”

” Not yet. Where are you going ? ”

” I want to teach the young man how to shoe a horse,” said Telyanin.

They went out on the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant showed how a rivet was to be put in and went home.

When Rostov returned, a bottle of brandy and a sausage were placed upon the table. Denisov was sitting at the table and making a pen squeak over the paper. He gloomily looked at Rostov’s face.

” I am writing to her,” he said. He leaned on the table, with the pen in his hand and, apparently happy to have a chance of uttering by word of mouth that which would take him so much longer to write down, gave the contents of the letter to Rostov. ” You see, my friend,” he said, “ we are asleep as long as we do not love. We are the children of dust — and the moment you fall in love, you are a god, — you are as pure as in the first day of creation — Who is that again ? Send him to the devil. I have no time ! ” he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him without the least sign of timidity.

” Who is it ? You yourself ordered him to come. The sergeant-major has come for the money.”

Denisov frowned ; he wanted to say something and grew silent.

“Bad business,” he said to himself. “How much money was there left in the purse ? ” he asked Rostov.

“ Seven new coins and three old ones.”

“ Ah, that is bad ! Well, what are you standing there for, scarecrow ? Bring in the sergeant-major ! ” Denisov yelled out to Lavrushka.

” Please, Denisov, take some money from me, — I have it,” said Rostov, blushing.

” I do not like to borrow from friends, I do not like it,” grumbled Denisov.

” If you do not take the money from me as a friend, you will insult me. Really, I have some,” repeated Rostov.

” No.”

Denisov went up to the bed to get the purse out from underneath the pillow.

“ Where did you put it, Rostdv ? ”

” Under the lower pillow.”

” It is not here.” Denisov threw both pillows down on the floor. The purse was not there. ” That is remarkable.”

“ Wait, maybe you have dropped it,” said Rostdv, picking up the pillows one by one and shaking them. He pulled off the coverlet and shook it. The purse was not there.

” Did I forget it ? No, I am sure I was thinking I was putting a treasure under your head,” said Rostov. ” I put the purse down here. Where is it?” He turned to Lavrushka.

” I did not come in. It must be there where you put it.”

” It is not — “

” You always throw a thing somewhere, and then you do not know where. Look in your pockets ! “

” If I had not been thinking of the treasure, I might have forgotten what I did,” said Rostdv, ” but I remember distinctly that I put it there.”

Lavrushka rummaged through the whole bed, looked under it, and under the table, turned the whole room upside down, and stopped in the middle of the room. Denisov in silence followed all the movements of Lavrushka and, when Lavrushka waved his hands in surprise, saying that it was not anywhere, he looked back at Rostdv.

” Rostov, you are not jok — “

Being conscious of Denisov’s glance, Rostov raised his eyes and at the same moment lowered them. All his blood, which was repressed somewhere below the throat, suddenly burst into his face and eyes. He was unable to draw breath.

” There was nobody in the room, but the lieutenant and you yourself. It must be here somewhere,” said Lavrushka.

” You, devil’s doll, bestir yourself, find it!” suddenly shouted Denisov, blood-red in his face and rushing up against his lackey with a threatening mien. ” Get the purse or I will have you flogged to death ! I will have everybody flogged ! ”

Avoiding Denisov’s glance, Rostov began to button his jacket ; he girded his sabre and put on his cap.

” I tell you, I want the purse to be found,” cried Denisov, shaking his orderly by the shoulders and pushing him against the wall.

” Denisov, let him alone ! I know who has taken it,” said Rostov, walking over to the door, with his eyes on the ground.

Denisov stopped, thought awhile, and, evidently comprehending Rostov’s hint, seized his hand.

” Nonsense ! ” he shouted, so that the veins on his neck and brow swelled like ropes. ” I tell you you are crazy, — I will not permit that ! The purse is here ; I will flay this rascal alive, and the purse will show up ! ”

” I know who took it,” repeated Rostdv, in a trembling voice, moving toward the door.

” And I tell you that you must not dare to do that,” yelled Denisov, rushing up to the yunker in order to hold him back.

But Rostdv tore his hand away from him and, with such rage as though Denisov were his greatest enemy, directed his eyes straight and firmly at him.

” Do you understand what you say ? ” he said, in a trembling voice. ” There was no one in the room but I. Consequently, if it is not that, then — “

He could not finish the sentence and ran out of the room.

“ Oh, the devil take you and everybody else,” were the last words which Rostov heard.

Rostov arrived at Telyanin’s lodging.

“ The master is not at home, — he has gone to the staff,” Telyanin’s orderly said to him. ” Has something happened ? ” asked the orderly, wondering at the yunker’s disturbed countenance.

“ No, nothing.”

” He has just gone,” said the orderly.

The staff was three versts away from Salzeneck. Rostov did not go to his house, but took the horse, and rode to the staff. In the village occupied by the staff there was an inn which was frequented by the officers. Rostov went to that inn ; at the porch he saw Telydnin’s horse.

In the second room of the inn sat the lieutenant at a dish of sausages and a bottle of wine.

” Ah, young man, you have come here, too,” he said, smiling and raising high his eyebrows.

” Yes,” said Rostov, as though it cost him great effort to pronounce that word, seating himself at a neighbouring table.

Both were silent ; in the room sat two Germans and one Russian officer. All were silent, and one could hear the clatter of knives against the plates and the munching of the lieutenant. When Telyanin had finished his breakfast, he took a double purse out of his pocket, with his thin, white fingers, that were bent upward, moved up the rings, took a gold coin out of it, and, raising his eyebrows, gave the money to the waiter.

” Please be in a hurry,” he said.

It was a new coin. Rostov got up and walked over to Telyanin.

” Permit me to look at your purse,” he said, in a quiet, scarcely audible voice.

With fugitive eyes and lowered brows, Telydnin handed him the purse.

” Yes, it is a nice purse — Yes, yes,” he said, suddenly growing pale. ” Look at it, young man.”

Rostov took the purse in his hands and looked at it, and at the money which was in it, and at Telydnin. The lieutenant looked all around him, as was his habit, and suddenly, it seemed, grew very cheerful.

” When we are in Vienna, I shall leave every thing there, but here, in these nasty, little towns, one cannot get rid of it,” he said. ” Well, young man, let me have it, and I will go.”

Rostov was silent.

” What are you going to do ? Get your breakfast ? They feed one well here,” continued Telyanin. “ Let me have it ! “

He stretched out his hand for the purse. Rostov let it out of his. Telyänin took the purse and was dropping it into the pocket of his ridingtrousers. His brows were raised carelessly, and his mouth was slightly open, as though saying : ” Yes, yes, I am putting my purse into my pocket, and that is very simple, and it is nobody’s business.”

” Well, young man,” he said, with a sigh, looking underneath his half-raised brows into Rostdv’s eyes. A beam of light with the rapidity of an electric spark passed from Telyanin’s eyes into those of Rostov, and back again, and to and fro once more, in one twinkle.

“ Come here,” said Rostov, grasping Telyanin’s arm. He almost dragged him to the window. “ That is Denisov’s money, — you took it — ” he whispered above his ear.

” What ? What ? How dare you ? What ? ” muttered Telyanin.

But these words sounded like a pitiful, desperate shriek and a cry that asked forgiveness. The moment Rostdv heard that sound, an immense rock of doubts was rolled oil from his heart. He felt joy, and, at the same time, he pitied the unfortunate man who was standing before him ; but the matter had to be brought to a conclusion.

” People will think God knows what,” muttered Telyanin, seizing his cap and walking toward a small unoccupied room. ” I must have you explain — “

” I know it, and I will prove it to you,” said Rostov.

« £__”

Telyänin’s frightened and pale face began to quiver in every muscle ; the eyes were as fugitive as before ; they did not rise to the level of Rostov’s eyes, and sobs could be heard.

” Count, do not ruin a young man ! Here is the unfortunate money, — take it ! ” He threw it on the table. ” I have an old father and mother ! “

Rostdv took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s glance, and, without saying a word, left the room. But he stopped at the door and came back.

” My God,” he said, with tears in his eyes, ” how could you have done it ? ”

« Count ! ” said Telyanin, coming up to the yunker.

« Don’t touch me ! ” muttered Rostdv, stepping back.

“If you are in straits, take the money !”

He flung the purse to him and ran out of the inn.

V.

On the evening of the same day, an animated conversation was held at Denisov’s quarters among the officers of the squadron.

” And I tell you, Rostov, that you must beg the commander’s pardon,” a tall staff-captain, with hair streaked gray, immense moustache, large features, and wrinkled face, said to Rostov, who looked agitated, and whose face was flushed blood-red. Staff-Captain Kirsten had twice been reduced to the rank of soldier for affairs of honour, and twice had risen in rank through merit.

“I permit no one to tell me that I lie!” exclaimed Rostov. ” He told me that I lied, and I told him that it was he who lied. So it will remain. He may send me to day duties and put me under arrest, but nobody can make me beg his pardon, because, if he, as commander of the regiment, does not regard it as improper for him to give me satisfaction, then — ”

” Wait, my friend, and listen to me ! ” the staff-captain interrupted him in his bass voice, calmly stroking his long moustache. ” You told the commander of the regiment in the presence of other officers that an officer stole — ”

” It is not my fault that the conversation took place in the presence of other officers. Maybe it was not right to speak in their presence, but I am not a diplomatist. That was the very reason why I entered the regiment of hussars : I thought that no diplomacy was needed here, while he tells me that I lie. Let him give me satisfaction — “

” That is all right. Nobody says that you are a coward, but that is a different matter. 2X.sk Denisov whether it is decent for a yunker to ask the commander of the regiment to give him satisfaction.”

Denisov, biting his moustache, was listening to the conversation with a gloomy look, apparently not wishing to take part in it. To the staff-captain’s remark he shook his head negatively.

” You told the commander of the regiment about this nasty business in the presence of officers,” continued the staff-captain, ” and Bogdanych ” (that was the commander’s name) “ called you down.”

” He did not call me down, but told me that I lied.”

« Very well ; and you told him a lot of foolish things, and so you have to ask his pardon.”

” Never ! ” cried Rostdv.

” I never expected that from you,” the staff-captain said, in a serious and stern voice. ” You do not want to ask his pardon, whereas you, my friend, are at fault, not only before him, but before the whole regiment, before all of us. Now, if you had only thought the matter over and taken somebody’s advice ! Instead, you blurted the whole thing out, and in the presence of officers. What is the commander of the regiment to do now ? An officer will have to be court-martialled, and the whole regiment will be disgraced. Is it right to besmirch a whole regiment for the sake of one scoundrel? What do you think about that ? In our opinion that is not right. Bogdanych acted right in telling you that you told an untruth. It is disagreeable, but what is to be done ? You, my friend, have caused it all yourself. And now that they want to hush up the whole matter, you refuse through some spirit of haughtiness to ask his pardon, and want to tell the whole matter. You feel insulted because you will be put on day duty and because you are to ask the pardon of an old and honest officer. Say of Bogdänych whatever you please, — be is an honest and brave old colonel, — and you feel insulted by him. Is it nothing to you to besmirch a whole regiment ? ” The staff-captain’s voice began to quiver. ” You, my dear, will be but a short time in the regiment : to-day you are here, and tomorrow you -will be appointed to some little adjutant’s duty, so it makes little difference to you if they say, ‘ There are thieves among the officers of the Pavlogrädski regiment ! ‘ But it is not the same to us. Am I right, Denisov ? It is not the same to us, is it ? “

Denisov still kept silent and did not stir; now and then he glanced at Rostov with his shining black eyes.

” Your pride is dearer to you, so you will not beg pardon,” continued the staff-captain, ” but we old men have grown up in the regiment, and, if God grants it, we shall die in the regiment, so the regiment’s honour is dear to us, and Bogdanych knows it. Oh, how dear it is to us, my friend ! But that is not good, not good ! You may be offended by what I say, but I have to tell you the unvarnished truth. It is not good ! ”

The staff-captain rose and turned away from Rostdv.

” It is so, the deuce take it ! ” Denisov cried, leaping up. ” Well, Rostov, well ? ”

Rostdv blushed and grew pale, looking now at one officer and now at another.

“No, gentlemen, no — don’t think—I understand very well — you misjudge me — I — for me — for the honour of the regiment — really, I will prove by deeds that to me, too, the honour of the flag — well, all the same, it is so, I am to blame ! — What more do you want ? ”

” That is right, count,” the staff-captain exclaimed, turning around and slapping Rostov’s shoulder with his big hand.

” I told you,” cried Denisov, ” that he was a fine fellow.”

” It is better this way, count,” repeated the staff-captain, giving him his title, as though in recognition of his confession. ” Go and ask his pardon, your Serenity, yes.”

« Gentlemen, I will do everything, and nobody shall hear a word from me,” Rostov spoke in an imploring voice, ” but I cannot beg his pardon, upon my word I cannot do what you say. How can I beg his pardon like a little child ? “

Denisov burst out laughing.

” So much the worse for you. Bogdànych has a long memory, and you will have to pay for your stubbornness,” said Kirsten.

“Upon my word, it is not stubbornness! I cannot describe to you what kind of a feeling, — I cannot— ”

“ Well, as you please,” said the staff-captain. “ What has become of the scoundrel ? ” he asked Denisov.

” He pretends to be ill. Tomorrow the order of expulsion will be issued,” said Denisov.

“It is a disease; it cannot be explained in any other way,” said the staff-captain.

” Disease or no disease, — if he gets into my way I will kill him,” Denisov exclaimed, in a bloodthirsty voice.

Zhérkov entered the room.

” What are you doing here ? ” the officers suddenly turned to the newcomer.

” It is a march, gentlemen. Mack has surrendered with his whole army.”

” Nonsense ! “

“ I saw him myself.”

“What? You saw Mack alive? With his hands and feet?”

“ A march ! A march ! Let him have a bottle for such news. How did you get here ? “

” I have been sent back to the army again on account of that devil of a Mack. The Austrian general put in a complaint. I congratulated him on Mack’s arrival — Rostov, what is the matter with you ? You look as though you were just out from the bath.”

” My dear, we have been in a terrible muss up here for two days.”

The adjutant of the regiment entered and confirmed the news which had been brought by Zhérkov. The order to march on the following day had arrived.

“ It is a march, gentlemen ! “

“ Thank God, — we have been staying here too long.”

VL

Kutûzov retreated toward Vienna, destroying the bridges behind him, on the River Inn (at Braunau) and on the Traun (at Linz). On the 23d of October the Russian troops crossed the River Enns. The Russian baggage train, the artillery, and the columns of the troops during the middle of the day passed through the town of Enns, on both sides of the bridge. It was a warm, rainy autumn day. The extensive perspective, which was revealed from the eminence on which stood the Russian battery defending the bridge, was suddenly veiled by the gauze-like curtain of the slanting rain, or suddenly opened up again, and, in the light of the sun, the objects could be clearly discerned at a great distance, appearing as though covered with lacquer. At the observer’s feet could be seen the small town with its white houses and red roofs, its cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which the Russian troops were pouring forth in dense masses. At the bend of the Danube were to be seen vessels, and an island, and a castle with its park, surrounded by the waters formed at the confluence of the river Enns with the Danube ; there was also visible the rocky and pine-clad left shore of the Danube, with its mysterious vista of green summits and bluish ravines. One could see the towers of a monastery, which rose amidst a wild pine forest that seemed to be of virgin growth ; far in the distance, on the mountain, on the other side of the Enns, could be seen the patrols of the enemy.

In front of the ordnance placed on the summit stood the commander of the rearguard, a general with an officer of the suite, examining the locality through a glass. A little behind them, Nesvftski, who had been sent by the commanderin-chief to the rearguard, was sitting on the trail of a gun-carriage. A Cossack, who was accompanying Nesvftski, handed him a wallet and a flask, and Nesvftski treated the officers to small cakes and real Doppelkümmel. The officers who surrounded him were in a jolly mood, some of them kneeling, while others were sitting, in Turkish fashion, on the wet grass.

” Yes, the Austrian prince that built the palace here was not a fool. It is a fine place. Why do you not eat, gentlemen ? ” asked Nesvftski.

” Thank you, prince,” replied one of the officers, happy to converse with so important an officer of the staff. ” It is a beautiful spot. As we passed near the park, we saw two stags, and it is a charming mansion ! “

” Look, prince,” said another, who was very anxious to take another cake, but who felt embarrassed, and so pretended to be surveying the country around about him, ” look, our infantry has got as far as that ! Over there, on’ the meadow, three of them are dragging something. They will clean out this palace,” he said, with evident approval.

” That is so,” said Nesvftski. ” What I should like,” he added, munching a patty in his beautiful and moist mouth, ” would be to get up there.” He pointed to the convent with the towers, which was visible on the mountain. He smiled and blinked, and his eyes began to glisten. ” It would be nice, gentlemen ! ”

The officers laughed.

” If it were only to scare the nuns. They say there are some young Italian women among them. Really, I would gladly give five years of my life for it ! “

” They must feel lonely, anyway,” said one of the bolder officers, laughing.

In the meantime the officer of the suite, who was standing in the van, was showing the general something; the general was looking through a field-glass.

« That is so, that is so,” angrily said the general, dropping his glass and shrugging his shoulders, ” that is so, they will attack them at the crossing. Why are they so slow ? “

The enemy could be seen with the naked eye on the other side, where from his battery appeared a milk-white smoke. Soon after the smoke there was heard a distant discharge, and our troops could be seen hurrying to cross.

Nesvftski, puffing, rose and, smiling, walked over to the general ” Would not your Excellency like to take a bite ? ” he said.

” It is a bad business,” said the general, without answering him. ” Our soldiers are too late.”

” Had I not better ride down to them, your Excellency ? ” asked Nesvitski.

” Yes, if you please,” said the general, repeating that which had been ordered in detail before, ” and tell the hussars to be the last to cross the bridge, which they are to burn, as I have ordered. Let them examine well the inflammable stull on the bridge.”

” All right,” replied Nesvitski.

He called the Cossack with the horse, ordered him to put away the wallet and the flask, and with his heavy body vaulted nimbly to the saddle.

” Really, I will call on the nuns,” he said to the officers, who were looking at him with a smile. He rode down the hill along a meandering path.

” Well, captain, see how far it will carry ! ” said the general, turning to an artillerist. ” While away your time by a little shooting.”

” The crew to their guns ! ” ordered the officer, and in a minute’s time the artillerists came running up from their campfires, and the guns were loaded.

“One ! ” was heard the command.

Number one briskly leaped forth. The gun produced a metallic din, and over the heads of all our soldiers at the foot of the hill a grenade, whistling, flew and, long before reaching the enemy, by its smoke indicated the spot where it fell and burst.

The faces of the soldiers and officers grew cheerful at this sound ; all arose and occupied themselves with watching the movements of our troops down below, which were as visible as though they took place in the palm of one’s hand, and with watching the movements of the approaching enemy in front of them. The sun just then entirely came out from behind a cloud, and that beautiful sound of the single report and the splendour of the bright sun blended in one bracing and cheerful impression.

VIL

Two hostile shells flew over the bridge, and the bridge was jammed. In the middle, Prince Nesvitski, having dismounted, stood pressing with his fat body against the balustrade. He was laughing and looking back at his Cossack, who, holding two horses by their lines, was standing a few steps behind him. The moment Prince Nesvitski tried to move forward, the soldiers and wagons again began to press on him and again jammed him against the balustrade, and there was nothing left for him to do but smile.

“ Look there, my friend ! ” the Cossack was saying to a soldier of the baggage, who was driving a cart and pressing hard on the infantry that were crowding against the wheels and the horses. ” What a fellow you are ! Can’t you wait? Let the general pass by.”

But the soldier of the baggage, paying no attention to the title of general, called out to the soldiers who were barring his way :

“ Oh, countrymen, keep to the left ! Stop ! “

But the countrymen, pressing shoulder to shoulder, catching in each other’s bayonets, and without stopping, moved over the bridge in one solid mass.

Looking down over the balustrade, Prince Nesvitski saw the swift, turbulent, low billows of the Enns, which, blending, rippling, and bending at the piles of the bridge, hastened one after the other. He looked at the bridge and saw similar living billows of soldiers, tassels, covered shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long rifles, and, under the shakos, faces with broad cheek-bones, sunken cheeks, and careless and wearied expressions, and feet moving in the sticky mud which was carried on the boards of the bridge. Now and then an officer, in his mantle and . with his physiognomy differing from that of the soldiers, pushed his way through the uniform waves of the soldiers, like a burst of white foam in the waters of the Enns ; now and then a hussar on foot, an orderly, or a citizen was carried down the bridge by the waves of the infantry, like a chip home down the river; occasionally an officer’s or a company cart, laden to the top and covered with skins, swam down the bridge, surrounded on all sides, like a log which is carried down the river.

” I declare, they are coming down as though a dam had given way,” said the Cossack, stopping in despair. ” How many more are there of you ? ”

” A million less one ! ” said, blinking, a merry soldier in a torn overcoat, passing by and immediately disappearing. After him came another, an old soldier.

” When he (the enemy) starts to warm up the bridge,” gloomily said the old soldier, turning to his companion, ” you will forget how to scratch yourself.”

The soldier passed by. After him another soldier in a cart came by.

” Where the deuce did you stick in the foot-rags ? ” said an officer’s servant, running after the cart and rummaging in the back of it. And he and the cart passed by, too.

Then there came merry soldiers who, apparently, had had something to drink.

” As he, the dear man, cracked him in his teeth with the butt — ” cheerfully said one of the soldiers, with his coat pulled out over his belt, and broadly swinging his arms.

” That’s it : it is sweet ham ! ” replied another, roaring.

And they passed, and Nesvitski never found out who was knocked in his teeth and what the ham had to do with it.

” How they are scrambling ! Because he has given us a cold shot, they think that everybody will be killed,” an underofficer said, angrily and reproachfully.

” As the ball flew past me, uncle,” said a young soldier, with an enormous mouth, with difficulty repressing a laugh, ” I could not draw my breath. Truly, upon my word, I was so frightened ! ” said this soldier, as though bragging of having been frightened.

He, too, passed. Then there followed a cart, which did not resemble any of those that had gone before. It was a German two-horse wagon that seemed to be loaded with the contents of a whole house ; back of the wagon, which was led by a German, was tied a beautiful dappled cow with an enormous udder. On a feather bed sat a woman with a suckling babe, an old woman, and a young, rubyfaced, healthy girl, all of them Germans. Apparently special permission had been granted these migrating inhabitants to cross the bridge. The eyes of all the soldiers were turned to these women, and so long as the wagon passed by, moving step after step, all the remarks of the soldiers had reference to the two women. On all the faces there was almost the same smile expressive of indecent thoughts in regard to them.

” That big sausage is getting out of the way, too ! “

” Sell me the little mother,” said another soldier, addressing the German, who, lowering his eyes, was striding along with an angry and frightened expression.

” How she is dressed up I The devils ! “

” Fedotov, how would you like to be quartered upon them ? “

” I have seen such before, my friend ! ”

” Where are you going ? ” asked an officer of the infantry, who was eating an apple, with a halfsmile and looking at the pretty girl. The German closed his eyes, showing that he did not understand him. ” If you want it, take it,” said the officer, giving his apple to the girl.

The girl smiled, and took the apple. Nesvftski, like the rest of the people on the bridge, did not take his eyes off the women, as long as they were in sight. When they had passed by, there came again the same soldiers, with the same talk, until finally all stopped. As frequently happens, the horses in a company cart became unruly as they reached the end of the bridge, and the whole mass had to wait.

” What are they stopping for? There is no order ? ” said the soldiers. ” Where are you pushing ? The devil ! No such a thing for him as waiting. It will be worse than that when he warms up the bridge. See how they have jammed in the officer,” were the remarks made on all sides by the arrested mass who, looking at each other, were all the time pressing forward to the end of the bridge.

Looking over the bridge on the water of the Enns, Nesvftski suddenly heard a new sound of something large approaching and splashing in the water.

” So that’s what he is after ! ” sternly said a soldier, who was standing near, as he looked around in the direction of the sound.

” He is encouraging us to cross as quickly as possible,” another said, restlessly.

The crowd again began to move. Nesvftski understood that it was a shell.

“ Oh, Cossack, let me ha? e my horse ! ” he said. ” You there, step aside ! Let me-pass ! “

He reached his horse with great difficulty. He moved on, shouting all the time. The soldiers jammed each other to make way for him, and again pressed so hard upon him that they almost crushed his leg, but those who were nearest to him were not to blame, for they were worse pressed from the other side.

‘ Nesvftski ! Nesvftski ! Is it your mug ? ” was just then heard a hoarse voice behind him.

Nesvftski looked back and saw, about fifteen paces behind him, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, red-faced, black-haired, dishevelled Väska Denisov, with his cap poised on the back of his head, and his dolman dashingly thrown over his shoulder.

“‘Tell those devils to let you pass,” cried Denisov, who evidently had an access of fury, rolling his jet-black eyes with their inflamed whites, and swinging his sheathed sabre, which he held in his bare little hand that was as red as his face.

” 0 Vasya ! ” cheerfully replied Nesvitski. ” What are you doing there ? “

” The squadron cannot pass,” cried Väska Denisov, angrily displaying his white teeth, spurring his beautiful black charger, a thoroughbred Arabian steed, which kept pricking his ears at the bayonets against which he was striking, snorting, scattering foam through his bit, clanking his shoes against the boards of the bridge, and seemed to be ready at any moment to take the balustrade, if the rider would only permit him to do so.

“ What is that ? Just like sheep, precisely like sheep ! Get away ! Gangway ! Stand there, devil of a cart ! I will cut you to pieces with the sabre ! ” he cried, actually unsheathing his sabre and beginning to swing it.

The soldiers, looking frightened, pressed against each other, and Denisov joined Nesvitski.

” How is it you are not drunk to-day ? ” Nesvitski said to Denisov, when he had caught up.

” They won’t even give a man a chance to drink ! ” replied Väska Denisov. ” They are dragging the regiment all day long, now in one direction, and now in another. If it is to be fight, let it be! But this is the devil knows what.”

” How dandyish you look to-day ! ” said Nesvitski, looking at his new dolman and housing.

Denisov smiled, and, taking a perfumed handkerchief out of his sabretasche, put it under Nesvitski’s nose.

” Can’t, — am going into action : have shaved myself, cleaned my teeth, and perfumed myself.”

Nesvitski’s imposing figure, accompanied by a Cossack, and Denisov’s determination, as he swung his sabre and cried in a desperate voice, had the effect of opening a way for them, sg that they, stopping the infantry, reached the other end of the bridge. Nesvitski found there the colonel, for whom he had some orders, and, having accomplished his mission, he rode back.

Having cleared the way, Denisov stopped at the entrance of the bridge. Nonchalantly holding back his stallion, which was trying to join its company and was pawing the ground, he watched the squadron as it was approaching him. Over the boards of the bridge could be heard the metallic sound of horseshoes, as though several horses were galloping, and the squadron, with its officers in the van, stretched out, four wide, along the bridge, and began to cross to the other side.

The soldiers of the infantry, whose progress had been stopped, and who were crowding in the sticky mud at the entrance, were looking at the clean, foppish hussars, passing by them in stately array, with that peculiar, malevolent feeling of strangeness and scorn, with which the different branches of the army generally meet.

” They are dressed up fellows ! Take them out to the Podnovinskoe Avenue ! ”

” What good is there in them ? They are only for show ! ” said another.

“Infantry, don’t make so much dust!” jested a hussar, whose frisky horse spirted some mud on an infantryman.

” If you had to make two marches with your knapsack, your cords would not look so new,” said the footsoldier, wiping off the mud with his sleeve. “ It is a bird that is sitting on that horse, and not a man ! ”

” That’s it, Zikin, you would cut a fine figure if you were put on that horse,” a corporal jested with a lean

little soldier who was stooping under the weight of his knapsack.

” Take a club between your legs, and that will be your horse,” said a hussar.

VIII.

The remaining infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, crowding in a funnel shape at the entrance. Finally all the carts got across, the pressure was relieved, and the last battalion entered on the bridge. Only the hussars of Denisov’s squadron were left on the other side of the bridge, facing the enemy. The enemy, who could be seen far away from the hill on the opposite side, was not yet visible below, at the bridge, because in the ravine, through which the river flowed, the horizon was cut off by the elevation on the other side, which was not more than half a verst distant. In front there was a desert, over which groups of our mounted Cossacks were stirring.

Suddenly troops in blue capotes and artillery appeared on the opposite eminence of the road. Those were the French. The Cossack patrol galloped away to the hill.

All the officers and men of Denisov’s squadron tried to speak of indifferent things, and kept looking aside ; but they kept thinking of that which was going on up there, on the hill, and looking at the spots which appeared on the horizon and which they recognized as being the enemy’s troops.

The weather cleared up after noon, and the sun descended brightly over the Danube and the dark mountains which surrounded it. It was quiet, and from the opposite mountain now and then were borne the sounds of horns and of the enemy’s shouts. Between the squadrons and the enemy there was no one but some small patrols. An empty space, about two thousand feet in

width, separated them from the enemy. The French had stopped shooting, and therefore they felt so much the more palpably the austere, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line, which separates two inimical armies.

One step beyond this line, which recalls a line that separates the living from the dead, and there are suffering and death. And what is there, who is there, there, beyond this field, and this tree, and the roof illuminated by the sun ? Nobody knows, and yet one would like to know ; it is terrible to cross that line, and yet one would like to cross it, and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and to find out what is there, on the other side of the line, just as it is unavoidable to find out what is there, beyond death. And yet you are strong, healthy, happy, and irritated, and you are surrounded by just such healthy men who are animated to the point of irritation.

Everybody feels this way, even if he does not think so, when he is in sight of the enemy, and this feeling adds a special splendour and a pleasurable exuberance of impressions to everything that takes place at such moments.

On the eminence occupied by the enemy there appeared the smoke of a gun discharge, and a ball, whistling, flew over the heads of the squadron of hussars. The officers, who were standing together, took up their respective posts. The hussars carefully aligned their horses. Ever}’thing grew silent in the squadron. Everybody looked up to the enemy on the eminence and to the commander of the squadron, waiting for the word of command. There flew by a second and a third ball. It was evident that the hussars were the enemy’s target ; but the ball, whistling in an even and rapid manner, flew over the heads of the hussars and lodged somewhere behind them. The hussars did not look back, but at every sound of a flying shell the whole squadron, with its faces alike, and yet varied, holding its breath all the time the shell was flying, as though by command rose in the stirrups and again sank down. The soldiers did not turn their heads, but glanced askance at each other, curious to discover the impression produced on their neighbours. On every face, from Denisov to the bugler, there appeared about the lips and the chin one common trait of struggle, irritation, and agitation. The sergeant-major scowled, surveying the soldiers, as though threatening them with punishment. Yunker Mirdnov bowed at every flight of a projectile. Rostov, who stood on the left flank on his footsore but nevertheless stately Raven, had the happy aspect of a pupil who is called out to answer questions before a large public at an examination, in which he is sure he can distinguish himself. He clearly and distinctly eyed everybody, as though asking them to take note of his calm attitude under fire, but even in his face there appeared about his mouth, against his will, the same feature of something new and forbidding.

” Who is bowing there ? Yunker Mironov ! It is not good ! Look at me ! ” cried Denisov, who could not stick to one place and kept circling on his horse in front of the squadron.

Väska Denisov’s snubnosed and black-haired face, and his whole undersized, reckless figure, with his venous hand, with the short, hirsute fingers of which he was holding the sword-hilt of his unsheathed sabre, were just such as they always were, especially toward evening, after he had drunk two bottles. But he was redder than usual, and throwing back his shaggy head, as birds do when they drink, and pitilessly pressing his spurs into the sides of his good Arabian steed with his little feet, he, as though falling back, raced to the other flank of the squadron, and in a hoarse voice shouted to the hussars to examine their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The staff-captain, riding on a broad-backed, slow-pacing mare,

and that his whole purpose lay in testing the yunker’s bravery, and so he straightened himself up and looked cheerfully about him ; now again it seemed to him that Bogdanych purposely rode near him to show him his own bravery. Now he thought that his personal enemy would purposely send his squadron to the attack, in order to punish him, Rostov. Now again he thought that after the attack the commander would come up to him and magnanimously give him, the wounded yunker, his hand, in sign of forgiveness.

Zhérkov’s figure, with its raised shoulders, so familiar to the Pavlogrädski officers (he had lately left their regiment), rode up to the commander of the regiment. After his expulsion from the staff, Zhérkov did not remain in the regiment, saying that he was not such a fool as to undergo hardships at the front, when he could get more rewards on the staff, doing nothing, but managed to get a position as orderly under Prince Bagration. He now came to his former superior with orders from the commander of the rearguard.

” Colonel,” he said, with his gloomy seriousness, turning to Rostov’s enemy and surveying his comrades, ” the order is to stop and burn the bridge.”

” Who is the order ? ” the colonel asked, angrily.

. ” I don’t know who is the order” the ensign replied, in a serious voice, ” only the prince told me : ‘ Go and tell the colonel that the hussars should come back at once and burn the bridge.’ ”

Soon after Zhérkov, an officer of the suite rode up to the colonel of hussars and repeated the same order. Immediately after the officer of the suite, stout Nesvitski galloped up at full speed upon a Cossack horse.

” Colonel, how is that ? ” he shouted while at full speed, ” I told you to burn the bridge, and now somebody has made a botch of it ; they are all crazy there, — you can’t make out a thing.”

The colonel leisurely stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski.

” You told me about the inflammable material,” he said, ” but you did not say anything about burning it.”

” But, my dear,” said Nesvitski, stopping, and taking off his cap, and with his plump hand adjusting his hair, which was wet with perspiration, ” how is it I did not tell you about burning the bridge, when the inflammable stuff has been put there ? ”

” 1 am no ‘ dear ‘ to you, Mr. Officer of the staff, and you said nothing to me about burning ! I know what service is. and it is my habit strictly to execute orders. You said that the bridge would be burned, but I could not tell by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost who was going to burn it — ”

” It is always this way,” said Nesvitski, waving his hand. ” Why are you here ? ” he turned to Zhérkov.

“For the same reason as you. You are a little waterlogged, — let me squeeze you out.”

” You said, Mr. Officer of the staff,” continued the colonel, in an offended voice —

« Colonel,” the officer of the suite interrupted him, ” you must be in a hurry, or else the enemy will move up the ordnance within reach of canister-shot.”

The colonel silently looked at the officer of the suite and at Zhérkov, and frowned.

” I will burn the bridge,” he said, in a solemn tone of voice, as though wishing to say that, in spite of all the disagreeable things told him, he would do what was o o *

right.

Striking his horse with his long, muscular legs, as though it were to be blamed for everything, the colonel rode out and ordered the second squadron, the one in which Rostov served under Denisov, to turn back to the bridge.

” That’s it,” thought Rostov, ” he wants to try me ! ” His heart was compressed, and the blood rushed to his face. ” He will see whether I am a coward,” he thought.

Again on all the merry faces of the soldiers of the squadron there appeared that serious feature which they displayed at the time that they were under fire. Rostov riveted his eyes upon his enemy, the commander of the regiment, trying to discover in his face the confirmation of his guesses ; the colonel did not once look at Rostov, but had, as usually at the head of his regiment, a stem and solemn aspect. The word of command was given.

” Lively ! Lively ! ” several voices said near him. Entangling their sabres in the lines, clattering with their spurs, and hastening, the hussars dismounted, not knowing themselves what they were going to do. The hussars made the signs of the cross. Rostdv was no longer looking at the commander of the regiment, — he had no time. He was afraid — his heart sank from fear — lest he should fall behind the hussars. His hand trembled as he handed the horse to the keeper of the horse, and he was conscious of his blood welling in his heart. Denisov, leaning back on his horse and shouting, passed by him. Rostov saw nothing but the scurrying hussars, catching in their spurs and clanking with their sabres.

” The stretcher ! ” cried somebody from behind. Rostov did not stop to think what the meaning of asking for the litter was ; he ran, having no other thought than that of being in the van ; but at the bridge he forgot to look under his feet, and stepped into the sticky mud, whereupon he stumbled and fell upon his hands. Others outran him.

” On both sides, captain,” he heard the voice of the commander of the regiment, who had ridden up and was sitting on his horse near the bridge, having a solemn and merry expression on his face.

Wiping his dirty hands on his pantaloons, Rostov looked back at his enemy and started to run ahead, thinking that the farther he went the better. But Bogdänych, without looking at Rostov or recognizing him, cried :

” Who is running there in the middle of the bridge ? To the right ! Yunker, back ! ” he shouted, angrily, turning to Denisov, who, with a display of bravado, rode out on the planks of the bridge.

” What is the use risking your life, captain ? You had better dismount,” said the colonel.

” Well, the shell will fetch him whom it has to fetch,” replied Väska Denisov, turning around on his saddle.

Meanwhile Nesvftski, Zhérkov, and the officer of the suite were standing together, out of range of the shots, looking now at the small group of men, in yellow shakos, dark green, cord-embroidered jackets, and blue ridingtrousers, who were swarming at the bridge, and now at the blue capotes approaching on the other side, and at the groups about horses, which could be easily recognized as ordnance.

“Will they burn the bridge, or not? Who will be there first? Will they run up and set the fire to the bridge, or will the French get within range of canister-shot and kill them all ? ”

Such were the questions which, with sinking heart, each person of that large number of the troops standing above the bridge was asking himself. In the bright evening light they all looked at the bridge and at the hussars, and on the other side at the moving blue capotes with their bayonets and ordnance.

” Oh, the hussars will catch it ! ” said Nesvftski. ” They are not farther away than the range of canister-shot.”

” It was useless for him to take up such a large number of men,” said the officer of the suite.

“That is so,” said Nesvftski. “It would have been sufficient to send two brave fellows up there.”

” Ah, your Serenity,” interposed Zhérkov, without taking ms eyes off the hussars, but still in that naive manner of his, when it was impossible to guess whether he was in earnest or not. ” Ah, your Serenity ! How wrongly you judge ! If two men were sent there, who would give us the decoration of Vladimir with the ribbon ? But now, even if the squadron is beaten, there will be a chance for presenting the men for decoration, and he who makes the presentation will get one, too. Our Bogdänych knows what is what ! ”

“ Well,” said the officer of the suite, ” that is a canister-shot ! “

He pointed to the French ordnance, which were taken off their limbers. On the French side there appeared a cloud of smoke among the groups where the guns stood ; then a second, a third, almost simultaneously, and just as the first shot reached its destination, a fourth was heard. Then two sounds followed together, and then a third.

” Oh, oh ! ” sighed Nesvftski, as though from a burning pain, grasping the hand of the officer of the suite. ” See there, one has dropped ! He has fallen ! ”

” Two, it seems ! “

” If I were an emperor, I should never wage war,” said Nesvftski, turning his face away.

The French guns were quickly loaded once more. The infantry in the blue capotes moved rapidly toward the bridge. Again there appeared little whiffs of smoke, but at varying intervals, and the canister-shot clicked and crackled on the bridge. But this time Nesvftski was unable to see what was taking place on the bridge. A dense smoke rose from it. The hussars had succeeded in setting it on fire, and the French batteries no longer shot at them in order to prevent them from accomplishing their work, but simply because the guns had been trained and there was something to shoot at.

The French managed to discharge three canister-shots before the hussars returned to the keepers of the horses.

Two of these discharges missed their aim, and the canister-shot was carried too far, but the last struck in the middle of a group of hussars and knocked three men down.

Rostdv, who was busy reflecting on his relations with Bogdanych, stopped on the bridge, not knowing what to do. There was no one to slash (and it was in slashing that he imagined battle to consist) ; he was unable to help in burning the bridge, because he had not taken with him the straw-sack, as the other soldiers had done. He stood looking on all sides, when there was a crackling sound on the bridge, as though from scattered nuts, and one of the hussars, the one that stood nearest to him, with a groan fell to the ground. Rostov ran up to him, together with the rest. Again some one cried, ” The stretcher ! ” Four men picked up the wounded hussar.

” Oh, oh, oh ! Leave me here, for Christ’s sake,” cried the wounded man ; but he was raised up and put on the stretcher. Nikolay Rostdv turned his face away, and, as though looking for something, began to gaze into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, at the sun. How beautiful, how blue, how calm and deep the sky seemed to be ! How bright and solemn the setting sun was! How gently the water gleamed in the distant Danube ! And better still were the mountains in the blue distance beyond the Danube, and the monastery, the mysterious clefts, the pine forests shrouded to their tops in a mist — there was quiet, happiness —

“ I should wish for nothing, for nothing, if only I were there,” thought Rostov. ” Within me and in this sun there is so much happiness, and here — groans, suffering, and this indeterminateness, this hurry— Again they are crying, and again they are running back somewhere, and I am running with them, and there it is, there it is, death, above me, around me— One moment, and I shall not see this sun, this water, this cleft — “

Just then the sun was covered by clouds ; in front of Rostov appeared another stretcher. And the terror of death and of the stretcher, and the love of the sun and of life, — all blended into one morbid, agitating impression.

” 0 Lord ! Thou who art there in heaven, save me, forgive me, and defend me ! ” Rostov whispered to himself.

The hussars rushed up to the keepers of the horses ; the voices grew louder and calmer ; the stretchers disappeared from view.

” Well, my friend, have you smelled powder ? ” Väska Denisov shouted in his very ear.

” All is ended, but I am a coward, yes, a coward,” thought Rostdv, and, heaving a deep sigh, he took from the keeper of his horse the footsore Raven, and began to mount.

” What was it, a canister-shot ? ” he asked Denisov.

” I should say it was ! ” exclaimed Denisov. ” They did a fine piece of work ! It was a bad business ! An attack is a pleasant job ; you slash from the shoulder, but the devil knows what this is : they hit you as though you were a target.”

Denisov rode off to a group which was formed near Rostov, and which consisted of the commander of the regiment, Nesvitski, Zhérkov, and the officer of the suite.

” It seems, nobody has noticed it,” Rostov thought.

Indeed, nobody had noticed anything, because everybody was familiar with the feeling which the yunker, who had never been in action, experienced for the first time.

” Now, there will be a fine report,” said Zhérkov, ” and I may be advanced to the rank of sub-lieutenant.”

” Report to the prince that I have burned the bridge,” the colonel said, solemnly and merrily.

” And if he should ask about the losses ? “

“A mere trifle!” the colonel said, in a bass voice.

” Two hussars wounded, and one stone-dead,” he said, with apparent pleasure, being unable to repress a happy smile as he melodiously pronounced the pretty word, ” stone-dead.”

IX.

Pursued by a French army of one hundred thousand men under the leadership of Bonaparte ; encountering the hostility of the inhabitants ; no longer trusting to its allies ; experiencing a lack of provision, and compelled to act outside all foreseen conditions of war, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men, under the leadership of Kutuzov, hastily retreated down the Danube, stopping there where it was overtaken by the enemy, and defending itself by rearguard actions only to the extent of being able to retreat without losing the baggage. There had been engagements at Lambach, at Amstetten, and at Melck ; but, in spite of the bravery and the stubbornness of the Russians, which the enemy conceded to them, the only result of these actions was to make them retreat much more rapidly. The Austrian troops, which had escaped captivity at Ulm and had joined Kutuzov at Braunau, now separated from the Russian army, and Kutuzov was abandoned to his own feeble and exhausted forces. There could be no thought of defending Vienna. Instead of an offensive war, which had been profoundly planned according to the laws of the new science of strategy, and the plan of which had been communicated to Kutuzov during his sojourn in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, — the only, almost inaccessible, aim which now presented itself to Kutuzov was not to lose the army as Mack had lost his at Ulm, and to unite with the troops that were coming from Russia.

On October 28th Kutuzov crossed with his army on the left bank of the Danube, and for the first time

stopped, having placed the Danube between him and the main forces of the French. On the 30th he attacked the division of Mortier, which was on the left bank of the river, and vanquished it. In this engagement trophies were taken for the first time ; they consisted in a standard, in ordnance, and two generals. After a retreat of two weeks, the Russian troops now stopped for the first time and, after the battle, not only held their ground, but drove the French off. Although the troops were ill-provided with clothing, exhausted, and diminished by one-third through losses in stragglers, wounded, killed, and sick ; although sick and wounded soldiers were left on the other side of the Danube with a letter from Kutuzov, recommending them to the humanity of the enemy ; although the large hospitals and houses in Krems, changed into lazarettos, could no longer hold all the sick and all the wounded, the stop at Krems and the victory over Mortier considerably raised the spirits of the army. Among all the troops and in the chief quarters most joyful, though unjust, rumours were abroad about the proximity of new columns from Russia, about some victory obtained by the Austrians, and about the retreat of frightened Bonaparte.

Prince Andréy had during the battle been with the Austrian General Schmidt, who was killed in that action. His horse was wounded under him, and he himself received a scratch by a bullet. As a token of the special favour of the commanderin-chief, he was sent with the news of this victory to the Austrian court, which no longer was at Vienna, which was threatened by the French troops, but at Brünn. Prince Andréy, agitated, but not tired (in spite of his seemingly weak constitution, he could endure physical fatigue much better than the strongest men), rode, in the night of the battle, with a report from Dokhturov to Kutuzov at Kreins, and was that very night despatched as a courier.to Brunn. This courier duty not only meant the reception of rewards, but also signified an important step toward promotion.

The night was dark and starlit; the road lay black through the white snow which had fallen on the eve of the day of the battle. Reviewing the impressions of the battle just passed, joyfully imagining the impression which he would produce by the news of the victory, recalling the Godspeed given him by the commanderin-chief and his companions, Prince Andréy raced in a post-chaise, experiencing the feeling of a man who has been waiting long and who finally reaches the beginning of Ids desired happiness. The moment he closed his eyes, the discharges of the Russian rifles and cannon resounded in his ears, blending with the rumble of the wheels and the impression of the victory. Now he imagined that the Russians were flying and that he himself was killed ; but he immediately awoke, happy to discover that there had been nothing of the kind and that, on the contrary, it was the French who had fled. And he again recalled all the details of the victory, of his calm bravery during the battle, and, being calmed down, he again fell asleep—

After the dark, starlit night there broke a clear, cheerful morning. The snow melted in the sun, the horses galloped rapidly, and to the right and to the left there passed new, variegated forests, fields, and villages.

At one of the stations he fell in with a convoy of wounded Russians. The Russian officer, who was in charge of the convoy, was stretched out in the front cart, cursing a soldier in a loud voice. Six or more pale, bandaged, and dirty wounded soldiers were jolted in each of the long German wagons. Some of them talked (he could hear their Russian conversation); others ate’bread; the more seriously wounded glanced in silence with a meek and sickly, childish curiosity at the courier rushing past them.

Prince Andréy had his post-chaise stopped and asked a soldier in what action they had been wounded.

” Two days ago at the Danube,” replied the soldier.

Prince Andréy took out his purse and gave the soldier three gold coins.

” For all of you,” he added, turning to the officer who came up to him. ” Get well, boys,” he turned to the soldiers, ” there is work ahead.”

” Mr. Adjutant, what is the news ? ” asked the officer, apparently wishing to enter into a conversation.

” Good news ! Forward ! ” he shouted to the driver and raced ahead.

It was quite dark when Prince Andréy entered Briinn and saw himself surrounded by tall houses, by lights in the shops, in the windows of the houses, and in the streetlamps, by beautiful carriages rattling along the pavement, and by all that atmosphere of a large, animated city, which is always so attractive to a military man after the life of a camp. Prince Andréy, in spite of his rapid travelling and the sleepless night, felt himself even more animated than the day before, now that he was driving up to the palace. His eyes only glistened with a feverish glow, and his thoughts changed with extraordinary rapidity and clearness. He again saw vividly all the details of the battle, no longer dimly, but definitely, in a concise recapitulation, such as in his imagination he was making to Emperor Francis. He vividly thought of the incidental questions that might be put to him, and of the answers which he would give. He supposed that he would be at once introduced to the emperor. But at the large entrance to the palace an official came running out to him and, upon recognizing him as a courier, took him to the next entrance.

« Take the door to the right in the corridor ; there Fuer Hochgeboren will find the aid-de-camp of the day,” the official said to him. ” He will bring you to the minister of war.”

Upon meeting Prince Andréy, the aid-de-camp of the day asked him to wait, and himself went to see the minister of war. Five minutes later the aid-de-camp returned and, bowing extremely politely and allowing Andréy to pass before him, led him through the corridor into a cabinet where the minister of war was busy. The aid-de-camp seemed with his excessive politeness to be putting a barrier against any attempt the Russian adjutant should try to make at familiarity. Prince Andréy’s joyous sensation considerably weakened as he approached the door of the minister of war. He felt himself offended, and the feeling of insult imperceptibly to him at once passed into a feeling of groundless contempt. His inventive mind immediately presented to him the point of view from which he had a right to despise both the adjutant and the minister of war.

“No doubt they will consider it an easy matter to obtain victories, not having smelled any powder!” he thought.

His eyes kept blinking contemptuously; he entered the cabinet of the minister of war in an exceedingly slow manner. This feeling was increased when he saw the minister of war, who was sitting at a large table and for two minutes paid no attention to the newcomer. The minister lowered his bald head, with gray tufts over his temples, between two wax candles and read some papers, marking them with a pencil. He was still reading, without raising his head, when the door opened and steps were heard.

” Take this and send it on,” the minister of war said to his adjutant, handing him the papers and still paying no attention to the courier.

Prince Andréy felt that of all matters that occupied the minister of war, the engagements of Kutuzov’s army interested him least of all, or else he thought he must make the Russian courier feel that way. ” But it is all the same to me,” he thought. The minister of war pushed away the other papers, put them smoothly together, and raised his head. He had an intelligent head, expressive of much character ; but just as he turned to Andréy, the minister’s intelligent and firm expression of face changed, apparently by a habitual and conscious effort: on his countenance there appeared a stupid, feigned smile, not concealing the simulation, such a smile as is to be seen in a man who receives one after another a large number of petitioners.

“From FieldMarshal Kutuzov?” he asked. “I hope, good news ! Was there an engagement with Mortier ? A victory ? It is time ! “

He took the despatch which was in his name, and began to read it with a sad expression.

” Ah, my God ! My God ! Schmidt ! ” he said, in German. ” What a misfortune, what a misfortune ! ”

Having run through the despatch, he put it on the table and glanced at Prince Andréy, apparently considering something.

” Ah, what a misfortune ! You say it was a decisive engagement ? But Mortier was not taken.” (He thought awhile.) ” I am very glad that you have brought good news, though Schmidt’s death is a costly price for the victory. His Majesty, no doubt, will want to see you, but not to-day. I thank you ! Take a rest ! Be on hand after the parade ! However, I will let you know.”

The stupid smile, which had disappeared during his conversation, again came out on the face of the minister of war.

” Goodbye ! Thank you very much. The emperor, no doubt, will want to see you,” he repeated, inclining his head.

When Prince Andréy left the palace, he felt that all the interest and happiness which the victory had given him had now left him and were in the indifferent hands of the minister of war and of the polite adjutant. His whole turn of mind was momentarily changed : the battle appeared to him as a long passed, remote recollection.

X.

Prince Andréy stopped in Brünn with his acquaintance, the Russian diplomatist, Bilibin.

” Ah, dear prince ! No pleasanter guest could there be,” said Billbin, coming out to meet Prince Andréy. “ Franz, take the prince’s things into my sleeping-room ! ” he turned to the servant who had brought Bolkdnski in. ” Well, are you a messenger of a victory ? Very well. But I am ill, as you see.”

Having washed and dressed himself, Prince Andréy came to the luxurious cabinet of the diplomatist and sat down to a dinner prepared especially for him. Billbin seated himself comfortably at the fireplace.

After his journey and after the whole campaign, during which he had been deprived of all the comforts of cleanliness and the luxuries of life, Prince Andréy now experienced the pleasurable sensation of rest, amidst those luxurious conditions of life to which he had been accustomed since childhood. Besides, after the Austrian reception it gave him pleasure to speak, not in Russian (they conversed in French), but with a Russian who, so he supposed, shared the common Russian contempt for the Austrians, which now was especially acute.

Billbin was a man of about thirty-five years, a bachelor, who belonged to the same circle as Prince Andréy. They had known each other in St. Petersburg, but became more closely acquainted during Prince Andréy’s last stay in Vienna with Kutuzov. As Prince Andréy was a young man who promised to go far in his military career, so Billbin, even to a greater extent, gave promise of advancing in his diplomatic career. He was a young man, but no longer a young diplomatist, for he had begun to serve with his sixteenth year; he had been in Paris and in Copenhagen, and now occupied in Vienna a very important post. The chancellor and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and esteemed him. He was not of that large number of diplomatists who must have only negative qualities, must avoid doing certain things, and must speak French in order to be very good diplomatists; he was one of those diplomatists who love to work and know how to work, and, notwithstanding his indolence, he sometimes passed whole nights at Ins writing-desk. He worked equally well, whatever Ins work consisted in. He was not interested in the question ” why ? ” but in the question ” how ? ” It did not make much difference to him what the diplomatic business he bad to attend to was, — he found his greatest delight in cleverly, pointedly, and elegantly composing a circular, memorandum, or report. Bilibin was esteemed not only for his deserts in his reports, but also for his ability to move and converse in the higher spheres.

Bilibin was as fond of a conversation as he was of work, but only when the conversation could be elegant and clever. In society he always waited for an opportunity to say something remarkable and never entered into a conversation except under these conditions. Billbin’s conversation was always replete with original, ingenious, polished sentences, which had a common interest. These phrases were prepared in Bilibin’s inner laboratory, purposely of a portable nature, so that insignificant society people might be able conveniently to remember them and cany’ them from drawingroom to drawingroom. And really, les mots de Bilibine se colportaient dans les salons de Vienne, and frequently had an influence on so-called important affairs.

His lean, haggard, yellow face was all covered with large wrinkles, which always seemed to be as carefully washed as the finger-tips are after a hath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the chief play of his physiognomy. Now his brow was furrowed by broad wrinkles and his brows were raised ; now his brows drooped, and large wrinkles appeared on his cheeks. His deeply set, small eyes always looked straight and merrily at one.

“ Now tell me your exploits.”

Bolkdnski, in the most modest manner, without mentioning himself once, told about the engagement and about his reception at the minister’s.

” Ils m’ont reçu avec ma nouvelle comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles,” he concluded.

Bilibin smiled and smoothed out the wrinkles of his skin.

” Cependant, mon cher,” he said, examining his nails from a distance and wrinkling his skin above his left eye, ” malgré la haute estime que je professe pour V Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”

He continued speaking in French, pronouncing only such words in Russian as he wished contemptuously to underline. ” With all your mass you came down on one division of unfortunate Mortier, and Mortier escaped from your hands ! Where is the victory ? “

” Still, to be serious,” replied Prince Andréy, ” we can say without boasting that that is a little better than at Ulm — ”

” Why did you not capture one, at least one marshal ? ” ” Because things are not done as they are planned, and not with the same regularity as at a parade. We had proposed, as I already told you, to get in their rear by seven o’clock in the morning, but did not get there until five in the evening.”

“ Why did you not get there at seven in the morning ? You ought to have got there by seven in the morning,” Bilibin said, smiling, ” you ought to ! ”

” Why did you not impress Bonaparte through diplomacy that it is better for him to leave Genoa ? ” Prince Andréy said to him, in the same tone.

” I know,” Bilibin interrupted him, ” you think that it is very easy to capture marshals, sitting on a sofa before a fireplace. That is so, but again, why did you not capture him ? You must not wonder if not only the minister of war, but even the Most August Emperor and King Francis is not over happy with this victory ; nor do I, the unfortunate secretary of the Russian embassy, feel the least necessity, in token of this joy, of giving my Franz a thaler and permission to go with his Liebchen to the Prater — That’s so, there is no Prater here.”

He looked straight at Prince Andréy and suddenly smoothed out the wrinkled skin on his forehead.

” Now it is my turn to ask you ‘ why,’ my dear,” said Bolkonski. ” I must confess I do not understand, — there may be here some diplomatic subtilty which is above my weak comprehension, — but I do not understand : Mack loses a whole army, Archduke Ferdinand and Archduke Karl give no signs of life and make one blunder after another, and finally Kutuzov gains a real victory, destroys the French spell, and the minister of war is not even interested in finding out the details.”

” It is precisely that, my dear. Voyez vous, mon cher ! Hurrah for the Tsar, for Russia, for the faith ! Tout ça est bel et bon, but what business have we — I mean the Austrian court — with your victories? You bring us your nice little news about a victory gained by Archduke Karl or Ferdinand, — un archiduc vaut l’autre, as you must know, — be it even over a company of Bonaparte’s fire brigade, and that would be a different matter, — we would give a salvo. But this looks as though done on purpose and can only vex us. Archduke Karl is doing nothing; Archduke Ferdinand is covering himself with disgrace. You abandon Vienna and do not defend it, comme si vous nous disiez : * God is with us, and God help you and your capital ! ‘ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you place in the path of a bullet, and then you congratulate us upon our victory ! Confess that it is impossible to concoct anything more annoying than the news which you bring us. C’est comme un fait exprès. Besides, even if you gain a brilliant victory, even if Archduke Karl should gain a victory, what difference would that make in the general course of events ? It is too late now, since Vienna is occupied by the French troops.”

” How do you mean occupied ? Is Vienna occupied ?”

“ Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count, our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him to receive his orders.”

Under the influence of his fatigue and the impression produced by the journey and the reception, and especially under the influence of the dinner, Bolkdnski felt that he did not understand the whole meaning of the words which he heard.

” This morning Count Lichtenfels was here,” continued Bilibin, ” and he showed me a letter which gave the details of the French parade at Vienna. Lc Prince Murat et tout le tremblement — You see that our victory is not very encouraging, and that you cannot be received as a saviour — “

” Really, it is all the same to me ! ” said Prince Andréy, beginning to comprehend that his news about the battle at Kreins had really little value, in view of such events as the occupation of the capital of Austria. ” But how was Vienna taken ? And the bridge and the famous tète du pont, and Prince Auersperg ? There were rumours with us that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna,” he said.

” Prince Auersperg is stationed on this side, our side, and is defending us, — I think he is defending us very badly, but still he is defending us. Vienna is on the other side.

No, the bridge is not yet taken, and I hope may not be, because it is mined, and the order has been given to blow it up. If it were not for that, we should long ago have been in the mountains of Bohemia, and you with your army would have passed a bad fifteen minutes between two fires.”

” But that does not mean that the campaign is ended,” said Prince Andréy.

” I think it is. And thus, I think, reason our big nightcaps, but they dare not say so. As I told you in the beginning of the campaign, it will not be your échauf-fourée de Durenstein, not the powder in general that will decide the matter, but those who have invented it,” said Bilibin, repeating one of his pretty sayings, smoothing the skin on his brow, and stopping for awhile. ” The only question is what the Berlin meeting of Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia will say. If Prussia enters into an alliance on forcera la main à VAutriche, and there will be war. If not, the question will be to agree on a place in which to compose the preliminary articles of a new Campo Formio.”

” What unusual genius ! ” suddenly exclaimed Prince Andréy, compressing his small hand and striking the table with it. ” What luck that man has ! “

” Buonaparte ? ” Billbin said, with an interrogative intonation, and a frown, by which he gave to understand that a mot was forthcoming. ” Buonaparte ? ” he said, with special emphasis on the u. ” I think that now that he is prescribing laws to Austria from Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de Vu. I positively make an innovation and call him Bonaparte tout court.”

” No, joking aside,” said Prince Andréy, ” do you really think that the campaign is ended ? ”

” What I think is this : Austria has been fooled, and she is not used to that, so she will pay back. She is fooled, in the first place, because the provinces are ruined (on dit V Orthodox est terrible pour le pillage), the army is destroyed, the capital taken, and all that pour les beaux yeux du Sardinian Majesty. ïknd, therefore, — entre nous, mon cher, — I have a presentiment that we are being deceived, I have a presentiment that there are relations with France and projects of a peace, of a secret peace separately concluded.”

” That is impossible ! ” said Prince Andréy. “ That would be too base.”

” Qui vivra verra,” said Bilibin, again smoothing out his skin, in sign of having finished his discourse.

When Prince Andréy came to the room which was prepared for him, and in a clean night-dress lay down on a feather bed and perfumed and warmed pillows, he felt that the battle, of which he brought the news, was far, far removed from him. The alliance with Prussia, the treason of Austria, Bonaparte’s new triumph, the appearance at parade, and the reception accorded him by Emperor Francis on the following day interested him. He closed his eyes, but that very moment there again resounded in his ears the cannonade, the fusilade, the rattle of the carriage wheels, and again the musketeers, stretched out in a long line, descended from the mountain, and the French fired, and he felt his heart tremble, and he rode out by the side of Schmidt, and the bullets merrily whistled on all sides, and he experienced that sensation of greatly intensified joy of life, such as he had not experienced since childhood. He awoke —

“Yes, all that has happened ! ” he said, smiling a happy childish smile, and again falling asleep in a sound, youthful sleep.

XI.

On the following day he awoke late. He brought back the recollections of the past, and recalled, first of all, that he was on that day to be presented to the emperor ; then he recalled the minister of war, the officious Austrian aid-de-camp, and Bilibin, and the conversation of the previous evening. He dressed himself in full parade uniform, which he had not had on for a long time, to be ready for his drive to the palace, and, looking refreshed, animated, and handsome, entered Bilibin’s cabinet. In the cabinet there were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. Bolkdnski was acquainted with Prince Ippolit Kuragin, who was secretary of the legation ; Bilibin introduced him to the others.

The gentlemen who visited Bilibin were rich, jolly young men of the world, who in Vienna and here formed a separate circle, called ” ours,” les nôtres, by Bilibin, who was its head. This circle, which consisted almost exclusively of diplomatists, apparently had interests of its own that had nothing in common with war and politics : these interests were centred in high life, in relations with certain women, and in the chancery side of their service. These gentlemen evidently were glad to receive Prince Andréy into their circle as one of their own, an honour which they bestowed on but few persons. To be polite, and to start a conversation, a few questions were put to him in regard to the army and the battle, and the conversation soon broke up in inconsequent merry sallies and haphazard criticisms.

“ But the best thing is,” said one, telling of the failure of a fellow diplomatist, “ the best thing is that the chancellor told him that his appointment to London was a promotion, and that he should look upon it in that light. Do you see his figure at these words ? “

” But the worst thing is, gentlemen, that I must denounce this Xu ragin : the man is in misfortune, and this Don Juan, this terrible man, profits by his misfortune ! “

Prince Ippolit was lying in an easy chair, with his leg over the arm. He laughed.

” Parlez-moi de ça ! ” he said.

” Oh ! Don Juan ! Oh, serpent ! ” were heard two or three voices.

” You do not know, Bolkénski,” Bilibin turned to Prince Andréy, “that all the terrors of the French army (I came very near saying of the Russian army) are nothing in comparison with that which tins man has done among the women.”

“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,” said Prince Ippolit, looking through his eyeglasses at his uplifted legs.

Bilibin and ” ours ” burst out laughing, looking into Ippolit’s eyes. Prince Andréy saw that this Ippolit, of whom, it must be confessed, he was jealous as regards his wife, was the fool of that society.

” Really, I must treat you to Kuragin,” Bilibin softly said to Bolkonski. ” He is charming when he talks about politics ; you must see his importance.”

He sat down by Ippolit’s side and, gathering his wrinkles on his brow, began to talk with him about politics. Prince Andréy and the others surrounded them.

“ Lc cabinet de Berlin ne petit pas exprimer un sentiment d’alliance,” began Ippolit, casting an important glance upon all, “ sans exprimer — comme dans sa dernière note — vous comprenez — vous comprenez — et puis si sa Majesté P Empereur ne déroge pas au principe de notre alliance —

” Attendez, je n’ai pas fini’,’ he said to Prince Andréy, grasping his hand. “Je suppose que l’intervention sera plus forte que la non-intervention. Et —- ”

He was silent for awhile.

” On ne pourra pas imputer à la fin de non-recevoir notre dépêche du 28 novembre. Voilà, comment tout cela finira.”

He dropped Bolkénski’s hand, to indicate that now he was entirely through.

” Demosthenes, je te reconnais au caillou que tu as caché dans ta bouche d’or ! ” said Bilibin, whose head of hair seemed to move about from the pleasure which he was experiencing.

All burst out laughing. Ippolit laughed louder than the rest. He was evidently suffering and choking, but could not hold back his wild laughter, which stretched his ever immovable face.

” Listen, gentlemen,” said Bilibin. ” Bolkénski is my guest in the house and here, in Brünn, and I want to treat him as much as I can to all the pleasures of life. If we were in Vienna, it would be an easy matter ; but here, dans ce vilain trou morave, it is more difficult, and I beg all of you to aid me. Il faut lui faire les honneurs de Brünn. You take the theatre, and I will take society ; you, Ippolit, naturally will take the women.”

” We ought to show him Amélie, she is charming ! ” said one of ” ours,” kissing his finger-tips.

“We must all of us together direct this bloodthirsty soldier to more pacific sights,” said Bilibin.

” I shall hardly have a chance of making use of your hospitality, gentlemen, and now it is time for me to go,” said Bolkonski, looking at his watch.

“ Where ? “

” To the emperor.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

” Well, goodbye, Bolkonski ! Goodbye, prince ! Come to dinner as early as possible,” they said. “We take you into our hands.”

« Try to praise up as much as possible the order in furnishing the supplies and designating the routes, when you speak with the emperor,” said Bilibin, as he took Bolkdnski to the antechamber.

« 1 should like to praise them up, but, so far as I know them, I am unable to do so,” Bolkonski replied, smiling.

“ Well, talk as much as possible. His passion is to give audiences, but, as you will see, he does not like to talk himself, nor does he know how.”

XII.

When Emperor Francis came out, he cast a fixed glance at Prince Andréy, who was standing in his appointed place between the Austrian officers, and nodded to him with his long head. But after the exit, the officious aid-de-camp of the previous day informed Bolkénski of the emperor’s desire to give him an audience. Emperor Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before beginning the conversation, Prince Andréy was struck by the fact that the emperor seemed to be confused, not knowing what to say, and that he blushed.

“Tell me when the battle began,” he said to him, hurriedly.

Prince Andréy made a reply. After that question followed others, of the same simple contents : ” Is Kutuzov well ? How long is it since he left Krems ? ” and so forth. The emperor spoke with an expression as though his only aim was to make a given number of questions. It was evident that he could not be interested in the answers to these questions.

” At what hour did the battle begin ? ” asked the emperor.

” I cannot inform your Majesty at what hour the battle began at the front, but at Diirenstein, where I was, the army began the attack at six o’clock in the evening,” said Bolkonski, becoming animated, and supposing that this gave him an opportunity of giving a true description of what he knew and of what he had seen, just as he had

properly thought out the whole matter. But the emperor smiled and interrupted him.

” How many leagues is it ? “

” From where to where, your Majesty ? “

« From Diirrenstein to Krems.”

” Three leagues and a half, your Majesty.”

“Have the French departed from the left bank?”

“The spies have reported that the last crossed in the night on rafts.”

” Is there enough forage in Krems ? ”

” The forage has not been furnished in the quantity — ” The emperor interrupted him.

“ At what hour was General Schmidt killed ? “

” At seven o’clock, I think.”

“ At seven o’clock. It is very sad ! ”

The emperor told him that he was thankful to him and bowed. Prince Andréy went out and immediately was on all sides surrounded by courtiers. Kind eyes looked at him from all sides, and he heard kind words. The adjutant of the day before reproached him for not having stopped in the palace, and offered him his house. The minister of war went up to him, congratulating him upon receiving the decoration of Maria-Theresa of the third degree, which the emperor had conferred upon him. The chamberlain of the empress invited him to her Majesty. The archduchess, too, wanted to see him. He did not know to whom to reply, and for a few moments was collecting his thoughts. The Russian ambassador took him by his shoulder, led him to the window, and began to speak with him.

In spite of Bilibin’s words, the news which he brought was joyfully received. Order was given to celebrate a Te Drum. Kutuzov was rewarded with the grand cross of Maria-Theresa, and the whole army, too, received rewards. Bolkdnski was invited on all sides, and had to call all the morning on the high dignitaries of Austria. It was after four o’clock in the evening when Bolkonski finished all his visits, and on his way home to Bilibin’s he mentally composed a letter to his father, giving the details of the battle and of his journey to Brünn. Near the porch of the house occupied by Bilibin there stood a half-loaded vehicle, and Franz, Bilibin’s servant, came out of the door, with difficulty dragging a portmanteau to the vehicle.

Before going to Bilibin’s, Prince Andréy had gone to a bookstore to provide himself with books for the expedition, and had stayed quite awhile there.

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Bolkonski.

“ Ach, Erlaucht ! ” said Franz, with difficulty throwing the portmanteau into the vehicle. “ Wir ziehen noch weiter. Der Bösewicht ist schon wieder hinter uns her ! ”

“ What is the matter ? What ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

Bilibin came out to meet Bolkonski. There was agitation in Bilibin’s ever calm countenance.

“ Non, non, avouez que c’est charmant,” he said, “ cette histoire du pont de Thabor (a bridge in Vienna). Ils Vont passé sans coup férir.”

Prince Andréy did not understand what he was saying.

“ Where have you been that you do not know what all the coachmen in town know ? ”

“ I was at the archduchess’s. I heard nothing of it there.”

“ Did you not see that people are packing everywhere ? “

“ I did not. But what is it all about ? ” impatiently asked Prince Andréy.

“ What is it ? The French have crossed the bridge, which Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up, so that Murat is racing on the road to Brunn, and in a day or two he will be here.”

“ Here ? How is it they did not blow up the bridge, since it was mined ? ”

” That is what I want to know. Nobody knows that, not even Bonaparte.”

Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders.

” But if the bridge has been crossed, the army is certainly lost : it will be cut off,” he said.

” That is precisely where the trouble is,” replied Bilibin. ” Listen ! So the French entered Vienna, as I told you before. Very well On the following day, that is, yesterday, the Marshals Murat, Lannes, and Belliard mounted their horses and went to the bridge. (Notice that all three of them are Gascons.) ‘Gentlemen,’ said one of them, ‘you know that the Tabor Bridge is mined and countermined, and that in front of it are the dangerous tête du pont and fifteen thousand soldiers who have been commanded to blow up the bridge and not let us through. But it will please our Emperor Napoleon to see us take the bridge. Let us three ride up and take it ! ’ ‘ Come ! ’ said the others ; and they went and captured the bridge, crossed it, and now are with their whole army on this side of the Danube, advancing against us, against you and your communications.”

“ Stop jesting ! ” Prince Andréy said, sadly and seriously.

The news both grieved Prince Andréy and gave him pleasure. The moment he knew that the Russian army was in such a hopeless situation, it occurred to him that he might be instrumental in leading the Russian army out of this situation, that here was his Toulon that would take him out of the series of unknown officers and would open for him the road to glory ! As he was listening to Bilibin, he rejected how, upon coming back to the army, he would at the council of war give an opinion that would save the army, and how the execution of that plan would be entrusted to him alone.

“ Stop jesting,” he said.

“ I am not jesting,” continued Billbin, “ for nothing is truer and sadder. These gentlemen arrived all alone on the bridge and raised their white handkerchiefs; they said that it was a truce and that they, the marshals, were on their way to a conference with Prince Auersperg. The officer of the day admitted them to the tête du pont. They told him a thousand Gascon impossibilities; they said that the war was ended, that Emperor Francis had appointed a meeting with Bonaparte, that they wished to see Prince Auersperg, and so forth, — a thousand gascon-nades. The officer sent for Auersperg ; these gentlemen embraced the officers, jested, sat down on the cannon, while in the meantime a Frehch battalion unnoticed by any one went upon the bridge, threw the bags with the inflammable stuff down into the water, and went up to the tête du pont. Finally the lieutenant-general himself, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautem, made his appearance.

“ ‘ Dear enemy ! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars ! The enmity is at an end, we can press each other’s hands — Emperor Napoleon is burning with the desire to meet Prince Auersperg.’

“ In short, these gentlemen, who are not Gascons for nothing, kept heaping nice words on Auersperg, and he was so charmed by his intimacy with the French marshals, which was so quickly established, and so blinded by the sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich feathers, quid n’y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire, faire sur l’ennemi.” (In spite of the vivacity with which he spoke, Bilibin did not forget to stop a moment as he uttered this mot, in order to give Prince Andréy a chance to appreciate it.) “ The French battalion ran up to the tête du pont, spiked the guns, and the bridge was taken.

“ But what is best of all,” he continued, calming himself in his agitation by the charm of his own recital, “ is that the sergeant who was to give the signal with the cannon to fire the mines and blow up the bridge was on the point of firing when Lannes turned his hand away. The sergeant, who apparently had more sense than the general, ran up to Auersperg and said : ‘ Prince, you are deceived! Here are the French !’ Murat saw that the game was lost if the sergeant had an opportunity to speak, so he — a true Gascon — turned to Auersperg with feigned surprise : ‘I do not recognize the much-vaunted Austrian discipline,’ he said, ‘ and do you thus permit the lower ranks to speak with you ? ‘

” C ‘est genial. Le Prince d’Auersperg se pique d’honneur et fait mettre le sergent aux arrêts. Non, mais avouez que c’est charmant toute cette histoire du pont de Thabor. Ce n’est ni bêtise, ni lâcheté — “

” C’est trahison peut-être,” said Prince Andréy, vividly imagining the gray overcoats, the wounds, the smoke of the gunpowder, the sounds of the fusilade, and the glory which awaited him.

” Non plus. Cela met la cour dans de drap de trop mauvais draps,” continued Bilibin. ” Ce n’est ni trahison, ni lâcheté, ni bêtise ; c’est comme à dm — ” He seemed to stop, as though trying to find the expression. ” C’cst — e’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes,” he concluded, feeling that he had said a mot, and a fresh mot at that, one which would be repeated. The wrinkles which had gathered on his brow rapidly disappeared in sign of his pleasure, and, smiling slightly, he began to examine his nails.

” Where are you going ? ” he said, suddenly turning to Prince Andréy, who had got up and was walking toward his room.

” I shall depart.”

” Whither ? “

” To the army.”

” But you wanted to stay two days here.”

” I shall go at once.”

Prince Andréy gave his orders about the journey, and went to his room.

” Do you know, my dear,” said Bilibin, entering his room, ” I have been thinking of you. Why are you going ? “

In proof of the irrefutableness of his argument, the wrinkles disappeared from his face.

Prince Andréy looked interrogatively at his interlocutor, without making any reply.

“ Why are you going ? I know : you think that it is your duty to race now to the army, because the army is in danger. I understand that, mon cher, c’est de l’héro-isme.”

“ Not at all,” said Prince Andréy.

” But you are un philosophe ; be a good one, and look at things from another side, and you will see that it is, on the contrary, your duty to save yourself. Leave to others, who are not good for anything else — You have not been commanded to return, and you have not yet been dismissed from here, consequently you may stay and travel with us, whither our unfortunate fate will take us. They say that they will go to Olmiitz, and Olmiitz is a charming town. You will calmly travel with me in my vehicle.”

” Stop your jests, Bilibin ! ” said Bolkdnski.

” I am talking sincerely and amicably to you. Think it over ! Where will you go now, and for what purpose, when you can stay here ? One of two things is in store for you ” (the skin over his left temple became wrinkled), ” either you will not reach the army, and peace will be established, or there will be defeat and shame with the whole of Kutuzov’s army.”

Bilibin again smoothed out his skin, feeling that his dilemma was incontrovertible.

” I am not able to judge as to that,” coldly said Prince Andréy, thinking all the while that he was going back to save the army.

” Mon cher, vous êtes un héros ! ” said Bilibin.

XIII.

After taking leave of the minister of war, Bolkonski that same night started back to the army, without knowing where he would find it, and dreading lest he should be captured by the French on his way to Krems.

In Brünn all the people of the court were packing, and the baggage had already been started on the way to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf, Prince Andréy reached the road over which the Bussian army was moving in the greatest haste and disorder. The road was so clogged by carts that it was impossible to make one’s way through them in a carriage. Taking a horse and a Cossack from the chief of the Cossacks, Prince Andréy, hungry and weary, made his way through the baggagetrain and rode away to find the commanderin-chief and his cart. As he travelled along, the most ominous reports about the position of the army reached his ears, and the aspect of the army flying in disorder confirmed these rumours.

” Cette armée russe que Vor de VAngleterre a transportée des extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le meme sort (le sort de Varmée (VUlui),” he recalled the words of Bonaparte’s address to his army before the beginning of the campaign, and these words roused in him a feeling of admiration for his sagacious hero, a sentiment of offended pride, and the hope of glory.

” But suppose there is nothing left but to die,” he thought. “ Well, if it has to be ! I will do that no worse than anybody else.”

Prince Andrey looked with contempt at all this tangle of commands, carts, parks, artillery, and again carts, carts, carts, and carts of all possible descriptions, rushing past each other, and, to the depth of three or four rows, clogging the muddy road. On all sides, behind and in front, as far as the ear could hear, there resounded the sounds of the wheels, the creaking of carts and gun-carriages, the tramp of horses, the clicking of whips, the shouts to the horses, the curses of soldiers, orderlies, and officers. At the edges of the road could be constantly seen dead horses, some of them flayed, others not, broken carts, near which sat single soldiers waiting for something, or soldiers who had strayed from their commands and who in groups went to the neighbouring villages, or returned from them, dragging along chickens, sheep, hay, or bags filled with something. At up-hill and downhill grades the crowds became denser, and there was an uninterrupted din of noises. The soldiers, sinking to their knees in the mud, aided and put their shoulders to the ordnance and the carts. The whips cracked, the hoofs slipped, the traces broke, and the breasts of men were tom with shouting. The officers in charge of the march kept riding to and fro through the train. Their voices were barely audible amidst the deafening roar, and one could see by their faces that they had lost all hope of ever reestablishing order.

” Voilà le cher Orthodox army,” thought Bolkonski, recalling Billbin’s words.

He rode up to the train, wishing to ask one of the men where the commanderin-chief was. Toward him there was driven a strange one-horse vehicle, apparently constructed by the soldiers from rough material at hand, which represented something intermediate between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calash.

The coachman of this carriage was a soldier, and under a leather top sat, covered with a boot, a woman who was all wrapped in kerchiefs. Prince Andréy rode up to the carriage and was on the point of addressing his question to a soldier, when his attention was attracted by the desperate cries of the woman who was sitting in the vehicle. An officer in charge of the train was beating the soldier who was acting as coachman of that carriage because he was trying to get past the others, and the strokes of the officer’s whip fell upon the boot. The woman was crying in a piercing voice. Upon noticing Prince Andréy, she stuck her head out from underneath the boot, and, waving her lean arms from underneath the blanket, she cried :

” Adjutant ! Mr. Adjutant ! For God’s sake — defend me — What will happen ? — I am the wife of the surgeon of the seventh of chasseurs — they will not let me through, we have fallen behind, have lost our people — “

« I will smash you into a pancake ! Turn back ! ” the furious officer cried to the soldier. ” Turn back with your slut ! “

” Mr. Adjutant, protect me ! What is it ? ” cried the surgeon’s wife.

” Please let this vehicle pass. Do you not see that it is a woman ? ” said Prince Andréy, riding up to the officer.

The officer glanced at him, and, without making a reply, again turned to the soldier :

” I will show you how to get past — Back ! ”

” Let them through, I tell you ! ” Prince Andréy repeated, compressing his lips.

” Who are you, anyway ? ” the officer suddenly turned to him in drunken rage. ” Who are you ? Are you a commander, or what ? Here I am commander, and not you. Back there, I say,” he repeated, ” or I will smash you into a pancake ! ” Apparently the officer had taken a liking for that phrase.

” You have given the little adjutant a fine lesson,” was heard a voice behind them.

Prince Andréy saw that the officer was in that drunken fit of groundless fury, when people do not remember what they say. He saw that his attempt at succouring the surgeon’s wife in the vehicle was full of that which he most feared in the world and which is called le ridicule, but his instinct told him something quite different. The officer had not yet finished his last words when Prince Andréy, with his face disfigured through rage, rode up to him, and, raising his Cossack whip, said :

” You — will — let — them — pass ! “

The officer waved his hand, and rode off.

” The whole disorder is caused by these men from the staff,” he grumbled. ” Do as you wish.”

Prince Andréy, without raising his eyes, hastened to ride away from the wife of the surgeon, who called him her saviour, and, in disgust recalling the minutest details of this humiliating scene, galloped away to the village where, so he was told, the commanderin-chief could be found.

Upon arriving at the village, he dismounted from his horse and went to the first house he saw, for the purpose of resting for a moment, of eating something, and of bringing order into all the thoughts which offended and vexed O O

him.

” It is a gang of scoundrels, and not an army,” he thought, as he was walking over to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.

He looked back. Nesvitski’s handsome face was thrust out from a small window. Nesvitski was chewing something with zest and waving his arms, as he called out :

” Bolkonski, Bolkénski ! Do you not hear me ? Come quick ! ” he shouted.

Upon entering the house, Prince Andréy saw Nesvitski and another adjutant at a lunch. They hurriedly turned to Bolkdnski with a question as to what the news was. Upon their familiar faces Prince Andréy read the expression of alarm and unrest. This expression was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski’s ever smiling face.

” Where is the commanderin-chief ? ” asked Bolkonski.

” Here, in that house,” replied the adjutant.

” Well, is it true that there is a peace and a capitulation ? ” asked Nesvitski.

” I ask you. All I know is that I have had the greatest difficulty in getting here.”

“ There are terrible things going on here ! I am ashamed, my friend, for having laughed at Mack, for we are faring worse now,” said Nesvitski. ” Sit down and have something to eat 1 “

” Now, prince, you will find neither carts, nor anything else, and God knows where your Peter is,” said the other adjutant.

“ Where are the chief quarters ? “

“We shall stay overnight at Znaim.”

” I have packed everything I need on two horses,” said Nesvitski, “ and they have made excellent packs for me. I should have no difficulty in getting away through the Bohemian mountains. It is bad, my friend. Are you ill that you shake so ? ” asked Nesvitski, upon noticing that Prince Andréy twitched as though from the touch of a Leyden jar.

” It is nothing,” replied Prince Andréy. He had just happened to recall his conflict with the surgeon’s wife and the officer of the train.

” What is the commanderin-chief doing here ? ” he asked.

“ I understand nothing,” said Nesvitski.

“ But I understand that everything is abominable, abominable, abominable,” said Prince Andréy.

He went to the house where the commanderin-chief stopped.

Prince Andréy went past Kutuzov’s carriage and the worn-out mounts of the officers of the suite and of the Cossacks, who were speaking aloud to each other, and entered the vestibule. Kutuzov, so Prince Andréy was told, was in the house with Prince Bagration, and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian general who took the place of Schmidt, who had been killed. In the vestibule, undersized Kozlovski was squatting in front of a scribe. The scribe, having rolled back his sleeves, was writing fast on a vat turned upside down. Kozlovski’s face looked emaciated, — apparently he had not been asleep that night. He glanced at Prince Andréy and did not even nod to him.

” Second line — Have you written it ? ” he continued, dictating to the scribe : ” The Kiev regiment of grenadiers, the Podolian — ”

” I cannot keep up with your Honour,” replied the scribe, disrespectfully and angrily, looking at Kozlovski.

Behind the door could just then be heard Kutuzov’s dissatisfied voice, which was interrupted by another, which was not familiar. Judging from the sound of these voices, from the inattention shown him by Kozlovski, from the disrespectfulness of the exhausted scribe, and from the fact that the scribe and Kozlovski were sitting so near to the commanderin-chief on the floor before a vat, and that the Cossacks, why were holding the horses, were laughing so loud beneath the windows of the house, Prince Andréy knew that something important and unfortunate was about to happen.

Prince Andréy began to press Kozlovski with questions.

“ Directly, prince,” said Kozlovski. “ There is a disposition to be written up for Bagration.”

“ And the capitulation ? ”

” There is none. We are preparing for battle.”

Prince Andréy walked toward the door, behind which the voices were heard. Just as he was about to open the door, the voices in the room died down, the door opened, and Kutuzov, with his aquiline nose, and his puffed-up face, appeared on the threshold. Prince Andréy was Standing directly opposite Kutuzov ; but it was evident from the one sound eye of the commanderin-chief that thoughts and cares so occupied him that they almost veiled his vision. He looked straight at the face of his adjutant without recognizing him.

” Well, is it done ? ” he turned to Kozldvski.

” This second, your Excellency.”

Bagration, a low-statured, lean, middle-aged man with a firm and immobile face of an Eastern type, followed the commanderin-chief.

” I have the honour of presenting myself,” Prince Andréy repeated quite loud, handing him an envelope.

” Ah, from Vienna ? All right ! Later, later ! ” Kutuzov went with Bagration on the porch.

” Well, prince, goodbye ! ” he said to Bagratiôn. ” Christ be with you ! I bless you for your great exploit.”

Kutuzov’s face unexpectedly softened, and tears appeared in his eyes. He drew Bagration toward him with his left hand, and with his right, on which there was a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with an apparently familiar gesture, and offered him his puffed-up cheek, instead of which Bagration kissed him in the neck.

” Christ be with you ! ” repeated Kutuzov, walking up to his carriage. “ Sit down with me,” he said to Bolkonski.

” Your Excellency, I should like to be useful here. Permit me to remain in the detachment of Prince Bagration.”

“ Sit down,” said Kutuzov, and, upon noticing Bolkonski’s hesitation, he added : ” I need myself good officers, I need them myself.”

They seated themselves in the carriage and travelled for awhile in silence.

” There is much, very much ahead of us,” he said, with an old man’s expression of penetration, as though understanding everything which was going on in Bolkdnski’s soul. ” If one-tenth of his division returns tomorrow, I will thank God,” added Kutuzov, as though speaking to himself.

Prince Andréy glanced at Kutuzov and involuntarily fixed his eyes on the cleanly washed folds of the scar on his temple, there where a bullet at Izmail had gone through his head, and at his blind eye, which was but a foot away from him.

” Yes, he has the right to speak so calmly about the loss of these men,” thought Bolkdnski.

” It is for this reason that I ask you to send me to that detachment,” he said.

Kutuzov made no reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had said, and was sitting lost in thoughts. Five minutes later, as they were gently tossed on the soft springs of the carriage, Kutuzov turned to Prince Andréy. On his face there was not even a trace of agitation. He inquired with fine sarcasm about the details of Prince Andréy’s meeting with the emperor, about the remarks made in regard to the Krems engagement, and about a few lady acquaintances that they had in common.

XIV.

On the 1st of November, Kutuzov received through a spy information which placed the army commanded by him in a hopeless condition. The spy reported that, having crossed the bridge at Vienna, the French were directing enormous forces to intercept Kutuzov’s junction with the troops coming from Russia. If Kutuzov had decided to remain at Kreins, Napoleon’s army of 150,000 men would have cut him off from all communications, would have surrounded his worn-out army of forty thousand men, and he would have been in Mack’s position at Ulm. If Kutuzov now decided to leave the road which led to the junction with the troops from Russia, he would have to wander off the roads through the unknown regions of the Bohemian mountains, defending himself against the superior might of the enemy, and abandoning all hope of joining Buxhövden. If Kutuzov decided, on his way from Krems to Olmiitz, to join the troops coming from Russia, he would run the risk of being preceded on that road by the French, who had crossed the bridge at Vienna, and of being compelled to accept battle on the march, with all the baggage and impediments, fighting against an enemy numerically three times as strong, and surrounding him on two sides. Kutuzov chose this latter alternative.

The French, so the spy reported, after having crossed the bridge at Vienna, were advancing by forced marches upon Znaim, which lay on the line of Kutuzov’s retreat, more than one hundred versts ahead of him. To reach Znaim before the French meant to obtain a great hope for the salvation of the army ; to permit the French to anticipate him at Znaim meant to subject the whole army to disgrace, such as had befallen the Austrians at Ulm, or to a universal calamity. But it was impossible with the whole army to get ahead of the French. The road of the French army from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road of the Russians from Krems to Znaim.

Upon the night when the news was received, Kutuzov sent Bagratidn’s vanguard of four thousand men to the right over the mountains, from the road which led from Krems to Znaim to the one which led from Vienna to Znaim. Bagratidn was ordered to make this pass without taking any rest, to stop facing toward Vienna and having Znaim at his back, and, if he should succeed in getting ahead of the French, he was to keep them back as long as possible. Kutuzov himself with all his baggage moved toward Znaim.

Having walked forty-five versts through a stormy night and over pathless country with his hungry and ill-apparelled soldiers, and having lost one third of his men, who fell behind on the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn, by several hours ahead of the French who were coming up to Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov had to march another twenty-four hours with his baggage, in order to reach Znaim, and therefore, to save the army, Bagratidn was compelled with his four thousand hungry and fatigued soldiers to hold back the enemy’s army, which he met at Hollabrunn, for the period of twenty-four hours, which was evidently an impossible task. But a strange fate had made the impossible possible.

The success of that deception, which had given the bridge at Vienna into the hands of the French without a battle, incited Murat to attempt to deceive Kutuzov also. Upon meeting Bagratidn’s weak detachment on the Znaim road, he thought that it was the whole of Kutuzov’s army. In order more successfully to crush this army, he waited for the troops from Vienna which were lagging behind on the road and, for this purpose, proposed an armistice for three days, on condition that neither army should change its position or move from the spot. Murat insisted that peace was under discussion, and so he proposed an armistice, in order to avoid a useless shedding of blood. The Austrian general, Count Nostitz, who was doing outpost duty, trusted Murat’s words, which were brought him by an officer with a flag of truce, and, falling back, laid open Bagrat idn’s detachment. Another officer with the flag of truce rode down to the Russian cordon to announce the news of the peace discussion and to propose a three days’ truce to the Russian troops. Bagration replied that he could neither receive nor reject the truce and sent his adjutant to Kutuzov to report the proposed armistice.

The truce was for Kutuzov the only means for gaining time, for giving the exhausted detachment of Bagratidn a . chance to rest, and for gaining at least one day in sending the baggage and the ordnance (the motion of which was concealed from the French) at least one day’s march ahead on the way toward Znaim. Upon receiving this information, Kutuzov immediately sent AdjutantGeneral Wintzingerode, who was with him, into the enemy’s camp. Wintzingerode was not only to accept the armistice, but also to propose the conditions of the capitulation ; in the meantime Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten as much as possible the movement of the baggage of the whole army on the Krems-Znaim road. Bagratidn’s exhausted and hungry detachment had all alone to cover the movement of the baggage and of the whole army, and to remain motionless in front of an enemy eight times as strong.

Kutuzov’s expectations were realized, both in respect to the propositions of the capitulation, which did not bind him to anything and which gave a part of the baggage the time to advance, and also in respect to the fact that Murat’s mistake would soon be discovered. The moment Bonaparte, who was at Schönbrunn, within twenty-five versts from Hollabrunn, received Murat’s report and the project of the truce and capitulation, he saw the deception and wrote the following letter to Murat :

“Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805, ” at eight o’clock in the morning.

” To Prince Murat : — I cannot find the words to express my dissatisfaction to you. You are only commanding my vanguard, and you have no right to make an armistice without my order. You make me lose the fruit of my campaign. Break the truce at once and advance against the enemy. You will declare to him that the general who signed the capitulation had no right to do so, that only the Emperor of Russia has that right.

“However, if the Emperor of Russia will ratify said convention, I will, too ; but it is only a ruse. Advance and destroy the Russian army — you are in a position to capture its baggage and its artillery.

“ The adjutant of the Emperor of Russia is a––-.

The officers are nothing when they have no powers ; he had none. The Austrians allowed themselves to be taken in at the passage of the bridge at Vienna, and you allow yourself to be taken in by an adjutant of the Emperor.

“ Napoleon.”

Bonaparte’s adjutant galloped at full speed to bring this letter to Murat. Bonaparte himself did not trust his generals, and with his whole guard moved to the field of battle, being afraid lest he should miss the ready prey, while Bagration’s detachment of four thousand men, having merrily started their campfires, were drying and warming themselves, and, for the first time in three days, stewing their broth. Not one man of the detachment knew or thought of what was in store for them.

XV.

At about four o’clock in the evening, Prince Andréy, having obtained his request, arrived at O run th and appeared before Bagratidn. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet come to Murat’s detachment, and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration’s detachment they knew nothing of the general course of events and were talking about peace, without believing in its possibility. They spoke of a battle, but equally did not believe in the proximity of the battle. Knowing Bolkdnski as a favourite and trusty adjutant, Bagration received him with especial distinction and condescension, explained to him that, no doubt, that very day, or on the next day, there would be a battle, and offered him full liberty to be with him during the battle, or in the rearguard to look after the order of the retreat, ” which, too, was very important.”

” However, I suppose there will be no action to-day,” said Bagratién, as though to allay Prince Andréy’s fears.

” If lie is one of those common dandies of the staff, who are sent out to receive a decoration, he will receive his reward in the rearguard ; but if he wants to be with me, let him — he will be of some use, if he is a good officer,” thought Bagratién. Prince Andréy made no reply, but asked the commander’s permission to examine the position and to lind out the disposition of the troops, in order to know where to go, when asked to do so. The detachment officer of the day, a handsome, foppishly dressed man, with a diamond ring on his index finger, who was fond of speaking French, though it was of a poor quality, offered himself to be Prince Andréy’s guide.

On all sides could be seen rain-soaked officers, with gloomy faces, who seemed to be looking for something, and soldiers who were carrying doors, benches, and fences from the village.

” We cannot get rid of these people,” said the officer of the staff, pointing to them. ” The commanders dismiss them, and they come and sit down here,” he pointed to the pitched tent of a camp-follower. ” I drove them out this morning, but now it is full again. Let us go, prince, and frighten them. Just one minute.”

” Let us go there, and I will buy some cheese and bread of him,” said the prince, who had not yet eaten anything.

” Why did you not say so, prince ? I should have offered you my hospitality.”

They dismounted from their horses and went into the tent of the sutler. Several officers with red and exhausted faces were sitting at tables, eating and drinking.

” How is that, gentlemen ? ” said the officer of the staff in a tone of reproach, like a man who has several times repeated one and the same thing. ” You must not leave your posts. The prince has commanded that no one should be here. Now you, staff-captain,” — he turned to a small, dirty, haggard officer of artillery, who had nothing but his stockings on his feet (having given his boots to the sutler to dry), as he rose to salute the newcomers, smiling in an unnatural way.

” Now, Captain Tushin, are you not ashamed ? ” continued the officer of the staff. ” You, as an artillerist, ought to show an example, I think, and there you are without boots. The alarm will be sounded, and you will look nice without your boots.” (The staff-captain smiled.) ” Please betake yourselves to your posts, gentlemen,” he added, in the voice of a superior officer.

Prince Andréy involuntarily smiled as he looked at Staff-Captain Tushin. Tushin, smiling and silent, stepped from one foot to the other and looked interrogatively with his large, intelligent, and kindly eyes, now at Prince Andréy, and now at the officer of the staff.

” The soldiers say, ‘ It is more comfortable without your boots,’ ” said Captain Tushin, evidently wishing to pass from his awkward position into a jocular tone ; but before he had finished his sentence, he felt that his joke was not acceptable. He felt embarrassed.

” Please to leave,” said the officer of the staff, trying to look serious.

Prince Andréy once more glanced at the little figure of the artillerist. There was in it something peculiar, something entirely un military, somewhat comical, but exceedingly attractive.

The officer of the staff and Prince Andréy mounted their horses and rode on.

After leaving the village and having constantly come abreast or met with soldiers of the various commands, they saw on the left the fortifications in course of construction, which looked red from the freshly dug clay. Several battalions of soldiers, without their coats, in spite of the cold wind, were swarming in these fortifications like white ants ; behind the rampart somebody, who could not be seen, kept throwing out shovelfuls of red clay. They rode up to the fortification, examined it, and rode on. Directly after the fortification they fell in with several dozens of soldiers who kept running down from the fortifications, taking each other’s places. They had to close their noses and gallop away in order to get out of that pestiferous atmosphere.

” Voilà l’agrément des camps, monsieur le prince,” said the staffofficer of the day.

They rode up on the opposite hill. Here they could see the French. Prince Andréy stopped and looked around him.

” Here stands our battery,” said the officer of the staff, pointing to the highest eminence. ” It is in command of the odd fellow whom we saw without boots. Everything can be seen from there : let us go there, prince ! ”

” Very much obliged to you, — I can now ride around myself,” said Prince Andréy, wishing to get rid of the officer of the staff, ” do not trouble yourself, if you please.”

The officer of the staff went back, and Prince Andréy rode off by himself.

The more he advanced, nearer to the enemy, the more orderly and cheerful was the aspect of the troops. The greatest disorder and the most disconsolate chaos had been in the train before Znaim, which Prince Andréy had examined in the morning and which was within ten versts of the enemy. In Grunth there was also felt a certain alarm and dread of something. But the nearer Prince Andréy approached the French cordon, the more selfconfident did the aspect of our troops become. The soldiers stood in their ranks, dressed in their overcoats, and the sergeant-major and captain counted the soldiers, by sticking a finger against the breast of each end soldier, and ordering him to raise his hand; soldiers that were scattered over the whole space were dragging up wood and twigs and were building booths, laughing and talking merrily ; at the campfires sat soldiers in their clothes, and soldiers without them, drying their shirts and their foot-rags, or mending their boots or overcoats, were crowding around the kettles and cooks. In one company the dinner was ready, and the soldiers with eager faces looked at the steaming kettles and were waiting for the result of the test which the officer sitting on a log in front of his booth was making from a wooden dish brought to him by the gun-sergeant.

In another, more fortunate company, for not all had vddka, the soldiers crowded about a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant-major, who, tipping down a keg, was pouring out the brandy into one canteen top after another. The soldiers carried the canteens to their mouths with a pious expression, tilted them, and, cleaning out their mouths and wiping them with the sleeves of their overcoats, walked away from the sergeant-major with merrier faces. All the faces were as calm as though everything were taking place, not in sight of the enemy, before an action, where at least half the detachment was to remain on the spot, but somewhere at home in expectation of a quiet furlough.

After passing by the regiment of chasseurs Prince Andréy fell in, in the ranks of the Kiev grenadiers, who were fine-looking young men occupied with the same peaceful occupations, with a platoon of grenadiers, near the booth of a commander of a regiment, which differed from the others in size and form. Before the drawn-up platoon lay a man with his clothes stripped off. Two soldiers were holding him, and two others raised flexible rods and in unison struck his bared back. The punished man cried in an unnatural manner. A fat major kept walking up and down in front of the grenadiers and, without paying any attention to the cries, he repeated :

” It is a disgrace for a soldier to steal ; a soldier must be honest, noble, and brave ; and if he steals from his brother soldier, there is no honesty in him, — he is a scoundrel. More, more ! “

And again the flexible strokes and the desperate, but feigned, cries could be heard.

“ More, more ! ” the major kept saying.

A young officer, with an expression of perplexity and suffering upon his face, walked away from the culprit, glancing interrogatively at the adjutant who rode by.

Prince Andréy rode out to the van, and passed down in front of the line. Our cordon and that of the enemy stood on the right and the left flanks, at a distance from each other, but in the middle, where in the morning the men bearing the flag of truce had passed, the lines had advanced so close to each other that they could see each other’s faces and talk with each other. Besides the soldiers who occupied the outposts at this place, there stood many curious people on both sides, laughing and watching the strange and odd enemy.

In spite of the order not to walk up to the outposts, the chiefs had been unable ever since early morning to get rid of the curious. The soldiers who stood in the cordon, being people who had something rare to show, did not look at the French, but made their observations on the newcomers, waiting to be relieved. Prince Andréy stopped to take a look at the French.

” Look there, look ! ” one soldier said to his companion, pointing to a Russian musketeer who, -with an officer, walked over to the cordon and kept talking heatedly with a French grenadier. “Just hear him rattling it off! The Frenchman can’t keep up with him. What do you say, Siddrov ? ”

“Wait, let me listen! He is clever!” replied Sidorov, who was regarded as a great hand at talking French.

The soldier to whom they were pointing was Dolokhov. Prince Andréy recognized him and listened to his conversation. Dolokhov had come up with his captain from the left flank, where their regiment was located.

” Keep it up ! ” the captain urged him on, bending forward and trying not to lose a single word, though he did not understand. ” Please talk more ! What does he say?”

Dolokhov made no reply to the captain ; he was drawn into a heated discussion with the French grenadier. The Frenchman, getting the Austrians and Russians mixed, tried to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had been running all the way from Ulm. Dolokhov proved to him that the Russians had not surrendered, but had beaten the French.

“If we are ordered to drive you away from here, we will do so,” said Dolokhov.

” Look out, or you will be taken prisoners with all yovi Cossacks,” said the French grenadier.

The French audience burst out laughing.

” You will be made to dance, as you danced under Suvdrov (on vous fera danser),” said Dolokhov.

” Qiicst-ce qu’il chante ? ” asked a Frenchman.

“ De l’histoire ancienne,” said another, guessing that they were talking about old wars. “ L’empereur va lui faire voir à votre Souvara, comme aux autres — “

” Bonaparte — ” began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.

” There is no Bonaparte, there is the Emperor ! Sacré nom — ” he cried, angrily.

” The devil take your Emperor ! ”

Ddlokhov began to curse in Russian, using vile soldier language, and, shouldering his gun, walked away. ” Come, Ivän Lukich ! ” he said to the captain.

” Now that is French ! ” said the soldiers of the cordon. ” You try it now, Sidorov ! ”

Sidorov winked and, turning to the Frenchmen, began to lisp a lot of incomprehensible words : ” Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, kaska,” giving them an impressive intonation of liis voice.

” Ho, ho, ho ! Ha, ha, ha ! Ugh, ugh ! ” there burst forth among the soldiers the peals of such a healthy and merry laugh that it involuntarily leaped over the cordon and communicated itself to the French, and it seemed that after that they ought to take out the charges from the guns and blow them up, and go home as fast as possible. But the guns remained charged, the embrasures in the houses and fortifications looked as threatening in front of them, and the unlimbered cannon remained facing each other as before.

XVI.

After having ridden down the whole line of the troops, from the right to the left flank, Prince Andréy rode up to the battery from which, according to the words of the officer of the staff, the whole field could be surveyed. Here he dismounted from his horse and stopped at the outer of the four unlimbered guns. In front of the guns marched an artillerist, doing sentinel duty ; he straightened himself up in the presence of the officer, but, a sign having been made to him, he renewed his even, monotonous walking. Back of the guns stood the limbers, and farther back were the pickets and the campfires of the artillerists. On the left, not far away from the outer gun, there was a small wicker booth, from which proceeded animated voices of officers.

Indeed, from the battery there was opened up a vista showing the disposition of nearly the whole of the Russian and the greater part of the enemy’s troops. Directly in front of the battery, the village of Schöngraben could be seen outlined against the horizon of the opposite mound. To the left and right of it he could discern in three places, amid the smoke of the campfires, the masses of the French troops, the greater number of which were evidently in the village itself and on the other side of the hill. To the left of the village, there appeared, through the smoke, something that resembled a battery, but the naked eye could not make it out well.

Our right flank was stationed on a sufficiently steep eminence which lorded it over the French position. Along this eminence our infantry was stationed, and at the very edge the dragoons could be seen. In the centre, where was Tushin’s battery, from which Prince Andréy was surveying the position, there was the gentlest descent and rise toward the brook which separated us from Schöngraben. On the left, our troops hugged a forest, where rose the smoke from the camp-tires of our infantry, busy cutting wood.

The line of the French army was broader than ours, and it was clear that the French could easily outflank us on either side. Back of our position there was a declivitous and deep ravine, over which it would be hard for the artillery and the cavalry to retreat.

Prince Andréy leaned against the cannon, took out his memorandum, and drew upon it the plan of the disposition of the troops. In two places he made remarks in pencil, intending to communicate them to Bagration. He proposed, in the first place, to concentrate all the artillery in the centre, and, in the second place, to take the cavalry on the other side of the ravine.

Prince Andréy, who was all the time with the commanderin-chief, had followed the movements of the masses and the general dispositions, and, constantly busying himself with the historical descriptions of battles, he involuntarily imagined, in general outline, the future course of the military actions in the impending engagement. These were the eventualities which presented themselves to him :

“If the enemy directs the attack upon the right flank,” he said to himself, ” the Kiev regiment of grenadiers and the Podolia regiment of chasseurs will have to hold their ground until the reserves of the centre come to their rescue. In that event the dragoons may strike the flank and overthrow them. In case of an attack upon the centre, we shall locate a central battery on this eminence, and under its cover draw in the left flank and retreat to the ravine by echelons,” he reflected.

All the time that he was in the battery near the gun, he heard the sounds of the voices of the officers, who were speaking in the booth, without trying to make out what they were saying. Suddenly the sound of the voices from the booth struck him so forcibly by its hearty tone that he involuntarily stopped to listen.

” No, my dear,” said a pleasant voice, which Andréy thought familiar, ” I say that if it were possible to know what there is after death, none of us would be afraid of death. That’s it, my dear.”

Another, a more youthful voice, interrupted him :

” It does not make any difference whether you are afraid or not: you cannot escape it.”

” And yet one is afraid of it ! Oh, you learned men ! ” said a third, a manly voice, interrupting them both. ” You artillerists are very learned because you always have with you védka and something to eat.”

The owner of the masculine voice, apparently an officer of infantry, burst out laughing.

” And yet one is afraid,” continued the first, the familiar voice, ” one is afraid of the unknown, that’s what. Say all you please about the soul’s going to heaven — we know too well that there is no heaven, but only atmosphere.”

Again the masculine voice interrupted the artillerist.

” Treat us to your herb brandy, Tushin ! ” said one.

” Ah, that is the same captain who was without boots at the sutler’s,” thought Prince Andréy, happy to recognize the pleasant voice of the philosopher.

” You may have some herb brandy,” said Tushin, “still, to comprehend the future life — ” He did not finish his sentence.

Just then a whistling sound was heard in the air. Nearer, nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a shell, as though leaving something unsaid, with inhuman force sent splinters flying and struck the ground near the booth with a splash. The earth seemed to groan under

the stroke. At the same moment small Tushin was the first to leap out from the booth. He had a pipe sidewise in liis mouth ; his kindly, intelligent face was a little pale. After him came the owner of the masculine voice, a dashing officer of infantry. He ran to his company, buttoning his coat on the run.

XVII.

Prince Andréy remained sitting on his horse in the battery, looking at the smoke of the gun from which the shell had come. His eyes raced over an extensive expanse. He saw that the heretofore immobile masses of the French came into motion and that on the left there really was a battery. The smoke had not yet disappeared from it. Two French horsemen, apparently adjutants, galloped along the hill. At the foot of the hill a small column of the enemy, clearly discernible in the distance, moved, obviously to strengthen the outposts. The smoke of the first discharge had not yet lifted, when another whiff of smoke was seen, and a shot followed. The battle had begun. Prince Andréy turned his horse around and galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagratidn. He heard the cannonade growing louder and more frequent behind his back. Evidently our troops were beginning to return the fire. Below, in the place where the bearers of the flag of truce had ridden, there were heard rifle-shots.

Lemarrois had just come at a gallop into the presence of Murat with the threatening letter from Napoleon, and Murat, ashamed of his blunder and wishing to correct it, immediately moved his troops to the centre and at the same time deployed around the two flanks, hoping, before evening and before the arrival of the emperor, to crush the insignificant detachment facing him.

” It has begun ! Here it is ! ” thought Prince Andréy, feeling that his blood was rushing ever more strongly to his heart. ” But where is it ? How will my Toulon be expressed ? ” he thought.

As he rode past the company, which fifteen minutes before had been eating broth and drinking védka, he everywhere saw the same hurried motion of soldiers aligning themselves and grasping their weapons, and in all the faces he recognized that feeling of animation which was in his own heart.

” It has begun ! Here it is ! It is both terrible and gay ! ” said the face of each soldier and officer.

Before reaching the fortification in process of erection, he saw, in the evening dusk of a gloomy autumn day, some horsemen who were moving in his direction. The one in front, wearing a felt mantle and a lambskin cap, rode on a white horse. It was Prince Bagratién. Prince Bagratién stopped his horse, and, upon recognizing Prince Andréy, nodded to him. He continued to look in front of him, while Prince Andréy told him what he had seen.

The expression, ” It has begun ! Here it is ! ” was also on Prince Bagration’s strong face, with its halfclosed and dim, as though sleepy, chestnut eyes. Prince Andréy, with restless curiosity, gazed at his immovable face, and he wanted to know whether that man was thinking and feeling, and what it was he was thinking and feeling at that moment.

“ Is anything at all there, on that stolid face ? ” Prince Andréy asked himself, looking at him. Prince Bagration inclined-his head in sign of agreement with the words of Prince Andréy, and said, ” Well,” with an expression which seemed to say that everything which took place, and which he was informed of, was precisely what he had anticipated. Prince Andréy was out of breath from the rapid ride, and spoke hurriedly. Prince Bagration pronounced his words exceedingly slow, in his Eastern accent, as though to impress one that there was no need of being in such a hurry. Still, he spurred on his horse to a gallop in the direction of Tushin’s battery. Prince Andréy rode after him, together with the suite. Prince Bagration was followed by an officer of the suite, the prince’s private adjutant, Zhérkov, an orderly, a staffofficer of the day on a handsome bob-tailed horse, and a civil official, an auditor, who out of curiosity had asked permission to be present at a battle. The auditor, a stout man with a plump face, looked about him with a naïve smile of joy, shaking on his horse, and presenting an odd figure in his camlet overcoat, seated on a saddle of the baggagetrain, among the hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants.

” He wants to see a battle,” Zhérkov said to Bolkénski, pointing to the auditor, ” but he has already a pain in the pit of his stomach.”

” Don’t say it,” said the auditor, with a beaming, naïve, and, at the same time, cunning smile, as though he were flattered with being the butt of Zhérkov’s jests, and as though he purposely tried to appear more stupid than he really was.

” Très drôle, mon monsieur prince’,’ said the staffofficer of the day. (He remembered that in French the title of a prince was composed of certain words, but be could not recall what they were.)

Just then they all reached Tushin’s battery, and a shell struck directly in front of them.

” What is this that has fallen there ? ” the auditor asked, naïvely smiling.

” French pancakes,” said Zhérkov.

” So with that they strike ? ” asked the auditor. ” It is awful ! ”

He seemed to be melting from enjoyment. He had hardly finished his sentence, when unexpectedly a terrible shriek was again heard, which ” swish-sh-sh ” suddenly stopped by striking something soft, and a Cossack, who was riding a little to the right and back of the auditor, came down with a crash together with his horse. Zhérkov and the staffofficer of the day bent down on their saddles and turned their horses away. The auditor stopped opposite the Cossack, looking at him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead ; the horse was still struggling.

Prince Bagration halfclosed bis eyes and looked around. When he saw what the cause of the disturbance was, he quietly turned his face around, as though to say, ” It is not worth while busying myself with foolish things.” He checked his horse with the mien of an experienced rider, bent over a little, and straightened out the sword which had caught in his felt mantle. The sword was of an ancient pattern, not such as were then worn. Prince Andréy recalled the story of Suvorov’s presenting his sword to Bagration in Italy, and this recollection just then gave him pleasure. They rode up to the very battery near which Bolkonski had stood examining the field of battle.

” Whose company is it ? ” Prince Bagratidn asked the cannoneer who was standing at the caissons.

He was asking whose company it was, but in reality he meant to ask : ” Are you not losing your courage over here ?” — and the cannoneer understood him.

“Captain Tushin’s, your Excellency,” straightening himself up, called out the red-haired, freckled cannoneer, in a merry voice.

” Yes, yes,” said Bagratidn, reflecting upon something. He rode past the limbers to the outer gun. As he was approaching it, a shot rang out from that gun, deafening him and his suite, and in the smoke, which suddenly surrounded the cannon, could be seen the artillerists as they, putting their shoulders to the ordnance and straining themselves, hastened to roll the gun back to its old place. Soldier number one, stepping broadly, jumped to the wheel, with the sponge in his hands. Number two, with trembling hand, was putting the charge into the muzzle of the gun. Undersized, stooping Tushin, stumbling against the trail of the gun-carriage, ran forward, without noticing the general, and, shielding his eyes with his small hand, looked into the distance.

” Add two lines ! That will be all right,” he cried, in a thin voice, trying to give it a martial expression, which was not in keeping with his figure. ” Second ! ” he screamed. ” Medvyédev, let her go ! ”

Bagratidn called the officer, and Tushin walked over to the general with a timid and awkward motion, putting his three fingers to the visor, not as the military salute, but as the priests do when pronouncing a benediction. Although Tushin’s ordnance had been intended for the purpose of sweeping the ravine, he was firing bombs upon the village of Schöngraben, visible in the distance, in front of which large masses of the French were moving.

No one had given orders to Tushin where to shoot and what to fire at, but he had taken counsel with his sergeant-major, Zakharchénko, for whom he had great respect, and had decided that it would not be bad to set fire to the village.

” All right ! ” Bagration said to the officer’s report. He began to survey the whole field of battle which lay before him, as though considering something. The French approached nearest on the right. Below the eminence on which stood the Kiev regiment, in the ravine of the little river, there was heard a heartrending crackling of musketryfire, and a great deal farther to the right, behind the dragoons, the officer of the suite indicated to the prince a column of Frenchmen who were outflanking us. On the left the horizon was closed in by a near-by forest. Prince Bagration ordered two battalions from the centre to go to the reinforcement of the right ; the officer of the suite took the liberty of pointing out to the prince that after the departure of these battalions the guns would be left unprotected. Prince Bagratidn turned around to the officer of the suite and in silence glanced at him with dim eyes. Prince Andréy thought that the remark of the

officer of the suite was just, and that no retort could be really made to it.

Just then an adjutant came galloping from the commander of the regiment which was in the ravine, with the news that enormous numbers of the French were marching through the lowlands, and that the regiment was disorganized and retreating to the position of the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration inclined his head in sign of agreement and consent. He rode at a pace to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with an order to attack the French. But the adjutant sent there returned half an hour later with the information that the commander of the regiments of dragoons had already retreated beyond the ravine because a strong fire was directed against him and he had been losing men for nothing, — so he was trying to get the sharpshooters into the forest.

” All right ! ” said Bagratidn. Just as he was riding off from the battery, there was heard a musketryfire in the forest on the left, and as it was too far to the left flank for Prince Bagratidn to get there in time, he sent Zhérkov there to tell the senior general, the one whose regiment Kutuzov had inspected at Braunau, that he should retreat as quickly as possible beyond the ravine, as the right flank would, no doubt, not be strong enough to withstand the enemy. In the meantime Tushin and the battalion which was covering him were forgotten.

Prince Andrdy carefully listened to the conversations between the chiefs and Prince Bagratidn and to the orders sent to the chiefs, and to his surprise he discovered that no orders were given, but that Prince Bagration was trying to give an impression that everything, which in reality took place by necessity, by accident, and by the will of the separate chiefs, was done, if not by his command, at least in conformity with his intentions. Prince Andréy noticed that, thanks to the tact displayed by Prince Bagratidn, his presence was extremely valuable, in spite of the accidental character of the events and their independence from the will of the commander. The chiefs, who rode up to Prince Bagration with disturbed countenances, became quiet ; soldiers and officers greeted him cheerfully, became more animated in his presence, and obviously tried to make a display of their valour.

XVIII.

Having ascended the highest point of our right flank, Prince Bagration began to ride downhill toward the place from which proceeded the peals of the fusilade and where nothing could be seen through the smoke. The lower they descended to the ravine, the less they were able to see, but the more palpable became the nearness of the real field of battle. They came across wounded men. Two soldiers were dragging a hatless man with bleeding head, by holding him under Ins arms. He was spitting out blood and there was a rattle in his throat : apparently he had been shot through his mouth or throat. Another whom they met walked along briskly, without his gun, groaning aloud and waving his arm under the impression of the fresh pain, while blood flowed from his arm upon his overcoat as from a vial. His face looked more frightened than suffering. He had been wounded but a minute before.

After crossing the road, they began to descend a steep incline on which several men were lying ; they met a gr oup of soldiers, among whom there were several wounded. The soldiers were going up-hill, breathing heavily, and, in spite of the presence of the general, were speaking loud and waving their arms. In front, the rows of the gray overcoats could be seen through the smoke, and an officer, upon seeing Bagratidn, ran with a shout after the soldiers who were walking away, asking them to return.

Bagratidn rode up to the ranks, along which here and there crackled discharges, drowning the conversation and the voices of command. The whole atmosphere was saturated with powder smoke. All the faces of the soldiers were stained by the smoke and looked animated. Some of them were driving the ramrods down their guns ; others were putting powder on the pans and getting the cartridges out of their cartridge-boxes ; others again were firing their guns off. It was not apparent at whom they were shooting, as the powder smoke hovered about them without being carried away by the wind. Quite frequently one could hear the agreeable sound of something buzzing and whistling. ” What can this be ? ” thought Prince Andréy, as he rode up to that group of soldiers. ” It cannot be an attack, because they are not moving, and it cannot be a square, because they are not in proper position for that.”

The commander of the regiment, a lean, apparently feeble old man, with a pleasant smile, with his eyelids more than halfclosed, thus giving him an aspect of gentleness, rode up to Prince Bagration, whom he received as one receives a dear guest. He reported to Prince Bagration that his regiment had been attacked by the French cavalry, and that the attack had been repulsed with a loss of not less than one-half of his regiment. The commander of the regiment said that attack had been repulsed, inventing that military appellation for that which was taking place in his regiment, though in reality he could not tell what had been happening to the troops entrusted to him within the last half an hour, and though he could not say for sure whether the attack had been repulsed, or whether the regiment had been crushed by the attack. All he actually knew was that in the beginning of the action shells and grenades had begun to reach his regiment and strike down men, and that later somebody shouted, “ The cavalry ! ” and the soldiers began to shoot. And they kept up shooting, not at the cavalry which had disappeared, but at the French infantry, which had made its appearance in the ravine and kept up a fire on our regiment.

Prince Bagratidn slightly inclined his head in sign of everything having happened precisely as he had wished and expected. He turned to an adjutant and commanded him to bring down from the hill two battalions of the sixth of chasseurs, past whom they had just ridden. Prince Andréy was at that moment struck by the change which had taken place in the face of Prince Bagratidn. His countenance expressed that concentrated and happy determination which one sees in a man who on a hot day is ready to leap into the water and is just taking his last run. Those dim, sleepy eyes and that feigned expression of profound thought were gone : his round, firm, hawk eyes, without seemingly resting upon anything in particular, looked ahead of him with solemnity and with a certain disdain, while in his movements there remained the former slowness and reserve.

The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, begging him to ride back, as it was too perilous there.

” I beg you, your Serenity, for God’s sake ! ” he said, looking for confirmation at the officer of the suite, who turned his face away from him. ” You see ? ” He referred to the bullets that kept whining, singing, and whistling all about them.

He spoke in the same tone of entreaty and reproach in which a carpenter says to a gentleman who takes up his axe: “We are used to it, but you mil only blister your hands with it ! “

He spoke as though the bullets could not kill him, and his halfclosed eyes added a more persuasive expression to his utterances. The officer of the staff joined his entreaties to those of the commander of the regiment, but Bagration made no reply and only ordered the soldiers to stop shooting and arrange themselves in such a way as to make a road for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking, the breeze, which had sprung up, as though with an invisible hand lifted from right to left the shroud of the smoke, which had concealed the ravine, and the opposite hill, with the French troops moving upon it, was revealed to view. All eyes were instinctively turned to that French column, which was moving toward us and winding about the rising eminences. They could already see the shaggy caps of the soldiers ; they could distinguish the officers from the soldiers ; they could see the flag flapping against the staff.

“ They are marching in fine order,” some one said in Bagratidn’s suite.

The head of the column had already descended into the ravine. The conflict was to take place on this side of the descent —

The remnants of our regiment that had just been in action hastily formed in ranks and retreated a little to the right ; behind them, driving away the stragglers, two battalions of the sixth of chasseurs marched down in good order. They were yet a distance behind Bagration, but already could the heavy steps be heard which that mass of men were taking in even measure. On the left flank, nearest to Bagration, was walking the commander of the company, a round-faced, stately man, with a silly and happy expression on his face, the same man who had run out from the booth. He evidently was thinking of nothing at that moment but of marching in a dashing manner past the superior officers.

He stepped lightly with his muscular legs, as though he were swimming along, without the least effort straightening himself up in military self-satisfaction, and by that lightness differing from the soldiers, who with heavy tread were marching in step with him. He carried a thin, unsheathed, bent little sword, which did not resemble a weapon, down his leg, and, looking now at the superior officers, and now back at the soldiers, without losing step, rapidly turned around his strong body.

“ Left — left — left — ” he seemed to be saying inwardly with every second step he took, and keeping time with him moved the wall of the soldiers, with their variously stern faces, and burdened with their knapsacks and guns, as though each of those hundreds of soldiers mentally repeated with every second step, ” Left — left — left — “

A fat major, puffing and losing step, walked around a bush which was in his way ; a soldier, who had fallen behind, was racing after his company, all out of breath and frightened at his irregularity. A shell, compressing the air, flew over the heads of Bagratidn and his suite and, keeping time with the ” Left — left !” of the soldiers, struck into the column.

” Close ranks ! ” was heard the dashing voice of the commander of the company. The soldiers made a circle around something which was lying in the place where the shell had struck ; an old underofficer of the flank, who had remained behind with those who were killed, caught up with his company, with a leap changed his foot and, falling into the step, looked angrily back. “Left — left — left — ” one seemed to hear through the ominous silence and the monotonous sound of the soldiers in unison striking the ground with their feet.

« You are a fine lot, boys ! ” said Prince Bagratidn.

A deafening response ran down the ranks. A gloomy soldier, who was marching on the left, shouting, looked back at Bagration, with an expression which seemed to say, “ We know it ourselves ; ” another did not look back, as though fearing to have his attention distracted, and only opened his mouth and shouted, as he passed by.

They were ordered to stop and take off their knapsacks.

Bagratidn rode around the ranks which had just marched past him, and dismounted from his horse. He gave the lines to a Cossack, took off his felt mantle, which he also gave to the Cossack, straightened out his legs and adjusted his cap. The head of the French column, with the officers in the van, appeared at the foot of the hill.

” God aid you ! ” said Bagration, in a firm, audible voice ; for a moment he turned back to look at the ranks, and, gently swaying Iris hands, in the unsteady gait of a cavalryman, as though with difficulty, marched ahead over the uneven ground. Prince Andréy felt an insuperable force drawing him on, and he experienced much happiness.1

The French were already near, and Prince Andréy, who was marching by Bagratidn’s side, could clearly see the pouch-belts, the red epaulettes, even the faces of the Frenchmen. (He clearly saw an old French officer who, with out-toeing feet and wearing short boots, was climbing the hill with great difficulty.)

Prince Bagratidn gave no new order and continued to march in silence in front of the ranks. Suddenly a shot rang out from the ranks of the French, and a second, a third — and the disorganized ranks of the enemy were enveloped in smoke, and the fusilade became universal. A few of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had been marching so gaily and dashingly. At the same^ moment that the first shot was fired, Bagratidn looked back and cried, “ Hurrah ! “

” Hurrah-ah-ah ! ” the prolonged shout went down our lines and, outrunning Bagration and each other, our soldiers, in a disorganized but cheerful and animated crowd, ran up-hill after the broken ranks of the French.

1 Here took place the attack of which Thiers says : “ Les Russes se conduisirent vaillamment, et chose rare à la guerre on vit deux masses d’infanterie marcher résolument l’une contre l’autre sans qu’aucune des deux céda avant d’être abordée;” and Napoleon on the island of St. Helena said : u Quelques bataillons Russes montrèrent de l’intrépidité.” — Author’s Note.

XIX.

The attack of the sixth of chasseurs secured the retreat of the right flank. In the centre, the action of Tushin’s forgotten battery, which had succeeded in setting fire to Schöngraben, stopped the movement of the French. The French were busy putting out the fire, which was fanned by the wind, and thus gave ours a chance to retreat. The retreat of the centre across the ravine was hurried and noisy ; but, in falling back, the commands did not get mixed up. But the left flank, which was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by the excellent forces of the French under Lannes, and which consisted of the Azov and Podolia regiments of infantry and of the Pavlogrädski regiment of hussars, was disorganized. Bagratidn sent Zhérkov to the general of the left flank, ordering him to retreat at once.

Zhérkov, without taking his hand away from his cap, briskly touched his horse and galloped away. But the moment he had left Bagration his strength failed him. He was overcome by an insuperable terror and was unable to ride into danger.

Upon reaching the troops of the left flank, he did not ride to the front, where the fusilade was going on, but began to look for the general and the chiefs there where they could not be, and so he did not communicate the command.

The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of the regiment which had been inspected by Kutuzov at Braunau, and in which Ddlokhov served as a soldier. The command of the extreme left flank had been given to the commander of the Pavlogrddski regiment in which Kostov was serving, from which resulted a misunderstanding. Both chiefs were greatly provoked at each other, and while the engagement had long ago begun at the right flank, and the French had started moving forward, the.two chiefs were busy with a parley, the purpose of which was to insult each other. At the same time the regiments, both of cavalry and of infantry, were ill-prepared for the impending action. The men of the two regiments, from the soldiers to the generals, were not expecting any battle, and quietly busied themselves with peaceful affairs, — in the cavalry, with feeding their horses, in the infantry, with collecting wood.

” If he is my senior in rank,” said the German colonel of hussars, growing red in his face and turning to the adjutant who had come to see him, ” let him do as he pleases. I cannot sacrifice my hussars. Trumpeter ! Sound a retreat.”

In the meantime the engagement was in full blast. The cannonade and fusilade, blending, pealed on the right and at the centre, and the French capotes of Lannes’s sharpshooters were already crossing the mill-dam and deploying on this side, within two gun-shots. The colonel of infantry with a quivering motion walked over to Iris horse and, climbing upon it and becoming very straight and tall, rode off to the commander of the Pavlogradski regiment. The commanders of the regiments met with polite bows and with concealed rage in their hearts.

“ However, colonel,” said the general, ” I cannot leave half of my men in the forest. I beg you, I beg you,” he repeated, ” to occupy a position and prepare for an attack.”

” I ask you not to meddle with other people’s affairs,” replied the colonel, in a rage. ” If you were a cavalryman — ”

” I am not a cavalryman, colonel, but a Russian general, and if you do not know that — “

” I know it very well, your Excellency,” the colonel suddenly shouted, spurring his horse and turning purple. ” Please come to the outposts, and you will see yourself that that position is no good whatever. I do not want to destroy my regiment for your pleasure.”

“You are forgetting yourself, colonel. I am not attending to my own pleasure, and I will not permit you to tell me that.”

The general accepted the colonel’s invitation to the bout of bravery and, expanding his chest and frowning, went with him in the direction of the cordon, as though all their differences were to be decided there, in the cordon, under the bullets. They arrived at the cordon, where a number of bullets flew over them, and they stopped in silence. There was nothing for them to see in the cordon, for from the place where they had been before, it was quite evident that the cavalry could not act between the bushes and in the ravines, and that the French were enveloping their left wing. The general and the colonel looked sternly and significantly at each other, like two cocks getting ready to fight, in vain waiting for expressions of cowardice. Both stood the test. As there was nothing to say, and neither the one nor the other wanted to give the other an opportunity to say that he was the first to get out from under fire, they would have remained there quite awhile, testing each other’s prowess, if just then they had not heard, almost at their backs, in the woods, the crackling of guns, and a hollow blending shout. The French had fallen upon the soldiers who were cutting wood in the forest. The hussars no longer could retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from a retreat on the left by the French cordon. Now, however inconvenient the territory was, it became necessary to attack, in order to cut their way through.

The squadron in which Rostov was serving had just had time to mount and was facing the enemy. Again, as at the bridge at Enns, there was no one between the squadron and the enemy, and between them lay, dividing them, the same terrible line of uncertainty and terror, like a line which’ separates the living from the dead. All people were conscious of that line, and the question whether they would cross it or not agitated them.

The colonel rode up to the front, angrily replied something to the questions of the officers, and, like a man who desperately insists on something, gave a command. Nobody said anything definite, but the rumour of an attack was carried through the squadron. The command to draw up was given, and the sabres clanked as they were unsheathed* Still no one was moving. The troops of the left flank, both the infantry and the hussars, felt that the authorities themselves did not know what to do, and the indecision of the chiefs communicated itself to them.

” If it only came at once,” thought Rostov, feeling that at last the time had come for experiencing the joy of an attack, of which he had heard so much from his fellow hussars.

” God aid you, boys ! ” sounded Denisov’s voice. ” At a trot, march ! ”

The cruppers of the horses of the first fine came in motion. Raven pulled on the bridle and started himself.

At the right, Rostov saw the first rows of his hussars, and still farther in front there was a dark strip, which he could not make out, but which he took to be the enemy. Shots were heard at a distance.

” Ride faster ! ” was heard the command, and Rostov felt his Raven raising his back and passing into a gallop. He guessed his motion in advance, and he kept feeling happier and happier. He noticed a single tree ahead of him. This tree had been before in the middle of that

line which had seemed so terrible. Now they had crossed the line, and there was nothing terrible ; on the contrary he felt happier and more animated.

” Oh, how I will whack him,” thought Rostov, clutching the hilt of his sword.

” Hurrah ! ” shouted the soldiers.

” Just let anybody get in my way,” thought Rostdv, giving Raven his spurs and galloping at full speed ahead of the others. The enemy was visible in front. Suddenly a broad besom seemed to be sweeping through the squadron. Rostov raised his sabre, getting ready to strike, but just then soldier Nikitenko, who was in front of him, was separated from him, and Rostov felt, as if in sleep, that he was borne onward with furious rapidity and that at the same time he remained in the same spot. Hussar Bandarchuk, who was riding behind, almost ran over him and looked at him in anger. Bandarchuk’s horse tottered, and he rode past him.

” How is it I am not moving on ? I have fallen, I am killed — ” Rostöv asked and replied in the same twinkle. He was now alone in the middle of the field. Instead of the moving horses and backs of the hussars, he saw the motionless earth and the stubbles all around him. Under him there was warm blood.

“No, I am wounded, and my horse is killed.”

Raven tried to rise on his fore legs, but fell down again, pinning down the rider’s leg. Blood flowed from the horse’s head. The horse struggled, but could not get up. Rostov wanted to rise, and himself fell down, too : his sabretasche caught in the saddle.

” Where are our men ? Where are the French ? ” He did not know. There was nobody near by.

Having freed his leg, he raised himself.

” Where, on which side is now the line which so sharply separated the two armies ? ” he asked himself and could make no reply. ” Has not something bad happened to

He seized his pistol and, instead of firing it, threw it at the Frenchman and started running with all his might toward the bushes. He was not running with that feeling of doubt and struggle, with which he had run on the bridge at Enns, but with the feeling of a rabbit escaping from the hounds. One indivisible feeling of fear for his youthful and happy life took possession of his whole being.

Swiftly leaping over the balks, with the impetuosity with which in his childhood he used to play a catching game, he flew over the field, now and then turning around his pale, kindly, youthful face, and a chill of terror ran up his spine.

” No, I had better not look,” he thought, but, upon reaching the bushes, he again turned around. The French had fallen behind, and, just as he turned back, the one who was in front changed his trot to a walking pace and, looking back, said something to his companion behind him. Rostov stopped.

” I must be mistaken,” he thought ; ” it is not possible that they should wish to kill me.”

Meanwhile his left arm was as heavy as though a weight of two puds were attached to it. He could not run any farther. The Frenchman stopped, and aimed at him. RoStdv closed his eyes and stooped. One, two bullets flew whizzing past him. He collected his last strength, took his left arm into his right hand, and ran as far as the brush. In the brush were Russian sharpshooters.

XX.

The regiments of infantry which were taken unawares in the woods rushed out of the forest, and the companies, mingling with other companies, went away in disorderly crowds. A soldier in his fright pronounced the meaningless words, so ominous in war, ” They have cut us off!” and the word, together with the feeling of terror, was communicated to the whole mass.

” They have outflanked us ! They have cut us off ! We are lost ! ” cried the running soldiers.

The moment the commander of the regiment heard the fusilade and the shouts behind him, he understood that something terrible had happened to his regiment, and the thought that he, an exemplary officer, who during the many years of his service had not been found guilty of anything, might now be accused by the authorities of criminal negligence, struck him so forcibly that, immediately forgetting the recalcitrant colonel of the cavalry and his dignity as a general, but, above all, completely forgetting the danger and the instinct of self-preservation, he, getting hold of the bow of his saddle and spurring his horse, galloped to his regiment under a hail of bullets which fortunately did him no harm. There was but one thing which he wished, and that was to find out how matters stood and to mend the blunder at all cost, if it was at all his blunder, and not to appear guilty, having for twenty-two years served as an exemplary officer and without ever having received any reprimand.

Having galloped without harm past the French, he reached the field beyond the forest, where our soldiers were running downhill, without paying any attention to the command. It was that moment of moral hesitation which decides the fate of battles : the question was whether the disorganized crowds of soldiers would listen to the voice of their commander, or whether they would look back at him and continue running. In spite of the desperate shout of the previously so formidable voice of their commander, in spite of his raving, maddened, purple face, and the furious waving of his sword, the soldiers kept running, talking, shooting into the air, and paying no attention to the word of command. The moral hesitation which decides the fate of battles was apparently in favour of terror.

The general had a coughing fit from his crying and from the powder smoke, and stopped in despair. Everything seemed to be lost; but just then the French, who were moving toward us, suddenly, without any apparent cause, ran back and disappeared from the clearing, while the Russian sharpshooters became visible in the forest. It was Timdkhin’s company, the only one which had preserved order in the forest, and which, sitting down in a ditch near by in the woods, unexpectedly attacked the French. Timdkhin rushed against the French soldiers with such a terrible shout, and, with nothing but his sword, ran against them with such reckless and intoxicated determination, that the French had no time to collect their wits, threw away their guns, and ran away. Dolokhov, who was running by Timdkhin’s side, shot a Frenchman while almost touching him with his gun, and was the first to grasp an officer who surrendered. The soldiers who were in flight returned, the battalions were collected, and the French, who had separated the troops of the left flank into two parts, were for a moment repulsed.

The reserves had time to collect themselves, and the fleeing soldiers stopped. The commander of the regiment was standing at the bridge with Major Ekonomov, letting the retreating companies pass by him, when a soldier walked over to him, took hold of his stirrup, and almost leaned against him. The soldier wore a blue cloth mantle ; he had no knapsack and no shako ; his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder he carried a French cartridge-pouch. In his hand he held an officer’s sword. The soldier was pale ; his blue eyes looked boldly into the face of the commander of the regiment, and his mouth smiled. Although the commander of the regiment was busy giving orders to Major Ekondmov, he could not help looking at the soldier.

“Your Excellency, here are two trophies!” said 1)61 o-khov, pointing to the French sword and to the cartridge-pouch. ” I have captured an officer. I have stopped the company.” Ddlokhov was breathing heavily from fatigue ; he spoke by fits and starts. ” The whole company will testify to it. I beg you to make a note of it, your Excellency ! “

« All right, all right,” said the commander of the regiment, turning to Major Ekonomov. Rut Ddlokhov did not budge ; he untied his bandage, pulled it down, and showed the blood clots in his hair.

“A bayonet wound, — and I remained in the ranks. Remember that, your Excellency ! “

Tushin’s battery was forgotten, and only toward the end of the engagement, still hearing a cannonade in the centre, Prince Bagration sent there the staffofficer of the day and then Prince Andrdy, to order the battery to retreat as quickly as possible. The protecting battalions, which had stood near Tushin’s guns, had left in the middle of the engagement, somebody having given the order to do so ; but the battery continued firing, and had not been taken by the French because the enemy could not imagine the boldness of firing four guns without having them well protected. On the contrary, from the energetic action of this battery, he supposed that here, in the centre, the chief forces of the Russians were concentrated, and he twice tried to attack that point, but was driven back by the canister-shot of the four undefended cannon standing on that eminence.

Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in getting Schön graben on fire.

” I declare they are in a turmoil ! It is burning ! What a smoke ! Elegant ! Fine ! What a smoke, what a smoke ! ” said the crew, getting animated.

All the guns fired, without order, in the direction of the burning village. As though urging on the projectiles, the soldiers kept saying with each shot : ” This is clever ! That’s what ! I declare, it is fine ! “

The fire was fanned by the wind and spread rapidly. The French columns which came out of the village went back again, but, as though to punish the Russians for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began to fire upon Tushin.

In their childish joy, which was produced by the conflagration and the successful fire upon the French, our artillerists noticed that battery only after two shells, and soon after four more, had struck between the guns, and one of them had knocked down two horses, while another had torn off a leg from a caisson driver. But the animation, having once been established, did not weaken ; it only changed its character. The horses were exchanged for others from the reserve gun-carriage ; the wounded were taken away, and the four guns were trained on the ten-gun battery. An officer, Tushin’s companion, was killed in the beginning of the action, and during the period of one hour seventeen out of a crew of forty fell out, but the artillerists remained as cheerful and as animated as before. Twice they noticed that the French had appeared a short distance away, and directly below them, and then they directed canister-shot upon them.

The little man, with the feeble, awkward movements, kept asking his servant for ” another pipe for this,” as he said, and he ran out, scattering the fire from his pipe, and looked at the French, by shielding his eyes with his little hand.

“ Let her go, boys ! ” he said, himself seizing the guns at the wheels and screwing them up.

Deafened by the eternal discharges, which made him shake, Tushin ran through the smoke from one gun to another, all the time keeping his ” nosewarmer ” in his mouth ; now he aimed, now counted the charges, now looked after the exchange and unharnessing of dead and wounded horses, calling out all the while in his weak, thin, and indecisive voice. His face grew more and more animated. Only when men were wounded or killed, he scowled and, turning away from a killed soldier, angrily shouted to the men who, as always, were slow in picking up a wounded body. The soldiers, for the most part stately fellows (in the companies of the batteries they are generally two heads taller than their officers, and twice as broad), all looked at their commander in difficult situations like children, and the expression which was on his face was invariably reflected on theirs.

On account of that terrible din and noise, and the necessity of being all the time on the watch and active, Tushin did not experience the least unpleasant feeling of terror, and the thought that he might be killed or painfully wounded never occurred to him. On the contrary, he grew ever more cheerful. It seemed to him that it was long ago, almost the day before, that he for the first time saw the enemy and made the first shot, and that the piece of the field on which he was standing had long been his familiar, native place. Although he remembered everything, considered everything, did every tiling the very best officer could possibly have done in his place, he was in a condition which resembled a delirium of fever, or the state of an intoxicated man.

Through the deafening sounds of his guns, through the whistling and the thuds of the projectiles of the enemy, through the spectacle of the perspiring, red-faced, hurrying crew at the guns, through the spectacle of the blood of men and horses, through the spectacle of the puffs of the smoke from the enemy on the other side (after each of which a shell came flying and striking the earth, a man, a gun, or a horse),— through the spectacle of all these objects, a fantastic world arose in his mind and at that time gave him much pleasure. The enemy’s guns were to his imagination not cannon, but pipes through which an invisible smoker was now and then emitting smoke.

“ lie has taken another puff,” said Tushin, in a whisper, as a whiff of smoke leaped out from the hill and was carried by the wind to the left in the form of a stripe, ” and now wait for the ball, and send it back again.”

” What do you wish, your Honour ? ” asked a cannoneer who was standing near him, as he heard him mutter something.

“ Nothing, a grenade — ” he replied.

” Come now, our Matvyévna ! ” he said to himself. Matvyévna to his imagination was a large outer gun of an ancient cast. The French at their guns presented themselves to him as ants. The fine-looking drunkard, number one of the second gun, was the ” uncle ” in his world ; Tushin kept looking oftenest at him and enjoyed every motion of his. The sound of the now dying, now increasing, fusilade at the foot of the hill appeared to him like somebody’s breathing. He listened attentively to the sinking and to the palpitation of these sounds.

” She is breathing again, she is,” he said to himself.

He thought of himself as a man of enormous stature and tremendous power who with both hands was hurling balls at the French.

“ Now, Matvyévna, my darling, do not deceive me ! ” he said, walking away from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar sound was heard above his head.

” Captain Tushiu ! Captain ! “

Tushin looked back frightened. It was that officer of the staff who had driven him out at Grunth. He was crying to him out of breath :

” What is the matter with you ? Have you lost your senses ? You have been twice ordered to retreat, and you — ”

” What do they want of me ? ” Tushin thought, looking in terror at his superior. ” I — nothing — ” he said, putting his two fingers to the visor of his cap.

a J__”

But the colonel did not finish his sentence. A shell which flew close by made him duck on his horse. He grew silent, then was on the point of saying something again, when another shell stopped him. He turned around his horse and galloped away.

” Retreat ! Everybody retreat ! ” he cried from a distance.

The soldiers laughed. A minute later the adjutant arrived with the same order.

This was Prince Andréy. The first thing he saw, upon riding out upon the place which was occupied by Tushin’s guns, was an unhitched horse with a broken leg, which was neighing near the hitched horses. The blood was flowing from its leg as from a spring. Several dead soldiers were lying between the limbers. One projectile after another kept flying over him just as he rode up, and he felt a nervous chill running up his spine. But the mere thought of being afraid again roused him.

” I cannot fear,” he thought, slowly dismounting from his horse near the guns. He delivered the order, and did

not leave the battery. He decided that the guns should, be taken down in his presence and hauled away. Stepping over the dead bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he and Tushin began to attend to the dismounting of the guns.

” There has just been here a superior officer, but he has skipped,” a cannoneer said to Prince Andréy. ” He was not like your Honour.”

Prince Andréy said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy that they did not seem to see each other. After putting on the limbers two of the sound guns (one broken cannon and a howitzer were left behind), ^ud starting downhill, Prince Andréy rode up to Tushin.

“Well, goodbye!” said Prince Andréy, giving him hi« hand.

” Goodbye, my dear ! ” said Tushin. “ Sweet soul, goodbye!” said Tushin, with tears which for some reason appeared in his eyes.

XXI.

The wind died down ; black clouds hung low over the place of battle, blending in the horizon with the powder smoke. It was growing dark, and so much more bright appeared the glow of the conflagrations in two spots. The cannonade became weaker, but the crackling of the fusilade behind and to the right could be heard ever more frequently and was getting nearer. As soon as Tushin came out from under the fire, and, passing by or meeting a number of wounded men, descended into the ravine, he was met by superior officers and by adjutants, among whom was also the officer of the staff, and Zhérkov, who had twice been sent to Tushin’s battery, which he never reached. All of them, interrupting each other, kept giving and transmitting orders where he was to go and how he was to travel, and rebuked him, and made remarks to him. Tushin gave no orders ; he rode behind in silence on his artillery nag, fearing to say anything lest, not knowing himself why, he should burst out into tears at every word.

Although the wounded were to be abandoned, many of them dragged themselves after the troops and begged to be permitted to sit on the ordnance. The dashing and youthful officer of infantry, who before the battle had leaped out from Tushin’s booth, had a bullet in his abdomen and was placed on the gun-carriage of Matvyévna. At the foot of the hill, the pale yunker of hussars, holding his left arm with his right hand, walked over to Tushin and asked his permission to sit down.

” Captain, for God’s sake, my arm is bruised,” he said, timidly. ” For God’s sake, I cannot walk. For God’s sake ! ”

It was evident that this yunker had more than once asked permission to ride and had ever)‘where been refused. He was begging in an indecisive and pitiful voice.

” Permit me to ride, for God’s sake ! ”

” Go, take a seat ! ” said Tushin. ” Uncle, put an overcoat under him,” he turned to his favourite soldier. “ Where is the wounded officer?”

” They have taken him off, — he is dead,” somebody remarked.

« Seat him ! Sit down, my dear, sit down ! Put an overcoat under him, Antonov ! ”

That yunker was Rostov. He held his bruised arm with his hand ; he was pale, and his lower jaw shook with a chill. He was placed on the Matvyévna, the gun from which the dead officer was taken down. On the overcoat which was put under him there was some blood, which stained Rostov’s ridingtrousers and his hands.

” Are you wounded, my dear ? ” asked Tusbin, walking over to the gun on which Rostdv was sitting.

“ No, I am bruised.”

“Where does the blood on the cheek of the gun-carriage come from ? ” asked Tushin.

” The officer has stained it, your Honour,” replied an artillerist, wiping off the blood with the sleeve of his overcoat, as though begging pardon for the dirty condition of the gun.

The ordnance was with difficulty pulled up-hill, with the aid of the infantry, and they stopped as soon as they arrived at the village of Gunthersdorf. It had grown so dark that the uniforms of the soldiers could not be distinguished within ten paces, and the fusilade was dying down. Suddenly shouts were again heard on the right, not far away, and the firing began once more. The fires from the guns lighted up the darkness. It was the last attack of the French, and to it our soldiers who occupied the houses in the village responded. Again all rushed out of the village, but Tushin’s ordnance could not move, and the artillerists, Tushin, and the yunker silently exchanged glances, expecting their fate. The fusilade soon died down, and from a side street issued soldiers who were speaking with animation.

” Are you unharmed, Petrdv ? ” asked one.

” We have heated them up, though. They won’t come forward now,” said another.

” One can’t see a thing. How they did fire on their own ! It’s awfully dark ! Haven’t you anything to drink ? ”

The French were repulsed this last time. Tushin’s ordnance, surrounded in the complete darkness by the dinning infantry as though by a frame, again moved onward.

A gloomy, invisible river seemed to be flowing in the darkness, all the time in one direction, roaring with the whispers and talks of the men and the sounds of the hoofs and wheels. Through the general din the groans and the voices of the wounded were most audible in the darkness of the night. Their groans seemed to fill the whole darkness that surrounded the troops. Their groans and the darkness of that night were one and the same tiling. After a little while a commotion took place in the moving crowd. Somebody riding a white horse passed by with his suite, saying something as he came by.

” What did he say ? Where are we going now ? Are we going to stop ? Did he express his thanks ? ” were the eager questions that were heard on all sides, and the whole moving mass began to press on each other (apparently the soldiers in front had stopped), and the rumour was carried down the ranks that the order was given to stop. All stopped wherever they happened to be, in the middle of the muddy road.

Fires were lighted and the conversation became more audible. Captain Tushin gave his orders to his company, and sent a soldier to find the ambulance or a surgeon for the yunker. He sat down by the fire, which was started by the soldiers in the middle of the road. Rostov dragged himself over to the fire. A chill, caused by his pain, by the cold, and by the dampness, shook his whole body. He was overcome by an invincible sleep, but he could not fall asleep from the sharp and tormenting pain of his arm, for which he could find no comfortable position. He now closed his eyes and now looked into the fire, which seemed to him to be of a burning red colour, or at Tushin’s weak, stooping figure, as he sat near him in Turkish fashion. Tushin’s large, kindly, intelligent eyes were directed toward him with sympathy and compassion. He saw that Tushin wished to aid him with all his heart, but was unable to do so.

On all sides could be heard the steps and the conversation of walking or riding men, and of the infantry which was making camp. The sounds of the voices, of the steps, and of the horses’ hoofs splashing in the mud, and the near and distant crackling of burning wood, blended into one undulating din.

Now no longer an invisible river flowed in the darkness, but a murky sea palpitating and calming down after a storm. Rostov looked and listened dully to what took place around him. A footsoldier came up to the fire, squatted down, put his hands out toward the heat, and turned his face away.

” Is it all right, your Honour ? ” he said, turning to Tushin, with a questioning look. ” I have strayed away from my company, your Honour. I do not know where it is. It is awful ! ”

Along with the soldier an officer of infantry, with a tied-up cheek, came up to the fire and, turning to Tushin, asked him to order the guns to be moved a little mite so as to enable him to take a cart by. After this commander of a company, two soldiers rushed against the fire. They were fighting and cursing desperately, pulling at a boot.

” You have picked it up, have you ? You are a good one,” cried one in a hoarse voice.

Then came up a pale, haggard soldier, his neck tied around with a bloodstained clout ; in an angry voice he asked the artillerist for some water.

” Shall I die like a dog ? ” he asked.

Tushin told them to give him some water. Then there ran up a cheerful soldier who asked for some fire for the infantry.

” Let me have a little burning fire for the infantry ! Goodbye, countrymen ! Thank you for the fire, — we will repay you with interest,” he said, carrying a burning stick somewhere into the darkness.

After him four soldiers, carrying something heavy in a mantle, passed by the campfire. One of them stumbled.

” The devils ! They have put wood right in the road ! ” grumbled one of them.

” He is dead, what is the use of carrying him ? ” said one of them.

“ Come now ! ” and they disappeared in the darkness with their burden.

“ Does it hurt ? ” Tushin asked Rostdv, in a whisper.

” Yes.”

” Your Honour, the general asks for you. He is here in the hut,” said a cannoneer, walking over to Tushin.

” Directly, my dear.”

Tu shin rose and, buttoning his overcoat and adjusting his clothes, walked away from the fire.

Not far from the campfire of the artillerist, in a house prepared for him, Prince Bagration was sitting at dinner, conversing with several chiefs of divisions, who had gathered there. Here was the old man with the halfclosed eyes, eagerly gnawing at a bone of mutton, and the reproachless general of twenty-two years standing, who now was red from a wine-glass of brandy and from the dinner, and the officer of the staff with the seal ring, and Zhérkov who restlessly surveyed them all, and Prince Andréy, pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glistening eyes.

In the room a French flag stood leaning against a corner, and the auditor, with his naïve face, kept fingering the woof of the flag and shaking his head in perplexity, perhaps because he was really interested in looking at the flag, or, more likely, because, being hungry, it was hard for him to look at the dinner, at which no cover was set for him. In the adjoining room was a French colonel who had been captured by the dragoons. Our officers were crowding around him and examining him. Prince Bagratidn thanked the individual chiefs and inquired about the details of the action and about the losses. The commander of the regiment who had been inspected at Braunau reported to the prince that the moment the action had begun, he retreated from the forest, collected the woodcutters, and, allowing them to pass by him, with two battalions charged bayonets and overthrew the French.

” The moment I saw, your Serenity, that the first battalion was disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought, ‘ I will let these pass, and will meet them with a scathing fire,’ and so I did.”

The commander of the regiment had been so anxious to do that, and he was so sorry he had not had a chance of doing it, that he thought it really had taken place. Maybe it really did happen? Who could make out in that tangle what did happen and what not ?

« I must remark, your Serenity,” he continued, recalling Ddlokhov’s conversation with Kutuzov, and his last meeting with the degraded man, ” that the degraded Ddlokhov in my sight captured a French officer and distinguished himself very much.”

” It was here, your Serenity, that I saw the attack of the Pavlogradski hussars,” restlessly looking around, interposed Zhérkov, who on that day had not seen the hussars at all, but had only heard of them from an officer of infantry. ” They have crushed two squares, your Serenity ! ”

At Zhérkov’s words some of them smiled, expecting, as always, something funny from him ; but when they noticed that that which he said referred to the glory of our arms and of the day, they assumed a serious aspect, although many of them knew full well that that which Zhérkov was saying was a pure, groundless fabrication. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel

” I thank you all, gentlemen, — all the different parts have acted heroically, all, the infantry, the cavalry, and the artillery. Why were two guns left in the centre ? ” he asked, looking for some one with his eyes. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the ordnance of the left flank, for he knew that all the cannon had been abandoned in the beginning of the action.) ” It seems to me I asked you to bring them,” he turned to the staffofficer of the day.

” One was smashed,” replied the staffofficer of the day, ” and about the other I do not know. I myself was there at the time and gave orders, and had just left — It was hot there, I must say,” he added, modestly.

Somebody remarked that Tushin was camping near the village and that he had been sent for.

” You were there,” said Prince Bagration, turning to Prince Andréy.

” Of course, we just missed each other,” said the staffofficer of the day, smiling pleasantly at Bolkonski.

“ I have not had the pleasure of seeing you,” Prince Andréy said, coldly and abruptly.

All were silent.

Tushin appeared on the threshold, timidly making his way between the generals. In trying to keep out of the way of the generals in the small room, Tushin was confused, as always, at the sight of his superiors, and inadvertently stumbled against the flagstaff. Several men began to laugh.

“How is it the ordnance was left?” asked Dagration, frowning, not so much at the captain, as at the laughing men, among whom Zharkov’s voice was loudest.

Only now, in the presence of the stern authorities, did Tushin see all the guilt and disgrace of having lost two pieces of ordnance, while he himself was alive. He was so agitated that he could not think of the reason. The laugh of the officers confused him still more. He stood before Bagration, with his lower jaw all a-tremble, and he said :

“ I do not know — your Serenity — there were no men, your Serenity.”

” You could have taken them from the protecting battalion.”

Tushin did not say that he was not protected, although that was the real truth. He was afraid he would thus get another chief into trouble, and so he looked silently, with motionless eyes, at Bagration’s face, as a confused pupil looks into the face of the examining teacher.

The silence lasted quite awhile. Prince Bagration, who evidently did not wish to be severe, could find no words ; the others did not dare take part in the conversation. Prince Andréy looked furtively at Tushin, and his fingers twitched nervously.

“ Your Serenity,” Prince Andréy broke the silence with his sharp voice, ” you had deigned to send me to the battery of Captain Tushin. I was there and found two-thirds of the men and horses killed, two guns shattered, and no protection whatever.”

Prince Bagration and Tushin looked equally stubbornly at Bolkdnski, who spoke with reserve, though in excitement.

” And if your Serenity will permit me to express my opinion,” he continued, ” I will say that we owe the success of this day above all to the action of this battery and to the heroic persistency of Captain Tushin and his company,” said Prince Andréy. Without waiting for any reply, he rose and went away from the table.

Prince Bagration looked at Tushin and, evidently not wishing to express any doubt in respect to Bolkdnski’s sharp judgment, and, at the same time, not feeling himself able entirely to trust him, he inclined his head and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andréy followed him out.

” Thank you, my dear ! You have rescued me ! ” Tushin said to him.

Prince Andréy surveyed Tushin and, without saying anything, walked away from him. Prince Andréy felt sad and ill at heart. All that was so terrible, so different from what he had expected.

” Who are they ? What are they for? What do they need ? When will it all end ? ” thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows in front of him. The pain in his arm was growing more intolerable. Insuperable sleepiness overcame him ; red circles flitted in his eyes, and the impression of these voices and faces and the feeling of loneliness blended with the sensation of pain. It was they, these wounded and sound soldiers, it was they who were choking and weighing him down, and twisting his muscles, and burning his flesh in his broken arm and shoulder. To get rid of them he closed his eyes.

He forgot himself for a moment, but in that short interval of time he saw in his dream an endless number of objects. He saw his mother and her large, white hand ; he saw Sdnya’s thin shoulders, Natasha’s eyes and laughter, Denisov with his voice and moustache, Telyaniu, and his whole history with Telyaniu and Bogdänych. His whole history was the same as that soldier with the piercing voice, and that history and that soldier, tormenting, kept holding, pressing, and pulling his arm to one side. He tried to get away from them, but they did not let Iris shoulder move one hair’s-breadth. It would not ache, it would be well, if only they did not pull him ; but it was impossible to get rid of them.

He opened his eyes and looked up. The black shroud of the night hung three feet above the light of the coal. In this light flew little flakes of falling snow. Tushin was not yet back, and the surgeon had not come. He was alone, and only a soldier was sitting naked on the other side of the fire and warming his lean, yellow body.

” Nobody wants me ! ” thought Rostov. ” There is nobody to help me, or pity me. And yet there was a time when I was at home, a strong, gay, beloved boy.” He sighed and with the sigh gave an involuntary groan.

“ Does it hurt ? ” asked the little soldier, shaking his shirt over the fire, and, without waiting for an answer, he groaned and said : ” It is terrible to think what a lot of people have been ruined to-day ! “

Rostov was not listening to the soldier. He was looking at the snowflakes flitting above the fire, and he recalled the Russian winter with a warm, bright house, a shaggy fur coat, swiftly moving sleighs, a healthy body, and all the love and care of the family.

” Why did I come here ? ” he thought.

On the following day the French did not renew the attack, and the remainder of Bagratidn’s army joined Kutuzov.

PART THE THIRD

I.

Prince Vasili never laid any plans. Still less did he think of doing people harm in order to gain an advantage. He was merely a man of the world, who had had success in the world, and who had made a habit of that success. According to circumstances and his proximity to people, he always formed new plans and combinations, of which he did not render himself any clear account, but which composed the whole interest of his life. Not one or two such plans and combinations were in vogue with him, but dozens at a time ; of these some presented themselves dimly to him, others were being realized, others again were annihilated. For example, he did not say to himself : ” This man is now in power, and I must gain his confidence and friendship, and through him obtain some temporary advantage,” nor did he say : ” Here is Pierre, who is a rich man, so I must entice him to marry my daughter and borrow forty thousand roubles of him, of which I am in need ; ” but if a man in power came in his way, his instinct immediately told him that such a man might be useful to him, and Prince Vasili became closely acquainted with him and, at the first opportunity, without any preparation, simply by instinct, flattered him, became familiar with him, and talked to him of what he needed.

Pierre happened to be near at hand in Moscow, and so Prince Vasili got him an appointment as page of the chamber, which at that time equalled the rank of Councillor of State, and insisted that the young man should go with him to St. Petersburg and stop at his house. As though absent-mindedly and, at the same time, with absolute conviction that it must be so, Prince Vasili did everything that was necessary in order to get Pierre to marry his daughter. If Prince Vasili had laid his plans in advance, he could not have had such naturalness in his address, and such simplicity and familiarity in his relations with all people who were above him or below him in station. Something drew him constantly to men who were stronger or richer than he, and he was endowed with the rare art of catching the appropriate moment when he could and should make use of people.

Pierre, who had unexpectedly become a rich man and Count Bezukhi, after the late loneliness and carelessness, was suddenly so surrounded by people and kept busy that only in his bed did he get a chance of being left to himself. He had to sign papers, attend to business in courthouses, of the meaning of which he did not have any clear idea, ask his chief manager about things, journey to his suburban estate at Moscow, and receive a vast number of people, who formerly did not wish to know of his existence, but now would be offended and aggrieved if he did not see them. All these various people, the business men, the relatives, the acquaintances, were equally kindly inclined to the young heir : they were all evidently convinced of Pierre’s high deserts.

He constantly heard the words : ” With your unusual kindness,” or ” with your beautiful heart,” or ” you yourself are so pure, count,” or ” if he were as wise as you,” and so forth, so that he sincerely began to believe in his extraordinary kindness and intelligence, the more so since, in the depth of his heart, he had always thought that he was very good and clever. People who formerly were mean and obviously hostile to him became gentle and kind to him.

The angry eldest princess, with her long waist and her hair combed smooth as a doll, came to Pierre’s room after the funeral. Lowering her eyes and blushing, she said to him that she was sorry for the many misunderstandings which had been between them and that now she did not feel she had the right to ask anything but the permission, after the blow which she had received, of staying a few weeks in the house which she loved so much and to which she had brought so many sacrifices. She was unable to control herself at these words and burst out weeping. Touched at seeing the statuesque princess so changed, Pierre took her hand and begged her pardon, not knowing himself what it was he had done wrong. With that day the princess began to knit a striped sash for Pierre and entirely changed in her relations to him.

” Do it for her, mon cher ! She has suffered so much from the defunct,” Prince Vasili said to him as he handed him a document to sign, which was in favour of the princess.

Prince Vasili decided that this bone, a note for thirty thousand roubles, ought to be thrown to the poor princess, so that it should never occur to her to speak about the part Vasili had played in the matter of the mosaic portfolio. Pierre signed the note, and the princess became even kinder to him. The younger sisters also grew kinder to him, especially the youngest, the pretty maiden with the birthmark, who frequently embarrassed Pierre with her smiles and her confusion whenever she saw him.

It seemed so natural to Pierre to be loved by everybody ; it seemed so unnatural to him for anybody not to love him, that he could not help believing in the sincerity of the people who surrounded him. Besides, he had no time to ask himself about the sincerity or insincerity of these people. He was always busy, and he constantly felt himself in the condition of a harmless and happy intoxication. He was conscious of being the centre of some important social movement ; he felt that something was always expected of him, that if he did not do what was expected of him, he would grieve many and would deprive them of what they were waiting for ; but if he did it, everything would be well, — and so he did what was expected of him, but that well-being remained all the time ahead of him.

During this first period, Prince Vasili, more than any one else, took possession both of Pierre’s affairs and of his person. After the death of Count Bezukhi, he did not let Pierre out of his hands.

Prince Vasili had the aspect of a man burdened with affairs, tired, exhausted, but so compassionate as to be unable to abandon to fate and rogues this helpless young man, the son of his friend, and, après tout, a young man possessed of so vast a fortune. In the few days which he passed in Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhi, he called Pierre to his room, or himself went to see him, prescribing to him what to do in such a tone of fatigue and selfconfidence, as though he were saying every time :

” Vous savez que je suis accablé d’affaires et que ce n’est que par pure charité que je m’occupe de vous, et puis vous savez bien que ce que je vous propose est la seule chose faisable.”

” Well, my friend, tomorrow, at last, we shall depart,” he once told him, closing his eyes, fingering his elbow, and speaking in a tone as though that which he said had long ago been decided between them and could not be decided otherwise.

” Tomorrow we shall depart. I will give you a seat in my carriage. I am very glad. Here everything important has been finished, and I ought to have been back long ago. I have heard from the chancellor. I approached him concerning you, and now you are on the list of the diplomatic corps and a page of the chamber. Now the diplomatic career is open to you.”

In spite of the whole power of the tone of fatigue and selfconfidence, with which these words were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been thinking about his career, wanted to make a reply. But Prince Vasili interrupted him with that cooing bass voice, which excluded every possibility of an interruption and which was employed by him in cases of extreme need in persuasion.

” Mais, mon cher, 1 did that for you, to ease my conscience, and you need not thank me. No one has ever complained of being loved too much, and you are at liberty to throw it up tomorrow if you want to. You will see it all in St. Petersburg. It is time for you to get away from these terrible recollections.” Prince Vasili heaved a sigh. ” Yes, my dear. Let my valet travel in your carriage ! Oh, yes, I almost forgot,” Prince Vasili added, ” do you know, mon cher, I have had some accounts with the defunct; now I have received some money from the Ryazan land, and I will leave it standing: you do not need it. We will square up accounts.”

What the prince called ” from the Ryazan land ” was several thousand roubles of peasant rents which Vasili had kept for himself.

In St. Petersburg, as at Moscow, an atmosphere of tender, loving people surrounded Pierre. He could not decline the place, or rather calling (for he had nothing whatever to do), which Prince Vasili had obtained for him, and there were so many acquaintances, calls, and social duties that Pierre, more than in Moscow, experienced a feeling of mistiness, haste, and some approaching, but never accomplished, good.

Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were not in St. Petersburg. The Guards had left for the’war, Dolokhov was reduced, Anatol was in the army somewhere in the provinces, Prince Andréy was abroad ; thus Pierre had no occasion to pass the nights as he liked to pass them, nor to unburden his soul now and then in a friendly chat with his respected older friend. All his time was passed at dinners, at balls, and especially in the house of Prince Vasili, in the company of the fat princess, his wife, and of beautiful Hélène.

Anna Pavlovna Scherer, like all the rest, showed Pierre what a change in the society’s view in respect to him had taken place.

Formerly Pierre always felt, in the presence of Anna Pävlovna, that everything which he was saying was indecent, tactless, improper; that the remarks which had seemed to him ingenious as long as he prepared them in his imagination, became stupid, the moment he enunciated them, and that, on the contrary, the most insipid of Ippolit’s statements appeared clever and charming. Now everything he said turned out to be charmant. Even though Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he saw that she meant to say so, but refrained from doing so out of respect for his modesty.

In the beginning of the winter of the year 1805 to 1806, Pierre received from Anna Pavlovna the customary rose-coloured note of invitation, to which was added : ” Vous trouverez chez moi la belle Hélène qu’on ne se lasse jamais de voir.”

While reading this passage, Pierre felt for the first time that there was a certain tie between him and Hélène which was recognized by other people, and tins thought both frightened him, as though a duty was imposed upon him that he could not fulfil, and pleased him as an amusing proposition.

The soirée at Anna Pavlovna’s was just like the first, but the novelty to which she now treated her guests was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist just fresh from Berlin bringing with him the latest news about Emperor Alexander’s visit to Potsdam and about how the two most august friends there swore in an indestructible alliance to defend the just cause against the enemy of the human race. Pierre was received by Anna Pavlovna with a shade of sadness, which evidently had reference to the recent loss suffered by the young man, — to the death of Count Bezukhi (all regarded it as their duty to assure Pierre that he was very much grieved by the death of his father, whom he hardly knew) ; tins sadness was precisely of the same character as that august grief which was expressed at the mention of the Most August Empress Mâriya Fédorovna. Pierre felt himself flattered by it.

Anna Pâvlovna, with her customary skill, arranged the circles in her drawingroom. A large circle, in which were Prince Vasili and some generals, monopolized the diplomatist. Another circle was gathered about the teatable. Pierre wanted to join the first, but Anna Pdvlovna, who was in the irritated mood of a general on the field of battle, when thousands of new, brilliant thoughts come to one, which can hardly be put into execution, touched his sleeve with her finger, when she saw him, and said :

” Attendez, fai des vues sur vous pour ce soir.”

She looked at Hélène and smiled at her.

” Ma belle Hélène, il faut que vous soyez charitable pour ma pauvre tante, qui a une adoration pour vous. Allez lui tenir compagnie pour dix minutes. And in order that it may not be too dull for you, here is the dear count who will not refuse to follow you.”

The beauty started toward the aunt, but Pierre was held back by Anna Pavlovna, who looked as though she had one final arrangement to make.

” Now is she not delightful ? ” she said to Pierre, pointing to the majestic beauty as she was gliding away. ” jEt quelle tenue ! For such a young girl, what tact, what a masterful manner ! That shows that she has a heart. Happy will be the one who gets her. With her the most unworldly man will involuntarily occupy the most brilliant place in the world. Is it not so ? I only wanted to know your opinion,” and Anna Pavlovna dismissed Pierre.

Pierre sincerely replied in the affirmative to Anna Pavlovna’s question as to Hélène’s art in bearing herself properly. If he ever thought of Hélène, he always thought of her beauty and of her calm and dignified bearing in society.

The aunt received the two young people in her corner, but it seemed that she wished to conceal her admiration for Hélène, and, instead, to express her fear in the presence of Anna Pavlovna. She glanced at her niece as though to ask her what she was to do with these young O v O

people. Upon leaving them, Anna Pavlovna again touched Pierre’s sleeve with her finger, saying :

” J’espère que tous ne direz plus qu’on s’ennuie chez moi,” whereat she looked at Hélène.

Hélène smiled with an expression which said that she did not admit the possibility of anybody seeing her and not being delighted.

The aunt cleared her throat, swallowed, and then said in French that she was very glad to see Hélène ; then she turned to Pierre with the same greeting and the same gesture. In the middle of the tedious and halting conversation Hélène looked at Pierre and smiled at him with that clear, beautiful smile with which she smiled at everybody. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it expressed so little to him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was at that time speaking of a collection of snuffboxes which Pierre’s late father, Count Bezukhi, had possessed, and showed her own snuffbox. Princess Hélène asked her to let her look at her husband’s portrait which was painted on that snuffbox.

” This is, no doubt, done by Vignesse,” said Pierre, mentioning the name of a famous miniaturist, as he bent over the table to take the snuffbox into his hands, and listened to the conversation which was going on at the other table. He rose, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed the snuffbox straight by Hélène, who was back of her. Hélène bent forward to make way for him. She wore, as always at evening parties, what according to the fashion of those days was a very décolleté dress, both in front and behind. Her bust, which had always seemed marblelike to Pierre, was so close to his eyes that, in spite of his nearsightedness, he could discern the living charm of her shoulders and neck, and he was so close to her lips that he had only to bend a little in order to touch them. He felt the warmth of her body, smelled the odour of her perfume, and heard the creaking of her corset as she moved. He saw not her marble beauty, which formed one whole with her garment ; he saw and felt the whole charm of her body, which was only veiled by the garment. When he once saw that, he no longer could see otherwise, as we cannot return to a deception which has been explained to us.

” How is it you have not noticed heretofore that I am beautiful ?” Hélène seemed to say. “Have you not observed that I am a woman ? Yes, I am a woman who may belong to anybody, and to you, too,” said her glance.

Just then Pierre felt that Hélène not only could, but must be his wife, that it could not be otherwise.

At that moment he knew that as certainly as though he were already standing under the wedding-wreath with her. He did not know how it would happen, or when ; he did not even know whether it would be well (he really felt that for some reason it would not be well), but he knew that it would be.

Pierre lowered his eyes, again raised them, and once more wanted to see her as the distant, strange beauty he had seen heretofore ; but he was unable to do that. He could not accomplish it, just as a man who, looking through the mist at a blade of steppegrass and taking it to be a tree, upon recognizing it to be a blade of steppegrass, no longer is able to see a tree in it. She was terribly near to him. She already had a power over him. Between him and her there were now no barriers, except the barrier of his own will.

“ Bon, je vous laisse dans votre petit coin. Je vois que vous y êtes très bien!” said Anna Pavlovna.

Pierre, suddenly becoming alarmed lest he might have committed some impropriety, blushed and looked about him. It seemed to him that all knew as well as he did what had happened to him.

A few minutes later, when he went up to the larger circle, Anna Pavlovna said to him :

” On dit que vous embellissez votre maison de Peters-bourg.”

That was true : the architect had told him that that was necessary, and Pierre, not knowing why, was remodelling his house at St. Petersburg.

” O’ est bien, mais ne déménagez pas de chez le Prince Basile. Il est bon d’avoir un ami comme le prince” she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. “ J’en sais quelque chose. N’cst-ce pas ? You are yet so young. You need counsel. Don’t get angry at me for taking the liberty of an old woman,” she said, growing silent, as women do, waiting for something to be said when they mention their age.

“If you get married that would be another matter.”

Saying this, she united them by one glance. Pierre was not looking at Hélène, nor she at him, but she was still as terribly near to him. He muttered something and blushed.

Upon returning home, Pierre could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking of what had happened. What had happened to him ? Nothing. All he knew was that the woman whom he used to know as a child, of whom he used to say absent-mindedly, ” Yes, she is pretty,” whenever he was told that Hélène was a beauty, — all he knew was that that woman could be his own.

” But she is stupid ; I myself said that she was stupid,” he thought. “ There is something abominable in the feeling which she has roused in me, something forbidden. I was told that her brother Anatol was in love with her, and that she was in love with him, and that there was a whole story, and that for that reason Anatél was sent away. Her brother Ippolit— Her father, Prince Vasili — It is not good,” he thought, and, at the same time that he was reflecting thus (while these reflections remained unfinished), he caught himself smiling, and he was conscious that another series of reflections was swimming out after the first, and that he simultaneously thought of her insignificance and dreamed of her becoming his wife, of her loving him, of her changing her manner of life, and of how all he had heard and thought about her might be an untruth. And again he saw her, not as a daughter of Prince Vasili, but as a naked woman who was merely veiled by a gray dress.

” But why did the thought not occur to me before ? ”

, And again he said to himself that it was impossible, that there was something abominable, something unnatural, something dishonest, he thought, in such a marriage. He recalled her former words and Anna Pavlovna’s glances, as she spoke to him about his house ; he recalled a thousand such hints made by Prince Vasili and others, and he was seized by terror, lest he had already bound himself to execute a deed which was evidently bad and which he ought not to do. But just as he was expressing this decision of his, her image, with all her feminine beauty, swam out at the other side of his soul.

II.

In November of 1805 Prince Vasili had to leave, in order to inspect four Governments. He managed to get this appointment that he might be able at the same time to visit his ruined estates, and, taking his son Anatdl with him from the place where his regiment was located, to visit with him Prince Nikolay Andréevich Bolkénski, in order to get his son married to the daughter of that rich old man. But, before his departure and before attending to his new affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle his business with Pierre, who, it was true, had spent his last days at home, that is, at the house of Prince Vasili, with whom he was living, and who was funny, agitated, and stupid (as a lover ought to be) in the presence of Hélène, but who so far had made no proposition.

” Tout ça est bel et bon, mais il faut que ça finisse,” Prince Vasili said to himself one morning, with a sigh of sadness, being conscious that Pierre, who was under such obligations to him (” Well, God aid him ! ”), was not acting very well in this particular case. ” Youth, frivolity — well, God be with him ! ” thought Prince Vasili, thinking with pleasure of his own goodness, “mais il faut que ça. finisse. Day after tomorrow is Hélène’s nameday. I will invite a few people, and if he does not understand what he ought to do, I shall see to it. Yes, it is my affair. I am her father ! “

Six weeks after the evening at Anna Pavlovna’s and the following sleepless, agitated night, when he decided that marrying Hélène would be a misfortune and that he must avoid her and leave the city, Pierre did not leave the bouse of Prince Vasili, feeling with terror that he every day bound himself more and more to her in the eyes of people, that he could in no way return to his former opinion of her, that he could not tear himself away from her, that it would be terrible, but he would have to unite his fate with hers. It may be that he could have torn himself away, but not a day passed without some evening entertainment at the house of Prince Vasili (who otherwise rarely received guests), and Pierre had to be present if he did not wish to impair the general pleasure and deceive the expectations of all persons.

In those rare moments when Prince Vasili was at home, he, when walking past Pierre, pulled his hand downward, absent-mindedly presenting to him his cleanly shaven, wrinkled cheek for a kiss, saying, “Goodbye until tomorrow,” or ” until dinner, before which time I shall not see you,” or ” I am staying for your sake,” and so forth. And yet, although, when Prince Vasili stayed at home for Pierre’s sake (as he said), he did not exchange two words with him, Pierre felt that he did not have the strength to deceive his expectations. He kept saying to himself every day :

” I must at least try to understand her and render myself an account. Who is she ? Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now ? No, she is not stupid, no, she is a beautiful girl ! ”

At times he said to himself :

“ She never makes any mistakes and has never said anything insipid. She speaks little, but what she says is always simple and clear, consequently she is not stupid. She is never embarrassed, consequently she is not a bad woman ! ”

Frequently he began to discuss things with her, and every time she answered him with a short but apt sentence, which showed that she was not interested in it, or by a silent smile and glance, which more clearly than anything else showed him her superiority. She was right to regard all reflections as nonsensical in comparison with that smile.

She always addressed him with a cheerful, confidential smile which was meant specially for him, in which there was something more significant than that which was in her general smile which always adorned her face. Pierre knew that everybody was only waiting for him to say one word and cross the well-known line, and he knew also that sooner or later he would cross that line ; but some incomprehensible terror took possession of him at the mere thought of that terrible step. A thousand times during these six weeks, in which he felt himself ever deeper drawn into that awful abyss, Pierre kept saying to himself :

” That will not do ! I must have determination ; or have I none ? “

He wanted to decide something, but felt in terror that in this case he did not have that determination which he thought he possessed and which he really had. Pierre belonged to the number of those men who are only then strong when they feel themselves absolutely pure. From the day that the feeling of desire which he had experienced over the snuffbox at the house of Anna Pavlovna took possession of him, an unconscious feeling of the culpability of such a tendency paralyzed all his resoluteness.

On the nameday of Hélène, a small company of the nearest friends, as the princess said, relatives and friends, were to sup with Prince Vasili. All these relatives and friends were given to understand that on that day the fate of the girl was to be decided. The guests were at supper. Princess Ku ragin, a massive woman, who at one time had been beautiful and imposing, occupied the place of the hostess. At both sides of her sat the more distinguished guests, an old general with his wife and Anna Pavlovna Scherer ; at the end of the table sat the younger and less distinguished guests ; there also sat Pierre and Hélène, close together.

Prince Vasili did not eat. He kept walking around the table, in a happy frame of mind, sitting down now near one of the guests, and now near another. To each he made some casual and pleasant remark, except to Pierre and Hélène, whose presence he did not seem to notice. Prince Vasili made all feel happy.

The wax candles burnt merrily; the silver and the crystal dishes glistened, and so did the attire of the ladies and the gold and silver of the epaulettes. Around the table rushed servants in red caftans ; there was heard the clatter of knives, glasses, plates, and the sounds of the animated conversation of several groups at the table. At one end an old gentleman of the chamber assured an old baroness of his burning love for her, and her laughter could be heard ; in another corner somebody told about the failure of some Marya Viktorovna. At the centre of the table Prince Vasili had a circle of listeners about him. He was telling the ladies, with a jocular smile on his lips, about the last meeting of the Imperial Council, which had taken place on Wednesday, when Sergyéy Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new St. Petersburg military governorgeneral, had received and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich from the army, in which the emperor, addressing Sergyéy Kuzmich, said that from all sides he had received expressions of the nation’s loyalty, and that the expressions of St. Petersburg’s were especially pleasing to him, and that he was proud of being at the head of such a nation and would try to be worthy of it. This rescript began with the words :

” Sergyéy Kuzmich ! From all sides rumours reach me,” and so forth.

” So he did not get beyond ‘ Sergyéy Kuzmich ‘ ? ” asked a lady.

“Yes, yes, not a hair’s-breadth farther,” Prince Vasili replied, laughing. ” Sergyéy Kuzmich — from all sides. From all sides, Sergyéy Kuzmich — Poor Vyazmftinov could not go any farther. Several times he picked up the letter, but the moment he said, ‘ Sergyéy ‘ — there were tears — ‘ Kuzmich — from all sides — ‘ was drowned by sobs, and he could not proceed. And again the handkerchief, and again ‘ Sergyéy Kuzmich, from all sides,’ and tears — so that somebody else had to be asked to read it.”

” Kuzmich — from all sides — and tears — ” repeated some one, laughing.

” Don’t be so malicious,” Anna Pavlovna said from the other end, threatening with her finger, “ c’est un si brave et excellent homme, notre bon Viasmitinoff — ”

All were laughing loud. At the upper end, the place of honour, all seemed to be happy and under the influence of the most varied and animated of moods ; only Pierre and Hélène sat silently by each other’s side at the lower end of the-table ; on their faces hung a beaming smile, which had nothing to do with Sergyéy Kuzmich, — it was a smile of bashfulness before their own feelings. No matter what the others were saying or how they were laughing and jesting ; no matter with what zest they partook of the Rhine wine, and the sauté, and the ices ; no matter how much they avoided looking at the pair ; no matter how indifferent and inattentive they seemed to be in regard to them, — it was felt for some reason, from the occasional glances cast at them, that the anecdote about Sergyéy Kuzmich, and the laughter, and the eating were all feigned, and that the attention of the whole company was directed full force toward this one pair, toward Pierre and Hélène.

Prince Vasili imitated the sobs of Sergyéy Kuzmich and at the same time surveyed his daughter, and while he laughed, the expression of his face said : ” Yes, yes, everything is going well. It will be decided to-day.” Anna Pävlovna threatened him for “ notre bon Viasmitinoff” but in her eyes, which then in passing flashed upon Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation upon his future son-in-law and upon the happiness of his daughter. The old princess, with a sad sigh, offering her neighbour some wine and angrily glancing at her daughter, seemed to say : ” Yes, now nothing is left for you and me to do but drink sweet wine, my dear ; it is the time for these young people to be boldly and provokingly happy.”

” How stupid is everything I am telling, as though it really interested me,” thought the diplomatist, looking at the happy faces of the lovers : ” there is happiness ! “

Amid these petty, artificial interests, which united this company, there stood out the simple feeling of a mutual attraction between the handsome and healthy young man and young woman. This human sentiment crushed everything else and reigned supreme above all that artificial babbling. The jokes were not merry, the news was uninteresting, the animation was obviously not genuine. Not only they, but the lackeys who served at the table seemed to feel the same, and, looking at beautiful Hélène with her beaming face and at the red, fat, happy, and restless face of Pierre, forgot the order of their service. It seemed as though the candle-lights themselves were concentrated on these two happy faces.

Pierre felt that he was the centre of everything, and this situation both pleased and embarrassed him. He was in the state of a man who is absorbed in some occupation. But rarely, bits of thoughts and impressions of reality unexpectedly flashed upon his soul.

” So it is all ended ! ” he thought. ” And how did it all come about? So quickly! Now I know that this must unavoidably happen, not alone for her sake and for mine, but for the sake of all these people. They are all waiting so much for this, they are so convinced that it will happen, that I cannot, I cannot deceive them. But how will it happen ? I do not know, but it will happen, I am sure it will ! ” thought Pierre, looking at her shoulders, which were glistening directly under his eyes.

Suddenly he felt ashamed of something. He felt ill at ease for monopolizing everybody’s attention, for being a happy man in the sight of everybody, for being, with his homely face, some kind of a Paris taking possession of Helen.

“No doubt, it is always this way, and it must be so,” he consoled himself. ” Again, what have I done that this should happen ? When did it begin ? From Moscow I travelled with Prince Vasili. There was nothing of it then. Why should I not have stopped at his house after that ? Then I played at cards with her and picked up her reticule and went out driving with her. When did it begin ? When did it all happen ? “

And now he was sitting near her as her affianced, was hearing, seeing, feeling her nearness, her breath, her motions, her beauty. Suddenly it appeared to him that it was not she that was so uncommonly beautiful, but he himself, and that for that reason they were looking so at him, and he, happy to be admired by all, straightened himself up, raised his head, and enjoyed his happiness. Suddenly a voice, somebody’s familiar voice, was heard, repeating something said to him. But Pierre was so occupied that he did not understand what they were saying to him.

” I want to know when you received a letter from Bolkonski,” Prince Vasili repeated for the third time. ” How absent-minded you are, my dear! ”

Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre saw that all smiled at him and at Hélène.

” What of it, if you all know ? ” Pierre said to himself. ” What of it ? It is the truth,” and he himself smiled his meek, childish smile, and Hélène smiled, too.

“When did you receive it? Was it from Olmiitz?” repeated Prince Vasili, who had to know in order to settle a dispute.

” How can they be talking and thinking of such silly things ? ” thought Pierre.

“ Yes, from Olmiitz,” he replied, with a sigh.

From the supper Pierre led his lady after the others into the drawingroom. The guests began to depart, and some went away without taking leave of Hélène. As though not wishing to take her away from her serious occupation, some came up for a moment and immediately went away from her, forbidding her to see them off. The diplomatist was sadly silent as he left the drawingroom. He thought of all the vanity of his diplomatic career as compared with Pierre’s happiness. An old general growled angrily at his wife when she asked him about the state of his leg.

” What a foolish woman ! ” he thought. ” Hélène Vasilevna will be a beauty even at fifty years of age.”

“1 think I may congratulate you,” Anna Pävlovna whispered to the princess, giving her a hug and a kiss. ” If it were not for my megrim, 1 should remain.”

The princess did not make any reply ; she was tormented with jealousy of her daughter’s happiness.

During the departure of the guests, Pierre for a long time remained all alone with Hélène in the small drawingroom where they first took up their seats. He had frequently been left alone with Hélène during the last six weeks, but had never spoken to her about love. Now he felt that that was necessary, and yet he could not make up his mind to that last step. He was ashamed ; it seemed to him that here, near Hélène, he occupied somebody else’s place.

” This happiness is not for you,” an inner voice was telling him. “ This happiness is for those who have not that which you have.”

But it was necessary to say something, and so he spoke.

He asked her whether she was satisfied with the present evening. She, as always, answered with her customary simplicity that her nameday had been one of the pleasantest she had ever passed.

A few of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in the large drawingroom. Prince Vasili with indolent steps walked over to Pierre. Pierre arose and said that it was already late. Prince Vasili looked at him with a stern and interrogative glance, as though that which he had said was so strange that it was not possible to make out what he had said. Immediately the expression of austerity vanished, and Prince Vasili pulled down Pierre’s hand, made him sit down, and graciously smiled at him.

” Well, Hélène ? ” he at once turned to his daughter with that careless tone of customary tenderness, which is acquired by parents who have been caressing their children from early childhood, but which Prince Vasili had learned through imitating other parents. He again turned to Pierre : ” Sergyéy Kuzmich, from all sides,” he said, unbuttoning the upper button of his waistcoat.

Pierre smiled, but it was apparent from his smile that he understood that it was not the anecdote about Sergyéy Kuzmich which now interested Prince Vasili; and Prince Vasili knew that Pierre knew it. Prince Vasili suddenly grumbled something and went out. The sight of the embarrassment of that old man of the world touched Pierre ; he looked back at Hélène, and she, it seemed, was also embarrassed, and her look said : ” Well, it is your own fault ! “

” I must take the step by all means, but I cannot, I cannot,” thought Pierre. He again spoke of something irrelevant, of 8ergyéy Kuzmich, asking what the anecdote consisted in, as he had not heard the whole story.

Hélène replied, with a smile, that she did not know herself.

As Prince Vasili entered the drawingroom, the princess was quietly speaking with an elderly lady about Pierre.

” Of course, c’est un parti très brillant, mais le bonheur, ma chère — ”

” Les mariages se font dans les deux,” replied the elderly lady.

Prince Vasili seemed not to have heard what the ladies were saying ; he went into a distant corner and sat down on a sofa. He closed his eyes, as though dozing. His head fell and he awoke.

” Aline,” he said to his wife, ” allez voir ce quits font.”

The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified, indifferent look, and glanced into the drawingroom. Pierre and Hélène were sitting there and talking.

” Still the same,” she answered her husband.

Prince Vasili frowned and twisted his mouth awry ; his cheeks leaped about with the disagreeable, coarse expression which was characteristic of him ; he shook himself, rose, threw back his head, and with determined steps went into the little drawingroom, past the ladies. He walked over to Pierre with rapid steps, looking happy. The prince’s face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre rose in fright as he noticed him.

” Thank God ! ” he said. ” My wife has told me !” He embraced Pierre with one arm, and his daughter with the other. ” My dear Hélène ! I am very, very happy.” His voice trembled. “ I loved your father, and she will make you a good wife — May God bless you ! ” He embraced his daughter, then Pierre once more, and kissed him with his malodorous mouth. ” Princess, come here ! ” he cried.

The princess came in and tears stood in her eyes. The elderly lady, too, was wiping off her tears with a handkerchief. Pierre was kissed, and he several times kissed the hand of beautiful Hélène. After awhile they were again left alone.

” All thia had to bo, and could not have been otherwise,” thought Pierre, ” therefore there is no need of asking whether it is good or bad. It is good because it is settled, and there is no longer the former tormenting doubt.”

Pierre held the hand of his fiancée in silence, looking at her rising and falling beautiful bosom.

“Hélène!” he said, aloud, and suddenly stopped. ” Something special has to be said under these circumstances,” he thought, but was absolutely unable to recall what it was that had to be said under these circumstances. He glanced at her face. She came closer to him. Her face was flushed.

” Oh, take them off — these — ” she pointed to his spectacles.

Pierre took them off, and his eyes not only had the strange look common to all people who take off their glasses, but they also looked in a frightened and interrogative manner at her. He wanted to bend over her hand and to kiss it; but she, with a rapid and coarse motion of her head, caught his lips and united them with hers. Her face struck Pierre disagreeably by its changed and disagreeable expression of abandon.

“Now it is too late; all is ended, and I love her,” thought Pierre.

“ Je vous aime” he said, recalling what it was necessary to say under such conditions ; but these words had such a wretched sound that he was ashamed of himself.

Six weeks later he was married and settled, as they said, the happy possessor of a beautiful wife and of a fortune of a million, in the large, remodelled St. Petersburg house of the Counts Bezukhi.

HI.

The old Prince Nikoléy Andréevich Bolkénski received, in December of 1805, a letter from Prince Vasili, announcing his intended visit with his son.

“ I am travelling on a tour of inspection, and, of course, one hundred versts will not keep me from visiting you, my respected benefactor,” he wrote. “ My Anatdl is accompanying me, being on his way to the army, and I hope that you will permit him personally to express that deep respect which he, imitating his father, has for you.”

“ And so it will not be necessary to take Marie out. The suitors are coming to see us,” carelessly said the little princess, when she heard of it.

Prince Nikolây Andréevich frowned and said nothing.

Two weeks after the receipt of that letter there arrived, first Prince Vasili’s servants, and, on the following day, he himself and his son.

Old Bolkonski never had had a high opinion of Prince Vasili’s character, especially of late, when, under the new reigns of Paul and Alexander, Prince Vasili had advanced far in ranks and honours. Now that, from the hints contained in the letter, and from the remark made by the little princess, he understood what the matter was, his unfavourable opinion about Prince Vasili passed in the soul of Prince Nikolay Andréevich into a feeling of hostile contempt. He snorted every time he spoke of him. On the day when Prince Vasili was to arrive, Prince Nikolay Andréevich was especially dissatisfied and out of humour. Whether he was out of humour because Prince Vasili was coining, or because he was dissatisfied with his arrival, — he was out of humour, and Tikhon early in the morning advised the architect not to go with a report to the prince.

” Do you hear him walk ? ” said Tikhon, directing the architect’s attention to the sounds of the prince’s steps. ” lie is stepping with his heel, and we know — ”

And yet at nine o’clock the prince came out, as usual, dressed in his velvet fur coat with the sable collar and in a similar cap, to take his customary walk. Snow had fallen on the previous day. The road over which Prince Nikolay Andreevich walked to his hothouse was cleaned ; the traces of the broom could be seen on the swept snow, and the shovel was stuck into one of the soft snow heaps, such as were on both sides of the road. The prince walked gloomily and in silence through his hothouses, through the manor yard and the buildings.

” Can one travel in a sleigh ? ” he asked his worthy superintendent, who was walking with him toward the house, and who in looks and manners resembled his master.

” The snow is dfeep, your Serenity. I ordered the snow swept on the avenue.”

The prince bent his head and walked to the porch.

” Thank the Lord ! ” thought the superintendent, ” the storm-cloud has passed ! ”

” It was difficult to travel, your Serenity,” added the superintendent. ” I hear, your Serenity, that a minister is about to visit your Serenity ? “

The prince turned to the superintendent and looked at him with a scowl.

” What ? A minister ? What minister ? Who ordered you ? ” he said in his piercing, harsh voice. “ For the princess, my daughter, you did not clean the road, and for a minister you do ? I do not know any ministers ! ”

” Your Serenity, I supposed — “

” You supposed,” cried the prince, pronouncing his words ever more hurriedly and more disconnectedly. ” You supposed — Robbers ! Scoundrels ! — I will teach you to suppose,” and, raising liis cane, he swung it so that it would have descended on Alpätych, but the latter instinctively avoided the blow. ” You supposed — Scoundrels ! ” he cried in haste ; but, although Alpätych, himself surprised at his boldness in avoiding the blow, came up close to the prince, humbly lowering his bald head before him, or, maybe, for that very reason, the prince continued to cry, ” Scoundrels ! fill up the road ! ” and, without raising the cane a second time, ran into the house.

The princess and Mlle. Bourienne, who knew that he was not in a good mood, were standing and waiting for him at dinner ; Mlle. Bourienne with a beaming face, which said, ” I do not know anything, I am the same that I have always been,” and Princess Marie pale, frightened, and with drooping eyes. It was extremely hard for Princess Marya, who knew that under such circumstances it was necessary to act like Mlle. Bourienne, but never could bring herself to do so. It seemed to her like this : ” If I act as though I did not notice, he will think that I have no sympathy for him; if I act as though I myself were gloomy and out of humour, he will say, as he has said, that I have hung my nose,” and so forth.

The prince looked at the frightened face of his daughter and snorted.

“ Good-for-nothing and fool ! ” he said. ” The other one is not here ; I suppose they have told her something,” he thought of the little princess, who was not in the dining-room.

” Where is the princess ? Does she hide herself ? ”

” She is not quite well,” said Mlle. Bourienne, smiling gaily. ” She will not come out. This is so natural in her condition.”

” Hem ! Hem ! Kkh ! Kkh ! ” said the prince, seating himself at the table.

The plate did not seem clean to him: he pointed to the spot and threw it. Tikhon caught it and turned it over to the butler. The little princess was not ill, but she had such an invincible fear of the prince that when she heard that he was in a bad humour, she did not have the courage to come out.

“I am afraid for the cliild,” she said to Mlle. Bourienne.

” God knows what might happen from fear.”

The little princess lived at Lÿsyya G dry under the continual feeling of terror and of antipathy to the old prince. Of the antipathy she was not conscious because the terror so predominated that she could not feel it. There was also an antipathy on the side of the prince, but it was drowned by the contempt which he had for her. The princess, during her stay at Lÿsyya Gdry, took a special liking for Mlle. Bourienne ; she passed whole days with her, asked her to stay with her overnight, and frequently talked with her about her father-in-law, not being afraid to condemn him.

” Il nous arrive du monde!’ said Mlle. Bourienne, unrolling her white napkin with her rosy fingers. ” Son Ex-cellcncc le Prince Kuuraguine avec son fils, à ce que j’ai entendu dire ? ” she said in an interrogative tone.

“Hem! That Excellence is an urchin— It is I who got him an appointment in the ministry,” he said, in a tone of offence. ” I cannot understand what the son is for. Princess Liza Karlovna and Princess Marya may know; I do not know what he is bringing his son for. I do not need him.” And he looked at his blushing daughter.

” Not well, are you ? Is it from the fear of the minister, as that dummy of an Alpätych said?”

” Non, mon père”

Mlle. Bourienne was unfortunate in the choice of a subject for conversation, but having once started, she continued to prattle about the hothouses, and about a newly budding flower, and the prince softened down a little after the soup.

After dinner he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess was sitting at a small table and talking with Masha, the chambermaid. She grew pale, when she saw her father-in-law.

The little princess had changed very much. She was now rather homely than pretty. Her cheeks had fallen, her lip was raised, her eyes were swollen.

” Yes, a heavy weight,” she replied to the prince’s inquiry about her health.

“Is there anything you need ? ”

“ No, merci, mon père.”

” Well, all right, all right ! ”

He went out and walked over to the officiating-room. Alpätych stood there with drooping head.

“Is the road covered up again ? ”

” Yes, your Serenity ; forgive me, for God’s sake, I did it from sheer ignorance.”

The prince interrupted him and laughed his unnatural laugh.

” All right, all right.”

He stretched out his hand, which Alpätych kissed, and walked on to his cabinet.

In the evening, Prince Vasili arrived. Coachmen and servants met him in the avenue and with shouts took his sleigh-coach and the sleds to the wing of the manor, over the newly covered road.

Prince Vasili and Anatdl had separate rooms prepared for them.

Anatol was sitting, without his waistcoat and with his hands akimbo, at a table, on the corner of which he fixed his large, beautiful, roving eyes. He looked upon his whole life as an uninterrupted pleasure, which some indefinite person had obliged himself to furnish to him. Even thus he now looked upon his journey to the cross old man and the rich and homely heiress. All that, according to his opinion, might turn out very good and amusing.

” Why not marry, if she is very rich ? That can’t hurt,” thought Anatdl.

He shaved himself, carefully and foppishly perfumed himself, as was his invariable custom, and, with an innately good-hearted and victorious expression, carrying high his handsome head, entered his father’s room. Two of Prince Vasili’s valets were busy dressing him ; he himself glanced around him with animation and merrily nodded to his son when he entered, as though saying :

” That is right ! That is the way I want you to look ! “

” No, without jesting, father, is she very homely, eh ? ” be asked, as though continuing the conversation which they had had more than once during their journey.

” Stop it ! Nonsense ! The main thing is, try to be respectful and prudent to the old prince.”

” If he scolds, I will go away,” said AnatdL ” I can’t bear these old men. Eh ? ”

” Remember that for you a great deal depends upon it.”

At that time they not only knew in the maids’ room of the arrival of the minister and his son, but the appearance of both of them had been described in detail. Princess Mârya was sitting all alone in her room, in vain trying to overcome her inner agitation.

“ Why did they write, and why did Liza tell me about it? It cannot be!” she said to herself, looking in the mirror. ” How shall I go out to the drawingroom ? Even if I liked him, I could not be myself.”

The mere thought of her father’s glance inspired her with terror. The little princess and Mlle. Bourieune had received all the necessary information from the maid Mäsha : she told them what a red-cheeked, black-eyed, handsome man the minister’s son was, and that his father with difficulty dragged Iris feet upstairs, while he, taking three steps at a time, strutted after him like an eagle. Having received this information, the little princess and Mlle. Bourienne, whose animated voices could be heard in the corridor, entered the room of Princess Mârya.

” Us sont arrivés, Marie, you know ! ” said the little princess, with difficulty carrying her abdomen and sinking down in an armchair. She no longer wore her morning blouse, but one of her best garments ; her hair was carefully dressed, and upon her countenance there was animation, which, however, did not conceal the sunken and deadened features of her face. The attire in which she generally appeared in St. Petersburg made the loss of her good looks more perceptible. In Mlle. Bourienne, too, there appeared some kind of an improvement in her attire which made her fresh and pretty face more attractive.

” Eh bien, et vous restez comme vous êtes, chère princesse,” she said. ” On va venir annoncer que ces messieurs sont au salon ; il faudra descendre, et vous ne faites pas un petit brin de toilette ! ”

The little princess rose from her seat, rang for the chambermaid, and hurriedly and merrily began to select the proper dress for Princess Marya. Princess Mdrya felt herself offended in dignity because the arrival of the promised suitor agitated her so, and she was still more offended because her two companions did not even suppose that it could be otherwise. To tell them how ashamed she was of herself and of them, would mean betraying her agitation to them ; besides, a refusal to put on the attire which they had selected for her would only lead to endless jokes and greater persistence. She blushed ; her beautiful eyes grew dim ; her face was covered with blotches ; and with that homely expression of a readiness to sacrifice herself, which ever more frequently appeared on her countenance, she surrendered herself to the mercy of Mlle. Bourienne and of Liza.

Both women were quite in earnest about making her beautiful. She was so homely that it never could have occurred to either of them that she would compete with them in beauty ; therefore they quite sincerely betook themselves to dressing her up, being convinced, with that naïve and firm conviction of women, that the attire can make beautiful.

” No, really, ma bonne amie, this dress is not good,” said Liza, looking sidewise at her from a distance. ” Let us have another, the peony dress. Really, this is a time when your fate may be decided ! This dress is too bright ! It does not become you, no, it does not ! ”

It was not the dress which was not good, but the princess’s face and whole figure, but neither Mlle. Bourienne nor the little princess was aware of the fact ; they kept thinking that if a blue ribbon were put in her hair combed high, and a blue sash were attached to her peony dress, and so forth, everything would be well. They forgot that it was impossible to change the frightened expression of her face and figure ; therefore, no matter how much they modified the encasement and the adornment of the face, the face itself remained miserable and homely. After two or three changes, to which Princess Marya submitted without a murmur, and just as her hair was combed high (a coiffure which entirely changed and spoiled her face), and she had on a blue sash on a peony dress, the little princess made two or three circles around her, with her little hand here adjusted a fold of her dress and there pulled down the sash, and, with bent head, surveyed her now from one side, and now from another.

« No, that will not do,” she said, in a decided voice, clasping her hands. ” Non, Marie, décidément ça ne vous va pas. Je vous aime mieux dans votre petite robe grise de tous les jours. Non, de grâce, faites cela pour moi. Katya,” she said to the maid, ” bring the princess the gray dress, and you will see, Mlle. Bourienne, how I will manage it,” she said, with a smile of anticipated artistic enjoyment.

But when Katya brought the desired dress, Princess Marya sat motionless before the mirror, looking at her face, and there saw that there were tears in her eyes, and that her mouth was twitching, getting ready to burst out into sobs.

” Voyons, chère princesse,” said Mlle. Bourienne, ” encore un petit effort.”

The little princess took the dress from the maid and went up to Princess Marya with it.

” Now we will do it simply and sweetly,” said she.

Her voice and that of Mlle. Bourienne and of Katya, who was laughing about something, blended in one happy chirrup, resembling the singing of birds.

” Non, laissez-moi,” said the princess, and her voice sounded so serious and so distressed that the chirping of the birds immediately stopped. They looked at the large, beautiful eyes that were full of tears and of thought, and that looked clearly and entreatingly at them, and they understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.

“Au moins changez de coiffure” said the little princess. “Je vous disais,” she said, reproachfully, turning to Mlle. Bourienne. “Marie a une de ccs figures, auxquelles ce genre de coiffure ne va pas du tout. Mais du tout. Changez, de grâce ! ”

“Laissez-moi, laissez-moi, tout ça m’est parfaitement égal,” she replied, in a voice that was with difficulty restrained from bursting out into tears.

Mlle. Bourienne and the little princess had to confess that Princess Marya looked pretty badly in that attire, worse than ever, but it was late. She looked at them with an expression which they knew well ; it was an expression of sadness and of melancholy. This expression did not inspire them with fear for Princess Marya, — such a feehug she never inspired, — but they knew that whenever such an expression appeared in her face she became taciturn and imperturbable in her decisions.

“ Vous changerez, n’est-ce pas ? ” said Liza, and when Princess Marya made no reply, Liza left the room.

Princess Mârya was left all alone. She did not comply with Liza’s wish: she not only did not change her coiffure, but did not even take a look at herself in the mirror. Listlessly lowering her eyes and dropping her arms, she sat silently and thought. She was thinking of a husband, a man, a strong, an overwhelming, and incomprehensibly attractive being, who suddenly transferred her into another, a happy world. She was thinking of a child of her own, — such as the day before she had seen with the daughter of her nurse, — suckling at her own breast. Her husband was standing and tenderly looking at her and at the child.

” No, that is impossible, I am too homely,” she thought.

” Please to come to tea. The prince will be there at once,” a maid called out at the door.

She awoke and was frightened at her own thoughts. Before going downstairs she rose, went into the room containing the images, and, turning her eyes to the swarthy face of a large image of the Saviour, which was lighted up by the lamp, she stood there for a few minutes with folded hands. In the soul of the princess there was vexatious doubt. Was the joy of love, of an earthly love for a man, possible for her ? In her thought of marriage, Princess Marya dreamed of domestic happiness and of children, but her strongest love, her chief, liidden dream was an earthly love. That feeling was the stronger, the more she tried to conceal it from others and from herself.

” 0 God,” she said, ” how can I crush the temptation of the devil within me ? How can I for ever renounce the evil thoughts that I may calmly fulfil Thy will ? ”

And the moment she put this question, God answered her in her own heart:

“ Wish nothing for yourself ! Do not seek, nor worry, nor envy ! The future of men and your own fate must remain unknown to you ; but live so as to be ready for everything. If it will please God to test you in the obligations of marriage, be prepared to do His will.”

With this soothing thought (but still with the hope that her forbidden, earthly dream would be realized), Princess Marya, sighing, made the sign of the cross and went downstairs, thinking neither of her dress, nor of her coiffure, nor of how she would enter and what she would say. What could all that be in comparison with God’s predetermination, without whose will not one hair dropped from a man’s head ?

IV.

When Princess Marya entered the room, Prince Vasili and his son were already in the drawingroom, speaking with the little princess and with Mlle. Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy gait, stepping on her heels, the men and Mlle. Bourienne rose, and the little princess, pointing to the princess, said :

” Voilà Marie, ! “

Princess Marie saw them all, and she saw them distinctly. She saw Prince Vasili’s face, which for a moment looked serious at the sight of the princess and immediately brightened in a smile, and the face of the little princess, who with curiosity was reading on the faces of the guests the impression which Marie was producing upon them. She also saw Mlle. Bourienne with her ribbon and her pretty face more animated than ever and turned toward him ; but she could not see him ; she only saw something large, bright, and beautiful moving up to her, as she entered the room.

At first Prince Vasili walked over to her, and she kissed his bald head which was bending over her hand, and replied to his question that indeed she remembered him well. Then Anatol came up to her. She still did not see him. She only felt a soft hand which firmly grasped hers, and she barely touched his white brow, over which lay, smoothly pomaded, his beautiful blond hair. When she looked at him, she was struck by his beauty.

Placing the thumb of his right hand into his buttoned uniform, expanding his breast and leaning back, swaying his foot, which was thrust forward, and slightly inclining his head, Anatdl looked merrily and silently at the princess, apparently without giving her any thought. Anatdl was not inventive, nor quick, nor eloquent, but he was possessed of the precious social characteristic of calmness and imperturbable selfconfidence. Let a diffident man be silent on first acquaintance, and let him express the impropriety of that silence and a desire to find something to say, and it will not be well ; but Anatol was silent, swayed his foot, and merrily surveyed the princess’s coiffure. It was evident that he could be thus silent for a long time.

” If this silence does not suit you, you may talk, but I do not feel like talking,” his look seemed to say.

Besides, in his treatment of women Anatdl had that manner which more than anything else rouses curiosity, fear, and even love in women, — the manner of a disdainful consciousness of his superiority. He seemed to say by his look : ” I know you, I do, but what is the use of bothering with you ? Though you would be glad enough if I did.”

It may be that, upon meeting women, he did not think that (indeed, it is very likely he did not, because he thought very little anyway), but such was his look and his manner. The princess felt that and, as though to show him that she did not even dare to think of entertaining him, turned to the old prince. The conversation was general and animated, thanks to the little voice and to the down-covered upper lip which rose above the white teeth of the little princess. She met Prince Vasili in that jocular tone which is frequently employed by garrulous people of a merry disposition, and which consists in assuming between the man addressed and oneself certain long-established and merry, partly secret jocular recollections, whereas none such exist, just as there never had been such between the little princess and Prince Vasili.

Prince Vasili cheerfully fell in with that tone ; the little princess also drew Anatol, whom she hardly knew, into the recollections of these unexisting funny occurrences. Allie. Bourienne also shared these common memories, and even Princess Marya was happy to feel herself drawn into those gay recollections.

” Now we shall at last make complete use of you, dear prince,” said the little princess, of course in French. ” It will not be as at our soirées at Annette’s, where you always ran away. Do you remember cette chère Annette ? “

” But don’t go and talk politics to me, as Annette does ! “

” And our teatable? “

” Oh, yes! “

” ‘Why were you never at Annette’s? ” the little princess asked AnatoL ” I know, I know,” she said, with a wink, ” your brother Ippolit told me about your affairs. Oh ! ” she threatened him with her little finger. ” I know of your exploits at Paris.”

” And did not Ippolit tell you,” said Prince Vasili (turning to his son and seizing the hand of the princess, as though she wanted to run away, and he held her back), ” did he not tell you how he, Ippolit, was dying for the dear princess, and how she le mettait à la porte ? Oh / C’est la perle des femmes, princesse ! ” he turned to Princess Mary a.

At the mention of the word Paris, Mlle. Bourienne did not allow the opportunity to slip of entering into the common conversation of recollections.

She took the liberty of asking how long ago Anatol had left Paris and how he liked that city. Anatdl cheerfully answered the Frenchwoman and, smiling and looking at her, talked to her about her country. Upon having seen pretty Bourienne, Anatdl decided that it would not be dull here, in Lÿsyya Gory.

” Not at all bad,” he thought, surveying her, ” this demoiselle de compagnie is not at all bad. I hope she will take her along when she marries me,” he thought, ” la petite est gentille.”

The old prince was leisurely dressing in his cabinet, scow hug and deliberating what to do. The arrival of the guests annoyed him.

” What do I care for Prince Vasili and his son ? Prince Vasfli is a braggart, an empty-headed fellow, and his son, no doubt, is like him,” he mumbled. lie was angry because the arrival of these guests raised in his soul the question, which he always kept in abeyance, and in respect to which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever make up his mind to part from Princess Marya and get her married. The prince never had the courage to ask himself that question frankly, knowing in advance that he would answer it in all justice, while the justice contradicted not only his feeling, but the whole possibility of his life. Life without Princess Marya was unthinkable to Prince Nikolây Andréevich, although he seemed not to value her much.

” Why should she marry ? ” he thought. ” She will certainly be unhappy. There Liza has married Andréy (it seems it would be hard nowadays to find a better husband), but is she satisfied with her lot? And who will marry her for love ? She is homely and awkward. They will have her for her connections, for her wealth. And do not women stay unmarried ? They are happier thus ! “

So thought Prince Nikolây Andréevich, as he was dressing, and yet the question, so long delayed, demanded immediate solution. Prince Vasili brought his son with the obvious purpose of suing for her hand and, no doubt, that very day or on the following day would ask for a definite answer. His name and position in society were not bad.

” Well, I am not disinclined,” the prince said to himself, ” only he must be worthy of her. That is what we must see first.”

” That we will see,” he said aloud. ” That we will see ! “

He went, as always, with brisk steps into the drawing-roorn, rapidly surveyed all present, noticed the change in the dress ok the little princess, and Mlle. Bourienne’s ribbon, and Princess Marya’s monstrous coiffure, and Mlle. Bourienne’s and Anatél’s smiles, and the loneliness of the princess amidst the general conversation.

” Dressed like a fool ! ” he thought, casting an angry glance at his daughter. “ She has lost all shame, and he does not care for her ! “

He went up to Prince Vasili.

” Well, good day, good day ’ Glad to see you.”

“ For a friend seven versts is not a roundabout journey,” said Prince Vasili, as rapidly, as selfconfidently, and as familiarly as ever. ” This is my second : I beg you to be kind to him.”

Prince Nikolay Andréevich surveyed Anatél.

” A fine fellow, a fine fellow ! ” be said. ” Come and kiss me ! ” and he offered him his cheek.

Anatél kissed the old man and looked at him with curiosity and with absolute composure, expecting something odd to happen, as his father had told him it would.

Prince Nikolay Andreevich sat down in his habitual place in the corner of a sofa, moved up an armchair for Prince Vasili, indicated it to him, and began to inquire about political affairs and about the news. He seemed to be listening attentively to the recital of Prince Vasili, all the time casting glances upon Princess Märya.

” So they are writing now from Potsdam ? ” he repeated the last words of Prince Vasili and, rising suddenly, went up to his daughter.

” Did you dress up that way for the guests, eh?” he said. “ You are pretty, very pretty. You have dressed your hair in a new fashion for the sake of the guests, but I tell you in the presence of the guests that you shall not dare ever again to dress up without getting my permission.”

” Mon père, it is my fault,” the little princess took her part and blushed.

“ You are quite at liberty,” said Prince Nikoléy Andréevich, shuffling his feet before his daughter-in-law, ” but she has no reason to disfigure herself, — she is homely as it is.”

He again sat down on his seat, paying no more attention to his daughter, who felt like crying.

” On the contrary, this coiffure is becoming to the princess,” said Prince Vasili.

“Young prince, what is his name?” said Prince Nikolay Andréevich, turning to Anatél, ” come here ! We will talk with each other and get acquainted.”

” This is where the fun begins,” thought Anatél, smiling and seating himself by the side of the old prince.

” Well, you, my dear, were educated abroad, I understand. You have not been taught reading by a sexton, as your father and I were taught. Tell me, my dear, are you now serving in the Horse Guard ? ” asked the old man, looking closely and fixedly at Anatol.

” No, I have gone over to the army,” said Anatél, with difficulty repressing a laugh.

” Ah ! That is good. Do you, my dear, wish to serve the emperor and the fatherland ? These are days of war. Such a fine fellow must serve, he must. Well, are you going to the front ? ”

” No, prince. Our regiment has already left. I am attached.- What am I attached to, papa ? ” Anatél turned to his father with a laugh.

« It is fine to serve, it is fine. What am I attached to ? Ha, ha, ha ‘ ” laughed Prince Nikoléy Andréevich, and Anatél laughed louder still. Suddenly Prince Nikoläy Andréevich frowned. ” Go ! ” he said to Anatél.

Anatél went up to the ladies, smiling.

” So you have educated them abroad, Prince Vasfli, eh ? ” the old prince turned to Prince Vasili.

” I have done what I could, and I must tell you that the foreign education is much better than ours.”

” Yes, nowadays everything is different and newfangled. He is a fine fellow, a fine fellow ! Come to my room ! “

He took Prince Vasili’s arm and led him to his cabinet.

Prince Vasili, upon being left alone with the prince, immediately informed him of his desires and hopes.

” What do you think,” angrily said the old prince, ” do you suppose that I am keeping her and cannot part from her ? That is what they imagine ! ” he said, angrily. ” For my part, she may marry tomorrow ! But I must tell you that I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my rules : everything openly ! Tomorrow I will ask her in your presence whether she wants to, and then let him stay here awhile. Let him stay awhile, and I will see.” The prince snorted. ” Be it as it may, it makes no difference to me,” he cried in that piercing voice in which he cried at the departure of his son.

” I will tell you frankly,” said Prince Vasili, in the tone of a cunning man who has convinced himself of the uselessness of cunning in the presence of a sagacious interlocutor. ” You see through people. Anatdl is not a genius, but an honest, good fellow, an excellent son and relative.”

“Very well, we shall see.”

As is always the case with lonely women, who have long lived without the company of men, all three women in the house of Prince Nikoläy Andréevich felt at the appearance of Anatdl that their life had not been worth living heretofore. Their powers of thinking, feeling, observing were immediately increased tenfold in all of them, and, as though having heretofore lived in the darkness, their lives were suddenly illuminated by a new light which was full of meaning.

Princess Marya was not thinking of her face and coiffure. The handsome, open face of the man who, perhaps, would be her husband absorbed all her attention. He seemed to her to be good, brave, determined, manly, and magnanimous. She was convinced of that. A thousand dreams of her future domestic life constantly arose in her imagination. She dispelled them and tried to conceal them.

” But am I not too cold to him ? ” thought Princess Märya. “ I am trying to repress myself because in the depth of my heart I already feel myself very close to him ; but he does not know all I am thinking about him, and he may imagine that he displeases me.”

So Princess Märya tried to be amiable to her new guest, but did not know how to do it.

“La pauvre fille ! Elle est diablement laide” Anatdl thought of her.

Mlle. Bourienne, who by Anatdl’s arrival was also roused to a high degree of excitement, was thinking differently. Of course, a pretty young girl, without any definite position in the world, without relatives and friends, or even a country, was not thinking of devoting all her life to the service of Prince Nikolay Andréevich, to the reading of books to him, and to friendship with Marya. Mie. Bourienne had long been waiting for that Russian prince who would at once be able to appreciate her superiority over homely, badly dressed, awkward Russian princesses, and who would fall in love with her and take her away. Mlle. Bourienne had a story which she had heard from her aunt, which she herself had elaborated, and which she was fond of repeating in her imagination. It was the story of a seduced girl to whom her poor mother, sa pauvre mère, appeared, reproaching her for having given herself up to a man without wedlock. In her imagination, Mlle. Bourienne was frequently touched to tears, telling “Am” that enticing story. Now this “he,” the real Russian prince,had made his appearance. He would elope with her, then ma pauvre mère would appear, and he would many her.

All her future history was evolved in her head all the time she was speaking with him about Paris. Mlle. Bourienue was not guided by any designs (she did not even for a minute deliberate over her course of action) ; all that had long been ready in her and now only grouped itself about the newly appeared Anatdl, whom she wished and tried to please as much as possible.

The little princess, like an old army horse when it hears the sound of a trumpet, unconsciously, and forgetting her condition, prepared herself for the habitual gallop of coquetry, without the least design or struggle, but with naïve and frivolous merriment only.

Although Anatdl in female society generally assumed the attitude of a man who was sick of all the attentions paid to him by the women, he felt a vain pleasure in seeing his influence upon these three women. Besides, he had already begun to experience that passionate, animal sensation for pretty and provoking Mlle. Bourienne, which attacked him with extraordinary rapidity and which stirred him to the boldest and coarsest of acts.

After tea, the company passed to the sofaroom, and the princess was asked to play on the clavichord. Anatdl leaned on his elbows in front of her, close to Mlle. Bourienne, and his laughing and beaming eyes looked at Princess Marya. Princess Marya was conscious of his glance, experiencing a feeling both of vexation and of joy. But although Anatol’s glance was directed at her, it was not meant for her, but for the movements of Mlle. Bourienlie’s little foot, which he was touching with his foot under the clavichord. Mlle. Bourienne was also looking at Princess Märya, and in her beautiful eyes the princess observed an expression of timorous joy and hope.

” How he loves me ! ” thought Princess Märya. ” How happy I am now, and how happy I can be with such a friend and husband ! Husband ? ” she thought, without daring to look at his face, and feeling all the time that his glance was directed at her.

Toward evening, when the company broke up after supper, Anatol kissed the hand of the princess. She did not know herself how she had the courage to do so, but she really looked straight into the beautiful face as it came into range of her nearsighted eyes. After kissing the princess, he went up to Mlle. Bourienne (that was not proper, but he did everything so confidently and so simply), and Mlle. Bourienne blushed and looked in terror at the princess.

” Quelle délicatesse ! ” thought the princess. ” Does Amélie ” (that was Mlle. Bourienne’s name) ” think that I can be jealous of her and can misinterpret her pure tenderness and devotion to me?”

She walked over to Mlle. Bourienne and hugged and kissed her. Anatol went up to the hand of the little princess.

” Non, non, non ! Quand votre père n’écrira que vous vous conduisez “bien, je vous donnerai ma main à baiser. Pas avant.”

And giving him her little finger, and smiling, she left the room.

V.

All went to their rooms, and none but Anatdl, who fell asleep the moment he lay down on his bed, could for a long time fall asleep that night.

” Is he really my husband, he, that strange, beautiful, good, above all, good man ? ” thought Princess Marya, and terror, such as hardly ever overcame her, took possession of her. She was afraid to look around ; it seemed to her that some one was standing in the dark corner, behind the screen. And that some one was he, the devil, and he, that man with the white brow, the black eyebrows, and the ruby lips.

She rang the bell for the maid and asked her to lie down in her room.

Mlle. Bourienne on that evening for a long time walked through the winter garden, vainly waiting for some one and smiling at some one, and being moved to tears by the imaginary words of her pauvre mère reproaching her for her fall.

The little princess grumbled at the maid for not having made her bed comfortable. She could lie down neither on her side, nor on her breast. Everything was hard and awkward. Her abdomen was in her way. It was in her way more than ever, particularly on that day, because Anatdl’s presence transferred her more vividly to another time when that was not the case and she was happy and comfortable. She was sitting in an armchair, in her nightgown and cap. Katya, sleepy and with dishevelled braid, for the third time turned over and tossed up the heavy feather bed, growling all the time.

” I tell you that it is full of mounds and holes,” insisted the little princess. “Nothing would please me better than to fall asleep, so it is not my fault,” and her voice trembled as does that of a child getting ready to cry.

Nor could the old prince sleep. Tikhon in his sleep heard his angry steps and his snorting. It appeared to the old prince that his daughter was the cause of some offence offered him. It was the most painful offence, because it had no reference to him, but to some one else, — to his daughter, whom he loved more than himself. He said to himself that he would consider the matter and that he would certainly find what was right to do under the circumstances, but instead he only grew more irritated.

” The first man that comes along makes her forget her father and everything, and she runs upstairs, and dresses her hair, and wags her tail, and loses all semblance of herself ! She is glad to abandon her father ! And she knew that I would notice it. Fr — fr — fr— Do I not see that that fool is looking only at the Bourienne woman ? I shall have to send her away ! And she has not a bit of pride to see it ! If she has no pride for herself, she ought to have it for my sake, at least. I must show her that that blockhead is not thinking of her, but looking only at Bourienne. She has no pride, but I will show her — “

By telling his daughter that she was in error, that Anatdl intended to make love to Bourienne, the old prince knew that he would stir up the self-love of Princess Marya, and his cause (the desire not to part from his daughter) would be won, and this idea calmed him. He called Tikhon and began to undress himself.

” The devil has brought them here ! ” he thought, while Tikhon was putting his nightshirt on his wizened old body, which was overgrown on the chest with gray hair.

” I did not call them. They have come to disturb my life. There is not much left of it, anyway. The deuce ! ” he said, while his head was still covered with his shirt.

Tikhon knew the prince’s habit of expressing his thoughts in a loud voice, and so he with an unchanged countenance met the interrogatively angry glance of the face peering out from the shirt.

” All abed ? ” asked the prince.

Tikhon, like all good lackeys, instinctively knew the direction of his master’s thoughts. He guessed that the question had reference to Prince Vasili and to his son.

“ They have deigned to retire, and the lights are out, your Serenity.”

“ What is it for ? What is it for ? ” rapidly said the prince, and, putting his feet into his slippers and his hands into the morninggown, he went up to,the sofa on which he slept.

Although nothing had been said between Anatdl and Mlle. Bourienne, they completely understood each other as far as the first part of the romance went, previous to the appearance of the pauvre mère ; they knew that they had a great deal to tell each other in secret, and so, from the morning on, they were both looking for a chance to meet each other clandestinely. When the princess at the usual hour went to her father, Mlle. Bourienne met Anatdl in the winter garden.

Princess Märya on that day approached the door of her father’s cabinet with especial trepidation. It seemed to her that, not only did all know that on that day her fate would be decided, but that they also knew that she was thinking of it. She read that expression in Tikhon’s face and in the face of the valet of Prince Vasili, whom she met in the corridor carrying hot water, and who made a low obeisance to her.

On that morning the prince was exceedingly kind and considerate in the treatment of his daughter. This expression of considerateness Princess Marya was well acquainted with. It was the same expression that was on his face in those moments when his shrivelled hands were compressed into a fist from annoyance because Princess Marya did not understand an arithmetical problem, when he would get up and, walking away from her, would several times repeat the same words in a calm voice.

He immediately attacked the question and began the conversation, using the distant ” you ” instead of ” thou.”

” A proposal has been made to me concerning you,” he said, with an unnatural smile. ” You have, no doubt, divined,” he continued, “ that Prince Vasili has come here, bringing with him his alumnus ” (for some reason Prince Nikolay Andréevich called Anatol an alumnus), ” but not for my beautiful eyes. Yesterday a proposal was made to me concerning you. As you well know my rules, I referred them to you.”

” How am I to understand you, mon père ? ” the princess said, growing pale and blushing.

” How are you to understand it ? ” angrily shouted the father. ” Prince Vasili finds you after his taste as a daughter-in-law and proposes to you for his alumnus. That is how you are to understand it ! How are you to understand it ? That is what I want to know from you.”

” I do not know how you think about it, mon père” the princess said, in a whisper.

“I ? I ? What have I to do with it ? Do not consider me ! It is not I who am going to marry. What you think about it, that is what I should like to know.”

The princess saw that her father did not look favourably at the affair, but it suddenly occurred to her that now, or never, the fate of her life was to be decided. She lowered her eyes in order not to see his glance, under the influence of which, she felt, she could not think, but would only obey, as usual, and said :

on his red face and for a second did not take his arm away from the waist of Mlle. Bourienne, who did not see her.

” Who is there ? What for? Wait ! ” Anatdl’s face seemed to say. Princess Marya looked silently at them. She could not understand it. Finally Mlle. Bourienne screamed and ran away. Anatdl bowed to Princess Marya with a happy smile, as though inviting her to laugh at this strange accident, and, shrugging his shoulders, went through the door which led to his room.

An hour later Tikhon came to call Princess Märya. He called her to her father’s cabinet, adding that Prince Vasili Sergyéevich was there, too.

As Tikhon entered, the princess was sitting on the sofa in her room and holding weeping Mlle. Bourienne in her embrace. Princess Mdrya softly stroked her head. The beautiful eyes of the princess looked with all their former calm and lucidity, and with tender love and compassion at Mlle. Bourienne’s pretty face.

” Non, princesse, je suis perdue pour toujours dans votre cœur,” said Mlle. Bourienne.

” Pourquoi ? Je vous aime plus que jamais,” said Princess Marya, ” et je tâcherai de faire tout ce qui est en mon pouvoir pour votre bonheur.”

” Mais vous me méprisez, vous si pure, vous ne comprendrez jamais cet égarement de la passion. Ah, ce n’est que ma pauvre mère — ”

“Je comprends tout,” replied Princess Märya, with a sad smile. ” Calm yourself, my friend ! I must go to my father,” she said, walking away.

Prince Vasili, crossing one leg high over the other, with his snuffbox in his hands, as though he were very sentimental, and yet pitied and ridiculed his sentimentality, was, sitting with a meek smile on his face, when Princess Marya entered. He hastened to carry a pinch of snuff to his nose.

” Ah, ma bonne, ma bonne,” he said, rising and taking both her hands. He sighed and added : ” Le sort de mon fils est en vos mains. Décidez, ma chère, ma dozccc Marie, que j’ai toujours aimée comme ma fille.”

Ile stepped aside. There was a real tear in his eye.

” Fr — fr — ” snorted Prince Nikoldy Andréevich.

” The prince, in the name of his alumnus — his son, makes a proposal to you. Do you wish to become the wife of Prince Amatol Kurägin, or not ? Speak : yes, or no ? ” he shouted. ” I reserve my opinion to express later,” added Prince Nikolay Andréevich, turning to Prince Vasili, in response to his entreating glance. ” Yes, or no ! ”

” It is my desire, mon père, never to leave you, never to separate my life from yours. I do not want to get married,” she said, with determination, looking with her beautiful eyes at Prince Vasili and at her father.

“Nonsense, bosh! Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!” Prince Nikolây Andréevich shouted, with a scowl.

He took his daughter’s hand, drew her toward him, and did not kiss her, but only put his brow to hers, and pressed her hand which he was holding, so that she frowned and screamed. Prince Vasili rose.

” Ma chère, je vous dirai que cest un moment que je n’oublierai jamais, jamais, jamais; ma bonne, est-ce que vous ne nous donnerez pas un peu d’espérance de toucher ce cœur si bon, si généreux? Dites que peut-ctre— L’avenir est si grand. Dites : peut-ctre ! “

“ Prince, what I said is all that there is in my heart. I thank you for the honour, but 1 shall never be the wife of your son.”

” Well, that ends it, my dear. I am very glad to see you, very glad to see you. Go to your room, princess, go ! ” said the old prince. ” Very, very glad to see you,” he repeated, embracing Prince Vasili.

” Mine is a different calling,” thought Princess Mdrya, ” my calling is to be happy with another happiness, the happiness of love and selfsacrifice. Cost what it may, I will make poor Amélie happy. She loves him so passionately. She is repenting so fervently. I will do everything in my power to arrange this marriage. If he is not rich, I will give her means ; I will ask my father, I will ask Andréy. I will be so happy when she is his wife. She is so unhappy, so lonely, so helpless ! O God, how passionately she loves, since she was able to so forget herself ! Maybe I should have done likewise — ” thought Princess Marya.

VT.

The Rostdvs had long remained without any news from Nikoldy ; it was only in the middle of the winter that the count received a letter, in the address of which he recognized his son’s handwriting. Upon receiving this, the count was frightened and hastened to run on tiptoe to his cabinet, trying not to be noticed by any one. He shut himself in and began to read. Anna Mikhaylovna found out that a letter had been received (she knew everything that was going on in the house), and softly entered the count’s cabinet, where she found him with the letter in his hands, sobbing and laughing at the same time.

In spite of the improvement in her affairs, she kept staying at the Rostovs’.

” Mon bon ami” Anna Mikhaylovna exclaimed, in an interrogative and sad voice, and ready to express her sympathy.

The count sobbed louder than before.

” Nikoldy — a letter — wounded — was — ma chère — wounded — my darling — the countess — promoted to the rank of officer — thank God — how shall I tell it to the countess ? “

Anna Mikhaylovna sat down by his side, with her handkerchief wiped his tears from his eyes and from the letter, on which they had fallen, and from her own eyes ; she read the letter, calmed the count, and decided that by dinner and tea she would prepare the countess, and that after tea she would, with God’s aid, tell her everything.

At dinner Anna Mikhaylovna spoke of the rumours from the war and of Nikoldy ; she asked twice when the last letter had been received, although she knew herself, and remarked that they might get a letter that very day. Every’ time when the countess, at these hints, began to grow restless and to look in agitation at the count and at Anna Mikhaylovna, Anna Mikhaylovna imperceptibly changed the conversation to some insignificant subjects. Natasha, who of the whole family was best endowed with the ability of feeling the shades of intonations, glances, and expressions on people’s faces, had pricked up her ears at the beginning of the dinner and knew that there was something between Anna Mikhaylovna and her father, and that it was something concerning her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them. In spite of all her boldness (Natasha knew how sensitive her mother was in regard to everything that gave any news of Nikolay), she did not dare to ask anything at dinner. She was so restless that she did not eat anything and kept whirling around on her chair, paying no attention to the remarks of her governess. After dinner she rushed headlong to catch Anna Mikhdylovna, to whose neck she flew the moment she caught her in the sofaroom.

” Aunty, deary, tell me what it is ! “

” Nothing, my dear.”

” No, my dear, darling, sweet aunty, I will not leave you! I know that you know.”

Anna Mikhaylovna shook her head.

“ Vans êtes une fine mouche, mon enfant ! ” she said.

” A letter from Nikolay ? I am sure it is ! ’’ shouted Natasha, as she read an affirmative answer in Anna Mikhaylovna’s face.

” For God’s sake, be careful ! You know how that may affect maman.”

” I will, I will, — tell it to me ! You won’t ? Then I will go and tell her at once.”

Anna Mikhaylovna in a few words told Natasha the

contents of the letter, on condition that she would not tell it to anybody.

” Upon my word and honour,” Natdsha said, making the sign of the cross, ” I will not tell a soul,” and she immediately ran to Sonya.

“Nikolay — wounded — a letter—” she said, triumphantly and joyfully.

” Nicolas ! ” was all Sonya said, immediately growing pale.

When Natdsha saw the impression made on Sonya by this news about Nikoläy’s being wounded, she felt for the first time the whole bitter side of this piece of news.

She rushed up to Sdnya, embraced her, and burst out weeping.

” He was slightly wounded, but now he is promoted to the rank of officer ; he is well now, and he writes himself,” she said amidst tears.

“ It is evident that you are all women and blubberers,” said Pétya, walking up and down the room with determined steps. ” I am so glad, so very glad that brother has distinguished himself so. You are all whimperers,— you do not understand a thing.”

Natasha smiled through tears.

“ Have you not read the letter ? ” asked Sdnya.

” I have not, but she said that it was all past, and he was now an officer — ”

” Thank God,” said Sonya, making the sign of the cross. “ But, perhaps, she has deceived you. Let us go to maman ! ”

Pétya kept pacing up and down in silence.

“If I were in Nikolay’s place, I would have killed more of these Frenchmen,” he said. ” They are an abominable lot ! I would kill such a mass of them as to make a big heap of them,” continued Pétya.

“ Keep quiet, Pétya ! What a fool you are ! “

whether it would be proper for her to remind him of her existence and of that obligation which he had taken upon himself in respect to her.

” I do not know. If he writes, I will, too,” she said, blushing.

” And will you not be ashamed to write to him ? “

Sénya smiled.

” No.”

« But I shall be ashamed to write to Boris, and so I won’t write to him.”

” Why should you be ashamed ? “

« Because. I do not know why. It is awkward, — I am ashamed.”

” I know why she will be ashamed,” said Pétya, who was offended by Natasha’s first remark. “Because she was in love with that fat fellow with the spectacles ” (thus he called his namesake, the new Count Bezukhi) ; ” now she is in love with that singer ” (Pétya was speaking of Natasha’s Italian teacher of singing), ” and so she is ashamed.”

“ Pétya, you are stupid,” said Natäsha.

” Not stupider than you are, my dear,” said ten-year-old Pétya, as though he were an old brigadier.

The countess was prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna’s hints at dinner. Upon coming back to her room, she seated herself in an armchair, where she did not take her eyes off her son’s portrait, which was painted on a snuffbox, and tears welled in her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna went with the letter on tiptoe to the room of the countess, where she stopped.

” Don’t come in 1 ” she said to the old count who was following her. ” Afterwards ! ” whereupon she closed the door.

The count put his ear to the lock and listened.

At first he heard the sound of an indifferent conversation, then the sound of Anna Mikhaylovna’s voice, delivering a long speech, then a scream, then a silence, then again both voices talking together, with joyful intonations, and then steps, and Anna Mikhaylovna opened the door for him. Upon Anna Mikhaylovna’s face there was the proud expression of a surgeon who has just accomplished a difficult amputation and who introduces the public in order that they may judge of his skill.

” C’est fait ! ” she said to the count, pointing with a triumphant gesture to the countess, who was holding the snuffbox with the portrait in one hand, and the letter in the other, pressing her lips now to the one, and now to the other. Upon noticing the count, she extended her hands toward him, embraced his bald head, and over the gray head again glanced at the letter and at the portrait, and again softly pushed away the bald head, in order to press them to her lips.

Vyéra, Natasha, Sénya, and Pétya entered the room, and the reading began. The letter gave a short description of the campaign and of two battles in which Nikoläy had taken part, and told of bis promotion ; it was also said there that he kissed the hands of maman and papa, asking their benediction, and kissed Vyéra, Natésha, and Pétya. Besides, he sent his regards to Mr. Shelling and Madame Schoss, and to his nurse, and also asked them to kiss dear Sdnya for him, whom he loved just as much as ever, and of whom he thought as much as before. Upon hearing this, Sénya blushed so that the tears came out in her eyes. Being unable to endure all the glances that were directed at her, she ran into the parlour, where she kept whirling around, so that her dress was puffed up like a balloon, and sat down on the floor, blushing and smiling The countess wept.

” What are you weeping about, maman ? ” said Vyéra. ” Everything he writes about gives cause for rejoicing and not for weeping.”

That was quite true, and yet the count, the countess, and Natasha looked reproachfully at her.

” I wonder whom she takes after ! ” thought the countess.

Nikoläy’s letter was read a hundred times, and those who were deemed worthy of listening to it had to come to the countess, who did not let it out of her hands. There came the tutors, the nurses, Mitenka, a few acquaintances, and the countess read the letter each time with new pleasure, and she each time discovered in this letter new virtues in her son Nikoldy.

How strange, how unusual, how joyful it seemed to her that her son, — that son who twenty years before had stirred within her with his tiny limbs, the son on account of whom she had quarrelled with the count who had been spoiling him, the son who learned to say ” pear ” first, and ” baba ” later, — that that son now was there, in a foreign country, amidst foreign surroundings, a manly soldier, where he alone, without help and guidance, was carrying on his manly work. The whole universal experience, which pointed to the fact that, from their cradles, children imperceptibly grow up to be men, did not exist for the countess. The manhood of her son at every stage of his growth was as uncommon to her as though the millions of millions of people who had grown to manhood in the same manner had never existed. Just as she had not believed, twenty years before, that the tiny creature which was living somewhere under her heart would ever cry, and suckle, and talk, thus she did not believe now that that being could be that strong, brave man, a model of sons and men, such as he now appeared to be, to judge from that letter.

” What style ! How sweetly he describes ! ” she said, reading the descriptive part of the letter. ” And what a soul! Nothing about himself — nothing ! He is talking about some Denisov, while he, no doubt, was braver than all of them. He writes nothing about his suffering. What a heart ! How I recognize him ! And how he remembers all ! He has not forgotten anybody. I always, always said, when he was no larger than this, I always said — “

For more than a week, drafts of letters to Nikoldy from everybody were written and copied in the house ; under the supervision of the countess, and with the count’s care, the necessary trifles and the money for the equipment of the newly created officer were collected.

Anna Mikhäylovna, being a practical woman, had managed to get her son a protection in the army even for the purpose of correspondence : she addressed her letters to Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who was in command of the Guard. The Rostdvs supposed that ” The Russian Guard abroad ” was a very definite address, and that if a letter would reach the grand duke, in command of the Guard, there was no reason why it should not reach the Pavlogrddski regiment, which was somewhere in its neighbourhood ; and so it was decided to send the letters and the money by courier to the grand duke for Boris, who would forward it to Nikolay. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Pétya, Vyéra, Natâsha, and Sdnya, and there were also six thousand roubles for his equipment, and all kinds of trifles, which the count was sending him.

VIL

On the 12th of November, Kutuzov’s army, which was encamped near Olmiitz, was getting ready to be reviewed on the following day by two emperors, the Russian and the Austrian. The Guard, which had just arrived from Russia, bivouacked within fifteen versts of Olmiitz, and on the next day, at ten o’clock, appeared on the parade grounds.

Nikoläy Rostdv on that day received a note from Boris that the Izmail regiment was bivouacking within fifteen versts of Olmiitz, and that he was waiting for him, in order to hand him the letters and the money. Just now that the troops had returned from the campaign and had encamped at Olmiitz, Rostov was in dire need of money, for well-supplied sutlers and Austrian Jews, who overran the camp, offered all kinds of temptations. The Pavlogradians now celebrated one banquet after another in recognition of the rewards received during the campaign, and kept travelling to Olmiitz, where Caroline the Hungarian, lately arrived, had opened a restaurant with female attendants.

Rostov had just celebrated his promotion to the rank of ensign, had bought Bedouin, Denisov’s horse, and was deep in debt to his comrades and to the sutlers. Having received the note from Boris, Rostov with a comrade went to Olmiitz, where they dined and drank a bottle of wine, and himself rode to the camp of the Guard to find the companion of his childhood. Rostov had not yet been able to provide himself with a new uniform. He wore a faded jacket of a yunker with a soldier cross, dirty, worn-out ridingtrousers, and an officer’s sword with a tassel ; the nag on which he rode was a Don horse bought during the campaign from a Cossack ; his crumpled hussar cap was dashingly poised on the back of his head and to one side. As he rode up to the camp of the Izmail regiment, he thought of how he would surprise Boris and all his comrades of the Guard by his warlike hussar appearance as the result of having been through the fire.

The Guard had proceeded on the march as though out for pleasure, parading its cleanliness and discipline ; the day’s marches were short ; the knapsacks were carried on wagons ; at the expense of the Austrian government excellent dinners were provided to the officers at all the halting places. The regiments entered and left the cities with music, and during the whole march, of which the men of the Guard were proud, the soldiers, by command of the grand duke, kept step, while the officers walked in their respective places.

Boris marched all the time by the side of Berg, who now was a commander of a company. Berg, who was entrusted with a company during the march, by his promptness and accuracy had gained the confidence of the authorities and had arranged his financial affairs very advantageously. Boris during the expedition made many acquaintances with people who could be useful to him, and, through a letter of recommendation given him by Pierre, had made the acquaintance of Prince Andréy Bolkdnski, through whom he hoped to get a place on the staff of the commanderin-chief. Berg and Boris, neatly and properly dressed, having rested after their last day’s march, were sitting at a round table in the clean lodging assigned to them, playing chess. Berg was holding a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, with the precision peculiar to him, was building a pyramid of the chessmen, waiting for Berg’s move ; he was looking at the face of his partner, obviously thinking of the game, for he always thought of that with which he was occupied.

” Well, how will you get out of it ? ” he asked.

« We will try,” replied Berg, touching a pawn and again taking away his hand.

Just then the door opened.

“ There he is at last ! ” cried Rostov. ” And Berg is here, too ! Ah, petits enfants, allez coucher dormir,” he cried, repeating the words of the nurse, at which he and Boris had so often laughed.

” O Lord ! How you have changed ! “

Boris rose to meet Rostov, but, in rising, he did not forget to catch the fallen chessmen and to put them back. He wanted to embrace his friend, but Nikoldy stepped aside. With that special feeling of youth, which is afraid of trodden paths and wants, without imitating others, in its own, new way to express its feelings, so that they shall not resemble those which are expressed by older people and which frequently are only simulated, Nikoldy wanted to do something out of the usual at the sight of his friend : he wanted to pinch or push Boris, only not to kiss him, as everybody did ; but Boris, on the contrary, calmly and amicably embraced Rostov and kissed him three times.

They had not seen each other for nearly six months, and at an age when people make their first steps on the path of life, each found in the other enormous changes and entirely new reflections of those societies in which they had made their first steps in life. Both had changed very much since their last meeting, and each was anxious to show the other the changes that had taken place in them.

” Ah, you accursed floor-cleaners ! You look pure and fresh, as though from a pleasure trip, quite differently from us sinful army people,” said Rostdv, with a baritone sound in his voice, which was new to Boris, and with army gestures, pointing to Ins mud-bespattered trousers.

The German landlady looked through the door, upon hearing Rostov’s loud voice.

” Well, is she pretty ? ” he said, with a wink.

” Don’t shout so ! You will frighten them,” said Boris. ” I did not expect you to-day,” he added. ” It was only yesterday that I sent you the note through an acquaintance of mine, Kutuzov’s adjutant, by the name of Bolkonski. I did not think he would reach you so soon — Well, how are you ? Been through fire, eh ? ” asked Boris.

Rostov made no reply, but dangled his cross of St. George, which was hanging on a cord of his uniform, and, pointing to his bandaged hand, looked smilingly at Berg.

“ As you see,” he said.

” Oh, yes, yes ! ” Boris said, smiling. ” We, too, have had a fine march. You know, his Highness was all the time with our regiment, so that we had all the comforts and advantages. I can’t tell you what receptions, what dinners, what balls we had in Warsaw. The grand duke was very kind to all of us officers.”

And both friends told each other, — the one about his carousals with the hussars and his camp life, the other about the pleasure and the advantages of serving under the command of high personages, and so forth.

” Oh, the Guard ! ” said Rostov. ” Say, send somebody for some wine ! ”

Boris frowned.

” If you want to, have it by all means,” he said. Walking over to the bed, he drew a purse out from underneath the clean pillows and ordered some wine to be brought. ” I must give you the letter and the money,” he added.

Rostdv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, he leaned with both elbows on the table and began to read. He read a few lines and cast an angry look at Berg. Upon meeting his glance, Rostov covered his face with the letter.

” But they have sent you a lot of money ! ” said Berg, looking at the heavy purse which indented the sofa. ” We have to get along with our pay, count ! I will tell you about myself — “

” Listen, Berg, my dear,” said Rostov, “ if you should get a letter from home and should meet a friend of yours whom you wanted to ask about all kinds of things, and I were present, I should immediately leave, in order not to interfere with you. Listen ! Please go somewhere, anywhere — to the devil ! ” he shouted. He grasped his shoulder and, looking kindly into his eyes, apparently wishing to soften the rudeness of his words, added : ” You know, my dear, you must not be angry ! I am speaking to you from my heart, as to an old acquaintance.”

” Don’t mention it, count, I understand very well,” said Berg, rising and speaking in a guttural voice.

“Go to the landlord’s, they have called you,” added Boris.

Berg put on his cleanest, spotless coat, at the looking-glass, puffed up his hair over his temples in the manner in which Emperor Alexander wore it, and, having convinced himself from Rostov’s glance that his coat would be noticed, with a pleasant smile left the room.

“ Oh, what a beast I am ! ” said Rostov, reading his letter.

“ Why ? ”

“ What a swine I am, not to have written them at once, and to have frightened them so. Ah, what a swine!” he repeated, blushing suddenly. ” Well, send Gavrilo after some wine ! All right, we will have a good time,” he said.

In the letters from his relatives there was enclosed a letter of recommendation to Prince Bagratidn, which, with Anna Mikhaylovna’s advice, the old countess had received through her acquaintances, and which she sent him, asking him to take it down in person and to make use of it.

” What foolishness ! I do not need it,” said Rostdv, throwing the letter on the table.

” Why do you throw it down ? ” asked Bons.

” It is some kind of a letter of recommendation, — the deuce I care for that letter ! “

” The deuce you care for this letter ? ” said Boris, picking it up and reading the address. ” This letter is very important for you.”

“ I do not want anything, and I won’t be anybody’s adjutant.”

” Why not ? ” asked Boris.

” It is a lackey’s duty ! “

” You are still the dreamer you have been, I see,” Boris said, shaking his head.

” And you are stiff the same diplomatist. But that is another matter — How are you getting along ? ” asked Rostov.

“ As you see. So far everything is well ; but, I must confess, I should like very much to get an adjutant’s place, rather than remain in the ranks.”

” Why ? ”

” Because, having once chosen the military career, one must try to make as brilliant a career as possible.”

“ Oh, I see ! ” said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else.

He was looking fixedly and with an interrogative glance into his friend’s eyes, apparently looking in vain for the solution of some question.

Old man Gavrilo brought the wine.

” Had I not better send for Alfdns Kärlych ? ” said

Boris. ” He will drink with you, but I can’t.”

” Send for him, do ! How is that Dutchman doing ? ” said Rostdv, with a contemptuous smile.

« He is a very, very good, honest, and agreeable man,” said Boris.

Rostdv once more cast a fixed glance at Boris and heaved a sigh. Berg came back, and at the bottle of wine the conversation between the three officers became animated. The Guardmen told Rostov about their inarch and how they had been feted in Russia, in Poland, and abroad. They told of the words and acts of their commander, the grand duke, and related some anecdotes about his kindness and his irritability. Berg, as usual, kept silent so long as he personally was not concerned, but when it came to telling the anecdotes about the grand duke’s irritability, he took pleasure in relating how in Galicia he had had an opportunity of speaking with the grand duke, as he was riding around the regiments and complaining of the irregularity of their movements. With an agreeable smile he told of how the grand duke rode up very angrily to him and shouted, ” Arnaut ! ” (Arnaut was the favourite word of the grand duke whenever he was angry) and asked for the commander of the company.

“Will you believe it, count, I was not in the least frightened, because I knew that I was right. Without boasting, count, I may say that I know the army regulations and the manual by heart, like the Lord’s Prayer. For this reason, count, there are no blunders in my company, and my conscience is clear. I made my appearance.”

Berg rose and showed how he went up with his hand to his visor. Indeed, it was hard to imagine more respectfulness and self-satisfaction in his face.

“He raked me over the coals, and sent me to the devil, and called me ‘ Arnaut,’ and threatened me with Siberia,” said Berg, with a penetrating smile. ” I knew that I was in the right and so I kept silent, — was I not right, count ? ‘ Are you dumb ? ’ he shouted. I still made no reply. What do you think, count ? On the following day there was no mention of it in the order of the day : that is what it means not to lose one’s head. That’s it, count,” said Berg, lighting his pipe and emitting smoke rings.

” Yes, that is superb,” Rostov replied, with a smile ; but Boris, noticing that Rostdv was getting ready to make fun of Berg, artfully turned the conversation. He asked Rostov to tell them how and when he had received his wound. Rostov was only too glad to tell about it, and he grew ever more animated as his story proceeded. He told them his part in the action at Schongrabeu precisely as those who have taken part in an engagement always tell about it, that is, as they wish that it happened, as they have heard it from other storytellers, as it is more beautiful, and not at all as it actually has taken place.

Rostov was a truthful young man, who would not for anything have told an untruth on purpose. He began to tell, with the full intention of telling things as they had really happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and unavoidably to himself he passed to the untruth. If he had told the truth to his listeners, who, like himself, had a great number of times heard stories of attacks, and who had formed a definite idea about what an attack was, and who, consequently, expected just such a story, — they either would not have believed him, or, what is still worse, they would have believed that it was Rostov’s fault if nothing happened to him of the kind that generally happens to all the other narrators of attacks.

He could not have told them simply that all rode at a trot, that he fell down, wrenched his arm, and ran away from a Frenchman into the woods. Besides, in order to tell everything as it really was, it would have demanded an effort to tell only that which had happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth, and young people are rarely capable of telling it. They expected a story of how he was all enveloped in flames, how, forgetting himself, he flew like a storm against a square, how he cut his way through it, slashing to the right and to the left, how his

sword glutted on flesh, how he fell down exhausted, and all such things. And he told them so.

In the middle of this story, just as he was saying, ” You cannot imagine what a strange sensation of rage one experiences during an attack,” Prince Andréy Bolkénski, whom Bons had been expecting, entered the room.

Prince Andréy, who was fond of protecting young people, who was flattered if people turned to him for protection, and who was favourably inclined to Boris, having formed a good opinion of him on the previous day, wanted to fulfil the wish of the young man. On his way from Kutuzov to the grand duke with some papers, he stopped to see the young man, hoping to find him alone.

As he entered the room and saw a hussar (a class of men whom he could not bear) telling his military exploits, he kindly smiled at Boris, frowned at Rostov, halfclosing his eyes, and, with a slight bow, indolently and wearily let himself down on the sofa. He was displeased at having fallen in -with bad company.

Rostov flared up when he noticed that. But that made no difference to him : he was a strange man. He looked up at Boris and saw that he, too, seemed to be ashamed of a hussar. Notwithstanding the disagreeable and sarcastic tone of Prince Andréy, in spite of the general contempt which Rostév, from his active military point of view, had for all these little adjutants of the staff, to which number the newly arrived officer apparently belonged, Rostév felt embarrassed. He blushed and grew silent.

Boris asked what the ne,ws was in the staff and immodestly inquired about his case.

“No doubt it will be all right,” replied Bolkénski, obviously not wishing to say anything in the presence of others. Berg made good the opportunity by asking, with particular politeness, whether the commanders of the companies would receive, as it was said, double forage. To this Prince Andréy replied, with a smile, that he could not judge of such important dispositions of the government, and Berg laughed gaily.

” About your affair we shall speak later.” Prince Andréy turned to Boris, looking back at Rostov. ” Come to me after the review, and we shall do what we can.” Surveying the room, he turned to Rostov, whose condition of invincible, childish confusion, which was now passing into fury, he did not deign to notice, with the question :

” I think you were telling about the Schöngraben engagement ? Were you there ? ”

” I was there,” Rostév said, in a rage, as though to insult the adjutant with these words.

Bolkénski noticed the condition of the hussar, which to him seemed amusing. He smiled a slight, contemptuous smile.

” Yes, there are many stories current now about that engagement ! ”

” Yes, there are many stories,” Rostév spoke in a loud voice, looking with furious eyes now at Boris, and now at Bolkénski, ” yes, there are many stories, but our stories, the stories of those who were in the very fire of the enemy, our stories have weight, but not the stories of the fine fellows of the staff, who get rewards doing nothing.”

” To whom you presume that I belong ? ” said Prince Andréy, smiling calmly and exceedingly pleasantly.

A strange feeling of rage and a simultaneous feeling of respect for that calm figure were blended in Rostév’s soul.

” I am not speaking of you,” he said. ” I must confess, I do not know you, and I do not wish to know you. I am speaking in general of the officers of the staff.”

“Here is what I will tell you,” Prince Andréy interrupted him, with a calm command of his voice. ” You want to insult me, and I am ready to concede that that is very easy to do if you have not sufficient respect for yourself ; but you must admit that time and place are very badly chosen for that. In a few days we shall all have to be at a large, more serious duel, aud besides, Drubetskoy, who says that he is your old frieud, is not in the least to blame because my physiognomy has had the misfortune of displeasing you. However,” he said, rising, ” you know my name and where to find me ; but do not forget,” he added, “that I do not consider either myself or you insulted, and it is my advice, as of an older man than you are, to leave this affair without consequences. So on Friday, after the review, I shall be expecting you, Drubetskdy ; goodbye,” cried Prince Andréy, walking out and bowing to both.

Rostdv recalled what it was he ought to have replied only after Prince Andréy was gone. And he was still more enraged because he had forgotten to say it. Rost6v immediately ordered up his horse and, bidding Boris dryly goodbye, rode back home. Whether he was to ride on the following day to the headquarters in order to challenge that clownish adjutant, or whether indeed he was to leave the matter without consequences was a question which tormented him the whole way. Now he thought with malice of how he would like to see the fright of that small, frail, and proud man when covered by his pistol, now he felt with surprise that of all men whom he knew there was no one whom he would like so much to have as his friend as that hateful adjutant.

vin.

4

On the day following the meeting of Boris and Rostov there was a review of the Austrian and Russian troops, both of the fresh ones, just arrived from Russia, and of those who had returned from the campaign with Kutuzov. Both emperors, the Russian with the tsarévich, and the Austrian with the archduke, were to review the allied army of eighty thousand men.

The clean and foppishly dressed troops began to move early in the morning, aligning themselves on the field in front of the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets, with unfurled flags, moved and stopped at the command of officers, turned about and drew up in open order, passing by just such masses of infantry, dressed in different uniforms ; now the spruce cavalry in blue, red, green, embroidered uniforms, with musicians in embroidered coats in front of them, rode by, with an even thud and clanking, on black, bay, gray horses ; now the artillery crept past the infantry and the cavalry, with the brass sound of their burnished, glistening cannon on quivering gun-carriages, and with the odour of linstocks, stretching out and taking their position on the place appointed for them.

Not only the generals in their full parade uniforms, with their tightly laced, stout, or thin waists and with necks appearing red under their stiff collars, wearing sashes and all their decorations ; not only the pomaded, dandyish officers, but even all the soldiers, with fresh, cleanly washed and shaven faces, and gleaming in their

bright equipment, all the horses so groomed that their hair shone like velvet, and their wetted manes were evenly combed, — all felt that something out of the ordinary, something significant and solemn, was to take place. Every general and soldier felt his insignificance, recognizing himself to be a grain of sand in this sea of men, and at the same time felt his might, recognizing himself to be a part of that enormous whole.

Intense effort and care had been put forth ever since early morning, and by ten o’clock everything was brought into the desired order. The ranks stood in an enormous field. The whole army was drawn out in three divisions. First came the cavalry, back of it the artillery, and farther back still the infantry.

Between each division of the troops there was an open space, like a street. There were three distinct parts to this army : Kutuzov’s fighting army (in which the Pavlogrädians occupied the right flank of the first division), the army and Guard regiments newly arrived from Russia, and the Austrian troops. But all stood in the same divisions, under the same command, and in the same order.

Like the wind through the leaves, so the agitated murmur ran through the ranks : ” They are coming ! They are coming ! ” Frightened voices were heard, and down all the troops ran the wave of the hurried last preparations.

In front, from the direction of Olmütz, there appeared a moving group. And at the same time, though it was a windless day, a light breeze ran down the army and barely fluttered the pennons of the lances and the unfurled flags, which flapped against their staffs. It seemed as though the army by this light motion expressed its joy at the approach of the emperors.

One voice was heard crying : ” Attention ! “

Then, like the cockcrows at break of day, the sounds were repeated at the different ends. And all quieted down.

In the dead silence there was heard only the tramp of horses. That was the suite of the emperors. The emperors rode up to the flank, and there resounded the sounds of the trumpeters of the first regiment of the cavalry, playing a fanfare. It seemed as though it was not the trumpeters that were playing it, but as though the whole army, rejoicing at the arrival of the emperors, were naturally emitting these sounds. Through all these sounds could be distinctly heard the youthful, kindly voice of Emperor Alexander. He greeted the army, and the first regiment shouted ” Hurrah ! ” in such deafening, prolonged, and joyful tones that the men themselves were awed at the number and strength of that mass which they formed.

Rostov, who was standing among the first rows of Kutuzov’s army, which was the first to which the emperor rode up, experienced the same sensation as that which each man of that army was experiencing, — the feeling of self-oblivion, of a proud consciousness of might, and of an impassioned attraction for him who was the cause of that solemnity.

He felt that one word from that man would be sufficient to send this whole mass (and him who, a mere insignificant grain of sand, was connected with it), into fire and water, to the commission of a crime, to death, or to the greatest heroism, and so he could not help trembling and feeling his heart sink at the sight of him who was to say that word.

“ Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah I ” it thundered on all sides, and one regiment after another received the emperor with the sounds of the fanfare ; then “Hurrah !” — a fanfare, and again ” Hurrah ! ” and “ Hurrah ! ” which, growing stronger and coming nearer, blended into one deafening sound.

So long as the emperor did not come near, every regiment in its speechlessness and immobility looked like a

lifeless body ; the moment the emperor came abreast with it, the regiment became animated and thundered, joining the roar of the part which the emperor had just left. Through the terribly deafening sound of these voices, amidst the motionless masses of the army, which seemed to be petrified in rectangles, a hundred riders of the suite moved carelessly, symmetrically, and, above all, freely, and in front of them were the two emperors. It was upon them that was concentrated the undivided, reserved, but impassioned attention of this whole mass of men.

The handsome young Emperor Alexander, dressed in a uniform of the mounted Guard, wearing his three-cornered hat on one side, by his pleasing face and his soft, sonorous voice attracted all the attention.

Rostov was standing not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen eyes recognized the emperor from a distance and watched his approach. When the emperor came within twenty steps, and Nikolay could see the handsome, youthful, and happy face of the emperor, down to its minutest details, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and ecstasy, such as he had never before experienced. Everything, every feature, every motion, seemed charming in the emperor.

Stopping in front of the Pavlogradski regiment, the emperor, smiling, said something in French to the Austrian Emperor.

Upon seeing his smile, Rostov involuntarily began to smile himself, and he felt an even greater attachment for his emperor. He wanted to be able in some way to express his love for him. The emperor called out the commander of the regiment and said a few words to him.

« 0 Lord, what would have happened to me, if the emperor had addressed me ?” thought Rostdv. ” I should have died from happiness.”

The emperor addressed also the officers :

” I thank you all, gentlemen, with all my heart.”

Rostov heard every one of his words, as though they descended from heaven.

How happy Rostov would have been if he could have died then for his Tsar !

“ You have earned the crosses of St. George, and you will be worthy of them.”

” If I only could die for him, if I only could die ! ” thought Rostov.

The emperor said something else, which Rostov could not hear, and the soldiers expanded their chests and shouted, ” Hurrah ! ”

Rostdv, too, bending down over his saddle, cried with all his might, wishing to harm himself with that shout, if he only could express his ecstasy for his emperor in that way.

The emperor stood a few seconds in front of the hussars, as though he were undecided.

” How can the emperor be undecided ? ” thought Rostov, but later this very indecision, like everything else about the emperor, appeared majestic and enticing to Rostov.

The emperor’s indecision lasted but a second. His foot, in the narrow, sharp toe of his boot, of the kind that was worn at that time, touched the flank of his bob-tailed bay mare, on which he was riding ; the emperor’s hand, in a white glove, took up the reins, — he moved, accompanied by an unevenly billowing sea of adjutants. Farther and farther away he rode, stopping in front of the other regiments, and finally his white panache alone could be seen by Rostov through the wall of the suite which surrounded the emperor.

Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed also Bolkonski, who was sitting indolently and carelessly upon his horse. Rostov recalled his quarrel of the day before, and the question arose whether he ought to challenge him or not.

” Of course not,” Rostdv now thought. “ And is it worth while to think aud speak of it at such a moment as this ? At a moment of such love, ecstasy, and self-renunciation, what are our quarrels and offences ? I love all, forgive all now,” thought Rostov.

After the emperor had ridden past all the regiments, the troops began to defile before him, and Rostov, on Bedouin, the horse he had lately bought of Denisov, passed in the rear of his squadron, that is, all alone, and in full view of the emperor.

Before reaching the emperor, Rostov, who was an excellent rider, twice pricked his Bedouin and was fortunate enough to spur him up to that maddened trot which he took whenever he was excited. Bending his foaming mouth to his breast, arching his tail, and, as though flying through the air, without touching the ground, gracefully lifting and alternating his legs, Bedouin, himself conscious of the emperor’s glance, passed by in beautiful style.

Rostdv himself, throwing back his legs and expanding his chest and feeling himself of one piece with the horse, with a frowning and blissful face, ” like a devil,” as Denisov would have said, rode past the emperor.

” The Pavlogradians are fine fellows ! ” said the emperor.

” O God ! How happy I would be if he commanded me to rush at once into the fire,” thought Rostov.

When the review was ended, the officers, both those newly arrived and those who had been with Kutuzov, began to gather in groups, and they began to talk about rewards, about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their army, about Bonaparte, and about how ill he would fare, especially if Essen’s corps should reach them, and Prussia should take our side.

But the chief subject of conversation in these circles was Emperor Alexander. Thoy mentioned every word and motion of his and went into ecstasies over him.

There was one thing they all wished, and that was under the leadership of the emperor to proceed at once against the enemy. Under the command of the emperor himself it would be impossible not to vanquish any enemy whatsoever ; thus Rostov and the majority of the officers thought after the review. After the parade they were all surer of victory than if they had gained two victories.

IX.

On the day after the review, Boris dressed himself in his best uniform and, with the wishes for his success expressed by his comrade Berg, set out for Olmütz to see Bolkdnski, for the purpose of using his favour to provide a good place for himself, more especially that of adjutant with some important personage, which to him appeared as the most attractive position in the army.

” It is all well for Rostov, to whom his father sends ten thousand roubles at a time, to say that he does not wish to bow to any one and to become anybody’s lackey ; but I, who have nothing but my head, must make a career for myself and must not allow any chance to slip.”

In Olmütz he on that day did not meet Prince Andréy. But the sight of Olmütz, where the chief quarters and the diplomatic corps were located, and where the two emperors lived with their suites of courtiers and their near relatives, only enhanced his desire to belong to that superior world.

He knew nobody, and, in spite of his foppish uniform of the Guard, all these superior people who flitted through the streets in elegant carriages, displaying their panaches, sashes, and decorations, courtiers and the military, seemed to stand so incomparably higher than he that they not only did not wish, but even could not recognize his existence. In the quarters of the commanderin-chief, where he asked for Bolkonski, all these adjutants and even servants looked at him as though they wished to impress upon him that there were a lot of such officers loafing there and that they were heartily tired of them.

In spite of this, or, perhaps, for that very reason, he on the following day, it being the 15th, again rode to Olmütz, where he went to the house occupied by Kutuzov and asked for Bolkonski. Prince Andréy was at home, and Boris was brought to a large parlour, where apparently balls were once given, but where now stood five beds and a motley lot of furniture : a table, some chairs, and a clavichord. An adjutant, in a Persian morninggown, was sitting near the door at a table and writing. Another, red and fat Nesvltski, was lying on a bed, with his arms under his head, and laughing with an officer who was sitting on his bed. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord ; a fourth was lying on this clavichord and humming the waltz. Bolkonski was not there. None of these gentlemen changed their positions upon seeing Boris. The one who was writing and whom Boris addressed, angrily turned back and told him that Bolkonski was the adjutant of the day, and that he should go through a door on the left to a reception-room if he wanted to see him. In the reception-room there were about ten officers and generals.

When Boris entered the room, Prince Andréy, disdainfully shutting his eyes (with that peculiar aspect of politeness and fatigue which clearly said that, if it were not his duty, he would not waste a minute on him), was listening to an old Russian general, wearing his decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andréy, while standing on tiptoe and straightening himself, and having an expression of soldierly servility on his purple face.

” Very well. Please wait ! ” he said to the general, in that French accent of his Russian, which he employed whenever he meant to speak contemptuously. Upon noticing Boris, he no longer listened to the general, who imploringly ran after him, begging him to hear all he had still to say, but turned to Boris with a happy smile and with a nod of his head. Boris now clearly understood, what he had surmised before, that in addition to the subordination and discipline which were prescribed by the code in the army, and which was known in the regiment and which he knew himself, there was another, a more essential subordination, the one which compelled this tightly-laced general with the purple face respectfully to wait for his turn, while a captain, Prince Andréy, found it a greater pleasure and more convenient to talk with Sub-Lieutenant Drubetskoy. Boris decided at once that he would serve not according to the written, but according to this unwritten, subordination. He now felt that the mere fact that he had been recommended to Prince Andréy at once placed him above a general, who, under other circumstances, in the ranks, could annihilate him, a sub-lieutenant of the Guard.

Prince Andréy went over to him and took him by the band.

” I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I wasted my whole day with the Germans. We went with Weyrother to examine the disposition of the troops. When the Germans are accurate, there is no end to it ! “

Boris smiled, as though he understood what it was Prince Andréy hinted at as something universally known. But this was the first time he had heard the name of Weyrother and even the word ” disposition.”

” Well, my dear, so you want to become an adjutant ? I have been thinking of you in the meantime.”

” Yes,” said Boris, with an instinctive blush, ” I thought of asking the commanderin-chief ; Prince Xu ragin wrote to him about me ; I wanted to ask him for the position,” he added, as though to excuse himself, ” because, I am afraid, the Guard will not be in action.”

” All right, all right ! we shall talk it all over,” said Prince Andréy. ” Just permit me to report about that gentleman, and then I shall be at your service.”

While Prince Andréy went to report about the purplefaced general, the general, who obviously did not share Boris’s conception about the unwritten subordination, stared so at the bold sub-lieutenant who had interfered in his conversation with the adjutant, that Boris felt ill at ease. He turned aside and impatiently waited for the return of Prince Andréy from the cabinet of the commander-inchief.

” Now, my dear, I have been thinking about you,” said Prince Andréy, when they entered the large hall with the clavichord. ” It will do you no good to go to the commanderin-chief,” said Prince Andréy, ” he will make you a lot of compliments, will tell you to come to dinner with him ” (“ That would not be so bad according to that unwritten subordination,” thought Boris), ” but nothing more will come of it ; there will soon be a whole battalion of us adjutants and orderlies. But here is what we shall do : I have a good friend, Prince Dolgorukov, who is an adjutantgeneral and an excellent man. You may not know it, but the fact is that Kutuzov and we, his staff, have absolutely no standing now : everything centres now about the emperor, so let us go to Dolgorukov ! I have to see him anyway, and I have already told Ihm about you ; we shall see whether he will find it possible to find a place for you near his person, or somewhere in the neighbourhood of the sun.”

Prince Andréy always grew very much animated whenever he had to guide a young man and aid him to obtain worldly success. Under pretext of aiding others, — his pride would not permit him to a’ccept such aid for himself,— he kept near that circle which offered success and which attracted him to itself. He very cheerfully took Boris under his wing and went with him to Prince Dolgorukov.

It was late in the evening when they entered the Olmiitz palace which was occupied by the emperors and their courts.

‘ On that very day a council of war was held, at which all the members of the Hofkriegsrath and both the emperors were present. At this council it was decided, contrary to the opinion of the old generals, Kutuzov and Prince Schwarzenberg, to advance without delay and give Bonaparte a general battle.

The council of war had just come to a close when Audrey, accompanied by Boris, arrived at the palace in search of Prince Dolgorukov. All the persons of the headquarters were still under the influence of the victory which the young party had on that day carried away at the council of war. The voices of the cunctators, who had advised delay without taking the offensive, had been so completely drowned and their arguments so overthrown by indubitable proofs of the advantages of taking the offensive that that which had been discussed at the council, the future battle and unquestionable victory, now no longer seemed a matter of the future, but of the past. All the advantages were on our side. The enormous forces, which, without any doubt, surpassed the forces of Napoleon, were massed at one point ; the troops were animated by the presence of the emperors and were anxious to go into action ; the strategic point on which they would have to act was known down to its minutest details to the Austrian General Weyrother, who was guiding the troops. By a fortunate coincidence, the Austrian troops had the year before been manoeuvring in the very fields where now they were to engage the Trench. The topography in question was known to its minutest details and was marked down on the maps, while Bonaparte, obviously weakened, was not doing anything.

Dolgorukov, one of the most ardent advocates of the offensive, had just returned from the council, being tired and worn out, but animated and proud of the victory obtained. Prince Andréy introduced to him his protégé, but Prince Dolgorukov gave Boris a polite and firm pressure of his hand, without saying anything to him. He was evidently unable to restrain himself from expressing those thoughts which at that moment interested him more than anything else, and so he addressed Andréy in French.

” My friend, what a victory we have obtained ! May God grant that that which will be its consequence may end as victoriously. Still, my dear,” he spoke disconnectedly and with animation, ” I must confess my guilt before the Austrians, and especially before Weyrother. What exactness, what details, what knowledge of the topography, what prevision of all possibilities, all conditions, all minutest details ! No, my dear, one could not invent more favourable conditions than those under which we are now. The union of Austrian precision and Russian bravery, — what more do you want ? “

” So the attack is definitely decided upon ? ” asked Bolkdnski.

” Really, my dear, it seems to me that Buonaparte has positively lost his common sense. Do you know, the emperor had a letter from him to-day.”

Dolgorukov smiled significantly.

” Indeed ? What does he write ? ” asked BolkdnskL

” What can he write ? Traderidera, and so forth, for the purpose of gaining time. I tell you that he is in our hands : that is certain ! But the funniest thing is,” he said, suddenly laughing a good-natured laugh, ” that nobody could propose the proper way to address him. If not as the consul, he certainly could not be addressed as the emperor; I thought it ought to be as General Buonaparte.”

” At the same time there is a difference in not recognizing him as emperor and calling him General Buonaparte,” said Bolkonski.

” Precisely,” Prince Dolgorukov interrupted him, with a laugh. ” You know Bilibin, — he is a very clever man : he proposed to address the answer to ‘ The usurper and enemy of the human race.’ “

Dolgorukov burst out into a loud guffaw.

“ Nothing more ? ” asked Bolkonski.

” Still, Bilibin found a serious title for him. He is a clever and an ingenious man.”

” What is it ? “

“ To the head of the French government, au chef du gouvernment françaisPrince Dolgorukov said seriously and with an expression of pleasure. ” Don’t you think it is good ? “

“It is good, but he will not like it at all,” remarked Bolkonski.

” No, he won’t ! My brother knows him : he has frequently dined with him, the present emperor, at Paris, and he told me that he never saw a more refined and a more cunning diplomatist, — you know, a combination of French agility and Italian acting? Do you know the anecdotes about him and Count Markdv ? Count Markdv was the only one who knew how to treat him. Do you know the story about the handkerchief ? It is superb ! “

And the garrulous Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, and now to Prince Andréy, told them how Napoleon, wishing to test Markov, our ambassador, purposely dropped his handkerchief in front of him, and, glancing at him, waited for Markov to lift it up, and how Markdv immediately dropped his own handkerchief which he picked up without touching Bonaparte’s handkerchief.

“ Charmant,” said Bolkdnski. ” But, prince, I come to you to solicit a favour for this young man. Have you anything ? ”

But before Prince Andréy had a chance of finishing, an adjutant entered the room, asking Prince Dolgorukov to come to the emperor.

” Oh, how annoying !” said Dolgorukov, rising hurriedly and pressing the hands of Prince Andrey and of Boris.

” You know I am very glad to do all in my power, both for you and for this young man.” He again pressed Boris’s hand with the expression of a good-natured, sincere, and animated thoughtlessness. ” But you see — another time ! “

Boris was agitated by the thought of liis proximity to that higher power in which he at that moment felt himself to be. He was here conscious of being in contact with those springs which guided the movements of all those enormous masses, of which he, in his regiment, felt himself to be a small, humble, and insignificant part. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out into the corridor. Here they met an undersized man in citizen’s clothes, who came out of the door leading to the emperor’s room, through which Dolgorukov disappeared. He had an intelligent face, and was marked by a protruding jaw which, without spoiling his features, gave him an expression of unusual vivacity and mobility. This undersized man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an old acquaintance, and began to look at Prince Andréy with a cold and fixed glance, apparently expecting that Prince Andréy would bow to him and step aside to let him pass. Prince Andréy did neither the one nor the other ; his face expressed malice, and the young man turned aside and passed along the wall of the corridor.

” Who is that ? ” asked Boris.

” That is one of the most remarkable and, at the same time, to me one of the most disagreeable of men. It is the minister of foreign affairs, Prince Adam Czartorÿzski. It is these people,” said Bolkonski, with a sigh, which he was unable to suppress, just as they were leaving the palace, ” it is these people who decide the fates of nations.”

On the following day the troops started on their march, and Boris had no chance previous to the Battle of Austerlitz of being with Bolkonski or with Dolgorukov, and so he for a time remained in the Izmail regiment.

X.

At dawn of the 16th, Denisov’s squadron, in which Nikoldy served, and which belonged to the detachment of Prince Bagration, moved from camp into action, as it was said, and, after marching about a verst behind the other columns, was stopped on the highway.

Rostov saw pass by him, first the Cossacks, the first and second squadron of hussars, the battalions of infantry with the artillery, and then the generals Bagration and Dolgorukov with the adjutants. All the terror, which he experienced before the action, as he had on the previous occasion, all the inner struggle, by which he vanquished that terror, all his dreams of how he would distinguish himself in hussar fashion in this engagement, had all been in vain. The squadron was left in reserve, and Nikolay Rostov passed a tedious and lonesome day.

At nine o’clock he heard a fusilade in front of him, and shouts of ” Hurrah ! ” He saw wounded soldiers brought back (there were not many of them), and, finally, he saw a whole detachment of French cavalrymen taken past, surrounded by a hundred Cossacks. Apparently the action was over : it was apparently not an important, but still a successful, action. The returning soldiers and officers told of a brilliant victory, of the capture of the town of Wischau, and of a whole squadron of French cavalry.

It was a bright, sunlit day, following upon a sharp frost at night, and the radiant splendour of the autumn day coincided with the news of the victory, of which not only the stories of the participants told, but also the radiant expression of the faces of the soldiers, the officers, the generals, and the adjutants, who passed and repassed Rostov. Rostov was the more pained since, having in vain experienced all the terror which precedes a battle, he had remained that joyful day in inaction.

” Rostdv, come here ! Let us drown our grief ! ” cried Denisov, sitting down at the edge of the road in front of a flask and a luncheon. The officers surrounded Denisov’s lunch-basket, partaking of his lunch and talking.

” Here they are bringing another fellow ! ” said one of the officers, pointing to a captive French dragoon, whom two Cossacks were leading on foot. One of them was leading by the line a beautiful, stately French horse which had been taken away from the captive.

” Sell me the horse,” Denisov cried to the Cossack.

” If you please, your Honour — ”

The officers rose and surrounded the Cossacks and the captive Frenchman. The dragoon was a young Alsatian, who spoke French with a German accent. He was choking with excitement, his face was red, and, upon hearing French spoken, he at once turned to speak to the officers. He said that he would not have been taken, that it was not his fault, but that of le caporal, who had sent him out to get the housings, that he had told him that the Russians were already there. To every sentence he added : ” Mais qu’on ne fasse pas de mal à mon petit cheval ! ” caressing his horse. It was evident that he did not quite understand where he was. He now excused himself for being captured, now, imagining that he had his own superiors before him, evinced his eagerness to do his duties as a soldier. He brought with him to the rearguard, in all its freshness, the atmosphere of the French army, which was so strange to our men.

The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, who, having lately received money, was the richest of the officers, bought it.

” Mais qu’on ne fasse pas de mal à mon petit cheval ! ” the Alsatian said good-naturedly to Rostév, when the horse was turned over to him.

Rostov, smiling, calmed the dragoon and gave him some money.

“Allez! Allez!” said a Cossack, touching the arm of the captive to make him go on.

” The emperor ! The emperor ! ” suddenly was heard the cry among the hussars.

Everybody scampered away, and Rostov could see, at a distance down the road, several riders with white panaches riding up toward them. In one minute all were in their places in an expectant attitude.

Rostov did not remember how he had reached his horse and how he had mounted it. In a twinkle his regret at having taken no part in the action vanished ; there disappeared the every-day mood that characterized him, in a circle of lounging persons ; every thought of himself was gone in a twinkle : he was all absorbed in the sensation of happiness which was produced by the proximity of the emperor. He felt that this proximity alone repaid him for the loss of the day. He was happy, like a lover, at last rewarded by a rendezvous. He did not dare to look down the ranks, but he felt his presence with a sensation of ecstasy. He was conscious of it, not only from the sound of the hoofs of the horses in the approaching cavalcade, but also because, in measure as he approached, everything grew brighter, more cheerful, more significant, and more festive all about him. Nearer and nearer this sun approached Rostov, sending forth all about him beams of a mild and majestic light, and now he felt himself caught in these rays, and he heard liis voice, — that kind, calm, majestic, and, at the same time, simple voice. Rostov felt that a silence must ensue, and it did ensue, and in that silence were heard the sounds of the emperor’s voice :

” Les hussards de Pavlograd ? ” he inquired.

” La reserve, Sire ! ” replied another voice, a human voice, following upon this superhuman voice which had said : ” Les hussards de Pavlograd ? ”

The emperor came abreast with Rostov and stopped. Alexander’s face was even more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It beamed with such merriment and youth, with such innocent youth, that it reminded one of the wantonness of a child of fourteen years, and yet it was the face of a majestic emperor. Accidentally surveying the squadron, the eyes of the emperor met the eyes of Rostov, resting upon them not more than two seconds. Whether the emperor understood that which was going on in Rostov’s heart, or not (Rostov thought he understood everything), he looked for about two seconds with his blue eyes into Rostov’s face, and his eyes beamed mildly and softly. Then he suddenly raised his brows, with a sudden motion struck the horse with his left foot, and rode off at a gallop.

The young emperor could not refrain from being present at the battle, and, in spite of all the remonstrances of the court, he at noon separated from the third column, behind which he was riding, and galloped to the vanguard. Before reaching the hussars, several adjutants met him with the news of the happy issue of the action.

The battle, which consisted only in capturing a squadron of French troops, was represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the emperor and the whole army, especially while the powder smoke had not yet lifted from the field of battle, believed that the French had been conquered and that they were retreating against their will.

A few minutes after the emperor had passed, a division of the Pavlogrädski regiment was ordered to advance. In Wischau, a small German town, Rostdv once more saw the emperor. In the town square, where previous to the arrival of the emperor a sharp musketryfire had taken place, there lay a number of dead and wounded soldiers, whom they had had no time to take away. The emperor, surrounded by a suite of military and civil persons, was riding a red bob-tailed mare, not the one he had been riding before. Bending sidewise, and gracefully holding a gold lorgnette to his eyes, he was looking at a soldier who was lying on the ground with his face down and his uncovered head bleeding. The wounded soldier was so soiled, so horrible to look at, that his proximity to the emperor offended him. Rostdv saw that the stooping shoulders of the emperor were convulsed as though from a chill, that his left foot convulsively struck the mare’s broad left flank, and that the trained mare looked indifferently around without moving. An adjutant who had dismounted took the soldier under his arms and began to put him on a stretcher which had just been brought. The soldier groaned.

” More softly, more softly, can’t you do it more softly ? ” said the emperor, apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and riding away.

Rostdv saw the tears which filled the emperor’s eyes and heard him saying in French to Czartoryzski, as he rode away :

“ What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing ! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre ! ”

The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau in sight of the enemy’s cordon, which, at the slightest fusilade of the whole day, abandoned the ground to us. The emperor’s thanks were announced to the vanguard ; rewards were promised ; and the people received a double allowance of vodka. The campfires crackled more merrily than upon the previous night, and soldier songs resounded everywhere. Denisov on that night celebrated his promotion to the rank of major, and Rostov, who had imbibed freely, at the end of the celebration proposed to drink the health of the emperor, “ not of the Tsar our emperor, as they say at official dinners,” he said, ” but the health of the emperor, the good, charming, and great man. Let us drink his health and the certain victory over the French !

” If we fought valiantly,” he said, ” and gave the French no quarter, as at Schöngraben, what will it be now, when he is before us ? We will all die, we will die in raptures for him. Yes, gentlemen ? Maybe I am not telling it right, I have had rather too much, but that is the way I feel, and you, too. The health of Alexander the First ! Hurrah ! ”

” Hurrah ! ” resounded the animated voices of the officers. And the old Captain Kirsten shouted with as much enthusiasm and sincerity as the twenty-year-old Rostov.

After the officers had drunk the health and broken their glasses, Kirsten filled other glasses and, wearing nothing but his shirt and trousers, with the glass in his hand, went up to the campfires of the soldiers and, in a majestic pose, waving his hand upward, with his long gray moustache and white breast, which could be seen through his unbuttoned shirt, stopped in the light of a campfire.

” Boys, to the health of the Tsar, our emperor, to the victory over the enemy, hurrah ! ” he shouted in his dashing baritone of an old hussar.

The hussars crowded together and cheerfully responded in a loud shout.

Late at night, when all had retired, Denisov, with his short hand, patted his favourite Rostov on the shoulder.

” There is nobody during the campaign to fall in love with, so he falls in love with the emperor,” he said.

” Denisov, don’t jest about this,” shouted Rostov, ” this is such an exalted, such a beautiful feeling, such — ”

” I believe it, I believe it, my friend, and I share it, and approve of it — ”

” No, you do not understand it ! “

Rostdv got up and started to loaf between the campfires, dreaming of what happiness it would be to die without attempting to save his life (he did not dare think of saving his life), simply to die in the sight of the emperor. He was actually in love with the emperor, and with the glory of the Russian arms, and with the hope of the future triumph. Nor was he alone in experiencing such feelings in those memorable days which preceded the battle at Austerlitz ; nine-tenths of the Russian army at that time were in love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms.

XL

On the following day the emperor remained at Wischau. Villiers, the physician in ordinary, was several times called to him. In the chief quarters and in the nearest troops the rumour spread that the emperor was not well. He did not eat, and had passed a bad night, so those nearest to him said. The cause of this indisposition lay in the strong impression produced on the sensitive soul of the emperor by the sight of the wounded and the killed.

At dawn of jthe 17th, the outposts brought to Wischau a French officer, who came under a flag of truce, demanding an interview with the Russian emperor. This officer was Savary. The emperor had just fallen asleep, and Savary had to wait. At noon he was admitted to the emperor, and an hour later he rode back with Prince Dolgorukov to the outposts of the French army.

It was rumoured that the purpose of Savary’s mission was to propose a meeting between Emperor Alexander and Napoleon. The personal meeting, to the great joy and pride of the army, was refused, and instead of the emperor, Prince Dolgorukov, the victor of Wischau, was sent with Savary to confer with Napoleon, if this conference, against all expectation, should have peace for its aim.

In the evening Dolgorukov returned and went directly to the emperor. He was long closeted with him.

On the 18th and 19th of November the troops made two marches ahead, while the outposts of the enemy

receded after a short exchange of musketryfire. In the higher spheres of the army an intensified, feverish activity began at noon of the 19th and lasted until the morning of the 20th, when that memorable battle at Austerlitz was fought.

Up to the 19th, the activity, the animated conversations, the running to and fro, the despatch of adjutants, were confined to the headquarters of the two emperors ; after noon of the same day, the activity passed over to the headquarters of Kutuzov and to the staffs of the chiefs of columns. In the evening this activity was carried by adjutants to all the ends and parts of the army, and on the night from the 19th to the 20th, eighty thousand men of the allied army broke camp, with a din, and began to undulate, and moved in an immense strip of ten versts in length.

The concentrated activity, which began in the morning in the headquarters of the emperors and which gave a push to all the following motion, resembled the first motion of the centre wheel of a large tower-clock. A wheel moves slowly ; a second, a third, comes into motion, and faster and faster the wheels, the gears, the cogs begin to whirl ; the chimes start striking ; the figures make their appearance, and the hands move evenly, showing the result of the motion.

As in the mechanism of the clock, so in the mechanism of the army, the first motion imparted to it cannot be arrested before the last result is obtained, and, a moment before the motion is transmitted, the parts of the mechanism not yet reached by the motion are as indifferently immovable. The wheels, catching in the cogs, screech on their axes, the whirling gears hiss in their rapid motion, but the neighbouring wheel is as calm and motionless as though it were ready to stay motionless for a hundred years ; but when the proper moment arrives and the lever * catches in the cog, the wheel, obedient to the motion, creaks and turns, uniting in one motion, the result and aim of which is not intelligible to it.

Just as in a clock the result of the endless number of different wheels and gearings is only the slow and even motion of the hand which indicates time, so the result of all these complicated human motions of these 160,000 Russians and Frenchmen, — of all the passions, wishes, regrets, humiliations, sufferings, impulses of pride, terror, enthusiasm of these people, — was only the loss of the battle at Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three emperors, that is, the slow movement of the hand of universal history on the face of the history of humanity.

Prince Andréy was on that day the officer of the day and was all the time with the commanderin-chief.

At six o’clock in the evening Kutuzov arrived at the headquarters of the emperors and, after a short interview with the emperor, went to the grand marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.

Bolkonski made use of tins time by calling on Dolgorukov, to find out the details of the engagement. Prince Andréy felt that Kutuzov was annoyed and dissatisfied, and that they were dissatisfied with him at headquarters, and that all the people of the imperial headquarters had the aspect of people who knew something which nobody else knew, and so he wanted to find out about it from Dolgorukov.

” Good evening, mon cher,” said Dolgorukov, who was sitting at tea with Bilibin. ” There will be a holiday tomorrow. How is your old man ? Out of sorts ? ”

« I sha’n’t say that he is out of sorts, but he looks as though he wished to be heard.”

” He was heard at the council of war, and he will be listened to when he has anything to the point to say. It is impossible to delay now and wait for something when Bonaparte is most afraid to give a general battle.”

” Have you seen him ? ” said Prince Andréy. ” What about Bonaparte ? What impression did he produce on you ?”

” Yes, I saw him, and I am convinced that he is more afraid of a general battle than of anything else in the world,” repeated Dolgorukov, apparently priding himself on this general observation which he had taken away from his interview with Napoleon. “ If he were not afraid of a battle, why should he demand this meeting, have conferences, and, above all, be ready to retreat, when retreating is so contrary to his method of waging war ? Believe me, he is afraid ; he is afraid of a general engagement, — his hour has come. That is what I tell you.”

” But tell me something about him,” Prince Andréy asked him again.

” He is a man in a gray coat, who would have liked very much for me to address him as * your Majesty,’ but who, to his annoyance, received no title from me. That is the man, and nothing more,” replied Dolgorukov, looking with a smile at Billbin.

” In spite of my fullest respect for old Kutuzov,” he continued, “ we should be doing nicely if we were to wait for something, and thus gave him a chance to escape or deceive us, whereas he is certainly in our hands. No, we must not forget Suvdrov and his rule, which is, not to place ourselves in the position of being attacked, but to start the attack ourselves. Believe me, in war the energy of young men frequently indicates the path more safely than all the experience of old cunctators.”

” But in what position do we attack him ? I was today at the outposts where he is located with his main forces,” said Prince Andréy.

He wanted to tell to Dolgorukov his own plan of attack.

” That makes no difference,” quickly retorted Dolgorukov, rising and opening a map on the table. ” All the eventualities have been foreseen. If he stands at Brünn — ”

Prince Dolgorukov rapidly and indistinctly gave an account of Weyrother’s flank movement.

Prince Andréy began to retort and to prove to him the feasibility of his own plan, which might have been fully as good as Weyrother’s, but which had the one disadvantage that Weyrother’s plan had already been approved. The moment Prince Andréy began to prove the disadvantages of Weyrother’s and the advantages of his own plan, Prince Dolgorukov ceased listening to him, and looked absent-mindedly, not at the map, but at Prince Andréy’s face.

” Prince Kutuzov will have a council of war to-day; you can unfold your plan there,” said Dolgorukov.

” I will do that,” said Prince Andréy, walking away from the map.

” What are you worrying about, gentlemen ? ” said Bilibin, who heretofore had been listening to their conversation with a merry smile, and who now evidently was getting ready to utter some witticism. ” Whether there will be a victory tomorrow or a defeat, the glory of the Russian arms is insured. Outside of our Kutuzov there is not a single Russian commander of a column. The chiefs are : Herr Général Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince de Hohenlohe, et enfin, Prsh — et ainsi de suite, comme tous les noms polonais”

” Taisez-vous, mauvaise langue ,” said Dolgorukov. ” It is not true : there are now two Russians, Milorädovich and Dokhturov, and there would be a third, Count Arakchéev, but he has weak nerves.”

” I think, Mikhail Ilarionovich must have come out,” said Prince Andréy. ” I wish you happiness and success, gentlemen,” he added, going out and pressing Dolgorukov’s and Bilibin’s hands.

On his way home, Prince Andréy could not keep from asking taciturn Kutuzov, who was sitting by his side, what he thought of the coming engagement.

Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant, and, after a moment of silence, replied :

“I think that the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy, whom I asked to inform the emperor of it. What do you suppose he answered me ? * Eh, mon cher général, je me mêle de riz et de côtelettes, mêlez-vous des affaires de la guerre.’ That was the answer which I received ! “

xn.

At ten o’clock in the evening Weyrother came with his plans to Kutuzov’s quarters, where the council of war was to take place. All the chiefs of the columns were summoned to the commanderin-chief, and, with the exception of Prince Bagration, who refused to come, all made their appearance at the appointed hour.

Weyrother, who was in full command of the impending battle, by his animation and haste formed a sharp contrast with the dissatisfied and sleepy Kutuzov, who unwillingly played the role of the chairman and guide of the council of war. Weyrother evidently was conscious of being at the head of the movement, which now could no longer be restrained. He was like a horse hitched to a wagon going downhill at full speed. He did not know whether he was leading or being driven, and he was carried down at the highest speed, having no time to consider what this motion would lead him to. Weyrother had on that evening twice gone down to the cordon of the enemy for the purpose of making a personal inspection, had twice called on the emperors, the Russian and the Austrian, to make reports and explanations, and had in his office dictated a German disposition. He now arrived at Kutuzov’s exhausted.

He evidently was so preoccupied that he forgot to be civil to the commanderin-chief : he interrupted him, spoke rapidly and indistinctly, without looking at the face of his interlocutor, and without replying to questions ; he was smeared with dirt, and had a pitiful, exhausted,

absent-minded, and, at the same time, a selfconfident and haughty appearance.

Kutuzov occupied a small castle in the neighbourhood of Ostralitz. In the large drawingroom, which now was the cabinet of the commanderin-chief, there were gathered Kutuzov, Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking tea, waiting for Prince Bagration to open the meeting. At eight o’clock there arrived Bagration’s orderly with the news that the prince could not be present. Prince Andréy went to report the matter to the commanderin-chief, and, making use of the permission granted him by Kutuzov to be present at the council of war, remained in the room.

” As Prince Bagratidn will not be here, we may begin,” said Weyrother, hurriedly rising from his seat and walking over to the table on which lay an immense map of the surroundings of Brünn.

Kutuzov, in unbuttoned uniform, from which his fat neck seemed to escape above the collar, was sitting in an easy chair, with both his arms on the rest, and almost sleeping. At the sound of Weyrother’s voice, he made an effort and opened his only eye.

” Yes, yes, if you please, for it is getting late,” he said. He nodded, again lowered his head, and closed his eyes.

If at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov pretended to be asleep, the sounds which he emitted during the following reading convinced them that at that time there was something more important for the commanderin-chief than the desire to evince his contempt for the disposition or for anything else ; he was interested in the satisfaction of an invincible human need, of sleep. He was actually asleep. Weyrother looked at Kutuzov, with the movements of a man who is too busy to lose a single minute, and, having convinced himself that he was asleep, he took up a document and in a loud, monotonous voice began to read the disposition of the future battle, under the title, which he also read :

” Disposition of the troops in the attack upon the hostile position behind Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz on November 20, 1805.”

The disposition was complicated and hard to understand. It ran as follows :

” Whereas the enemy with his left wing leans on the wood-covered mountain, and with his right wing extends past Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds in those localities, while we, on the contrary, with our left wing far outflank his right wing, it is advantageous to attack the last mentioned wing of the enemy, especially if we have the villages of Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz in our possession, whereby we are able at once to fall upon the enemy’s flank and to pursue him on the plain between Schlapanitz and the Thuerassa forest, by avoiding the defiles of Schlapanitz and Bellowitz, which cover the enemy’s front. For this purpose it is necessary — The first column marches — the second column marches — the third column marches ” —and so forth.

The generals did not seem to listen with pleasure to the difficult disposition. The tall, blond General Buxhövden stood with his back leaning against the wall and, steadily looking at the burning candle, did not seem to be listening, and did not even wish the generals to think that he was listening. Directly opposite Weyrother, fixing his shining open eyes upon him, and in a military attitude, leaning his arms with outwardly arched elbows on his knees, sat ruddy Milorâdovich, with upturned moustache and raised shoulders. He was stubbornly silent, looking into Weyrother’s face, and took his eyes off only when the Austrian chief of the staff stopped speaking. When that happened, Milorâdovich cast a significant glance at the other generals, but it was impossible from that glance to say whether he was in agreement and satisfied with the disposition or not.

Nearest to Weyrother sat Count de Langeron, who, with the fine smile of a Frenchman of the south of France, which did not leave him during the whole time of the reading, kept looking at his slender fingers in which he was turning a gold snuffbox with a portrait. In the middle of one of the longest periods, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised his head, and, with a disagreeable politeness at the very edges of his thin lips, interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something ; but the Austrian general, without interrupting his reading, scowled and waved his elbows, as though to say : ” Later, later you will tell me your ideas, but now please look at the map and listen ! ” Langeron raised his eyes with an expression of perplexity, gazed at Miloradovich, as though in search of an explanation, but, upon meeting Milorddovich’s significant, and yet meaningless, glance, he sadly lowered his eyes and again started the rotary motion of his snuffbox.

” Une leçon de géographie,” he said, as though speaking to himself, but loud enough to be heard.

Przebyszéwski, with respectful and dignified politeness, bent his ear with his hand toward Weyrother, having the appearance of a man absorbed in attention. Undersized Dokhturov sat directly opposite Weyrother, with a careful and modest look, and, bending over the open map, was faithfully studying the disposition and the unfamiliar locality. He several times asked Weyrother to repeat indistinctly pronounced words and the difficult names of the villages. Weyrother complied with his wish, and Dokhturov took notes.

When the reading, which lasted an hour, was ended, Langeron again stopped the motion of his snuffbox and, without looking at Weyrother or at anybody in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out such a disposition, where the location of the enemy was assumed to be known, whereas it may be unknown to us, since the enemy was all the time in motion. Langeron’s objections were valid, but it was evident that the purpose of these objections consisted chiefly in the desire to let Weyrother know, who had been reading the disposition to them with such selfconfidence, as though they were a lot of schoolboys, that he was dealing, not with fools, but with men who could teach him a thing or two in military affairs.

When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s voice died down, Kutuzov opened his eyes, like a miller who awakens at the cessation of the soporific sound of the mill-wheels. He listened to what Langeron was saying and, as though saying, ” You are still busy with that foolishness ! ” he hastened to close his eyes again, sinking bis head lower than before.

Wishing to offend Weyrother as painfully as possible in his vanity of a military author, Langeron proved to him that Bonaparte could easily attack, instead of being attacked, and thus would make the whole disposition absolutely worthless. Weyrother replied to all objections with a firm, disdainful smile, which had apparently been prepared in advance, independently of what they might say to him.

” If he could attack us, he would have done so to-day,” he said.

” So you think that he is powerless,” said Langeron.

” I doubt if he has forty thousand men,” replied Weyrother, with the smile of a physician, whom a midwife wants to teach how to cure diseases.

” If so, he is marching straight to destruction by waiting for our attack,” said Langeron, with a fine ironical smile, again looking at his neighbour, Miloradovich, for confirmation ; but Miloradovich was evidently not thinking at all of what the generals were discussing.

” Ma foihe said, ” we shall see tomorrow on the field of battle.”

Weyrother again smiled with that smile which said that it was ridiculous and strange to him to meet the objections of the Russian generals and to prove to them that of which he himself was sure and of which he had convinced the emperors.

” The enemy has put out the fires, and an uninterrupted noise is heard in his camp,” he said. ” What does that mean ? Either he is retiring, of which alone we are to be afraid, or he is changing his position.” He smiled. ” But even if he did occupy a position in Thuerassa, he would save us a great deal of trouble, and all the dispositions, down to the minutest details, would remain the same.”

” In what way ? ” said Prince Andréy, who had for a long time been waiting for a chance of expressing his doubts.

Kutuzov awoke, loudly cleared his throat, and surveyed the generals.

” Gentlemen, the disposition for tomorrow, or rather for to-day, for it is past midnight, cannot be changed,” he said. ” You have heard it, and we will all do our duty. But before a battle nothing is more important ” — he was silent for a moment — “ than to have a good sleep.”

He looked as though he were going to rise. The generals took their leave and went away. It was past midnight. Prince Andréy left the room.

The council of war, at which Prince Andréy did not have a chance to express his opinion, as he had hoped he would, left an indistinct and troubled impression in him. He did not know who was right, whether it was Dolgorukov with Weyrother, or Kutuzov with Längeren and some others, who did not approve of the plan of attack.

” But could not Kutuzov have expressed his opinion directly to the emperor ? Could it not be done otherwise ? Is it possible that the personal considerations of the courtiers should be the cause for risking tens of thousands, and my, my life ? ” he thought.

” Yes, it is very possible that I shall be killed tomorrow,” he thought. And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of recollections, of the most distant and the most intimate, arose in his imagination : he recalled his last parting from his father and his wife ; he recalled the first time of his love for her, and her pregnancy, and he was sorry for her and for liimself. He left the room, where he was staying with Nesvitski in a state of nervous contrition and of agitation, and began to walk up and down in front of the house.

It was a misty night, and the moonlight broke mysteriously through the mist.

” Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow ! ” he thought. ” Tomorrow, perhaps, everything will be ended for me ; there will be none of these recollections, — these recollections will have no meaning whatever for me. Tomorrow, perhaps, no, certainly, I feel it, I shall have to show, at last, for the first time what I can do.”

And he imagined the battle, its loss, the concentration of the struggle at one point, and the confusion of all the leading persons. And then that happy moment, that Toulon, for which he had been waiting so long, at last presented itself to him. He firmly and clearly expresses his opinion to Kutuzov, and to Weyrother, and to the emperors. All are struck by the correctness of his combinations, but nobody undertakes to execute them ; so he takes a regiment, a division, on condition that no one will interfere with his arrangements, leads his division to the decisive point, and all alone obtains a victory.

” And death and suffering ? ” says another voice. But Prince Andréy does not make any reply to this voice and continues his successes. The disposition of the following battle is made by him alone. He has the name of an officer of the day in Kutuzov’s army, but he does everything himself. Kutuzov is dismissed, he is put in his place —

“Well, and then? ” again says the other voice. “And then, if you have not been wounded ten times before, or killed, or betrayed ? Well, and then ?”

“ Well, and then,” Prince Andréy answers himself. “ I do not know what will be then ; I cannot know, and I do not wish to know ; but if I want this, if I want glory, if I want to be known to people, if I want to be loved by them, I am not to blame for wanting it and living for it alone. Yes, for this alone ! I shall never say so to any one, but my God ! What shall I do, if I love nothing but glory, but human love ? Death, wounds, loss of family— nothing is terrible to me. No matter how dear many people are to me, my father, my sister, my wife are the dearest to me ; but, however terrible and unnatural this may seem, I would give them all up for a minute of glory, of triumph over people, for the love of men whom I do not know and shall not know, for the love of those men,” he thought, listening to a conversation in the yard of Kutuzov’s house.

In the yard could be heard the voices of the servants who were packing up ; one voice, apparently that of the coachman, teasing Kutuzov’s old cook, whom Prince Andréy knew and who was called Tit, said:

“ Tit, 0 Tit ! “

“ Well ? ” replied the old man.

“ Tit, take the spit,” said the jester.

“ Pshaw, to the deuce with you ! ” was heard his voice, accompanied by the laughter of the servants.

“ And yet I love and value only the triumph over all, I value this mysterious glory, the glory which is borne here over my head in the mist ! ”

XIII.

Rostov passed that night with a platoon in the cordon of the flank, in front of Bagratidu’s detachment. His hussars were scattered by twos along the outpost ; he himself rode up and down this cordon, trying to overcome the sleep which was invincible. Back of him could be seen an enormous expanse on which the campfires of our army burned dimly in the mist ; in front of him was the darkness of the mist. No matter how much Rostov glanced into this distance, he could not see anything ; now it looked gray, and now dark ; now he thought he saw the twinkle of fires where the enemy ought to be, and now he thought that it was only a sparkle in his eyes.

His eyes closed themselves, and in his imagination rose now the emperor, now Denisov, now. Moscow reminiscences, and he again hastened to open his eyes, and in front of him he saw the head and ears of the horse on which he was sitting, and at times the black figures of the hussars, whenever he came within six paces of them, while in the distance was the same misty darkness.

“ Why not ? It is quite possible,” thought Rostov, ” that the emperor, meeting me, will command me like any officer ; he will say : * Go, find out what there is there ! ’ I have frequently heard it told that he has recognized such officers and has kept them close to his person. Suppose he should have me near his person ! Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him the whole truth, how I would unmask his deceivers ! ” In order vividly to portray to himself his love and devotion to his emperor, Rostov imagined an enemy or a cheat of a German, whom he not only took pleasure in killing, but whose ears he was boxing in the presence of the emperor.

Suddenly a distant shout awakened Rostov. He shuddered and opened his eyes.

” Where am I ? Yes, in the cordon : the countersign and parole are « Shaft, Olmiitz.’ What a pity our squadron will be tomorrow in the reserves,” he thought. ” I will ask to be allowed to take part in the action. This may be the only chance of seeing the emperor. It is not long before I shall be relieved now. I will ride down the cordon once more, and upon returning I will go to the general and will ask him about it.”

He adjusted himself in his saddle and spurred his horse in order to look at his hussars once more. It seemed to him that it was lighter now. On the left he saw an illuminated gentle incline and, opposite to it, a black mound which looked as declivitous as a wall. On that mound there was a white point, which puzzled Rostov : he did not know whether it was a clearing in the woods, illuminated by the moon, or snow which had not melted, or white houses. He even thought that there was some motion on that white spot.

“That spot must be snow; a spot, une tache” thought Rostov. ” No, not tache — Natäsha, sister, black eyes. Natdsha (She will be surprised when I tell her that I have seen the emperor ! ) — Natasha — tasha, take — “

“ To the right, your Honour, or you will get into the bushes,” said the voice of a hussar past whom Rostov, falling asleep, was riding.

Rostov raised his head, which had fallen down to the mane of his horse, and stopped near the hussar. The invincible sleep of childhood took possession of him.

“ What was it I was thinking of ? I must not forget. How I am going to speak with the emperor ? No, not that, — that is tomorrow. Yes, yes ! Natasha, na-spot — spot whom ? Us, the hussars. The hussars and their moustaches— That hussar with his moustache rode down the Tverskaya Street, I remember him, it was opposite Gdrev’s house— Old man Gurev— Oh, what a fine fellow Denisov is ! But that is all nonsense. The main thing is the emperor is here now. How he looked at me and wanted something to say, but did not dare to — No, it was I who did not dare to. But that is nonsense, the main thing is not to forget that I was thinking of something important. That is good.”

And his head again fell down on his horse. Suddenly it appeared to him that somebody was shooting at him.

” What ? What ? Eh ! Strike ! What ? ” said Rostov, waking up.

Just as he opened his eyes, he heard there, where the enemy was, prolonged cries of thousands of voices. His horse and that of the hussar near him pricked their ears, as they heard these sounds. In the spot from which the shouts proceeded, one fire was lit and it went out again, then a second, and fires were lighted on the hill along the whole line of the French troops, and the shouts became louder and louder. Rostov heard the sounds of French words, but could not make them out. There were too many voices crying together. All he could hear was ” aaaaa ! ” and ” rrrr ! “

” What is this? What do you think? ” Rostov turned to the hussar standing near him. ” That is on the enemy’s side.”

The hussar made no reply.

” Don’t you hear it ? ” Rostov asked again, having waited some time in vain for an answer.

” Who knows, your Honour ? ” the hussar replied, reluctantly.

“To judge from the place, it must be the enemy,” Rostov said once more.

” It may be so, and may not be,” said the hussar, ” you can’t tell in the night. Stop that ! ” he cried to his horse, which began to stir.

Rostov’s horse, too, was nervous, pawing the frozen ground, listening to the sounds, and watching the fires.

The shouts grew ever louder and blended in one universal din, which could have been produced only by an army of several thousand men. The fires apparently were lighted along the whole line of the French camp. Rostdv no longer felt like sleeping. The joyous, triumphant shouts in the army of the enemy acted provokingly upon him.

” Vive l’Empereur, VEmpereur ! ” Rostov now could hear distinctly.

” They are not far from here, probably beyond the brook,” he said to the hussar near him.

The hussar only heaved a sigh, without making any reply, and angrily cleared his throat. Down the line of the hussars could be heard the tramp of a galloping horse, and from the mist of the night there suddenly emerged the figure of an underofficer of hussars, looking as big as an elephant.

” Your Honour, generals are coming! ” said the underofficer, riding up to Rostov.

Rostov, continuing to look at the fires and to listen to the shouts, rode with the underofficer to meet a few men on horseback, who were riding down the line. One of them was on a white horse. Prince Bagration with Prince Dolgorukov and some adjutants had come out to see the strange appearance of the fires and to hear the shouts of the enemy’s army. Rostov, riding up to Bagration, reported to him, after which he joined the adjutants, listening to what the generals were saying.

” Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorukov, turning to Bagratidn, ” it is nothing but a ruse ; he is retreating and ordered fires lighted in the rear and a noise made, in order to deceive us.”

” Hardly,” said Bagration. “ I have seen them on that mound since evening. If they had retired, they would have left that too. Mr. Officer,” Prince Bagration turned to Rostdv, “ are his outposts still standing there ? “

” They were there in the evening, but now I cannot tell, your Serenity. If you so order, I will ride down with the hussars to see,” said Rostov.

Bagratidn stopped, and, without replying, was trying to make out Rostov’s face in the mist.

” All right, go and see,” he said, after a moment’s silence.

” Yes, sir.”

Rostdv gave the spurs to his horse, and, calling with him Underofficer Fadchénko and two other hussars, ordered them to ride with him, and in a trot rode downhill, in the direction of the protracted cries. Rostov felt both ill at ease and happy to ride alone, with his three hussars, into this mysterious and dangerous misty distance, where no one had been before him. Bagration called out to him from the hill not to ride beyond the brook, but Rostdv pretended not to have heard his words, and, without stopping, rode farther and farther, constantly making mistakes, by taking bushes for trees and ditches for men, and constantly explaining the mistakes to himself. After reaching the foot of the hill, he no longer saw our men, nor the fires of the enemy, but he could hear more clearly and louder the shouts of the French. In the ravine below him he saw something that resembled a river, but when he rode up to it, he found that it was a road. Upon reaching the road, he checked his horse in indecision, not knowing whether he had better travel on the road, or whether he ought to cross it and continue riding over the black field up the hill. It was less perilous to travel on the road through the whitening mist, because it was easier to recognize the presence of people.

” Follow me ! ” he said, crossing the road, and galloping

up the hill, toward the place where, on the evening before, the French pickets had been standing.

“Your Honour, here he is !” said a hussar behind him.

Before Rostov had a chance to make out the black spot in the mist, a tire flashed, a gun clicked, and a bullet, as though complaining of something, buzzed high in the mist and passed out of hearing. Another gun did not shoot, but the fire flashed in the pan. Rostdv turned his horse around and galloped back. Four more shots were fired at various intervals, and the bullets sang out in different tunes somewhere in the mist. Rostov checked in his horse, which became as animated as he was from the shots, and rode on at a pace.

“ Keep it up ! Keep it up !” a merry voice within him said.

But there were no more shots fired.

Only when coming near to Bagration, Rostov again started up at a gallop and, holding his hand to his visor, rode up to him.

Dolgorukov still insisted that the French had retreated and that they had made the fires only to deceive us.

” What does it prove ? ” be was saying, just as Rostov came up. ” They could have retreated, leaving the pickets.”

” Evidently not all have left, prince,” said Bagration. ” Tomorrow, tomorrow we shall find out everything.”

” There is a picket on the hill, your Serenity, in the same spot where it was yesterday,” Rostov reported, leaning forward, holding his hand at the visor, and unable to repress a smile of merriment called forth in him by the ride and, above all, by the sounds of the bullets.

” All right, all right,” said Bagration, ” I thank you, Mr. Officer.”

“Your Serenity,” said Rostov, ” permit me to ask a favour of you.”

“ What is it ? “

” Our squadron has been assigned for the reserve for tomorrow, and I wish to ask you to attach me to the first squadron.”

” What is your name ? ”

” Count Rostdv.”

” Ah, all right. You will be my orderly.”

” Are you the son of Ilyä Andréevich ? ” asked Dolgorukov.

But Rostov made no reply.

” So may I hope, your Serenity ? “

” I will order so.”

” Tomorrow I may be sent with some order to the emperor,” he thought. ” Thank God ! ”

The shouts and the fires in the army of the enemy were produced by the emperor’s riding in person through his bivouacs, just as his order of the day was being read to the troops. Upon seeing their emperor, the soldiers lighted bundles of straw and ran after him with the cries, ” Vive VEmpereur ! ”

The order of the day ran as follows :

” Soldiers ! The Russian army is proceeding against you to avenge the Austrian army at Ulm. These are the same battalions which you have beaten at Hollabrunn, and which you have been constantly driving before you up to this place. The positions which we occupy are formidable, and so long as they will march in order to outflank me on the right, they will present their own flank to me. Soldiers ! I will personally guide your battalions. I will keep far away from the fire, if you, with your customary bravery, will carry disorder and confusion into the ranks of the enemy ; but if victory shall be in doubt for but a minute, you will see your emperor subject himself to the first blows of the enemy, because there can be no hesitation in the victory, especially on the

day when the honour of the French infantry is at stake, which is so necessary for the honour of the whole nation.

” Do not disorganize the ranks under the pretext of taking away the wounded ! Let each of you be fully imbued with the idea that it is necessary to conquer these mercenaries of England, who are animated by such hatred for our nation. This victory will end our campaign, and we can return to our winter quarters, where we shall meet new French troops that are now being formed in France ; and then the peace which I will conclude will be worthy of my nation, of you, and of me.

” Napoleon.”

XIV.

At five o’clock in the morning it was still very dark. The troops of the centre and of the reserves and Bagration’s right flank were still standing motionless, but at the left flank, the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which were the first to descend from the eminences, in order to attack the right flank of the French army and to throw it back, according to the disposition, into the Bohemian mountains, had already begun to stir and the soldiers were rising from their bivouacs. The smoke from the campfires, into which every superfluous thing was being thrown, stung the eyes. It was cold and dark. The officers hurriedly drank tea and ate breakfast ; the soldiers munched hardtack and beat their feet together, to warm themselves, and gathered around the fires, throwing into them parts of booths, chairs, tables, wheels, vats, everything superfluous which could not be carried along.

The Austrian guides of the columns moved about between the Russian troops and served as harbingers of the coming movement. The moment an Austrian officer appeared near the halting-place of the commander of the regiment, the regiment began to move : the soldiers left the campfires, put away their pipes in their bootlegs and their sacks on wagons, and took up their arms, and drew up in ranks. The officers buttoned their coats, put on their swords and knapsacks, and shouted as they inspected the ranks ; the soldiers of the baggagetrain and the servants of the officers harnessed the horses, packed the

things, and tied them on the wagons. The adjutants, the commanders of battalions and of regiments, mounted their horses, made the signs of the cross, gave their last orders, injunctions, and instructions to the men of the baggagetrain who were to stay behind, — and there resounded the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet. The columns began to move, without knowing whither, and without seeing, on account of the mass of men surrounding them, and on account of the smoke and of the thickening mist, either the locality from which they started, or the one toward which they were moving.

A soldier in motion is just as surrounded, limited, and drawn along by his regiment as a sailor is by the ship on which he happens to be. However far he may travel, no matter to what strange, unknown, and perilous latitudes he may go, there are for him, as for the sailor, always and everywhere the same decks, masts, and cables of his ship, always and everywhere the same companions, the same ranks, the same Corporal Ivà Mftrich, the same company dog Zhuchka, the same superior officers. A soldier rarely cares to know the latitudes in which his ship is; but on the day of battle, God knows how or whence, there resounds in the moral world of the army one and the same stern note, which portends something decisive and solemn, and calls forth an unusual curiosity in the men. On the days of battle the soldiers excitedly try to come out from the narrow interests of their regiment ; they listen and look, and eagerly ask about everything which is taking place all around them.

The mist became so dense that, although it was now daylight, it was not possible to see ten paces ahead. The bushes looked like immense trees, and level places looked like ravines and declivities. Everywhere, on all sides, one might fall in, within ten steps, with the invisible enemy. But the columns walked for a long time through tins mist, descending and ascending hills, passing gardens and orchards, through a new, unintelligible locality, without meeting the enemy. On the contrary, in front, behind, on all sides, the soldiers saw that our Russian columns were all marching in the same general direction. Every soldier felt at ease, knowing that there where he was going, that is, to some unknown place, there were going many, many other soldiers like him.

” I declare the Kursk soldiers have just passed,” somebody remarked in the ranks.

“ There are an awful lot of our troops here ! I looked down in the evening, when the campfires were lit, and I could not see the end of them. In short, Moscow was there 1 “

Although none of the commanders of the columns rode up to the ranks or spoke to the soldiers (the commanders of the columns, as we saw at the council of war, were not in a good humour and were dissatisfied with the present undertaking, and so they only carried out instructions and did not trouble themselves about cheering up the soldiers), the soldiers marched on cheerfully, as always when going into action, particularly when about to make an attack. But, after having marched nearly an hour through the dense mist, the greater part of the army had to stop, and through the ranks was borne the disagreeable consciousness of disorder and confusion. It is very hard to ascertain in what way such a consciousness is communicated ; but it is certain that it is transmitted correctly and rapidly, imperceptibly and irresistibly, like water spreading in a ravine. If the Russian army had been alone, without allies, much time might have passed, before this conviction of disorder became a universal conviction ; but now the cause of the confusion was most naturally and with especial pleasure ascribed to the senseless Germans, and all were convinced that a dangerous disorder was taking place and that it was due to the sausageeaters.

” Why did they stop ? Is their way barred ? Or have they run up against the French ? “

“No, you can’t hear anything, — they would be firing. They did hurry us to start, and now that we have started they keep us senselessly in the middle of the field : it is the accursed Germans that are getting everything mixed up. Stupid devils ! I should have sent them out first. But no, they are pushing from behind. Now we shall have to stay here without eating. How much longer will it last ? “

“ The cavalry has barred the way, they say,” said an officer.

” Oh, those accursed Germans, they do not know their own country ! ” said another.

” What division are you ? ” an adjutant, riding up, inquired.

“ Eighteenth.”

“ What, then, are you doing here ? You ought to have been in front long ago ; now you won’t get through before evening.”

“ Wliat stupid arrangements ! Now they do not know themselves what they are doing,” said an officer, riding away.

Then a general rode by, saying something angrily in a foreign language.

” Tafa-lafa, but you can’t make out what he is mumbling,” said a soldier, imitating the general who had just passed. ” 1 should have ordered them all to be shot, rascals that they are ! ”

“We are commanded to be on the spot at nine o’clock, and we have not yet made half the distance. Fine arrangements these are ! ” one could hear on all sides, and the feeling of energy, with which the troops had started out into action, was being turned into annoyance and irritation at the senseless provisions and at the Germans.

The cause of all the confusion was due to the fact that while the Austrian cavalry was marching on the left flank, the higher authorities discovered that our centre was too far away from the right flank, and the whole cavalry was ordered to go over to the right. Several thousands of the cavalry had to move in front of the infantry, and the infantry had to wait.

In front, an altercation took place between an Austrian guide of the column and a Russian general The Russian general shouted, demanding that the cavalry be stopped ; the Austrian proved to him that the fault was not his, but that of the higher authorities. In the meantime the troops stood listless and losing courage. After having been held back for about an hour, the troops moved at last and began to descend a hill. The mist, which was beginning to lift on the heights, was only getting denser in the lowlands, whither the army now descended. In front, in the mist, there was heard a shot, a second, and then other shots, at first irregularly and at varying intervals, ” tratta — tat ” and then with greater regularity and frequency, and an action was begun near the stream of Goldbach.

Not having counted upon meeting the enemy below, at the brook, and accidentally coming upon him in the mist ; not hearing the words of encouragement from the higher authorities, and having a widespread conviction through the army that time had been lost; and, above all, not seeing anybody in front and about them through the mist, the Russian soldiers indolently and slowly returned the enemy’s fire, moved forward and again stopped, without receiving in time any orders from the chiefs and their adjutants, who were wandering aimlessly through the mist in an unfamiliar locality, unable to find the respective parts of the army. Thus the action began for the first, second, and third columns, as they were descending. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov himself was, stood on the heights of Pratzen.

In the lowlands, where the action began, the mist was still dense, though it was now bright above, and it was impossible to tell what was taking place in front. Nobody knew up to nine o’clock whether all the forces of the enemy, as we had supposed, were ten versts away from us, or. whether they were all here in this strip of the mist.

It was nine o’clock in the morning. The mist lay as one solid sea in the lowlands, but it was quite bright near the village of Schlapanitz, on the eminence where Napoleon stood, surrounded by his marshals. Above him was the clear blue sky, and the enormous orb of the sun undulated, like an enormous, hollow, purple buoy, on the surface of the milky-white sea of the mist.

Neither the French troops, nor Napoleon himself with his staff, were on the other side of the brooks and meadows of the villages of Sokolnitz and Schlapanitz, beyond which we intended to occupy a position and to begin the engagement, but on this side, so close to our troops that Napoleon was able with his naked eye to distinguish the cavalry from the infantry in our army. Napoleon was a little in front of his marshals, on a small gray Arabian steed, wearing a blue mantle, the same in which he had made his Italian campaign. He was looking silently at the hills which seemed to emerge from the mist ocean, and along which the Russian troops moved in the distance, and listening to the sound of the fusilade in the ravine. His face, which at that time was still lean, did not show the play of one muscle ; his glistening eyes were immovably directed to one spot.

His suppositions proved true. The Russian troops had partly descended into the ravine, toward the ponds and lakes, and partly were clearing off the Pratzen heights, which he had intended to attack and which he regarded as the key to the position. Through the mist he saw the Russian columns, gleaming with their bayonets, move all the time in one direction toward the ravine, in the indentation formed by two hills near the village of Pratzen, and one after another disappear in the sea of mist. From the information which he had received the day before, from the sounds of the wheels and steps, which had been heard in the night at the outposts, from the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, from all the data, he clearly saw that the allies expected him to be far in advance, that the columns moving near Pratzen formed the centre of the Russian army, and that the centre was sufficiently weakened to be attacked successfully. But he was in no hurry to begin the engagement.

It was a solemn day for him, — the anniversary of his coronation. Toward morning he fell asleep for several hours, and, being healthy, cheerful, and fresh, and in that happy mood when everything seems possible and everything comes to a successful issue, he had mounted his horse and ridden out into the field. He stood motionless, looking at the eminences emerging from the mist, and upon his cold face there was that peculiar shade of selfconfident, merited happiness which is on the countenance of a happy young man who is in love. His marshals stood behind him, and did not dare to divert his attention. He was looking at the Pratzen heights and at the sun swimming out from the mist.

When the sun had entirely risen above the mist and with its blinding splendour burst upon the fields and the mist (as though that was what he had been waiting for), he took off the glove from his beautiful, white hand, made with it a sign to his marshals, and gave the order to begin the engagement. The marshals, accompanied. by adjutants, galloped away in various directions, and a few minutes later the main forces of the French army moved toward those Pratzen heights which were being entirely cleared of the Russian troops that were descending on the left toward the ravine.

XV.

At eight o’clock Kutuzov rode out toward Pratzen, at the head of Milorädovich’s fourth column, the one which was to occupy the places of the columns of Przebyszéwski and Langeron, who had already descended. He greeted the men of the regiment in the van and gave the order for moving, showing thus that he intended to lead the column in person. Upon reaching the village of Pratzen, he stopped. Prince Andréy was behind him, among an immense throng of men forming the suite of the commander-! n-chief. Prince Andréy was agitated, irritated, and yet reserved and calm, as men are at the approach of a long-desired moment. He was firmly convinced that that was the day of his Toulon or of his bridge of Arcole. He did not know how it was to happen, but he was firmly convinced that it would happen. The locality and position of our troops were known to him, as much as they could be known to anybody in our army. His own strategical plan, which obviously it was of no use to consider now, was forgotten by him. He was now making himself familiar with Weyrother’s plan, and was deliberating any accidental changes that might occur and was making new combinations, such as might require rapidity of action and determination.

On the left, below in the mist, was heard a fusilade between the invisible armies. There, so Prince Andréy thought, the battle would centre; there the obstacle would be met ; ” and there I shall be sent,” he thought, ” with a brigade or a division, and there I will advance with a flag in my hand and will crush every tiling that shall be before me.”

Prince Andréy could not look with equanimity at the passing battalions. Every time he looked at a flag, he thought : ” Maybe that is the very flag with which I shall march at the head of the troops.”

In the morning the mist of the night left only a hoarfrost on the heights, and this passed into dew, while in the lowlands it spread out like a milk-white sea. Nothing was to be seen in the ravine on the left, whither our troops had descended, and from which place the sounds of the fusilade reached him. Above the eminences was the dark, clear sky, and on the right was the enormous disk of the sun. In front, far away, on the shore of the misty sea, could be seen rising forest-clad hills, on which was to be the army of the enemy, and where something was visible. On the right, the Guard, with the tramp of horses and rumble of wheels, now and then gleaming with their bayonets, were passing into the sphere of the mist ; on the left, beyond the village, similar masses of the cavalry came up and disappeared in the mist ocean. The infantry moved in front and behind. The commanderin-chief stood at the entrance to the village, allowing the troops to pass by him. Kutuzov on that morning looked exhausted and irritated. The infantry which was going past him stopped without being ordered to do so, evidently because something in front held them back.

” Tell them to break up in columns by battalions and to march around the village,” Kutuzov said, angrily, to a general who rode up to him. “Can’t you understand, Excellency, dear sir, that it is impossible to expand through this defile of a village street, when we are going against the enemy ? ”

” I intended to draw up beyond the village, your Excellency,” replied the general.

Kutuzov laughed a sarcastic smile.

” You will look nice drawing up in front of the enemy ! You will look nice ! “

” The enemy i8 far away, your Excellency. According to the disposition — “

“The disposition?” Kutuzov cried, in anger. “Who told you so ? Do what you are ordered ! “

“ Yes, sir.”

“Mon cher,” Nesvitski said in a whisper to Prince Andréy, “ le vieux est d’une humeur de chien.”

An Austrian officer with green plumage on his hat, wearing a white uniform, galloped up to Kutuzov, asking in the name of the emperor whether the fourth column had entered into action.

Kutuzov turned away from him, without making any reply, and his glance accidentally fell on Prince Andréy, who was near him. Upon noticing Bolkonski, Kutuzov softened the evil and sarcastic expression of his face, as though confessing that his adjutant was not to be blamed for what was taking place. And still giving no answer to the Austrian adjutant, he turned to Bolkonski :

“ Allez voir, mon cher, si la troisième division a dépassé le village. Dites-lui de s’arrêter et d’attendre mes ordres”

The moment Prince Andréy rode away, he stopped him.

“Et demandez-lui si les tirailleurs sont postés,” he added.

“ Ce qu’ils font ! Ce qu’ils font ! ” he said to himself, still making no reply to the Austrian.

Prince Andréy galloped away to execute the command.

Riding past all the advancing battalions, he stopped the third division and convinced himself that in front of our columns there really was no cordon of sharpshooters. The commander of the regiment in the van was very much surprised at the order of the commanderin-chief to scatter the sharpshooters. • The commander of the regiment stood there in absolute confidence that in front of him were other troops, and that the enemy could not be any nearer than within ten versts. Indeed, in front nothing could be seen, except a barren descent shrouded in mist. Having delivered the order of the commanderin-chief to correct the oversight, Prince Andréy galloped back. Kutuzov was standing in the same place and, letting his stout body sag heavily in the saddle, was yawning with closed eyes. The troops were no longer moving, but standing at parade rest.

“All right, all right,” he said to Prince Andréy. He turned to a general who, with a watch in his hands, was saying that it was time to move because all the columns of the left column had already descended.

“ We shall have time, your Excellency,” Kutuzov remarked, through a yawn. “We shall have time !” he repeated.

Just then the sounds of the regiments answering to salutes were heard back of Kutuzov, and these voices rapidly approached along the whole line of the advancing Russian columns. Apparently the one to whose salute the soldiers were replying was riding rapidly. When the soldiers of the regiment immediately behind Kutuzov began to shout, he rode a little to one side and looked about him with a frown. On the road from Pratzen there seemed to be galloping a squadron of variegated riders. Two of them were riding together at a fast gallop, in front of the rest. One of them wore a black uniform with a white panache and was riding on a red bob-tailed horse ; the other, in a white uniform, was on a black horse. Those were the two emperors with their suites. Kutuzov, with the affectation of a faithful subordinate at the front, commanded “ Attention ! ” to the standing troops, and, saluting, rode up to the emperor. His whole figure and manner was suddenly changed. He assumed the aspect of a subordinate who obeys blindly without reasoning. He rode up with an affectation of respectfulness, which apparently displeased the emperor, and saluted.

The disagreeable impression, like the remainder of a mist on a clear sky, flitted over the youthful and happy face of the emperor, and again disappeared. After his indisposition, he was on that day a little thinner than he had been on the field at Olmiitz, where Bolkdnski had seen him for the first time abroad ; but the same seductive combination of grandeur and mildness was in his beautiful gray eyes, and on his thin lips there was the same possibility of varied expressions, with the predominance of magnanimous, innocent youth.

During the review at Olmiitz he had been more majestic, here he was more cheerful and more energetic. He had a little colour in his face, after the gallop of three versts. He stopped his horse, drew a breath of relief, and looked back at the just as youthful and animated faces of his suite. Czartorÿzski, and Novosiltsov, and Prince Volkonski, and Stroganov, and others, all of them richly dressed, merry young men, on handsome, well-groomed, fresh, slightly perspiring horses, talking with each other and smiling, stopped back of the emperor. Emperor Francis, a ruddy, long-faced young man, sat extremely straight on his beautiful black stallion, leisurely casting anxious glances about him. He called up to him one of his white adjutants and asked him something.

” No doubt, what time they left,” thought Prince Audrey, looking at his old acquaintance, with a smile which he could not repress, as he recalled his audience.

In the suite of the emperors there were select young orderlies, both Russian and Austrian, from the regiments of the Guards and of the active army. Mingling with them were attendants leading handsome reserve horses for the emperors, which were caparisoned with embroidered housings.

Just as the fresh air of the field suddenly bursts through the open window into the close room, so a breath of youth, energy, confidence of success, wafted from this brilliant assembly which had just ridden up, reached the morose staff of Kutuzov.

” Why do you not begin, Mikhail Ilaridnovich ? ” Emperor Alexander suddenly turned to Kutuzov, at the same time glancing politely at Emperor Francis.

” I am waiting, your Majesty,” replied Kutuzov, respectfully leaning forward.

The emperor bent his ear, frowning slightly and looking as though he had not heard well.

“ I am waiting, your Majesty,” repeated Kutuzov.

Prince Andréy noticed that Kutuzov’s upper lip twitched unnaturally as he was saying this ” I am waiting.”

” The columns have not all collected yet, your Majesty.”

The emperor heard his reply, but he obviously did not like it. He shrugged his slanting shoulders and looked at Novosiltsov, who was near him, as though complaining of Kutuzov with that glance.

” We are not on the Tsaritsyn Field, Mikhail Ilarionovich, where parades do not begin until all the regiments have arrived,” said the emperor, again looking into the eyes of Emperor Francis, as though inviting him, if not to take his part, at least to listen to what he was saying ; but Emperor Francis kept looking around, without paying any attention.

“ That is the very reason why I do not begin, emperor,” Kutuzov said, in a sonorous voice, as though to be sure that every word was heard, and again something twitched in his face. “ I do not begin, emperor, because we are not at parade and not in the Tsaritsyn Field,” he spoke clearly and distinctly.

In the suite of the emperor a rebuke was expressed in all the faces that kept looking at each other. ” Old though he is, he ought by no means to talk that way,” these faces said.

The emperor looked fixedly and attentively into Kutuzov’s eyes, waiting for him to say something more. But Kutuzov, on his side, respectfully bent his head, also, it seemed, waiting for something. The silence lasted about a minute.

” However, if you command, your Majesty,” said Kutuzov, raising his head and again changing his tone to one of a dull, unreasoning, blindly obeying general.

He spurred his horse, and, calling up Milorädovich, the chief of a column, gave him the order to advance.

The army again came into motion, and two battalions of the Novgorod regiment and a battalion of the Apsherdn regiment started marching past the emperor.

Just as the Apsheron battalion was passing, ruddy Milorädovich, without an overcoat, in full uniform with decorations and a hat with an enormous panache, poised sidewise on the back of his head, galloped out at full speed, and, with a dashing salute, checked his horse in front of the emperor.

” God aid you, general ! ” the emperor said to him.

” Ma foi, Sire, nous ferons ce que qui sera dans notre possibilité, Sire,” he replied, gaily, nevertheless provoking a sarcastic smile in the gentlemen of the emperor’s suite by his poor French pronunciation.

Milorädovich sharply turned his horse and stopped a little behind the emperor. The soldiers of the Apsheron regiment, excited by the presence of the emperor, passed by the emperors and their suites with a brisk step, keeping excellent time.

” Boys ! ” Milorädovich exclaimed in a loud, selfconfident and merry voice, apparently so excited by the sound of the fusilade, by the expectancy of the battle, and by the sight of his dashing Apsheron soldiers, his companions under Suvorov, who were briskly passing before the emperors, that he forgot the presence of the Tsar. ” Boys, it will not be the first village which you have taken ! ” he shouted.

“We are ready to serve,” shouted the soldiers.

The emperor’s horse staggered from the unexpected shout. This horse, which had carried the emperor at the reviews in Russia, was also carrying her rider here, on the field of Austerlitz, enduring his absent-minded kicks with his left foot, and pricking her ears at the sound of musketryfire, just as she had done on the Mars Field, without understanding the meaning of these shots, nor the proximity of the black stallion of Emperor Francis, nor all that which he who was riding her was saying, thinking, or feeling on that day.

The emperor, smiling, turned to one of his suite, pointing to the dashing Apsheron soldiers, and saying something to him.

XVI.

Kutuzov, accompanied by his adjutants, rode off at a walk behind the carbineers.

Having ridden about half a verst in the rear of the column, he stopped at a lonely, abandoned house, probably once an inn, near the branching off of the road. Both roads went downhill, and on both troops were marching.

The mist was just lifting, and about two versts away the troops of the enemy could indistinctly be seen on the opposite eminences. On the left, below, the fusilade was becoming more audible. Kutuzov stopped, speaking with an Austrian general. Prince Andréy, who was stationed a little behind, was looking at the enemy and turned to an adjutant, asking him to let him have the field-glass.

” See, see,” said the adjutant, looking, not at the distant army, but straight down the hill, in front of him. ” Those are the French ! ”

The two generals and the adjutants began to tear the field-glass out of each other’s hands. All the faces were suddenly changed, and on all of them terror was expressed. The French army was supposed to be two versts away, and there it suddenly appeared in front of us.

“Is that the enemy?— No!— Yes, see, he — surely — What is this ? ” voices were heard.

Prince Andréy saw with his naked eye, below, on the right, a dense column of the French rising toward the Apsherdn regiment, not more than five hundred steps from where Kutuzov was stopping.

“ Here, at last, the decisive moment has come ! It is my turn now,” thought Prince Andréy, and, giving his horse the whip, he rode up to Kutuzov. “ The Apshe-ronians must be stopped, your Excellency ! ” he shouted.

But that very moment everything was enveloped in smoke, shots were fired near by, and a naïve, frightened voice called out within two steps of Prince Andréy : ” Brothers, it is all over with us ! ”

This voice was like a command. All started to run, in obedience to this voice.

The confused, ever growing masses ran back to the place where, five minutes before, the troops had defiled before the emperors. It was not only difficult to arrest this mass, but it was even impossible not to be carried away by it. All Bolkonski was trying to do was not to fall behind, and he kept looking back, perplexed, and unable to comprehend what was taking place in front of him. Nesvitski, with infuriated red face, beside himself with excitement, shouted to Kutuzov that if he did not ride back he certainly would be made captive. Kutuzov stood in the same spot and, without making any reply, took out his handkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andréy pressed his way to him.

“ Are you wounded ? ” he asked, with difficulty keeping his lower jaw from trembling.

” The wound is not here, but here ! ” said Kutuzov, pressing his handkerchief to his cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.

” Stop them ! ” he shouted and, at the same time, evidently having convinced himself that it was impossible to stop them, struck his horse and rode off to the right. Again a mass of fleeing soldiers swept over him and dragged him back and carried him along.

The troops ran in such a dense mass that, having once

But before he had finished his words, Prince Andréy, feeling the tears of shame and anger, which rose in his throat, leaped from his horse and ran toward the flag.

” Boys, forward ! ” he shouted, in a childishly piercing voice. ” Here it is ! ” thought Prince Andréy, grasping the flagstaff and enjoying the whistle of the bullets which were apparently directed against him. Several soldiers fell.

” Hurrah ! ” cried Prince Andréy, with difficulty holding the heavy flag in his hands, and running forward with the absolute conviction that the whole battalion would run after him. And indeed, he ran by himself but a few steps. One soldier moved, another, and the whole battalion with the cry of “Hurrah!” ran forward and past him. The underofficer of the battalion ran up and seized the heavy flag which was tottering in the hands of Prince Andréy, but was immediately killed. Prince Andréy again seized the flag and, dragging it by the staff, ran with the battalion. Ahead of him he saw our artillerists, some of whom were fighting, while others were abandoning their cannon and running toward him ; he saw also the French infantry seizing the horses and turning the ordnance. Prince Andréy was with the battalion within twenty paces of the cannon. He heard above him the uninterrupted whistle of bullets, and soldiers were all the time groaning and falling on the right and on the left of him. But he was not looking at them: he was gazing only at that which was taking place in front of him, at the battery. He clearly saw the figure of a red-haired artillerist, with his shako smashed sidewise, pulling at a linstock, the other end of which was in the hands of a French soldier. Prince Andréy saw distinctly the confused and, at the same time, infuriated expression on the faces of these two men who evidently did not understand what they were doing.

” What are they doing ? ” thought Prince Andréy, looking at them. ” Why does not the red-haired artillerist run, since he has no cannon ? Why does not the Frenchman stab him ? Before he has run any distance, the Frenchman will think of his gun and will stab him.”

Indeed, another Frenchman ran up to the struggling men with fixed bayonet, and the fate of the red-haired artillerist, who still did not comprehend what was awaiting him, and who triumphantly had pulled away the linstock, was to be decided. But Prince Andréy did not see the end of this. He felt as though some one of the nearest soldiers had struck him on the head with a bludgeon at full swing. It was a little painful, but, above all, it was disagreeable because that pain diverted his attention and prevented his seeing that which he was looking at.

” What is this ? Am I falling ? My feet totter,” he thought, falling on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see the end of the struggle of the Frenchmen with the artillerists, and wishing to know whether the red-haired artillerist was killed, and whether the cannon were taken or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was nothing but the heaven, the high heaven, not clear, but still immeasurably high, with gray clouds softly creeping along over it.

” How quiet, calm, and solemn ! It is different from what it was when I was running,’’ thought Prince Andréy, “different from what it was when we were running, crying, and fighting ; quite different from what it was when the Frenchman and the artillerist were with infuriated and frightened faces pulling at the linstock ; quite differently the clouds creep over this high, endless heaven. How is it I did not see this high heaven before ? How happy I am that at last I know it. Yes, everything is vanity, everything deception, except this endless heaven. There is nothing, nothing but the heaven. But even the heaven is not, there is nothing but quiet and calm. Thank God — “

XVII.

In Bagration’s right flank the engagement had not yet begun at nine o’clock. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov’s demand to begin the action, and wishing to shift the responsibility, Prince Bagratidn proposed to Dolgorukov to send for orders to the commanderin-chief. BagratiOn knew that, in the ten versts which separated one flank from the other, the messenger would either be killed, or, if he should succeed in finding the commanderin-chief, which was extremely difficult, could not be back before evening.

Bagratidn surveyed his suite with his large, dull, sleepy eyes, and Rostov’s childish face, which instinctively was agog with excitement and hope, was the first his eyes fell upon. He sent him.

” If I should meet his Majesty before seeing the commanderin-chief, your Serenity ? ” said Rostov, holding his hand at his visor.

” You may inform his Majesty,” said Dolgorukov, hastening to interrupt Bagration.

After having been relieved at the cordon, Rostov had been able to sleep several hours before daybreak, and so he felt gay, bold, determined, with that flexibility of motion, that confidence in his good fortune, and that happy disposition, when everything seems easy, cheerful, and possible.

All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: a great battle was being fought, and he was taking part in it ; more than that, — he was orderly to the bravest of generals ; more than that, he was riding with instructions to Kutuzov and, probably, to the emperor himself. It was a clear morning, and he rode a good horse. His heart was light and happy. Having received the instruction, he spurred his horse and rode down along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration’s troops which had not yet entered into action, and which were standing motionless ; then he rode into the space which was occupied by Uvarov’s cavalry, and here he observed a commotion and signs of getting ready for action ; after passing Uvärov’s cavalry he clearly heard the sounds of a cannonade and fusilade ahead of him. The volleys were getting louder and louder.

In the brisk air of the morning there resounded, not in uneven intervals, as before, two or three volleys at a time, and then one or two salvos, but on the sides of the hills in front of Pratzen there were heard the peals of musketryfire, interrupted by such frequent discharges from the heavy guns that several shots from the cannon could not be told from each other, but blended into one common roar.

One could see the whiffs from the muskets running down and up the slopes of the hills and catching up with each other, and the smoke from the ordnance rose in pu fis, and swam along, and blended with the smoke from the other guns. By the gleam of the bayonets one could see, through the smoke, the moving masses of the infantry and the narrow strips of the artillery with the green caissons.

Rostdv for a moment stopped his horse on a mound in order to see what was taking place ; but, no matter how much he strained his vision, he was unable to comprehend, or make out what was happening. People were moving there in the smoke, and in front and behind there were long strips of troops, but it was impossible to tell whither they were all tending. This sight and these sounds not only did not rouse a melancholy or timid feeling, but, on the contrary, only increased his energy and determination.

” More, more, let us have more of it ! ” he mentally turned to these sounds, and again started galloping along the line, entering deeper and deeper into the sphere of the troops that had entered into action.

” I do not know how it will be there, but it will all be well ! ” thought Rostov.

Riding past some Austrian troops, Rostdv noticed that the line immediately following (it was the Guard) was just then entering into action.

” So much the better, — I shall see it at close range,” he thought.

He was riding almost along the front line. Several horsemen were galloping toward him. Those were the uhlans of the Guard who were returning from the attack in disorderly ranks. Rostov rode past them. He involuntarily noticed that one of them was covered with blood, and he galloped ahead.

” That does not concern me ! ” he thought.

He had not ridden another hundred paces, when to the left of him, at right angles, there appeared along the whole extent of the field an immense mass of cavalrymen on black horses, wearing shining white uniforms ; they were advancing toward him at a trot. Rostov spurred his horse on to its fullest speed, so as to get out of the way of these cavalrymen, in which he would have succeeded if they had kept at the same pace, but they were riding ever faster, and some of the horses were already going at a gallop. Rostdv could hear ever more audibly the tramp of the horses and the clanking of the weapons, and he could see ever more clearly their horses, their forms, and even their faces. Those were our chevalierguards, on their way to attack the French cavalry, which was moving toward them.

The chevalierguards were galloping, hut still controlling their horses. Kostov already could see plainly their faces, and he heard the command, ” March ! March ! ” pronounced by an officer who let his blooded horse run at the fullest speed. Rostdv, fearing to be crushed to death, or drawn along to the attack on the French, rode down the line as fast as his horse could carry him, but he was unable to get beyond it.

The outer chevalierguard, an enormous, pockmarked man, scowled when he saw Rostov before him, seeing that he could not avoid a collision. This chevalierguard would certainly have knocked down Rostov with bis Bedouin (Rostov appeared so small and frail in comparison with these huge men and horses), if it had not suddenly occurred to Rostov to swing his whip in front of the horse of the chevalierguard. The huge black horse shied and dropped its ears ; but the pockmarked chevalierguardsman stuck his immense spurs into the sides of the rearing horse, and the horse, arching its tail and stretching its neck, flew more rapidly still. The chevalierguards had barely passed Rostov, when he heard their shout, ” Hurrah ! ” and, upon looking back, he saw that their front ranks had already become entangled with some foreign, apparently French, cavalrymen in red epaulettes. He could see nothing else, for soon after somebody was firing off large guns, and everything was enveloped in smoke.

Just as the chevalierguards, riding past him, disappeared in the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether he had better follow them, or ride on where he had been sent. It was that brilliant attack of the chevalierguards, which so surprised the French themselves. Rostov later on felt terribly when he heard that out of this whole mass of tall, fine-looking men, that out of all these brilliant and rich young men, officers and yunkers, who were riding upon horses whose value was in the thousands, there were only eighteen men left after the attack.

” Why should I envy them ? My time will come, and I may soon have a chance of seeing the emperor ! ” thought Rostov. He galloped ahead.

When coming abreast with the infantry of the Guard, he noticed that projectiles were flying over them and near them, not so much because he heard the sound of the projectiles, but because he saw unrest on the faces of the soldiers, and an unnatural military solemnity on the faces of the officers.

As he was riding back of one of the lines of the Guard regiments, he heard a voice calling him by name, ” Rostov ! “

” What? ” he replied, not recognizing Boris.

” What do you think of it, — we got into the first line ! Our regiment has been in the attack ! ” said Boris, smiling with that happy smile which one may see upon the faces of young men who for the first time have been under fire.

Rostov stopped.

” You don’t say ? ” he said. ” Well ? “

“ Repulsed ! ” Boris said, with animation, becoming garrulous. ” Just think of it — ” and Boris began to tell him how the Guard, seeing some troops in front of them, took them for Austrians, and only by the balls which these troops were firing upon them did they discover that they were in the first line and had to advance to an attack.

Rostov did not wait to hear the end of the story, but touched his horse and rode away.

” Where are you going ? ” asked Boris.

” To his Majesty, with an order.”

” There he is ! ” said Boris, who thought that Rostov meant his Highness, pointing to the grand duke who was within a hundred steps of them. He wore a helmet and the riding-jacket of the chevalierguards ; his shoulders were raised, and he was frowning and shouting something to a pale Austrian officer in white.

“ That is the grand duke, and I want the commanderin-chief or the emperor,” said Rostov, touching his horse.

“Count, count?” cried Berg, who ran up from another side and was as agitated as Boris. ” Count, I am wounded in my right hand,” he said, showing his bloodstained hand bandaged with a handkerchief, ” but I have remained in the ranks. Count, I hold my sword with my left hand : count, our whole family of Von Bergs have been knights.”

Berg was saying something else, but Rostov did not wait to hear the end of what he had to say, and rode on.

After leaving the Guard and crossing an unoccupied space, Rostov, not to get into the first line again, as he had been in the attack of the chevalierguards, went along the line of the reserves, making a large circuit around the place where the fusilade and the cannonade were hottest. Suddenly he heard a musketryfire near by, in front of him, and in the rear of our troops where he could least expect the enemy.

“ What can that be ? ” thought Rostov. ” The enemy in our rear? Impossible,” he thought, and he was suddenly overcome by terror for himself and for the outcome of the whole battle. ” Whatever it may be,” he thought, “ there is no use now in making a circuit. I must find the commanderin-chief here, and if all is lost, it is my duty to perish with the rest.”

The evil presentiment which suddenly dawned on Rostov was ever more confirmed the more he entered into the space behind the village of Pratzen, which was occupied by a large mass of troops of every description.

” What is it ? What is it ? At whom are they shooting ? Who is shooting ? ” asked Rostov, coming abreast with Russian and Austrian soldiers, who were crossing his road in mixed masses.

“The devil knows! He has annihilated everybody! May it all perish ! ” he received answers in Russian, in German, and in Bohemian from the masses of the fleeing soldiers, who no more than he comprehended what was taking place.

“ Strike the Germans ! ” cried one.

” The devil take them, the traitors ! “

“ Zum Henker diese Hussen — ” a German grumbled.

Several wounded men were walking on the road. Curses, shouts, groans, blended in one general roar. The fusilade died down. As Rostov later learned, the Russian and Austrian soldiers were shooting at each other.

” My God, what is this ? ” thought Rostov. “ Here where the emperor may see them any moment— No, these are only a handful of scoundrels. This will pass, — this cannot be,” he thought. ” I must get past them as soon as possible ! “

The thought of defeat and flight could not come to Rostov’s mind. Although he saw French ordnance and troops on the Pratzen heights, there where he was ordered to find the commanderin-chief, he could not and would not believe it.

XVIII.

Rostov had been told to find Kutuzov and the emperor near the village of Pratzen. Not only were they not there, but there was not even a single chief there : there were only mixed masses of disorganized troops. He urged on his tired horse in order to pass as quickly as possible by these masses ; but the farther he proceeded, the more the masses were disorganized. On the highway, which he now reached, there were crowded carriages of every description, Russian and Austrian soldiers of every description, wounded and not wounded. All these were dinning and swarming under the melancholy sound of the flying projectiles from the French batteries placed on the Pratzen heights.

« Where is the emperor ? Where is Kutuzov ? ” Rostdv asked everybody whom he could stop, but he could receive no answer from anybody.

Finally he took a soldier by the collar and made him give him an answer.

” Oh, my friend ! They have escaped long ago ! ” the soldier said to Rostov, laughing and tearing himself away.

After letting this soldier go, who evidently was drunk, Rostov stopped the horse of an attendant of some important person and began to ask questions of him. The attendant informed Rostov that the emperor had an hour before been taken down that road in a carriage at full speed, and that the emperor was dangerously wounded.

“Impossible,” said Rostdv, “it must have been somebody else.”

“ I saw him myself,” said the attendant, with a selfconfident smile. ” It is about time I should know the emperor : I have seen him often enough at St. Petersburg. He looked pale, very pale in his carriage. He just thundered past us with the four black horses : it is time I should know those horses of the Tsar, and Ilya Ivanych ; Ilya the coachman never drives for anybody but the Tsar, so far as I know.”

Rostov let his horse go, and was on the point of riding away. A wounded officer who happened to pass by addressed him.

” Whom do you wish ? The commanderin-chief ? He was killed by a cannon-ball, — it struck him in the chest, near our regiment.”

“Not killed, but wounded,” another officer corrected him.

” Who ? Kutuzov ? ” asked Rostdv.

” No, not Kutuzov, but what do you call him ? What is the difference, there are few left alive. Go over there, to that village : all the authorities are collected there,” said this officer, pointing to the village of Hostieradek, and walking away.

Rostov was riding at a walk, without knowing to whom to go, or for what purpose. The emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to disbelieve it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, and where a tower and church could be seen in the distance. Why should he be in a hurry ? What was he to tell the emperor or Kutuzov now, even if they were alive and not wounded ?

“Travel along this road, your Honour, for there you will certainly be killed. You will be killed there ! ”

” What are you talking about ? ” said another. ” Where shall he go ? It is nearer by that road.”

Rostov thought for a moment and rode on in the direction where he was told he certainly would be killed.

« Now it is all the same ; why should I now take care of myself, since the emperor is wounded ? ” he thought.

He rode into the space where the largest number of people who were running from Pratzen had been killed. The Frenchmen had not yet occupied that place, and the Russians, such as were alive or wounded, had long ago abandoned it. In the field ten, fifteen men of killed and wounded lay in heaps, like sheaves on a good, harvested plot. Wounded men crawled together in groups of two and three, and Rostov heard their disagreeable and, as he thought, at times feigned cries and groans. Rostov started his horse at a trot, so as not to see all these suffering people, and he felt terribly. He was afraid, not of his life, but for his valour, which he needed and which, he knew, would not endure the sight of these unfortunates.

The French, who had ceased shooting at this field which was sowed with dead and wounded, because no living soul was left upon it, upon seeing the adjutant riding along, trained their guns at him and discharged several shots. The sensation produced by these terrible, whistling sounds and the dead soldiers which surrounded him, blended for Rostov into one impression of terror and compassion for himself. He recalled his mother’s last letter.

” What would she experience,” he thought, ” if she now saw me here, in this field, with the guns trained at me ? “

In the village of Hostieradek the Russian troops which were coming away from the field of battle were also mingling, but in much better order. The French projectiles did not reach so far, and the sounds of the fusilade seemed distant. Here all clearly saw and admitted that the battle was lost. Although Rostov turned to many persons, no one was able to tell him where the emperor or where Kutuzov was. Some said that the rumour of the emperor’s wound was true ; others said that it was not, explaining this false rumour by saying that it was true that the emperor’s carriage had driven past after the battle, but that it was occupied by the pale and frightened grand marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy, who had driven out with the rest in the suite of the emperor. One officer told Rostov that beyond the village, on the left, he had seen some one of the higher authorities. Rostov rode in that direction, without any hope of finding anybody, but simply to clear his conscience.

After riding for about three versts and passing the last Russian troops near a garden which was surrounded by a ditch, Rostov saw two horsemen standing opposite that ditch. One of them, with a white panache on his hat, somehow appeared familiar to Rostov; the other, an unfamiliar rider, on a beautiful red horse (Rostdv thought that horse was familiar to him), rode up, gave the horse the spurs and, giving it the rein, lightly took the ditch. A little dirt, touched by the horse’s hind legs, rolled down the incline. He sharply turned his mount around, again took the ditch, and respectfully turned to the rider with the white panache, apparently asking him to do the same. The rider, whose form seemed familiar to Rostov and who for some reason attracted his attention, made a negative gesture with his hand and head, and by this gesture Rostov immediately recognized his lamented, worshipped emperor.

” But it could not be he alone in the middle of an empty field,” thought Rostov. Just then Alexander turned his head, and Rostov saw vividly the beloved features which were deeply impressed upon his memory. The emperor was pale ; his cheeks were sunken and his eyes were deep-set, but there was so much the more charm and mildness in his features. Rostov was happy, having convinced himself that the rumour of the emperor’s wound was not true. He knew that he could, nay, ought to address the emperor at once and transmit the order given him by Dolgorukov.

But, as a young man who is in love trembles and grows timid, without daring to tell the reveries of the night, and timorously looks around, looking for succour or a chance for delay and flight, when the desired minute arrives, and he is standing all alone with her, so Rostov, having reached that which he had most wished in the world, did not know now how to approach the emperor, and thousands of combinations occurred to him why it was inconvenient, improper, and impossible.

” What ? I seem to be glad because I can profit by his loneliness and dejection. An unfamiliar face may appear disagreeable and oppressive to him in these moments of grief ; besides, what shall I be able to tell him, since now, at the mere sight of him, my heart is sinking and my mouth is dry ? “

Not one of the numberless speeches which he had composed in Iris imagination for the occasion of meeting the emperor now occurred to him. Those speeches were intended for entirely different occasions ; they were to be delivered mostly in the moment of victory and triumph, more particularly on the point of dying from a mortal wound, just as the emperor would be thanking him for his heroic exploits, and he, dying, would express to him his love of which he had given proof by his deeds.

” Besides, why should I ask the emperor’s orders for the right flank, since it is now four o’clock and the battle is lost ? No, really, I must not approach him. I must not intrude upon his melancholy. Better to die a thousand times than to receive his angry look and to earn a bad opinion from him,” decided Rostov. With sadness and with despair in his heart he rode away, looking all the time back at the emperor who was standing there in an attitude of indecision.

Just as Rostov was reflecting thus and sadly riding away from the emperor, Captain von Toll accidentally reached that spot. Upon noticing the emperor, he rode up to him, offered him his services, and helped him to cross the ditch on foot. Wishing to rest himself and feeling unwell, the emperor sat down under an apple-tree, and Von Toll stopped near him. Rostov saw from a distance with envy and regret that Von Toll was for a long time speaking with warmth to the emperor, and that the emperor, covering his eyes with his hands, apparently was weeping, and that he pressed Von Toll’s hand.

” I might have been in his place,” Rostov thought and, making an effort to hold back his tears of compassion for the emperor’s lot, rode on in utter despair, without knowing whither he was riding or for what.

His despair was the stronger since he felt that his own weakness was the cause of his sorrow.

He could — he not only could, but he should — ride up to the emperor. This was the only opportunity he had to show the emperor his devotion. And he did not make use of it —

” What have I done ? ” he thought. He turned back his horse and rode back to the spot where he had seen the emperor ; but now there was no one beyond the ditch. Nothing but carts and carriages were coming down the road. From one of the drivers Rostov learned that Kutuzov’s staff was not far away, in the village, toward which the wagons were travelling. Rostov rode after them.

In front of him was Kutuzov’s attendant, leading the horses with their housings. Back of the attendant there was a cart, and behind the cart there walked an old man, a manorial servant, with crooked legs, wearing a large cap and a short fur coat.

“Tit, oh, Tit !” said the attendant.

” What is it ? ” the old man asked, absent-mindedly.

” Tit, go and take the spit ! ”

” Oh, you fool, pshaw ! ” the old man said, spitting out in anger.

The carts moved on in silence for a few minutes, and the joke was again repeated.

At five o’clock in the evening the battle was lost at all points. More than one hundred pieces of ordnance were in the hands of the French.

ITzebyszéwski with his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns, having lost about one-half of their men, were retreating in disorderly, mixed up crowds.

The remainders of Faugeron’s and Ddkhturov’s troops, mingling, were crowding on the dams and on the shores of the ponds, near the village of Augezd.

At six o’clock a hot cannonade was heard only at the Augezd dam ; it proceeded from the French, who had placed numerous batteries on the slope of Pratzen heights and who were firing on our retreating troops.

In the rearguard, Ddkhturov and others were collecting the battalions and returning the tire of the French cavalry which was pursuing our troops. On the narrow dam at Augezd, where for so many years an old miller in a nightcap had been sitting peacefully with his angling rods, while his grandchild, rolling up his sleeve, played with the quivering silvery fish in the bucket, — on the dam, where for so many years the Moravians, wearing their shaggy caps and blue jackets, peacefully drove their two-horse wagons laden with wheat, and returned white with flour-dust on their whitened wagons, — on that narrow dam men, disfigured by the terror of death, now crowded between carts and ordnance, under the horses and between the wheels, crushing each other, dying, stepping over the dying, and killing each other, only to be killed themselves after having made a few steps.

Every ten seconds, a ball, compressing the air, splashed, or a grenade burst in the middle of this dense mass, killing and bespattering with blood those who stood near. Dolokhov, wounded in his arm, with a dozen of the soldiers of his company (he was now again an officer), on foot, and the commander of his regiment on horseback, represented all that there was left of that regiment. Dragged along by the masses, they stood at the entrance of the dam, surrounded on all sides and unable to proceed because in front of them a horse had fallen under a cannon, and the men were trying to drag it out. A ball killed somebody from behind ; another struck in front and bespattered Dolokhov with blood. The mass pressed desperately from behind ; they moved a few steps in advance, and again stopped.

” If I can make these hundred steps, I shall certainly be saved ; if I stand here two minutes longer, I am certainly lost,” thought everybody.

Dolokhov, who was standing in the middle of the mass, made for the edge of the dam, knocking down two soldiers, and ran out on the slippery ice which covered the pond.

” Turn it in ! ” he shouted, leaping up on the ice which was crackling under his feet. ” Turn it in ! ” he cried to the crew of the ordnance, ” it will hold ! “

The ice was holding him, but kept bending and crackling, and it was evident that it would collapse not only under the gun, but under him as well. The men looked at him, pressing to the shore, but not daring to step on the ice. The commander of the regiment, who was on horseback at the entrance of the dam, raised his hand and opened his mouth, turning to Dolokhov. Suddenly one of the balls whistled so low above the mass that all bent down. There was a splash in something wet, and the general fell with his horse into a pool of blood. Nobody looked at the general ; nobody thought of lifting him up.

“ Go on the ice ! Go on the ice ! Go ! Turn around ! Don’t you hear ? Go ! ” suddenly, after the ball which struck the general, there were heard an endless number of voices who did not know what they were crying, or why.

One of the guns in the rear, which had just driven on the dam, turned around to go on the ice. Crowds of soldiers began to run down from the dam on the frozen pond. The ice crackled under one of the soldiers in front and one foot dropped into the water ; he tried to save himself, and went down to his waist. The soldiers nearest to him hesitated ; the driver of the gun stopped his horse, but voices were again heard from behind : ” Go on the ice ! Don’t stop ! Go, go ! ” Cries of terror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers who surrounded the gun waved their hands at the horses and struck them to make them turn sidewise and move on. The horses moved from the shore. The ice, which was holding the men on foot, went down with a crash, and in the large opening thus formed about forty men who were on the ice rushed forward, or backward, drowning each other.

The cannon-balls whistled as evenly and splashed upon the ice into the water, and more frequently against the mass which covered the dam, the ponds, and the shore.

XIX.

On the Pratzen heights, Prince Andréy Bolkdnski lay in the same spot where he had fallen down with the flagstaff. He was losing blood, and, without knowing it himself, kept groaning with soft, pitiful, childish groans.

Toward evening he stopped groaning and grew entirely quiet. He did not know how long that oblivion lasted. Suddenly he again was conscious of being alive and of suffering a burning and gnawing pain in his head.

” Where is it, that high heaven, which I did not know before, and which I saw to-day for the first time ? ” was his first thought. ” I did not know that suffering, either,” he thought. ” I did not know anything before. But where am I?”

He began to listen, and he heard the sounds of the approaching tramp of horses and the sounds of human voices speaking in French. He opened his eyes. Above him was again that high heaven with floating clouds risen higher still ; through the clouds he saw the blue infinity. He did not turn his head and so did not see those who, to judge from the sounds of the hoofs and of the voices, had ridden up to him and had stopped.

The men on horseback were Napoleon and two of his adjutants. Bonaparte was riding over the field of battle, giving his last orders to increase the fire at the batteries which were shooting at the dam at Auhest, and looking at the dead and the wounded who were left on the field of battle.

” De beaux hommes ! ” said Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier who was lying on his stomach, his face stuck in the ground, the back of his head looking livid, and one of his stiffened arms thrust out.

“Les munitions des pièces de position sont épuisées, Sire ! ” said an adjutant who had just arrived from the battery that was firing at Auhest.

” Faites avancer celles de la reserve ! ” said Napoleon. Riding a few steps away, he stopped over Prince Andréy, who was lying on his back, with the flagstaff close by him (the flag had long ago been taken away by the Frenchmen as a trophy).

” Voilà une belle mort ! ” said Napoleon, looking at Bolkonski.

Prince Andréy understood that this referred to him and that Napoleon had said this. He heard them call ” Sire ” the one who had said these words. But he heard these words as if he had heard the buzzing of a fly. He was not interested in them ; he even took no notice of them, and soon forgot them. He had a burning pain in his head ; he felt that he was losing blood, and he saw above him the distant, high, and eternal heaven. He knew that it was Napoleon, his hero, but at that moment Napoleon appeared to him as such a small and insignificant man, in comparison with that which was now taking place between his soul and this high, endless heaven with the clouds fleeting over it. It made absolutely no difference to him at that moment who was standing over him or what he was saying about him ; he was simply glad that people had stopped near him, and wished only that these people might help him and bring him back to life, which seemed so beautiful to him because he now understood it so very differently. He collected all his strength in order to stir and produce some kind of a sound. He feebly moved his leg and emitted a weak, sickly groan which made him have compassion for himself.

” Ah, he is alive,” said Napoleon. ” Take up this young man, ce jeune homme, and carry him to the ambulance ! “

Saying this, Napoleon rode away to meet Marshal Lannes, who, taking off his hat, smiling and congratulating upon the victory, rode up to the emperor.

Prince Andréy remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from his great pain, which was caused by putting him on a stretcher, by the jolts while being carried, and by the probing of the wound at the ambulance. He awoke only at the end of the day, when, together with other Russian wounded and captive officers, he was carried to the hospital. During this transportation he felt himself a little fresher and was able to look around and even to speak.

The first words which he heard, when he awoke, were the words of the French officer of the convoy, who said, hurriedly :

” We must stop here : the emperor will pass soon ; it will give him pleasure to see these captive gentlemen.”

” There have been so many taken captive to-day, almost the whole Russian army, that he must be tired looking at them,” said another officer.

” Still ! This one, they say, is the commander of the whole Guard of Emperor Alexander,” said the first, pointing to a wounded Russian officer in the white uniform of the chevalierguard.

Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin, whom he had met in St. Petersburg society. By his side stood a nineteen-year-old boy, also a wounded officer of the chevalierguard.

Bonaparte rode up at a gallop and stopped his horse.

” ‘Who is of the highest rank ? ” he said, upon seeing the captives.

The colonel, Prince Repnin, was named.

” Are you the commander of the chevalierguard regiment of Emperor Alexander ? ” asked Napoleon.

” I commanded a squadron,” replied Repnin.

” Your regiment has done its duty well,” said Napoleon.

” The praise of a great general is the best reward of a soldier,” said Repnin.

” I gladly concede it to you,” said Napoleon.

” Who is this young man by your side ? “

Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.

Looking at him, Napoleon said, smiling:

” Il est venu bien jeune se frotter à nous.”

” Youth does not prevent one from being brave,” Sukhtelen said, in a timorous voice.

” A beautiful answer,” said Napoleon. ” Young man, you will go far ! ”

Prince Andrey, who, to swell the trophies of the captives had also been placed in front, so as to catch the emperor’s eyes, could not help attracting his attention. Napoleon evidently recalled having seen him on the field of battle and, turning to him, used the same expression of jeune homme, under which Bolkonski the first time impressed himself on his memory.

“Et vous, jeune homme? And you, young man?” he turned to him, “ how do you feel, mon brave ?”

Although but five minutes before Prince Andréy had been able to say several words to the soldiers who were carrying him, he now kept silent, staring fixedly at Napoleon. All the interest which actuated Napoleon at this moment seemed so insignificant to him, and his hero himself at that moment appeared so petty to him, with his petty vanity and joy of victory, in comparison with that high, just, and good heaven, which he had seen and which he had come to understand, that he was unable to answer him.

Everything seemed so useless and insignificant in comparison with that severe and majestic array of thoughts, which was evoked in him by the enfeebled strength due to the loss of blood, by his suffering, and by the proximity of death. Looking into Napoleon’s eyes, Prince Andréy was thinking of the insignificance of life, the meaning of which nobody could understand, and of the still greater insignificance of death, the meaning of which none of the living could understand or explain.

The emperor, receiving no reply, turned away and, while leaving, addressed one of his chiefs:

” Take care of these gentlemen and have them taken to my bivouac ! Let my doctor Larrey investigate their wounds ! Goodbye, Prince Repnin,” and, touching his horse, he rode off at a gallop.

Ou his face there was a gleam of self-satisfaction and happiness.

The soldiers who had brought Prince Andréy and who had taken off the golden image which Princess Marya had hung around her brother’s neck, upon seeing the kindness with which the emperor addressed the captives, hastened to return it to him.

Prince Andréy did not see who it was that put it on again nor how it was put on, but he noticed that the image, hanging down from a fine gold chain, was lying on his breast above his uniform.

” It would be well,” thought Prince Andréy, looking at this image, which his sister had hung around his neck with such feeling and piety, ” it would be well if everything were as clear and as simple as it appears to Princess Marya. How good it would be to know where to look for succour in this life, and what to expect after it there, beyond the grave ! How happy and calm I should be, if I were able to say now, ‘ 0 Lord, have mercy upon me ! ’ But to whom shall I say it ? Either the indefinite, incomprehensible power, which I not only cannot address, but which I even am unable to express in words, is the great All, or nothing,” he said to himself, ” or it is this God who is sewn up here, in this talisman by Princess Marya ! Nothing, nothing is certain but the insignificance of all that which is comprehensible to me, and the grandeur of something incomprehensible, but very important ! ”

The stretcher was started. At each jolt he again felt an insufferable pain, his feverish condition was increased, and he grew delirious. His reveries about his father, his wife, his sister, and his future son, and the tender mood which he had experienced on the night preceding the battle, and the figure of the small, insignificant Napoleon, and above all this the high heaven formed the chief foundation for his delirious pictures.

The quiet life and calm domestic happiness at Lÿsyya Gory presented itself to him. He was already enjoying this happiness, when suddenly the little Napoleon appeared, with his indifferent, limited view, happy in the misfortune of others, and there began doubts, torments, and only the heaven promised alleviation. Toward morning all the dreams became mixed and blended in chaos and the darkness of oblivion and unconsciousness, which, according to the opinion of Larrey, Napoleon’s doctor, was more likely to terminate in death than in recovery.

” C’est un sujet nerveux et bilieux” said Larrey,“il nen réchappera pas.”

Prince Andréy was left, among a number of hopelessly wounded, in the care of the inhabitants.

PART THE FOURTH

I.

In the beginning of the year 1806 Nikolay Rostdv went home on a leave of absence. Denisov, too, was travelling home, to Voronezh, and Rostdv persuaded him to journey with him as far as Moscow and to stop at his house. Two stations before reaching Moscow, Denisov met a friend of his and drank three bottles of wine with him ; the result of it was that, in spite of the ruts in the road, he, lying in the body of the post-sleigh, did not wake up, while Rostov became ever more impatient in measure as they approached the city.

” How soon will it be ? How soon ? Oh, these intolerable streets, shops, white-loafs, lamp-posts, cabmen ! ” thought Rostov, after they had recorded their certificates of leave at the toll-gate and had entered the city.

” Denisov, we have arrived ! He is asleep ! ” he said, leaning forward with his whole body, as though hoping to increase the motion of the sleigh by this lurch.

Denisov made no reply.

” Here is the cross street where cabman Zakhar has his stand ; and here is Zakhar, and his old horse. Here is the

little shop where we used to buy our cookies. How soon will it be ? Well ? “

” In which house? ” asked the driver.

“In the large house at the corner. Oan’t you see it? That is our house,” said Rostdv, ” that is our house ! Denisov ! Denisov ! We shall be there in a minute.”

Denisov raised his head, cleared his throat, and made no reply.

” Dmitri,” Rostdv addressed the lackey on the box, ” there is a light in our house.”

“ Yes, there is. There is a light in your father’s cabinet.”

” Have they not yet retired ? Eh ? What do you think ? Don’t forget to take out my Hungarian coat!” Rostov added, fingering his moustache. ” Go on ! ” he cried to the driver. ” Do wake up, Vdsya,” he turned to Denisov, who had again lowered his head. “Move on, go faster! You will get three roubles for vddka, go on ! ” Rostdv cried when they were only within three houses of his own. He thought that the horses were not moving. At last the horses bore to the left and drove up to the entrance. Rostdv saw, above his head, the familiar cornice with the stucco knocked off from it, the porch, and the hitching-post. He leaped out of the sleigh while it was yet in motion, and ran up to the vestibule. The house stood motionless and cheerless, as though it did not care who had arrived. There was no one in the vestibule.

” 0 God, I wonder whether everything is all right,” thought Rostov, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and rushing along the vestibule and the familiar warped staircase. The same old door-handle, the spots on which had been the cause of so much anger in the countess, submitted to the same weak pressure. A tallow candle was burning in the antechamber.

Old Mikhdyla was sleeping on the clothes-bench. Prokdfi, the footman, the same that was so powerful that he could lift up a carriage by its back, was sitting and weaving bast shoes. He looked up at the opened door, and his sleepy, indifferent expression was suddenly transformed to one of ecstasy and fright.

” 0 Lord ! The young count ! ” he exclaimed, upon recognizing his young master. “ How is this ? My dear master ! ” And shaking from excitement, Prokdfi rushed up to the door leading to the drawingroom, apparently for the purpose of announcing his arrival, but he changed his mind, came back, and fell on the shoulders of his young master.

” Are all well ? ” asked Rostdv, tearing his arm away from him.

” Thank God, they are ! Thank God, everything is well ! They have just had their supper ! Let me look at you, Serenity.”

” Is everything well ? “

” Thank God, everything is ! “

Rostov had entirely forgotten about Denisov, and, not wishing to allow any one to anticipate him, he threw down his fur coat and on tiptoe ran up to the dark large parlour. Everything was as of old : the same cardtables, the same chandelier in a netting ; but somebody had observed the young master, and before he reached the drawingroom something flew impetuously at him from the side door and embraced him and began to kiss him. Another, a third being, leaped out from a second, a third door ; more embraces, more kisses, more shouts and tears of joy. He could not make out where or who his father was, who was Natasha and who Pétya. All were crying, talking, and kissing him at one and the same time. But his mother was not among them, — so much he remembered.

” I did not know — Nikolay — my dear ! “

” Here he is — ours — My dear Nikoldy — He has changed ! Where are the candles ? Let us have tea ! “

” Kiss me, too ! “

” Darling, and me ! “

Sduya, Natdsha, Pétya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vyéra, the old count, embraced him ; and the servants and the maids filled the room, talking and sighing.

Pétya clung to his legs.

v O O

” And me ! ” he cried.

Natäsha pulled him down toward her and deposited a number of kisses on his face ; then she leaped aside, holding on to the skirt of his Hungarian coat, leaped about like a goat in one spot, and screamed in a piercing voice.

On all sides there were loving eyes, glistening with the tears of joy ; on all sides there were lips, seeking to be kissed.

Sdnya, who was as red as a lobster, was also holding his arm and was all aglow with bliss, while gazing into his eyes, which she had been waiting for so long. Sonya had passed her sixteenth year ; she was very pretty, particularly at that moment of happy, ecstatic animation. She looked at him without taking her eyes off, smiling and holding her breath. He looked gratefully at her, but was all the time waiting and looking for some one. The old countess had not yet made her appearance. Suddenly steps were heard at the door: they were so fast that they could not be those of his mother.

And yet it was she, wearing a new, unfamiliar dress, which had been made in his absence. All left him, and he ran up toward her. When they came together, she fell sobbing upon his breast. She could not raise her face and only pressed it to the cold cords of his Hungarian coat. Denisov had entered the room unnoticed by any one : he was standing there, looking at them, wiping his eyes.

” Vasili Denisov, the friend of your son,” he said, introducing himself to the count, who was looking interrogatively at him.

” You are welcome. I know, I know,” said the count, embracing and kissing Denisov. ” Nikolay wrote us — Natasha, Vyéra, here is Denisov!”

The same happy, ecstatic faces now turned to Denisov’s shaggy figure, and surrounded him.

” Darling Denisov ! ” shrieked Natasha, beside herself with excitement. She leaped up to him, embraced him, and kissed him. All were embarrassed by Natasha’s act. Denisov himself blushed, smiling. He took Natasha’s hand and kissed it.

Denisov was taken to the room set aside for him, and the family gathered in the sofaroom about Nikolay.

The old countess sat by his side, and, without letting his hand out of hers, kept kissing it all the time. The others crowded around them, caught every motion, word, and look of his, and did not take their ecstatic eyes off him. His brother and his sisters quarrelled about the nearest place to him, taking it away from each other, and had altercations about who was to bring him the tea, a handkerchief, or tobacco.

Rostév was very happy in the love which was manifested to him; but the first moment of his meeting had been so blissful that the present happiness did not seem sufficient to him, and he was waiting for something more and more.

On the following morning the newcomers slept until nearly ten o’clock.

In the adjoining room there lay in disorder sables, pouches, sabretasches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two clean pairs of boots, with their spurs on, had just been placed against the wall. Servants brought washstands, hot water for shaving, and clean clothes. There was an odour of tobacco and of effluvia betraying the presence of men.

“Oh, there, Grishka!” Vasili Denisov called out in a hoarse voice. ” Rostév, get up ! ”

Rostov rubbed his sleepy eyes and raised his dishevelled head from his warm pillow.

” What is it ? Is it late ? “

“ Yes, it is. It is nearly ten o’clock,” replied Natdsha, and in the adjoining room could be heard the rustle of starched dresses, whispering, and the laughter of girls, and past the slightly open door there flitted something blue, some ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. Those were Natdsha, SiSnya, and Pétya, who came to find out whether he was not yet up.

“ Nikoldy, get up!” Natdsha’s voice was again heard at the door.

” Directly ! ”

Just then Pétya, in the front room, picked up the sabres, which he saw there, and, experiencing that transport which boys experience at the sight of their martial elder brothers, opened the door, forgetting that it was improper for girls to see men in undress.

“Is tins your sabre ? ” he cried.

The girls leaped aside. Denisov with frightened eyes hid his hirsute feet under the coverlet, glancing at his comrade for aid. Pétya passed through the door, and it slammed to. Behind the door could be heard laughter.

” Nikoldy, come out in your morninggown ! ” was heard Natdsha’s voice.

“ Is this your sabre ? ” asked Pétya, ” or is it yours ? ” he turned to the mustachioed, swarthy Denisov, with an expression of servile respect.

Rostov hastily put on his morninggown and his shoes, and went out to the girls. As he entered the room, Sonya was in the act of circling around and puffing up her dress ready to sit on the floor. Both girls looked fresh, ruddy, and happy, and wore the same kind of new blue dresses. Sénya ran away, and Natdsha linked her arm with that of her brother and led him into the sofaroom, where they at once started a conversation. They asked each other questions about a thousand trifles that could interest none but themselves, but they hardly received any proper answers to them. Natdsha laughed at every word which either of them said, not because that which they said was ridiculous, but because she was happy and was unable to restrain her joy, which found its expression in laughter.

” Oh, how nice ! How excellent ! ” she said to everything. ‘

Rostov felt that under the influence of the warm rays of love the childish smile, which he had not smiled even once since he had left home, now for the first time after a period of a year and a half budded in his soul and upon his face.

” Really,” she said, ” you are now a full-fledged man ! I am so glad you are my brother.” She touched his moustache. ” I want to know what you men are like. Are you just like us ? Are you ? ”

” Why did Sonya run away ? ” asked Rostov.

” Yes, that is a whole story ! How are you going to address Sonya, as ‘ thou ’ or as * you ‘ ?”

” As it may happen,” said Rostov.

” Say ‘ thou ‘ to her, please ! I will tell you later why. No, I will tell you now. You know that Sonya is my friend, — she is such a friend that I would gladly put my arm in the fire for her. Look ! “

She rolled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red mark on her long, lean, and tender arm, far above the elbow, but below the shoulder, in the spot which is generally concealed by a ball-dress.

” I burnt this to prove to her my love for her. I simply heated a ruler on the fire and pressed it against the skin.”

As Rostov was sitting in his former classroom, on a sofa with cushions on the rests, and looking into Natdsha’s maddeningly vivacious eyes, he again entered into that domestic world of his childhood, which had no meaning for any one but himself, but which afforded him one of the best enjoyments of life ; the burning of the arm by means of the ruler in order to give proof of love did not seem useless to him: he understood it and was not in the least surprised.

“ Well ? Is that all ?” he asked.

” We are such friends, oh, such friends ! Why, the ruler is nothing : but we are such friends. When she loves one, she loves him for all time ; but I cannot understand that,— I shall forget at once.”

” Well, what of it ? ”

“ Yes, she loves me and you so much !” Natasha suddenly blushed. “ Do you remember, before your departure — She said : ‘ I will love him for ever, but he shall be free.’ Now isn’t that fine and noble ? Us, yes ! it is very noble ! Is it not ? ” asked Natasha with such seriousness and agitation that it became evident that that which she was saying now she had been saying before with tears. Rostov fell to musing.

” I do not take back any word I have given,” he said. ” Besides, Sonya is such a joy that a man would be a fool to refuse his happiness.”

” No, no,” cried Natasha. ” We have been talking about this. We knew that you would be saying this. But that must not be, because, you see, if, as you say, you consider yourself bound by any word which you may have given, it turns out as though she had said it on purpose. It turns out that you are going to be forced to marry her by force, and it is not just right.”

Rostov saw that they had thought it out well. Sonya had struck him by her beauty the day before. On that day, when he had only caught a glimpse of her, she seemed even more beautiful to him. She was a charming girl of sixteen years, who apparently was passionately in love with him, and this he did not doubt for a moment. Why should he not love her now, and even marry her, thought Rostdv. But now there were so many other joys and occupations too.

” Yes, they have thought it out well,” he thought, ” I must remain free.”

“Very well,” he said, “we shall discuss it later. Oh, how glad I am to see you ! ” he added.

“ Well, have you not been false to Boris ? ” asked her brother.

“What foolishness!” Natasha cried, smiling. “I am thinking neither of him, nor of any one else, and I do not want to know anything about it.”

“ Oh ! What is the matter with you ? “

“ What is the matter ? ” Natasha repeated the question, and a happy smile lighted up her face. ” Have you seen Duport ? “

“ No.”

“ You have not seen Duport, the famous dancer ? Well, then you won’t understand me. This is the matter with me ! ” and Natasha arched her arms, lifted her skirt as they do in dancing, whirled around, skipped up, struck her feet together, and took several steps while standing on the tips of her toes.

“ I am standing, am I not ? ” she said ; but she could not keep long on tiptoe. “ This is the matter with me ! I will never marry, but will become a dancer. Please, don’t tell anybody about it ! “

Rostov burst out into such a loud and merry laugh that Denisov in his room became envious, and Natasha was unable to keep from laughing with him.

“ Is it not nice ? ” she kept saying.

“ Yes. And so you won’t marry Boris ? ”

Natäsha flared up.

” I do not want to marry anybody. I will tell him so when I see him.”

“ Indeed ! ” said Rostov.

” Well, that is all foolishness,” Natasha kept prattling. ” How about Denisov ? Is he nice ? ” she asked.

“ Yes.”

” Goodbye î Go and get dressed ! Is Denisov terrible ? “

“ Why should he be?” asked Nikdldy. “No, Vdsya is a tine fellow.”

” You call him Vdsya, — that is strange. Really, is he very good ? ”

“ Yes, very.”

” Well, come soon to tea. We shall all be together.”

And Natdsha got up on tiptoe and walked out of the room as dancers do, but smiling as only happy fifteenyear-old girls smile.

Upon meeting Sdnya in the corridor, Rostdv blushed. He did not know how to treat her. On the previous day they had kissed in the first minute of the joy of meeting, but now they felt that it should not be done; he felt that all, his mother and his sisters, were looking interrogatively at him, and waiting to see how he would act in respect to her. He kissed her hand and addressed her as “ you.” But their eyes, meeting each other, said ” thou ” and kissed tenderly. With her glance she begged his forgiveness for having dared, through Natdsha’s embassy, to remind him of his promise, and thanked him for his love. He, with his glance, thanked her for the freedom which she offered him, and told her that, come what might, he would never stop loving her, because it was a matter of impossibility not to love her.

“How strange it is,” Vydra said, choosing a minute of a general silence, ” to see Sonya and Nikolay meet each other as strangers, and to hear them say ‘ you ‘ to each other.”

Vyéra’s remark was quite true, just like all her remarks, but all felt awkward, as after most of her remarks, and not only Sdnya, Nikolay, and Natdsha blushed, but also the old countess, who was afraid of that love of her son for Sdnya, which might deprive him of the chance of a good match, blushed like a little girl.

Denisov, to Rostov’s astonishment, made his appearance in the drawingroom in a new uniform, pomaded and perfumed, looking the dandy he always was in battles; he was as amiable with the ladies as with the gentlemen, which Rostov had never expected him to be.

IL

On his return from the army, NikoMy Rostov was received in Moscow by his home folk as the best of sons, a hero, and the dearest of men ; by his relatives as an agreeable, charming, and respectful young man ; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, an elegant dancer, and one of the best matches in Moscow.

The Rostdvs had extensive acquaintances in Moscow ; during that year the old count had a great deal of money, for all his estates had just been newly mortgaged, and so Nikolay provided himself with a trotter of his own and with riding pantaloons of the latest fashion, such as nobody else in Moscow had, and with the most fashionable of boots, with the sharpest of points and small silver spurs, and altogether lived a jolly life. After some time at home, during which he adjusted himself to the old conditions of life, he experienced a pleasant sensation.

He thought he now had grown to be quite a man. His despair on account of having failed at an examination in religion, his borrowing money of Gavrilo for a cab, his secret kissing of Sonya, all these he recalled as something childish, from which he was now immeasurably removed. Now he was a lieutenant of hussars in a silver dolman, with the cross of St. George, who was training his trotter for the races, together with well-known, adult, respectable racing men. There was a lady, an acquaintance of his, on the boulevard, on whom he called every evening. He directed the mazurka at a ball at the Arkharovs, talked about the war with FieldMarshal Kamenski, frequented

up and down in the parlour and giving his orders to the club steward and to famous Feoktist, the chef of the English club, about the asparagus, the fresh cucumbers, the strawberries, the veal, and the fish for the dinner for Prince Bagratidn. The count had been a member and the chairman of the club ever since its foundation. He was commissioned by the club to attend to the celebration in Bagratidn’s honour, because no one knew better how to arrange such a feast on a large scale and in the most liberal manner possible, but more especially because not many were so willing to apply their own money if that was needed for the full success of the banquet. The chef and the steward listened with happy faces to the orders of the count, because they knew no one would give them a better chance to earn something for themselves at a dinner which cost several thousands of roubles.

” So be sure and put some sainfoin into the turtle soup, some sainfoin, I say !”

” Are there to be three cold dishes ? ” asked the chef.

The count reflected a moment.

“Nothing less than three will do. Mayonnaise, that is one,” he said, bending down a finger.

” So you order me to get large sterlets ? ” asked the steward.

” What is to be done ? Take them, if you can’t get them any cheaper. Yes, my dear, I almost forgot: you must have another entrée on the table. O Lord ! “

He clasped his head.

“ Who will fetch me the flowers ? Mitenka ! 0 Mitenka ! Go at a gallop to my suburban estate and tell Maksimka the gardener immediately to call for a corvee. Tell him to send here everything in the hothouses ! Let him wrap all the flowers in felt blankets. I must have two hundred pots here by next Friday.”

After having given a number of other orders, he started to go to the apartments of the ” little countess ” in order to rest himself ; but he recalled something important, and so returned, called back the chef and the steward, and began to give new orders. In the door were heard the light steps of a man and the clatter of spurs, and there entered the handsome, ruddy young count with perceptible black moustaches. He looked rested and well taken care of in his tranquil Moscow life.

« Ah, my dear ! My head is in a whirl,” said the old man, smiling, as though ashamed before his son. ” You might help me ! I need some singers. I have music, but don’t you think I ought to send for the gipsies ? You military fellows are fond of them.”

” Really, papa, I think Prince Bagration, getting ready for the battle of Schöngraben, was less disturbed than you are now,” said his son, smiling.

The old count pretended to be angry.

” It is easy enough for you to talk ! Try it yourself ! ”

The count once more turned to the chef, who was attentively watching father and son with an intelligent and respectful countenance.

” See how the young people are, Feoktist ! ” he said.

” They are making fun of us old men.”

” Your Serenity, all they care for is to have a good dinner. It is none of their affair how things are brought together and served.”

” Yes, yes,” cried the count, and, merrily seizing his son’s hands, he called out : ” I have caught you now ! Take at once a two-horse sleigh, drive to Bezukhi, and tell him that I ask him to send me fresh strawberries and pineapples. You won’t get them elsewhere. He is not at home, so go in and tell the princesses about it ! From there drive to the Razgulydy, — coachman Ipatka knows the way, — find Ilyushka the gipsy, the one that danced at the house of Count Orlov,— you remember the one in the white Cossack coat, — and fetch him here, to my house ! “

“Shall I bring him with the gipsy women?” Nikoldy asked, smiling. “ All right, all right ! “

Just then Anna Mikhaylovna entered the room with inaudible steps, her face expressing preoccupation and care and, at the same time, Christian humility, which never left her. Although she saw the count every day in his morninggown, he was embarrassed every time and begged her to excuse his appearance.

” Never mind, my dear count,” she said, softly closing her eyes. ” I will go myself to Bezukhi,” she said. ” Pierre has arrived, and now, my count, we shall get everything from his hothouses. I have to see him, anyway : he has sent me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on the staff.”

The count was glad to have Anna Mikhdylovna take one part of his orders upon herself, and sent word to have Iris small carriage liitched up for her.

” Tell Bezukhi to come. I will introduce him. Is he here with his wife ? ” he asked.

Anna Mikhdylovna rolled her eyes. Profound grief was expressed upon her countenance.

” Ah, my friend, he is very unhappy,” she said. ” If what we have heard is true, it is terrible. We did not think it would come to this when we rejoiced at his happiness ! This young Bezukhi is such a noble, such a divine, soul ! Yes, I pity him with all my heart, and will try to console him as much as I can.”

“ What has happened ? ” both Rostovs, father and son, asked.

Anna Mikhaylovna heaved a deep sigh.

” Dolokhov, the son of Märya Ivdnovna,” she said, in a mysterious whisper, ” has compromised her, they say. Pierre brought him out and invited him to come to his house in St. Petersburg, and now— She came here, and this madcap after her,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to express her sympathy for Pierre, but in reality expressing, with her involuntary intonations and semi-smile, her sympathy for the ” madcap,” as she had called Dolokhov. ” They say that Pierre himself is crushed by his grief.”

“Nevertheless, tell him to come to the club, — it will distract him. It will be a grand banquet ! “

On the following day, which was the 3d of March, at two o’clock in the afternoon, 250 members of the English club and fifty invited guests were awaiting the arrival of the illustrious guest, the hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration.

At first, when the news was received of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow was perplexed. At that time the Russians were so used to victories that, upon getting the news of the defeat, they simply refused to believe it ; others tried to find explanations for such a strange fact in some unusual causes. In the English club, where all the aristocracy and the best informed and most important personages gathered, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, when the news began to come in December, as though all had agreed to keep quiet about it. Men who gave a certain direction to conversations, such as Count Rostopchm, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruki, Valuev, Count Markdv, Prince Vyazemski, did not appear in the club, but met at private houses, in the circles of their friends ; and the Muscovites who only seconded the opinions of others (among which number was also Ilya Andreevich Rostdv) were for a short time left without any definite judgment in the matter of the war and without any guides. The Muscovites felt that something was wrong and that it was hard to discuss this bad news, and so they chose to keep quiet about it. But after awhile there appeared some dignitaries who, like jurymen issuing from the jury-room, began to express their opinions in the club, and all spoke out clearly and without restraint. Causes were found explaining that incredible, unheard-of, and impossible event, the defeat of the

Russians, and everything became clear, and the same thing was repeated in all the corners of Moscow. These causes were : the treason of the Austrians, the poor supplies of the army, the treason of the Pole Przebyszéwski and of the Frenchman Langcron, Kutuzov’s incapacity, and (so they whispered) the youth and inexperience of the emperor, who had trusted to bad, insignificant men. But the troops, the Russian troops, so all said, had been unusual and had accomplished marvels of valour. The soldiers, officers, and generals, were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagratidn, who had covered himself with glory in the Schöngraben engagement and in his retreat from Austerlitz, where he was the only one who had led away his column in good order and for a whole day had fought against an enemy twice as strong as he was. His selection as hero was promoted by the fact that he had no connections in Moscow and was a stranger there. In his person proper due was given to a simple Russian soldier, who was devoid of connections and intrigues and who by the memories of the Italian campai -n was still connected with the name of Suvdrov. Besides, the unpopularity of Kutuzov and the disapprobation of his acts were best expressed in showing such honours to him.

“If there had been no Bagration, il faudrait l’inventer,” said the jester Shinshm, parodying Voltaire’s words. Nobody spoke of Kutuzov, and some scolded him in a whisper, calling him a weather-vane of the court and an old satyr.

All of Moscow repeated the words of Prince Dolgoruki, « He who moulds in clay, finally gets covered with dirt,” consoling himself in our defeat by the memory of our former victories, and the words of Rostopchm, who said that French soldiers have to be stirred to battles with hish-flown words ; that Germans must be reasoned with logically, and convinced that it is more dangerous to run than to advance; but that Russian soldiers had only to be restrained and asked to go more slowly. On all sides were heard ever new stories of individual cases of bravery shown by our soldiers and officers at Austerlitz. One had saved a flag ; another had killed five Frenchmen; a third had all by himself loaded five cannon. Those who did not know Berg told of him that, having been wounded in his right hand, he had taken his sword in his left and thus had advanced against the enemy. Nothing was said of Bolkonski, and only those who had known him intimately were sorry to hear that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife in the house of such an odd father.

III.

On the 3d of March there was a din of voices in the English club, and the members and guests, dressed in uniforms and evening coats, and some of them in caftans and powdered wigs, moved to and fro, sat down, stood around, and surged up and down, like bees swarming in spring. Powdered lackeys in livery, wearing stockings and low shoes, stood at each door, intent on catching every motion of the guests and the members of the club, in order to offer them their services. The majority of those present were old, venerable men, with broad, self-satisfied countenances, fat fingers, and firm motions and voices. This class of guests and of members sat in certain habitual places and gathered together in certain habitual circles. The minority consisted of casual guests, chiefly young men, among whom were also Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov, who was again an officer of the Seménovski regiment. On the faces of the youths, especially of those serving in the army, there was an expression of contemptuous deference to the old men, which seemed to say, ” We are prepared to respect and honour you, but remember that the future is with us.”

Nesvftski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who by order of his wife had allowed his hair to grow long, had taken off his glasses, and was dressed in the latest fashion, kept walking from one room to another, with a sad and gloomy expression on his face. He was surrounded, as always, by a circle of men who bent their knee before his wealth, but he treated them as though accustomed to lord it and with absent-minded disdain.

According to his age he ought to have associated with the young people, but by his wealth and connections he was a member of the old circles of respectable guests, and so he kept going from one group to another. The more distinguished old men formed the centres of circles, which were joined also by strangers who wanted to hear men of note speak. The larger circles were formed about Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchm was telling how the Russians had been crushed by the fugitive Austrians, and how they had to make a way for themselves through the fugitives by means of their bayonets.

Valuev was telling confidentially how Uvarov had been sent from St. Petersburg to find out the opinion of the Muscovites in regard to the battle of Austerlitz.

In a third circle, Naryshkin repeated the anecdote about the meeting of the Austrian council of war at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in response to the stupidity of the Austrian generals. Shinshin, who was standing near by, was on the point of saying some pleasantry, by remarking that Kutuzov had evidently not been able to learn from Suvorov the easy art of crowing ; but the old men looked sternly at the jester, giving him to understand that it was improper on that day and in that place to mention Kutuzov’s name.

Count Ilya Andréevich Rostov, stepping lightly in his soft boots, walked hastily and with a careworn expression from the dining-room into the drawingroom, hurriedly and monotonously greeting important and unimportant personages, all of whom he knew, and now and then riveting his eyes on his stately son and winking at him. Young Rostov was standing at the window with Dolokhov, with whom he had lately become acquainted, and whose acquaintance he valued highly. The old count went up to them and pressed Dolokhov’s hand.

” Come to see us ! You are acquainted with my young hero — you have both done brave acts down there — Ah, Vasfli Igndtich — how are you, old man?” he turned to a gentleman who happened to pass by, but before he had finished his greeting, all began to stir, and a lackey, running in with a frightened face, announced:

“ lie has arrived ! ”

The bell was rung. The directors rushed forward ; the guests, who were scattered in the various rooms, collected in one group, like winnowed rye on the fan, and stopped in the large drawingroom near the door leading to the parlour.

Bagration appeared in the door of the antechamber. He wore neither his sword nor his hat, which, according to the usage of the club, he had left with the porter. He did not make his appearance in his lambskin cap, with his Cossack whip slung across his shoulder, as Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz, but in a new, closely fitting uniform, with Russian and foreign decorations and the star of St. George on his left breast. He had evidently just had his hair and his side whiskers cropped, which changed his expression to his disadvantage. In his countenance there was something naïve and solemn, which, in conjunction with his firm, masculine features, gave his face a certain comical expression.

Bekleshdv and Fédor Petrovich Uvdrov, who came with him, stopped at the door, asking him, as the chief guest, to precede them. Bagration became confused and declined their civility ; there was a hitch at the door, after which Bag ration passed first. As he walked in, he did not know what to do with his hands and walked bashfully and awkwardly over the parquetry of the drawingroom : he was more accustomed to walk over a ploughed field under bullets, as he had walked before the Kursk regiment at Schöngraben, and he was much more at ease there.

The directors met him at the first door. They said a few words about their pleasure in seeing such an illustrious guest and, without waiting for a reply, surrounded him, as though taking possession of him, and led him into the drawingroom. It was impossible to pass through the door of the drawingroom on account of the crowd of members and guests who were pressing each other and trying over their neighbours’ shoulders to get a peep at Bagration, as at some rare animal. Count Ilya Andreevich, who was laughing more energetically than the rest, and saying all the time, “ Let me pass, mon cher, let me pass ! ” pushed his way through the crowd and led the guests into the drawingroom, where he seated them on the middle sofa. The more respected members of the club surrounded the newcomers.

Count Ilya Andréevich again pressed his way through the crowd and left the room ; a minute later he reappeared with another director, carrying a large silver dish which he took over to Prince Bagration. On the dish lay a printed poem specially written in his honour. Upon seeing the dish, Bagration looked timidly about him, as though in search of aid ; but the eyes of all said that he must submit. Feeling himself in their power, Bagration with determination grasped the dish with both his hands, and angrily and reproachfully looked at the count, who was handing it to him. Somebody obligingly took the dish out of his hands (he looked as though he were prepared to hold it until evening and to go with it to dinner) and directed his attention to the poem. Bagration seemed to say, ” Well, I shall read it,” and directing his weary eyes to the paper, began to read with a concentrated and serious look. The author himself took the poetry and began to read it. Prince Bagration inclined his head and listened.

” Make glorious the age of Alexander

And preserve our Titus on the throne!

Be both a formidable general and a good man, A Rhiphæus in our country, a Cæsar in the field ! And fortunate Napoleon,

Having found out who Bagratidn is,

Will not dare again to trouble the Russian Alcides— “

Before he had finished his poem, a big-voiced majordomo proclaimed :

“ Dinner is served ! “

The door opened, and in the dining-room was heard the orchestra playing the Polonaise “ Let the thunder of victory peal, and the brave Russ rejoice ! “

Prince Ilyd Andréevich looked angrily at the author, who continued to read the poem, and made a bow before Bagration. All arose, feeling that the dinner was more important than the poem, and again Bagratién led the way to the table.

Bagration was placed in the seat of honour, between two Alexanders, — Bekleshov and Naryshkin, — which had reference to the name of the emperor. Three hundred men seated themselves in the dining-room according to rank and importance, those who were more notable taking up their seats nearer to the honoured guest, which they did as naturally as water seeks the lowest place.

Immediately before the dinner Count Ilya Andréevich introduced his son to the prince. Upon recognizing him, Bagratidn said a few words to him, incoherent and awkward, like everything he said on that day. Count Ilya Andréevich surveyed the people present with an expression of proud satisfaction while Bagration was speaking with his son.

Nikolay Rostov, Denisov, and Rostov’s new acquaintance, Dolokhov, sat down together at the middle of the table. Opposite them sat Pierre by the side of Prince Nesvitski. Count llyà Andréevich was sitting with the other directors opposite Bagration, waiting on the prince and personifying Moscow hospitality.

His labours were not in vain. His dinner, both as to the meats and the other dishes, was superb, but he did not feel quite at ease until the end of it. He kept winking to the butler, gave whispered orders to the lackeys, and not without agitation waited for every familiar dish Everything was fine. With the second course, when a gigantic sterlet was brought in (seeing which Ilyâ Andréevich blushed for joy and bashfulness), the lackeys began to pop the bottles and to fill the glasses with champague. After the fish, which produced a certain impression, Count Ilya Andréevich exchanged glances with the other directors.

” There will be many toasts, so it is time to begin ! ” he whispered, and rose with his glass in his hand.

All grew silent, in order to hear what he was going to say.

” To the health of the Tsar, our emperor ! ” he exclaimed, and immediately his kindly eyes became moistened with tears of joy and transport.

At the same time the music struck up, ” Let the thunder of victory peal.” All rose from their seats and shouted ” Hurrah ! ” and Bagration shouted ” Hurrah ! ” in the same voice with which he had cried it on the field of Schöngraben. The enthusiastic voice of young Rostov could be heard through all the three hundred voices. He almost wept. ” To the health of the Tsar, our emperor ! ” he shouted, ” Hurrah ! ” Gulping down his glass at one draught, he threw it on the floor. Many followed his example. The loud cries lasted for quite awhile. When the voices became silent, the lackeys picked up the broken glasses, and all sat down, laughing at the noise which they had made and talking to their neighbours. Count Ilya Andréevich again rose, looked at the note which was lying near his plate, and proclaimed a toast for the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration, and again the count’s blue eyes were moistened with tears. “Hurrah!” again shouted three hundred voices, and, instead of the orchestra, singers sang a cantata composed by Pavel Ivanovich Kutuzov.

“ All obstacles are useless to the Russes, Bravery is the earnest of victory I So long as we have Bagrations, All enemies will be at our feet — “

When the singers stopped, one toast followed another. Count Ilya Andréevich grew ever more sentimental; more and more glasses were broken, and the shouts became louder and louder. They drank the healths of Bekleshdv, Naryshkin, Uvfirov, Dolgoruki, Apraksin, Valuev, the healths of the directors, of the manager, of all the members of the club, of all the guests, and finally, separately, the health of the organizer of the dinner, Count Ilya Andréevich. During this toast the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face with it, burst into tears.

TV.

Pierre was seated opposite Dolokhov and Nikolay Rostov. He ate and drank much and with eagerness, as was his custom. But those who knew him intimately saw that a great change had on that day taken place in him. He was silent during the whole dinner. He looked about him, winking and frowning, or, with the look of complete absent-mindedness, kept poking his finger in his nose. His face was sombre and morose. He did not seem to see or hear what was going on all about him, but to be reflecting on something that was oppressing him, and to be seeking for a solution.

This undecided question which so tormented him was the allusions made by the princess at Moscow in regard to Dolokhov’s intimacy with Iris wife, and an anonymous letter which he had received that very morning and in which was said, with that base jocularity, so characteristic of anonymous letters, that he did not see well through his glasses and that his wife’s intimacy with Dolokhov was a secret to him alone. Pierre positively refused to believe the hints of the princess or the letter, but it made him feel terribly to look at Ddlokhov, who was sitting in front of him. Every time Pierre’s glance accidentally met Dolokhov’s beautiful, bold eyes, he was conscious of something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul, and he hastened to turn his face away. Involuntarily recalling the whole past of his wife, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be true, at least might appear to be true if did not have reference to his wife.

Pierre involuntarily recalled how Dolokhov, who had been restored to his rights after the campaign, had returned to St. Petersburg and had come to his house. On the basis of his former carousing relations with Pierre, Dolokhov went directly to him, and he settled him in his house and loaned him money. Pierre recalled how Hélène, smiling, had expressed her disapproval of Dolokhov’s stay with them, and how Dolokhov had cynically praised his wife’s beauty before him, and how he had not left them for a minute up to his arrival in Moscow.

« Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre. “ I know him. It would give him an uncommon pleasure to besmirch my name and to laugh at me, even because 1 have interested myself in his behalf, and have helped him and taken care of him. I know and understand what seasoning that would be for his deception if it were true. Yes, if it were true. But I do not believe it,— I have no right to believe it, and I won’t.”

He recalled the expression which Dolokhov’s face assumed when assailed by moments of cruelty, as when he had tied the captain of police with the bear and had set them afloat, or when he had challenged a man to a duel for no cause whatsoever, or when he had killed a driver’s horse with a shot from liis pistol. This expression was frequently on Ddlokhov’s face, as he looked at him.

” Yes, he is a bully,” thought Pierre. ” It is nothing for him to kill a man ; it must seem to him that all are afraid of him, and that must give him pleasure. He must think that I am afraid of him, and so I am,” thought Pierre, and again he felt at this thought that something terrible and monstrous was rising in his soul.

Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre, and seemed to be very jolly. Rostdv was merrily conversing with his two companions, of whom one was a dashing hussar and the other a well-known bully and madcap ; he now and then cast a sarcastic glance at Pierre, who at this dinner struck everybody by his concentrated, absent-minded, massive figure. Rostov looked disapprovingly at Pierre, in the first place, because, to a hussar’s thinking, Pierre was a nabob not in military service, the husband of a beautiful woman, in general, a sissy ; in the second place, because Pierre, in his concentration of mind and distraction, had not recognized Rostov and had not returned his greeting. When they began to drink the emperor’s health, Pierre absent-mindedly did not rise, nor take up his glass.

” What is the matter with you ? ” Rostov cried, looking at him with eyes full of transport and anger. ” Do you not hear? It is the health of the Tsar, our emperor!”

Pierre heaved a sigh, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting for all to sit down, turned to Rostov, with a kindly smile on his face.

” I did not recognize you,” he said.

But Rostov did not hear him ; he was busy crying, ” Hurrah ! “

” Why do you not renew your acquaintance ? ” Ddlokhov said to Rostov.

” God preserve him ! He is such a fool,” said Rostov.

” One must fondle the husbands of pretty women,” said Denisov.

Pierre did not hear what they were saying, but he knew that they were speaking of him. He blushed and turned his face away.

” Now, the health of beautiful women,” said Dolokhov, with a serious expression, but with a smile at the corners of his lips, turning to Pierre, with the glass in his hand.

” To the health of beautiful women, Pierre, and of their lovers ! ” he said.

Pierre lowered his eyes and drank from his glass, without looking at Dolokhov, or making any reply to him. A lackey, who was distributing Kutuzov’s cantata, put down a sheet l»efore Pierre, as a more distinguished guest. He was on the point of picking it up, when Ddlokhov bent over the table, grasped the sheet out of his hand, and began to read it. Pierre looked at Ddlokhov, and his pupils fell : that terrible and monstrous feeling, which had been tormenting him during the dinner, rose and took possession of him. He bent with his whole obese body over the table :

” Don’t dare to take it ! ” he cried.

Upon hearing these words and seeing to whom they were addressed, Nesvitski and his neighbour on the right were frightened. They hastily addressed Bezukhi :

“ Stop it ! What are you doing ? ” the frightened voices whispered to him.

Dolokhov looked at Pierre with his bright, cheerful, cruel eyes, with a smile which seemed to say, ” Now, this is what I like ! “

« I will not give it to you ! ” he said, in a clear voice.

Pale with excitement and with trembling lips, Pierre tore the sheet away from him.

“You— you — are a scoundrel! — I challenge you,” he muttered and, removing his chair, left the table.

The very second he did this and pronounced these words, he felt that the question of his wife’s guilt, which had tormented him for a whole day, was definitely and finally answered in the affirmative. He hated her and broke with her for ever. In spite of Denisov’s request that Rostov should not become embroiled in this affair, Rostov consented to become Dolokhov’s second. After the dinner he discussed the conditions of the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhi’s second. Pierre went home, while Rostdv, Ddlokhov, and Denisov remained in the club until late at night, listening to the gipsies and the singers.

” Au revoir until tomorrow, in the Sokdlniki,” said Dolokhov, taking leave of Rostdv on the porch of the club.

” And you are calm ? ” asked Rostdv.

Dolokhov stopped.

” You see, I -will reveal to you the whole secret of a duel in a few words. If you go to a duel and write your will and tender letters to your parents, and if you think of the possibility of being killed, you are a fool and you are certainly lost. You must go with the firm intention of killing your adversary as expeditiously and surely as possible, — and then all goes well, as our Kostroma bearhunter used to tell me. Instead of being afraid of the bear, terror leaves you the moment you see him, and all you are afraid of is that he might get away from you ! So it is with me ! A demain, mon cher ! ”

On the following day, at eight o’clock in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski arrived at the Sokolniki forest, where they found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov. Pierre had the aspect of a man occupied with combinations which had nothing in common with the matter at hand. His sunken face was yellow. Apparently he had not slept during the night. He looked absent-mindedly about him and frowned as though to shield bis eyes against the bright sun. Two reflections occupied him : the guilt of his wife, of which he no longer had the slightest doubt, after a sleepless night, and the innocence of Dolokhov, who had no reason to protect the honour of a stranger.

“ Maybe I should have done the same in his place,” thought Pierre. “ I am sure I should have done it. Why, then, this duel, this murder ? Either I shall kill him, or he will wound me in the head, the elbow, or the knee. If I could only get away from here, run, bury myself somewhere,” it occurred to him. But during these very minutes, while these thoughts came to him, he with a peculiarly calm and indifferent look, which inspired respect for him in those who were looking at him, kept asking: “How soon will it be? Is all ready?”

When all was ready, and the sabres were stuck in the snow to indicate the barrier toward which they were to walk, and the pistols loaded, Nesvftski walked over to Pierre.

” 1 should not be doing iny duty, count,” he said, in a timid voice, “ and should not be justifying that confidence which you have placed in me, and the honour which you have done me, in choosing me as your second, if at this important,extremely important moment I did not tell you the whole truth. 1 assume that this affair has no sufficiently grave motive to justify the shedding of blood — You were wrong, not quite in the right, — you were excited — “

” Oh, yes, it is terribly stupid — ” said Pierre.

” Permit me, then, to inform them of your regrets, and I am sure that our adversaries will consent to receive your apology,” said Nesvftski, who, like the other participants in the affair, and like everybody else under similar circumstances, did not believe that it would come to an actual duel. “ You know, count, it is much nobler to confess an error than to carry an affair to a point where it cannot be corrected. There were no insults on either side. Permit me to confer with them !”

” No, what is there to talk about ? ” said Pierre. ” It is all the same— Is everything ready ?” he added. ” Just tell me where I have to go and where to shoot,” he said, with an unnatural and meek smile. He took the pistol in his hand and began to ask about the manner of pulling the trigger, as he had never before had a pistol in his hands, though he did not wish to confess the fact. ” Ob, yes, like this, I know,— I had just forgotten,” he said.

“No apologies, absolutely nothing,” Ddlokhov said to Denisov, who, on his side, had also made an attempt to bring about a reconciliation, as he was walking over to the appointed place.

The spot chosen for the duel was within eighty paces from the road on which the sleighs had stopped, in a small clearing in the pine forest, covered with half-melted snow. The adversaries were standing within forty paces of each other, on the edge of the clearing. The seconds, leaving deep traces in the wet snow, measured the distance from the place where they had been standing to the sabres of Nesvftski and Denisov, which indicated the barrier and which were stuck in the snow within ten paces of each other. The thaw and mist of the past few days had not yet disappeared ; it was impossible to see anything within forty steps of each other. In three minutes all was ready, and yet they were hesitating to begin. All were silent.

V.

” Well, begin ! ” said Dolokhov.

“ All right,” said Pierre, still smiling.

It was growing terrible. It was evident that the affair which had begun so easily could not be averted, that it was taking its natural course, independently of the will of men, and had to be carried out. Denisov was the first to walk up to the barrier ; he called out :

” Since the adversaries have declined to be conciliated, will it not please you to begin ? Take your pistols, and after three is counted, you begin to approach each other.”

” One, two, three ! ” Denisov counted, in an angry voice, stepping aside.

Both approached each other nearer and nearer on the trodden path, recognizing each other in the mist. The adversaries had the right to shoot whenever they pleased, as they walked toward the barrier. Dolokhov walked leisurely, without raising his pistol, looking with his bright, shining eyes at the face of his adversary. His mouth bore, as always, an expression resembling a smile.

“ So I may shoot whenever I please ! ” said Pierre. At the word ” three ” he rapidly moved forward, missing the trodden path and walking over the snow. Pierre was holding his pistol before him in his right hand, as though afraid to hurt himself with it. His left hand he carefully put back, fearing lest he would support his right hand, which was not permissible. After making about six steps and stepping from the beaten path into the untrodden snow, Pierre looked at his feet, again cast a rapid glance at Ddlokhov, and, pulling his finger as he had been taught to do, fired off the pistol. Pierre had not expected such a loud discharge, and so trembled at its sound ; then he smiled at his own impression, and stopped. The smoke, which was unusually dense on account of the mist, made it impossible for him to see anything in the first moment ; but a second shot, for which he was waiting, did not follow. He could only hear Dolokhov’s hurried steps, and through the smoke see his figure. With one hand he was holding his left side ; the other clutched the drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran up to him and told him something.

“N-n-o,” Ddlokhov muttered through his teeth, ” no, it is not ended,” and making a few more tottering, unsteady steps toward the sabre, he fell down on the snow near it. His left hand was bloodstained: he wiped it on his coat and leaned on it. His face was pale ; it frowned and quivered.

” If you — ” Dolokhov began, but was not able to finish the sentence at once, ” if you please,” he finished it with an effort.

Pierre with difficulty restrained his sobs. He started to run toward Dolokhov and was on the point of crossing the space which separated the barriers, when Dolokhov exclaimed : ” To the barrier ! ” and Pierre, understanding what he meant, stopped at his sabre. Only ten paces separated them. Dolokhov dropped his head on the snow, eagerly bit into it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew up his legs, and sat down, trying to find a safe centre of gravity. He swallowed the cold snow and sucked it; his lips trembled, but his eyes, still smiling, glistened with the malice and effort of his last strength. He raised his pistol and began to aim.

“Sidewise, cover yourself with your pistol,” said Nesvitski.

” Cover yourself ! ” Denisov, unable to restrain himself, called out to his adversary.

Pierre, with a meek smile of compassion and remorse, helplessly spread his legs and arms, exposed his broad chest to Dolokhov, and sadly looked at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski shut their eyes. At the same moment they heard a shot and Dolokhov’s ferocious cry.

“Missed!” cried Ddlokhov, lying helplessly down on the snow, with his face downward. Pierre seized his head as he turned around, walked into the forest over the untrodden snow, and loudly repeated unintelligible words :

“ Stupid — stupid ! Death — a lie — ” he repeated, scowling. Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.

Kostdv and Denisov drove away with wounded D61o-khov.

Dolokhov lay silent, with shut eyes, in the sleigh ; he did not reply to the questions put to him ; but, upon reaching Moscow, he suddenly came to, and, with difficulty raising his head, he took the hand of Rostov, who was sitting near him. Rostov was struck by the completely changed expression of Dolokhov’s face, which now suddenly looked transported and tender.

” Well ? How do you feel ? ” Rostdv asked him.

” Badly ! But that is another matter. My friend,” Dolokhov said, in a wavering voice, ” where are we ? We are in Moscow, 1 know. I am all right, but I have killed her, 1 have killed her— She will not survive it. She will not survive — ”

” Who ? ” asked Rostdv.

” My mother. My mother, my angel, my adored angel, my mother ! ” and Ddlokhov wept, pressing Rostov’s hand.

When he had calmed himself a little, he explained to Rostov that he was living with his mother and that if his mother saw him dying, she would not be able to endure it. He begged Rostov to go and see her and to prepare her.

Rostov drove ahead to carry out his request, and to liis great surprise learned that Dolokhov, this riotous fellow and bully, was living in Moscow with an old mother and a hunchbacked sister, and that he was the tenderest of sons and brothers to them.

VL

Pierre had not met his wife very often without witnesses for some time past. In St. Petersburg and in Moscow their house was always full of guests. On the night after the duel he did not go to the sleeping-room, which was not at all unusual, but remained in the immense cabinet of his father, the same in which Count Bezukhi had died.

He lay down on the sofa and wanted to fall asleep, in order to forget all that had happened, but he was unable to do so. Such a storm of feelings, thoughts, and recollections suddenly rose in his soul, that he was unable to sleep, or even to sit still, but was obliged to jump up from the sofa and rapidly to pace up and down in the room. Now he thought of her during the first time just after his marriage, with her bare shoulders and weary, passionate glance, and immediately there rose by her side Dolokhov’s handsome, impudent, and sarcastic smile, such as he had seen at the dinner, and the same face, pale, trembling, and suffering, such as it was when he turned around and fell down on the snow.

” What has happened ? ” he asked himself. ” I have killed her lover, yes, I have killed the lover of my wife. Yes, that is what has happened. Why ? How did I come to do it ? “

” Because you have married her,” an inner voice told him.

” But where is my guilt ? ” he asked himself.

” You are guilty of having married her without loving her, of having deceived both yourself and her.”

a fool as to have children, and that there would be none from me.”

Then he recalled the coarseness and frankness of her thoughts and the vulgarity of the expressions which were characteristic of her, in spite of her education in the higher aristocratic circle.

“1 am nobody’s fool — go and see for yourself — allez tous promener ,” she used to say.

Seeing her success in the eyes of old and young, men and women, Pierre had frequently been at a loss to understand why he did not love her.

“No, I have never loved her,” Pierre said to himself. ” I knew that she was an immoral woman,” he repeated to himself, ” but did not have the courage to confess it to myself.

” And now Ddlokhov is sitting in the snow, smiling a forced smile and dying, perhaps, replying with feigned bravado to my repentance ! “

Pierre was one of those men who, in spite of their so-called external weakness of character, do not seek for a confidant in their grief. He struggled with it by himself.

” She, she alone is to blame for everything,” he said to himself, ” but what of it ? Why did I tie myself to her, why did I tell her that, ‘ Je tous aime,’ which was a lie and worse than a lie ? ” he said to himself. ” It is my fault and I must bear it— What? The disgrace of my name ? The misfortune of my life ? Ah, it is all nonsense,” he thought, ” disgrace and honour, everything is conditional, nothing depends on me.

” Louis XVI. was executed because they said that he was dishonest and a criminal,” it suddenly occurred to Pierre, ” and they were right from their point of view, just as those were right who died a martyr’s death for him, and who accounted him a saint. Then Robespierre was executed because he was a despot. Who is right ? who wrong? Nobody. Live, if you are alive ! Tomorrow you will die, just as 1 might have died an hour ago. And is it worth while to torment oneself, when there is but one second left to live, as compared with eternity ? “

But at the moment when he thought he had calmed himself with reflections of this kind, she suddenly appeared to him as at those moments when he expressed to her his insincere love, and he felt his blood rush to his heart, and had to get up again, and move about, and break and tear anything which fell into his hands.

” Why did I tell her ‘ Je tous aime * ? ” he kept repeating to himself, and, after repeating it for the tenth time, he suddenly recalled Molière’s, “Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère ? ” and he laughed at himself.

At night he called his valet, and ordered him to pack for St. Petersburg. He could not think of talking with her again. He decided to leave on the following day, and to leave her a letter in which he would inform her of his intention to separate from her for ever.

In the morning, when his valet entered the cabinet, bringing his coffee, Pierre was lying on a divan, holding an open book in his hand, and fast asleep.

He awoke and looked in a frightened way all about him, unable to comprehend where he was.

“ The countess wishes to know if your Serenity is at home,” said the valet.

Pierre had not yet been able to decide on an answer, when the countess herself, in a white velvet morninggown, embroidered with silver lace, and in her natural hair (two immense braids en diadème twice encircled her exquisite head), calmly and majestically entered the room. With her imperturbable calm she refrained from speaking in the presence of the valet. She knew of the duel and came to speak to him about it. She waited until the valet put down the coffee and left the room. Pierre looked timidly at her above his glasses, and as a hare, surrounded by hounds, drops his ears and lies in sight of his enemies, so he tried to read, but he felt that it was senseless and impossible, and so he again cast a timid glance at her. She did not sit down, but looked at him with a disdainful smile, waiting for the valet to leave.

“ What is this ? What have you done, I ask you,” she said, sternly.

“ I ? What is it ? ” said Pierre.

“ A brave fellow you are ! Tell me what kind of a duel is that ? What did you wish to prove by it ? What ? I ask you.”

Pierre turned heavily around on his divan, opened his mouth, but found no answer.

” If you are not going to answer, I will tell you — ” continued Hélène. ” You believe everything you are told. Y ou were told ” — Hélène laughed — “ that Dolokhov was my lover,” she said in French, with her vulgar exactness of speech, pronouncing the word ” lover ” like any other word, ” and you believed it ! Well, what did you prove by it ? What have you proved by this duel ? That you are a fool, que tous êtes un sot, and nobody has doubted this ‘ To what will this lead ? That I shall become the laughing-stock of the whole of Moscow ; that everybody will say that you, in a drunken fit and beside yourself, challenged a man whom you have no reason to be jealous of,” Hélène raised her voice more and more and became animated, ” and who is better than you in every respect — ”

“ Hem — hem — ” growled Pierre, frowning. He did not look at her and did not stir a limb.

” What made vou believe that he was my lover ? What ? Is it because I like his societv ? If vou were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer yours.”

“ Do not speak with me — I implore you,” Pierre whispered, hoarsely.

” Why should I not speak ? I can speak and I will tell you boldly that there are few women who, having such a husband as you are, would not keep lovers (des amants), but I did not do it,” she said.

Pierre was on the point of saying something ; he looked at her -with strange eyes, the expression of which she did not understand, and again lay down on the sofa. He was suffering physically at that moment : there was a heavy weight on his breast, and he could not breathe. He knew that he had to do something in order to stop this suffering, but that which he felt like doing was too terrible.

” We had better separate,” he said, in a wavering voice.

” Separate ? Very well, if you give me alimony,” said Hélène. ” Y’ou do not frighten me much by the threat of a separation ! ”

Pierre leaped up from the divan and, tottering, rushed up toward her.

” I will kill you ‘ ” he cried, and, seizing a marble slab which was lying on the table, he made a step toward her, brandishing it with a force which he did not know he possessed.

Helene’s face looked terrible : she looked at him and jumped aside. Pierre experienced the attraction and the charm of rage. He threw down the slab, breaking it in pieces, and, walking up to her with open arms, shouted, ” Get out !” in such a terrible voice that everybody in the house heard it and was horrified. God knows what Pierre would have done at that moment if Hélène had not run out of the room.

A week later Pierre gave his wife a full power for the management of all his Great-Russian estates, which constituted the greater half of his fortune, and went by himself to St. Petersburg.

Vil.

Two months had passed since the news had been received at Lysyya Gory about the battle of Austerlitz and the disaster to Prince Andréy. In spite of all the letters sent through the embassy and of all the search made, his body had not been found, and he was not among the number of the captives. His relatives felt his loss the more terribly since there was a hope left that he had been picked up by the inhabitants on the field of battle, and was lying somewhere convalescing or dying, all alone among strangers, powerless to give any information about himself. In the gazettes, from which the old prince for the first time learned about the defeat at Austerlitz, it said, very indistinctly and briefly, as always, that after brilliant battles the Bussians had been compelled to retreat and that the retreat took place in complete order. The old prince understood from this official statement that our army had been beaten. A week after this gazette had brought the news of the Austerlitz battle, O O 1

there arrived a letter from Kutuzov, who informed the prince of the fate which had befallen his son.

“Your son fell before my eyes,” Kutuzov wrote, “with the flag in his hands, in front of the regiment, — a hero worthy of his father and his country. To the regret of the whole army and of myself, we have not yet found out whether he is alive or not. I flatter you and myself with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have been mentioned among the number of officers found on the field of battle, a list of whom was given me by the bearers of flags of truce.”

The old prince received this news late in the evening, when he was all alone in his cabinet. On the following morning he took his customary walk, but he was reticent with his clerk, his gardener, and his architect, and though he looked angry, he did not say a word to any one.

When Princess Marya came to him at the appointed time, he was standing at the lathe and turning something upon it ; he did not look back at her, just as usual.

” Ah ! Princess Marya ! ” he suddenly said, in an unnatural voice, throwing away the chisel.

The wheel continued to turn from the impulse which it had received. Princess Marya for a long time remembered that dying squeak of the wheel, which for her blended with that which followed.

Princess Mdrya moved up toward him, and when she saw his face, something seemed suddenly to have dropped within her. Her eyes stopped seeing plainly. She saw by her father’s face, which was not sad, nor crushed, but angry and struggling unnaturally to control itself, that a terrible misfortune, the worst of her life, was impending, ready to crush her, — a misfortune which she had not yet experienced, an irreparable, incomprehensible misfortune, the death of him whom she loved.

“ Mon père ! André ! ” the graceless, awkward princess said, with such an inexpressible charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father could not withstand her glance, but turned his face away and burst out weeping.

“ I have had some news : he is not among the captives, nor among the killed. Kutuzov writes,” he shouted in a piercing voice, as though wishing to drive the princess away with this shout, “ he is killed ! ”

The princess did not fall down, nor did she feel like fainting. She was already pale, but when she heard these words, her face became changed and something sparkled in her beautiful, beaming eyes. It was as though joy, a higher joy, independent of the sorrows and joys of this world, had suddenly spread over that strong sorrow which was within her. She forgot all her fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand and drew it toward her, and embraced his dry, venous neck.

•• Mon père” she said, “do not turn away from me! Let us weep together ! “

“Pascals, scoundrels!” cried the old man, turning his face away from her. “To ruin an army, to ruin people! For what ? Go, go, and tell Liza!”

The princess fell powerless into an armchair near her father and burst out into tears. She now saw her brother at the moment when he was bidding Liza and her goodbye, with his tender and at the same time haughty aspect. She saw him at the moment when he tenderly and sarcastically put on the talisman.

” Did he believe ? Did he repent his unbelief ? Is he there now ? There, in the abode of eternal peace and bliss ? ” she thought.

” Mon père, tell me how it happened,” she said to her father through tears.

“ Go, go ! He was killed in a battle to which they took out the best Russian men to be killed and the Russian glory to be trampled upon. Go, Princess Marya ! Go and tell Liza ! I will be there.”

When Princess Marya returned from her father, the little princess was sitting at her work ; she glanced at Princess Marya with that peculiar expression of inward calm and happiness which is characteristic of pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see Princess Marya, but were looking within herself, at something blissful and mysterious that was taking place in her.

“Marie” she said, turning away from the embroidery frame and leaning back, “ let me have your hand ! “

She took the hand of the princess and put it on her abdomen.

Her eyes smiled a smile of expectancy and her down-covered lip rose and remained in that position, which gave her the appearance of childish happiness.

Princess Marya knelt down before her and concealed her face in the folds of the dress of her sister-in-law.

“ Now, now, do you hear? It makes me feel sc strange. Do you know, Marie, I shall love him so much ! said Liza, looking at her sister-in-law with sparkling and happy eyes.

Princess Marya could not lift her eyes : she was weeping.

“ What is the matter with you, Marya?”

“Nothing — I feel so sad — so sad about Andréy,” she said, wiping her tears on Liza’s knees.

Princess Marya began several times during the morning to prepare her sister-in-law, and ever)- time burst out weeping. These tears, the cause of which the little princess could not comprehend, agitated her, however little observing she was. She did not say anything, but kept looking around, as though in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was always afraid, entered her room ; he now had a peculiarly restless and evil expression on his face ; he went out again without saying a word. She looked at Princess Marya, then fell to musing with that expression of her eyes turned inwardly toward herself, which one sees in pregnant women, and suddenly burst out weeping.

” Have you heard anything from Andréy ? ” she asked.

” No, you know that there has not been time for any news, but mon père is anxious about him, and I feel terribly.”

“ So there is nothing ? “

” Nothing,” said Princess Märya, looking firmly at her sister-in-law with her beaming eyes.

She decided not to tell her anything and persuaded her father to keep the news from her until the birth of the

child, which was to happen in a few days. Princess Märya and the old prince bore and concealed their grief as best they could. The old prince refused to have any hope: he decided that Prince Andréy was killed, and, although he sent an oilicial to Austria to lind a trace of his son, he ordered a monument to be made in Moscow, intending to place it in his garden, and told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried to continue his former mode of life, but his strength failed him : he walked less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker from day to day. Princess Mdrya hoped. She prayed for her brother as for one living, and waited for his return at any minute.

VIII.

” Ma bonne amie” the little princess said, after breakfast on the morning of the 19th of March, and her down-covered lip rose as usual ; but ever since the receipt of the terrible news there was an expression of sorrow in every smile and word and even step of all the persons in the house, and even now the smile of the little princess, succumbing to the general mood, though she did not know the cause of it, was such as only to remind one more forcibly of the common grief.

” Ma bonne amie, je crains que le fruschtiquc (comme dit Foka the cook) de ce matin ne m’aie pas fait du mal.”

” What is the matter with you, my dear ? You are pale. Oh, you are so pale,” said Princess Marya, in fright, running up to her sister-in-law, with her heavy, though soft steps.

” Your Serenity, had we not better send for Marya Bogddnovna ? ” asked one of the chambermaids who was present. Marya Bogdanovna was the midwife from the county-seat, who had been living at Lÿsyya Gory for more than a week.

“ That is so,” Princess Marya interposed, ” it may be necessary. I will go for her. Courage, mon ange ! “

She kissed Liza and was on the point of leaving the room.

“ Oh, no, no ! ” and on the face of the little princess there was, in addition to her paleness and physical suffering, an expression of childish terror before the inevitable suffering.

“ Non, c’est l’estomac — dites que c’est l’estomac, dites, J[aric, dites — ” and the princess began to weep and wring her little hands, with a certain show of pretence, just as ailing and capricious children do. The princess ran out of the room to fetch Marya Bogddnovna.

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh !” she could hear her sister-in-law calling out behind her.

The midwife, rubbing her small, plump, white hands, was coming toward her, with a calm and significant expression on her face.

“ Mdrya Bogdanovna ! I think it has begun,” said 1’rincess Mdrya, looking at the midwife with open and frightened eyes.

” Thank God, princess,” said Marya Bogdanovna, without accelerating her steps. ” You young girls ought not to know anything about it.”

” How is it the doctor has not yet arrived from Moscow ? ” asked the princess. At the request of Liza and of Prince Andréy, an accoucheur had been sent for from Moscow, and he was expected at any moment.

“Never mind, princess, do not worry,” said Marya Bogdanovna, ” everything will go well without a doctor.”

Five minutes later the princess, sitting in her room, heard something heavy carried. She looked out and saw the lackeys carrying into the sleeping-room a leather sofa which had been standing in the cabinet of Prince Andréy. There was something solemn and quiet in the faces of the lackeys.

Princess Mdrya sat all alone in her room, listening to the sounds in the house, now and then opening the door when somebody passed by, and watching what was going on in the corridor. Several women softly passed to and fro, looking at the princess and turning away from her. She did not dare to put any questions to them, closed the door, returned to her room, and now sat down in her armchair, now picked up her prayer-book, and now again knelt before the shrine. To her misfortune and surprise she felt that praying did not calm her agitation. Suddenly the door of her room was softly opened, and on the threshold there appeared her old nurse, Praskovya Sa-vishna, her head wrapped in a kerchief ; the nurse never entered her room, having been forbidden to do so by the prince.

” Marya, my angel, I have come to sit with you,” said the nurse, ” and I have brought the princess’s marriage tapers to light them before the images of the saints,” she said, with a sigh.

” Oh, how glad I am, nurse ! “

” God is merciful, my little dove! ”

The nurse lighted the gold-foil-covered tapers before the shrine and sat down with a stocking at the door. Princess Marya took a book and began to read. Only when steps or voices were heard, the princess cast a frightened and interrogative glance at the nurse, who replied with a reassuring look. The sentiment which Princess Marya was experiencing in her room reigned in all the corners of the house. There being a superstition that the fewer people knew of the suffering of a woman in childbirth, the less she suffered, all pretended not to know anything about it ; nobody spoke of it, but, in addition to the usual reserve and respectfulness of good manners which reigned in the house of the prince, there could be seen in the countenances of all people a common care, a humility of spirit, and the consciousness of something great and incomprehensible which was taking place at that moment.

No laughter was heard in the large maids’ room. In the officiating-rooin all sat in silence, ready for any call. The manorial servants burnt torches and candles, and did not sleep. The old prince walked on his heels in his cabinet and sent Tikhon to Marya Bogdanovna to find out how things stood.

“Just say that the prince has commanded you to find out how it is, and come back and tell me what she says ! “

” Inkorm the prince that the labour has begun,” said Marya Bogdanovna, with a significant look at the messenger.

Tikhon went away and reported to the prince.

” Very well,”, said the prince, closing the door after him, and Tikhon no longer heard a. single sound in the cabinet. After awhile Tikhon entered the cabinet, as though to snuff the candles, but, upon seeing that the prince was lying on the sofa, Tikhon gazed at him, at his disturbed face, after which he silently went up to the prince and, kissing his shoulder, again left the room, without snuffing the candles and without saying for what purpose he had come.

The most solemn of mysteries in the world was still taking place. The evening passed, and night came, and the sentiment of expectancy and humility of spirit before the incomprehensible did not subside, but continued to grow. Nobody was sleeping.

It was one of those March nights when it looks as though winter wanted to regain its power, and when it discharges its last storms and snows with desperate fury. To meet the German doctor from Moscow, who was expected at any moment and for whom post-horses had been sent out on the highway, where it turned into the cross-road, men with lanterns now went on horseback, to take him over drifts and puddles.

Princess Märya had long ago put aside her book : she was sitting in silence, directing her beaming eyes upon the wrinkled face of her nurse, which she knew down to its minutest details : she looked at the strand of gray hair which peeped out from underneath her kerchief and at the loose skin bag under her chin.

Nurse Savlshna, holding the stocking in her hand, was telling for the hundredth time, in a soft voice, herself not hearing and not understanding her own words, how the late princess had borne Princess Märya at Kishinev, with a Moldavian peasant woman for a midwife.

” God is gracious and doctors are not needed,” she said.

Suddenly a gust of wind jerked at the window-sash (by the will of the prince one of the double windows in each room was removed on the appearance of the swallows) and, tugging at the badly fastened bolt, made the cloth curtain flutter, and blew into the room a whiff of moisture and snow, which put out the candle. Princess Marya shuddered ; the nurse put down the stocking and went up to the window, where she put out her head, trying to catch the loose sash. The cold wind flapped the edge of her kerchief and the loose strands of her gray hair.

” Princess, somebody is travelling along the avenue ! ” she said, holding the sash open. ” They are with lanterns, so it must be the doctor — “

” 0 Lord ! Thank God ! ” said Princess Marya, ” I must go and meet him, for he cannot speak Russian.”

Princess Marya threw a shawl over herself and ran out to meet the men who were coming. As she passed through the antechamber, she saw through the window a carriage and lanterns near the entrance. She went out on the staircase. On the post of the balustrade there stood a tallow dip, guttering in the wind. Lackey Filipp, with a frightened face and holding a candle in his hand, was standing lower down, on the first turn of the staircase. Lower still, beyond the turn, could be heard the soft steps of furred boots and what to Princess Marya seemed to be a familiar voice said :

‘< Thank God ! And father ? ”

” He has deigned to retire,” was heard the voice of majordomo Demyan, who was already at the bottom of the staircase.

Then the first voice said something again, Demyan replied, and the steps in the felt boots were coming rapidly nearer around the turn, which Princess Marya could not see.

“ That is Andréy ! ” though Princess Marya. “ No, that is impossible! That would be too extraordinary!” she thought, and just as she was thinking this, the face and figure of Prince Andréy, in a fur coat, with its collar all covered with snow, made its appearance ou the turn where the lackey stood with the candle. Yes, that was he, but pale and emaciated, and with a changed, remarkably soft, and troubled expression on his face. He ascended the staircase and embraced his sister.

“ Did you not receive my letter ? ” he asked, and, without waiting for an answer, which he would not have received anyway, for the princess was unable to speak, he went back and with the accoucheur, who was following him (he had fallen in with him at the last station), again rapidly ascended the staircase and ouce more embraced his sister.

” What fate ! ” he muttered. ” My dear Marya ! ” and, having taken off his fur coat and his boots, he went to the apartments of the little princess.

IX.

The little princess was lying on pillows, wearing a white cap. She was just past a labour pain. Her black hair lay in strands on her inflamed and perspiring cheeks ; her charming little mouth with the ruby, down-covered lip was open, and she smiled a pleasant smile. Prince Andréy entered the room and stopped near her, at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying. Her sparkling eyes fell upon him with a childish, frightened, and agitated glance, without changing their expression.

” I love you all, and have done nobody any harm, why, then, do I suffer ? Help me ! ” this expression of hers seemed to say.

She saw her husband, but did not understand the meaning of his appearance. Prince Andréy walked around the sofa and kissed her on her brow.

” Aly darling,” he said, which expression he had never before used to her. “ God is merciful — “

She looked at him interrogatively and with childlike reproach.

“I was waiting for your aid, and there is notiring, nothing, and you, too!” her eyes seemed to say.

She was not surprised at his arrival ; she did not comprehend that he had arrived. His arrival had no relation to her suffering and to its alleviation. The pain began once more, and Marya Bogdanovna advised Prince Andréy to leave the room.

The accoucheur entered the room. Prince Andréy went out and, meeting Princess Märya, again went up to her. They spoke in a whisper, but their conversation died down every minute. They waited and listened.

“ Allez, mon ami,” said Princess Marya.

Prince Andréy again went to his wife, and sat down in the adjoining room and waited. A woman came out of her room with a frightened face, looking confused at the sight of Prince Andréy. He covered his face with his hands and sat thus for several minutes. Pitiable, helpless, animal groans were heard in the next room. Prince Andréy rose, walked over to the door, and wanted to open it. Somebody was holding it on the other side.

” You can’t, you can’t ! ” a frightened voice was heard on the other side.

He began to walk up and down in the room. The cries died down, — a few more seconds passed. Suddenly a terrible cry, — not her cry, — she could not cry that way, — was heard in the adjoining room. Prince Andréy ran up to the door ; the cry had stopped ; there was heard the whimpering of a babe.

” Why did they take a babe there ? ” Prince Andréy thought, in the first second. “A babe? What babe? What is it doing there ? Or was a babe born there ? “

It was only then that he suddenly comprehended all the joyful meaning of that cry ; tears choked him, and, leaning both his elbows on the window-sill, he sobbed and wept, as only children weep. The door opened. The doctor stepped out from that room, in his rolled-up shirt sleeves and without his coat ; he was pale and his lower jaw quivered. Prince Andréy turned to him, but the doctor looked at him in confusion and went past him, without saying a word. A woman came running out and stopped in embarrassment at the door, when she noticed Prince Andréy. He entered his wife’s room. She lay dead in the same position in which he had seen her but five minutes before, and the same expression, in spite of the arrested eyes and the paleness of her cheeks, was on that charming, childish little face with the lip that was covered with black down.

” I love you all, and have done no harm to anybody, — and see what you have done with me ! ” said her charming, pitiable dead face.

In the corner of the room something small and red grunted and whimpered in the white, trembling hands of Marya Bogdanovna.

Two hours later Prince Andréy softly entered his father’s cabinet. The old man had heard everything. He was standing at the door, and the moment it opened, he silently embraced his son with his rough hands, as with a vise, and burst out weeping like a child.

Three days later mass was held for the little princess, and, bidding her farewell, Prince Andréy mounted the steps of the catafalque. In the coffin lay the same face, though with eyes shut. ” Ah, what have you done with me ? ” it said, and Prince Andréy felt that something heavy was lying on his heart, that he was to blame for something which he could never mend, nor forget. He could not weep. The old man also ascended the catafalque and kissed her waxen hand, which lay calmly and high above the other, and her face said to him: “Ah, what have you done with me, and why have you done it ? ” And the old man gloomily turned away, as he saw her face.

Five days later, the young Prince Nikolay Andréevich was christened. The nurse held the swaddling-clothes with her chin, while the priest with a goose-quill anointed the boy’s wrinkled red palms and soles.

His grandfather, who was the godfather, trembling and fearing lest he should drop him, carried the babe around the dented tin font and handed him to his godmother,

Princess Marya. Prince Andréy sat in another room with a sinking heart, lest they should drown the child, waiting for the end of the sacrament. He joyfully looked at the child, when the nurse brought him out, and approvingly nodded, when the nurse informed him that the piece of wax with a lock of cliild’s hair upon it, which had been thrown into the font, had not gone down, but continued to swim.

X.

Rostov’s participation in the duel of Dolokhov and Pierre was quashed by the solicitation of the old count, and, instead of being degraded, as he had expected to be, Rostov was appointed as an adjutant to the governorgeneral of Moscow. For this reason he was unable to go to the country -with his family, and remained all summer in Moscow, attending to his duties. Dolokhov got well, and Rostdv became very intimate with him during his convalescence. During his illness, Ddlokhov was with his mother, who loved him passionately and tenderly. Old Marya Ivanovna, who loved Rostdv for his friendship with Fédya, frequently spoke to him about her son.

” Yes, count, he is too noble and pure of heart,” she would say, “ for our corrupt world, such as it is nowadays. Nobody loves virtue, — it only acts as a reproach. Tell me, count, was it just and honest of Bezukhi ? Fédya, in his magnanimity, loved him, and even now says nothing bad of him. The jokes they played in St. Petersburg with the captain of police, they played all together. Well, Bezukhi did not suffer for it, while Fedya had to take it all on his shoulders ! How he suffered for it. It is true he has been restored to his place, but how could they help doing it ? I think there were not many such brave sons of our country down there. Now, this duel ! Have these people any feeling, or honour ? How shameless ! They knew that he was an only son, and yet they challenged him and shot straight at him ! It was fortunate God was merciful to us. What was it all for? Who

in our day has no intrigues? What of it, if he is so jealous ? He might have given him to understand before, but no, he let it go on for a whole year. Well, he challenged him to a duel, supposing that Fédya would not fight, because he owed him some money. What baseness ! “What abomination ! I know, my dear count, that you understand Fédya, and so, believe me, I love you with all my heart. There are not many who understand him. He is such an exalted, such a divine soul ! “

Délokhov himself, during his convalescence, spoke to Rostov in a manner which one could hardly have expected of him.

” I am considered a bad man,” he would say. ” I know it. Well, let them ! I do not care to know anybody but those I love; but whom I love, I love so much that I will give my life for them, while the others I will strangle, if they get in my way. I have an adorable, priceless mother, two or three friends, you among them, and to all the others I pay attention only in so much as they are useful or harmful to me. They are nearly all of them harmful, especially the women. Yes, my friend,” he continued, “ I have met loving, noble, exalted men ; but of women I have met none but venal creatures, no matter whether they are countesses or cooks. I have not yet met that divine purity and devotion, for which I am looking in women. If I found such a woman, I would give my life for her. But these ! “— he made a contemptuous gesture. ” Will you believe me, if I at all still value life, I do so because I hope to meet that divine being who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you do not understand this.”

“ On the contrary, I do,” said Rostov, who was under the influence of his new friend.

In the autumn, Rostov’s family returned to Moscow.

In the beginning of winter, Denisov, too, returned, and he stopped at the house of the Rostévs. This first part of the winter of the year 1806, which Nikoldy passed in Moscow, was one of the happiest and merriest for him and his whole family. Nikolay attracted many young people to the house of his parents. Vyéra was twenty years old and a pretty young lady ; Sonya was a sixteen-year-old girl, with all the charm of a newly budded flower; Natäsha was half a young lady, half a girl, now childishly funny, and now girlishly seductive.

In the house of the Rostovs there was just now a certain atmosphere of love, such as is in houses where there are very sweet and very young girls. Every young man who came to the house of the Rostovs and who looked at these youthful, impressionable girlish faces smiling at something (no doubt, at their own happiness), and at that animated life, who heard that inconsequent, but kindly, spontaneous, hopeful babble of the young women, and who heard these inconsequent sounds, and their singing and music, experienced the same readiness to love and the same expectancy of happiness, which was experienced by all the young people in the house of the Rostévs.

Among the young men introduced by Rostov, Dolokhov was one of the first. He found favour with all in the house except with Natäsha. She almost had a quarrel with her brother on account of Dolokhov. She insisted that he was a bad man, that in his duel with Bezukhi Pierre had been right, and Ddlokhov wrong, and that he was disagreeable and unnatural.

” There is nothing for me to understand,” Natasha cried, with perverse obstinacy, “he is a bad man and devoid of feelings. Now, I love your Denisov, though he is a carouser and such things, still, I love him, consequently I understand him. I do not know how to tell it to you, only everything is calculated in him, and that I do not like. Denisov — “

“Well, Denisov is another matter,” replied Nikolây, giving her to understand that in comparison with Denisov even Dolokhov was nothing. “You must understand what a soul this Dolokhov has ! You must see him with his mother — what a heart he has ! ”

“ I know nothing about that, but I do not feel at ease in his presence. And do you know that he is in love with Sonya?”

“ How foolish — “

” I am convinced of it, and you will see.”

Natâsha’s prediction came true. Dolokhov, who was not fond of women’s society, came frequently to the house, and the question for whose sake he came was soon solved, though nobody spoke of it. He came to see Sdnya. And Sonya, although no one would have dared to say it, knew it and blushed like a lobster every time Ddlokhov made his appearance.

Ddlokhov frequently dined at the Rostdvs, never missed a spectacle which they attended, and went to the adolescent balls at lohel’s, to which the Rostdvs always went. He showed exceptional attention to Sdnya and looked at her with such eyes that, not only she was unable to meet his glance without a blush, but even the old countess and Natasha blushed whenever they noticed it.

It was evident that this strong and strange man was under the irresistible influence produced on him by this swarthy, graceful girl who was in love with another.

Rostdv observed that something new was going on between Dolokhov and S<5nya; but he did not render himself any account of what these relations really were.

“ Those girls are all in love with somebody,” he thought of Sonya and Natasha. He no longer felt so much at ease with Sbnya and Dolokhov, and remained at home less often.

In the fall of 1806 all began to speak again about a war with Napoleon, and with greater ardour than in the previous year. There was to be a levy of ten recruits for every thousand, and of nine additional men for each thousand for the militia. Bonaparte was openly cursed everywhere, and in Moscow the impending war was an all-absorbing subject of conversation. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these preparations for the war consisted in the fact that Nikolay would under no conditions consent to stay in Moscow, and was only waiting for the end of Denisov’s furlough in order to leave with him for the regiment after the holidays. The impending departure did not keep him from amusing himself : it only encouraged him to make as merry as possible. The greater part of his time he passed away from the house, at dinners, evening parties, and balls.

XI.

On the third day of Christmas, Rostov dined at home, which at that time was rare with him. It was a kind of an official farewell dinner, since he and Denisov were to leave for the army after Epiphany. There were about twenty people at the dinner, among them Dolokhov and Denisov.

Never before had the atmosphere of love been felt so powerfully in the house of the Rostdvs as during these holidays. ” Seize the minutes of happiness, compel others to love you, and yourself fall in love ! This alone is real in this world, — everything else is nonsense. This is our only occupation here below,” this atmosphere seemed to say.

Nikoldy, who, as always, had worn out two spans of horses without having called in all the places where he ought to have been and where he had been invited, returned home immediately before dinner. The moment he entered, he noticed and felt the tension in the atmosphere of love in the house, and he also became aware of a strange embarrassment which existed between certain members of that company. Most agitated were Sdnya, Ddlokhov, the old countess, and, to a certain degree, Natdsha. Nikoldy saw that something must have happened between Sdnya and Ddlokhov before dinner, and, with a refinement which was characteristic of him, he was particularly gentle and careful in his treatment of both of them during the dinner.

On the same evening there was to be one of those balls at lohel’s (the dancing-master’s), which he gave on holidays for all of his pupils.

“ Nikolay, will you go to lohel’s ? Do go!” Natasha said to him. “He particularly asked you to come, and Vasili Dmitrich (Denisov) is going to be there.”

” Where would I not go at the command of the countess ? ” said Denisov, who in the house of the Rostdvs had jocularly assumed the rôle of Natdsha’s knight. ” I will even dance the pas de châle.”

“If I have time ! I have promised to be at the Ar-khdrovs, — they give an evening entertainment,” said Nikolay. “And you?” he turned to Ddlokhov. The moment he put the question, he noticed he ought not to have asked him.

” Yes, perhaps —” Ddlokhov replied, coldly and angrily, looking at 86nya and glancing with a frown at Nikolay, with the expression with which at the club dinner he had looked at Pierre.

“ Something has happened,” thought Nikoldy. He was strengthened in his belief when Dolokhov left soon after dinner. He called out Natdsha, and asked her what the matter was.

“ I have been looking for you,” said Natdsha, running out to him. “ I told you all the time, but you would not believe me,” she said, triumphantly. “ He has proposed to Sdnya.”

However little Nikolay was at that time interested in Sdnya, something gave way in him when he heard this. Ddlokhov was a decent, and in some ways a brilliant, match for dowerless and orphaned Sdnya. From the point of view of the old countess and of the world he ought not to be refused. Consequently, the first impression which Nikoldy received upon hearing this was that of anger at Sdnya. He was getting ready to say : ” That is nice, of course ! We must forget our childish vows and accept the proposition,” but before he had said this —

“ Just think of it ! She has refused him, has refused him pointblank ! ” said Natäsha. “ She told him that she loved another,” she added, after a moment’s silence.

« My Sonya could not have acted otherwise ! ” thought Nikolay.

“No matter how much mamma begged her,she refused, and I know that she will not change anything she makes up her mind to — ”

” And mamma begged her ! ” Nikolay said, reproachfully.

” Yes,” said Natäsha. « Do you know, Nikoldy, don’t get angry, — lam sure you will not marry her. I know, God knows how, but I know for sure that you will not marry her.”

” You know nothing about that,” said Nikoldy. ” But I must speak with her. What a charming girl Sonya is ! ” he added, with a smile.

” She is so charming ! I will send her to you,” and kissing her brother, Natäsha ran away.

A minute later Sdnya entered, frightened and confused, as though guilty of something. Nikoläy went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time since his arrival that they had spoken without witnesses and of their love.

” Sophie,” he said, at first timidly, and then ever bolder and bolder, ” if you wish to refuse not only a brilliant and advantageous match — but he is a fine and noble man — he is my friend — “

Sonya interrupted him.

“ I have already refused him,” she said, hurriedly.

” If you refuse him on my account, then I am afraid that — “

Sonya again interrupted him. She looked at him with a frightened and imploring glance.

“ Nicolas, don’t tell me that,” she said.

“ No, I must. Maybe it is a suffisance on my part, but it is better for me to say it. If you refuse for my sake, I must tell you the whole truth. I love you, I think, better than anybody — “

” That is enough for me,” Sonya said, blushing.

“ But I have been a thousand times in love and will be so again, although I have no such feeling of friendship, confidence, and love for any one but you. Besides, I am young. Mamma does not want it. In short, I promise nothing. I ask you to think of Dolokhov’s proposal,” he said, with difficulty pronouncing the name of his friend.

” Don’t say that to me ! I do not want anything. I love you as a brother and will always love you and want nothing else.”

” You are an angel. I am not worthy of you, and I am afraid of being false to you.”

Nikolay again kissed her hand.

XII.

Iohel’s balls were the merriest in Moscow. So the mothers said, watching their adolescents dance the newly learned steps ; so said the adolescents themselves, dancing to exhaustion; so said the young men and women who came to these balls with the intention of coming down to the level of the younger people and who found in this their greatest pleasure. During the year two marriages had been due to these balls. The two pretty Countesses Gorchakov had found their matches, whom they married, and so increased the fame of these balls. The special feature of these balls was the absence of a host or hostess : there was only good-natured lohel, flying about like fluff, scuffing according to the rules of his art, and receiving the tickets for the lessons from his guests; another feature was this, that only those attended who wanted to dance and to amuse themselves, as do thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls who for the first time put on long dresses.

All, with rare exceptions, were or seemed to be pretty : they all smiled with such transport, and their eyes sparkled so. Sometimes the best pupils, among whom Natasha, remarkable for her grace, was the leading one, danced the pas de châle ; but at this, the last ball, they danced only the écossaise, the English, and the mazurka, which was just becoming fashionable. The hall was rented by lohel in Bezukhi’s house, and all agreed that the ball was a great success. There were many pretty girls present, and the Rostov young ladies were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and merry. On that evening, Sénya, proud of Dolokhov’s proposal, of her refusal, and of her explanation with Nikoldy, had been whirling about at home, making it hard for her maid to finish combing her braid, and now she was transparent with ebullient joy.

Natâsha, not less proud of being out for the first time in a long dress, at a real ball, was happier still. Both wore white muslin dresses with rose-coloured ribbons.

Natasha was in love the moment she entered the ball. She was not in love with any one in particular, but with all in general. She was in love with him upon whom she happened to be looking at any given moment.

” Oh, how nice it is ! ” she kept saying as she ran up to Sonya.

Nikoldy and Denisov walked from one room to another, graciously and condescendingly surveying the dancers.

” How sweet she is ! She will be a beauty,” said Denisov.

” Who ? “

” Countess Natäsha,” replied Denisov. ” And how she dances ! What grace ! ” he again said, after a moment’s silence.

” About whom are you speaking ? ”

” About your sister,” Denisov exclaimed, angrily.

Rostov smiled.

” Mon cher comte, vous êtes l’un de mes meilleurs écoliers, il faut que vous dansiez,” said small lohel, walking over to Nikolay. ” Voyez combien de jolies demoiselles.”

He turned with the same request to Denisov, also his former pupil.

“ Non, mon cher, je ferai tapisserie,” said Denisov. ” Do you not remember how badly I profited by your lessons ? ”

” Not at all ! ” lohel hastened to say, in order to console him. ” You were only inattentive ; but you had ability, yes, you had it.”

Again the music struck up, playing a mazurka. Nikolay could not refuse lohel, and invited Sonya. Denisov sat down by the side of the old ladies and, leaning on his sabre and marking time with it, was amusing the old ladies with some merry tale, while watching the youthful dancers. lohel formed the first couple with Natasha, who was his pride and best pupil. Softly and gracefully moving his little feet in the dancing shoes, lohel was the first to fly across the hall with timid Natasha, who, however, carefully executed her steps. Denisov did not take his eyes off her and kept beating time ■with his sabre with an expression which clearly said that he did not dance because he did not wish to, and not because he did not know how. In the middle of the figure he called up Rostdv who was passing near him.

” It is not at all that,” he said. ” Do you call this a Polish mazurka ? But she dances excellently.”

Knowing that Denisov had been famous even in Poland for his masterly dancing of the mazurka, Nikoläy ran up to Natasha.

” Go and choose Denisov ! He is a fine dancer ! ” he said.

When it was again NaUsha’s turn, she rose and, rapidly moving her little feet in her ribboned shoes, timidly ran all alone across the hall to the corner where Denisov was sitting. She saw that all were looking at her and waiting to see what would happen. Nikolay saw that Denisov and Natasha were smiling and disputing something, and that Denisov was refusing, with a joyful smile. He ran up to them.

” Please, Vasili Dmitrich,” Natäsha was saying, “ come, let us dance ! “

” Countess, excuse me,” said Denisov.

“ Come now, Vâsya ! ” said Nikolay.

“You are trying to persuade me like Vasya the cat,” Denisov said, jestingly.

” I will sing for you the whole evening,” said Natasha.

” A fairy can do everything she pleases with me ! ” said Denisov, unbuckling his sabre. He walked out from behind the chairs, firmly clasped his lady’s hand, raised his head, and put forward his foot, waiting for the beat. It was only on horseback and at a dance that one did not notice Denisov’s low stature, and he appeared that dashing fellow whom he felt himself to be.

When the proper beat was struck he looked sidewise at his lady, with a triumphant and jocular glance, suddenly stamped the floor with one foot, and, like a ball, rebounded from the floor and flew forward in a circle, drawing his lady along with him. He softly flew on one foot across half of the hall and did not seem to see the chairs in front of him, toward which he was tending ; but suddenly, clattering his spurs and spreading his feet, he stopped on his heels, remained about a second in this attitude, with a clanking of Iris spurs struck his feet against each other, standing in the same spot, rapidly whirled around and, striking his right foot with his left, again flew in a circle. Natdsha divined what he intended to do, and, herself not knowing how, followed him and entirely abandoned herself to him. Now he pirouetted with her, holding her right hand, and now her left ; now he dropped down on a knee and swung all around her, and again leaped up and rushed headlong with such rapidity as though he intended to run through all the rooms without drawing breath ; but suddenly he stopped and again made a new evolution on his knee. When he, briskly whirling his lady around in front of her seat, clattered with his spurs and bowed to her, Natasha forgot to make her bow of acknowledgment. She looked at him in perplexity and smiled, as though she did not recognize him.

” What is this ? ” she muttered.

Although lohel did not recognize this mazurka as a regular dance, all were delighted with Denisov’s mastery

and constantly chose him to dance with, while the old men began to converse about Poland and the good old times. Denisov, heated by the mazurka and wiping off his perspiration with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha’s side and did not leave her all the evening.

XIII.

For two days after this Rostov did not meet Ddlokhov at his own house, nor did he find him at home ; on the third he received a note.

” Since I do not intend to call again at your house, for reasons which you know, and since I am about to depart for the army, I shall give this evening a farewell party to my friends. Come to the English Hotel”

Returning from the theatre, where he had been with his family and with Denisov, at ten o’clock, he went to the English Hotel. He was immediately taken to the best apartment, which for that night was occupied by D61o-khov. On the table lay money, in gold and in assignats, and Ddlokhov kept bank. Nikolay had not seen him since his proposal and Sdnya’s refusal, and he was a little embarrassed at the thought of meeting him. Dolokhov’s clear and cold glance met Rostov at the door, as though he had long been waiting for him.

“We have not seen each other for quite awhile,” he said. “Thank you for having come. Let me finish keeping bank, and then Ilyushka will come with his choir.”

“ I have called at your house,” Rostov said, blushing.

Dolokhov made no reply.

“You may punt,” he said.

Rostov happened just then to recall the strange conversation which he once had with Dolokhov. “ Only fools play for luck,” Ddlokhov then said.

« Are you afraid to play with me ? ” Ddlokhov now said, smiling, as though guessing Rostov’s thought.

In this smile of his Rostov saw that peculiar mood which he had displayed at the dinner in the club and, in general, on such occasions when, tiring of the monotonousness of every-day life, he felt the necessity of issuing from it by some strange, more especially by some cruel, act.

Rostov was ill at ease ; he looked in vain in his mind for some pleasantry with which to reply to Dolokhov’s words. But, before he had a chance to do so, Dolokhov, looking straight into Rostov’s face, said to him slowly and distinctly, so that all could hear him :

“Do you remember how we once spoke about gambling ? I said that a man was a fool to play for luck ; one must be sure in playing, but still, I will try.”

“ Does he want to try for luck, or for sure ? ” thought Rostov.

“Yes, you had better not play!” he said, and, flinging down a torn pack of cards, he added: “Bank, gentlemen ! “

Ddlokhov moved up the money and was getting ready to deal the cards. Rostov sat down near him and at first did not play. Dolokhov kept looking at him.

” Why do you not play ? ” said Ddlokhov.

Strange to say, Nikoldy felt the necessity of taking a card, putting a small stake upon it, and of beginning to play.

“ I have no money with me,” said Rostov.

“ I will trust you ! ”

Rostov put five roubles on the card and lost ; he put five more, and lost again. Ddlokhov killed, that is, won, ten cards in succession from Rostov.

“ Gentlemen,” he said, having dealt the cards for some time, ” please put the money on your cards, or else I shall get mixed up in the accounts.”

One of the players said that he hoped he could be trusted.

” Yes, you may be trusted, but I am afraid of getting mixed up. I ask you to place money on your cards,” replied Ddlokhov. “ Don’t feel embarrassed, for we shall square accounts later,” he added to Rostov.

The game went on. A lackey kept pouring out champagne.

All of Rostov’s cards were beaten, and eight hundred roubles were written up against him. He had just written eight hundred roubles on a card, but, as the champagne was brought around, he changed his mind and wrote down a more moderate stake of twenty roubles.

“ Leave it,” said Dolokhov, although he did not seem to be looking at Rostov, ” you will win back quicker. Others win of me, but you get beat. Or are you afraid of me ? ” he repeated.

Rostov obeyed, left the eight hundred written down on the card and picked up a seven of hearts from the ground and, tearing off a comer, placed it on the table. He put down the seven of hearts, with a broken piece of chalk wrote the figure eight hundred upon it in round, straight ciphers, drank a glass of warm champagne which had been handed to him, smiled at Dolokhov’s words, and, with sinking heart waiting for the seven, began to watch the hands of Dolokhov, who was holding the cards.

The gain or loss of this seven of hearts meant a great deal for Rostov. The previous Sunday Count Ilya Andreevich had given his son two thousand roubles, and he, who had never liked to speak of money matters, told Ins son that this was the last money until May, and that, therefore, he asked him to be careful with it. Nikoldy had told him that it was more than enough, and that he gave him his word of honour he would not take any more from him until spring. Now only twelve hundred roubles of that money were left. Consequently, the seven of hearts meant not only the loss of sixteen hundred roubles, but also the necessity of breaking his given word of honour.

He was looking with a sinking heart at Ddlokhov’s hands and thinking : ” Come now, let me have that card at once, and I will take my cap and go home to sup with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and never again will take a card into my hands.”

Just then his domestic life, his jokes with Pétya, his conversations with Sonya, his duets with Natäsha, the piquet with his father, and even the quiet bed in the house on Povârskaya Street, appeared before him with such force, such clearness, and such allurement, as though it all were a long past, lost, and unappreciated happiness. He could not admit that a stupid chance, which would make the seven fall on the right rather than on the left, could deprive him of all this newly conceived and illuminated happiness and plunge him into the abyss of an unfamiliar and indefinite misfortune. It could not be, and yet he with a sinking heart watched Dolokhov’s hands. These broad-boned, reddish hands, with the hair peeping out underneath his shirt, placed the pack of cards down and took up a glass of wine, which was offered him, and his pipe.

“So you are not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dolokhov, and, as though to tell a merry story, he put down his cards, leaned back in his chair, and slowly began to speak, smiling all the time :

” Yes, gentlemen, I have been told that there is a rumour abroad in Moscow that I am a cheat at cards, and so I advise you to be careful with me.”

“Go on dealing !” said Kostov.

“ Oh, the Moscow gossips ! ” said Ddlokhov, smiling and taking up his cards.

” Oh, oh ! ” Kostov almost shouted, taking hold of his hair with both his hands. The seven which he needed was already lying face upward, the first card in the pack. He had lost more than he was able to pay.

” Don’t get so despondent,” said Dolokhov, looking askance at Kostdv, and continuing to deal his cards.

XIV.

An hour and a half later the majority of the gamesters were considering their game but lightly. The whole attention was centred on Kostov. Instead of sixteen hundred roubles, there was marked up against him a long column of figures, which he had made out to be somewhere in the tens of thousands, but which, he had a dim idea, must be now somewhere in the neighbourhood of fifteen thousand. In reality, the sum he owed had passed twenty thousand.

Ddlokhov no longer was telling stories ; he followed every motion of Rostov’s hands, and then cast a cursory glance at his account with Rostdv. He decided to continue the game until the account reached the sum of forty-three thousand roubles. He chose this figure because forty-three was the sum of his and Sonya’s joint ages. Rostov, bending his head on both his arms, was sitting at the table, which was marked up with chalk, drenched with wine, and covered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: these broad-boned, reddish hands, with their hair peeping out underneath the shirt, these hands which he loved and hated, were holding him in their power.

” Six hundred roubles, an ace, a corner, a nine, — it is impossible to win back !— How cheerful it would have been at home ! — Valet on the p — impossible ! — Why does he do it with me ? ” Rostov thought.

Now and then he punted on a big card ; but Dolokhov refused to beat him, and himself indicated the stakes. Nikolay submitted to him. He now prayed to God as he had prayed on the bridge at Amstetten ; now he tried to convince himself that the first card which he picked up from a mass of bent cards under the table would save him ; now he figured out how many cords there were on his jacket and tried to stake the whole loss on a card representing as many points ; now he looked for succour from the other players ; and now he gazed at Dolokhov’s cold face, trying to penetrate that which was beneath it.

” He knows what this loss means to me. He certainly does not want my destruction ? He is my friend. I have loved him so much — But he is not to blame ; he cannot help having such unusual luck. And I am not to blame, either,” he said to himself. ” I have done no wrong. Have I killed or offended any one, or done one any harm ? “Whence tins terrible misfortune ? When did it begin ? It is but a short time ago I came up to this table with the wish of winning one hundred roubles with which to buy mamma a small case for her nameday, and of going immediately home. I was so happy, so free, and so cheerful! When did it end, and when did that new and terrible condition begin ? What determined this change ? — I have been sitting all the time at this table, choosing and putting down cards, and looking at these broad-boned, agile hands — When did it happen, and what did happen ? I am well and strong, and the same I always was, and sitting in the same place as before. No, it cannot be ! No doubt it will all end in nothing.”

He was red in his face and in a perspiration, although it was not warm in the room. His face was terrible and pitiful, especially on account of his vain endeavour to appear calm.

The sum reached the fatal number of forty-three thousand. Rostdv prepared a card which was to be a corner on three thousand roubles, which he just won, when Dolokhov slapped the pack of cards and put it aside. He took up the chalk and, writing in a strong, legible hand, began to add up the column of Rostov’s account.

” To supper ! It is time to eat ! Here are the gipsies ! “

Indeed some swarthy men and women, talking in their gipsy brogue, had just come in from the outside. Nikolay knew that all was ended ; but he said, in an indifferent voice :

” Well, will you not play a little more ? I have prepared an excellent little card.”

He acted as though the pleasure of playing interested him more than anything else.

” All is ended, and I am lost ! ” he thought. ” All that is left for me to do is to send a bullet through my brain,” and at the same time he said, in a merry voice :

” Come, one more card.”

“All right,” replied Ddlokhov, having finished the addition, ” all right ! It goes at twenty-one roubles,” he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one, by which amount his sum differed from forty-three thousand. He picked up the pack of cards and began to deal.

Rostov carefully unbent the corner and instead of six thousand wrote down twenty-one.

“ It makes no difference to me,” he said. ” All I am interested to know is whether you will beat my ten spot, or whether you will give it to me.”

Dolokhov began to deal with a serious look. Oh, how Rostdv at that moment despised those reddish hands with the short fingers and with the hair which peeped out beneath the shirt, which held him in their power. The ten spot fell for him.

” You owe me forty-three thousand, count,” said Dolokhov. He stretched himself and rose from the table. ” One gets tired sitting down so long,” he added.

“ Yes, I am tired myself,” said Rostdv.

As though to remind him that it was not proper to jest, Dolokhov interrupted him, by saying :

“ Count, when may I get the money ? ”

Rostov blushed and called Dolokhov out to the adjoining room.

” I cannot pay the whole sum at once. Will you take a note ? ” said Rostdv.

” Listen, Rostdv,” said Dolokhov, with a bland smile and looking straight into Rostov’s eyes, “ you know the proverb, ‘ Lucky in love, unlucky in cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, — I know it.”

“ Oh, it is terrible to feel oneself in the power of this man,” thought Rostov. Rostov knew what a shock it would be to his parents when he should tell them of his loss ; he knew what happiness it would be to get rid of all this ; he knew that Dolokhov was aware of the fact that he could free him of all this shame and sorrow, and that he was only playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse.

« Your cousin — ” Dolokhov began once more, but Nikolay interrupted him.

« My cousin has nothing to do with us, and there is no reason for mentioning her ! ” he shouted, in rage.

” So when can I get it ? ” asked Dolokhov.

” Tomorrow,” said Rostov, leaving the room.

XV.

It was not difficult to say “ Tomorrow ” and to preserve appearances ; but it was terrible to come home all alone to see his sisters, his brother, and his parents, and to make a confession and ask for money to which he had no right after the word of honour which he had given.

His people were not yet asleep. The young Rostovs had had their supper, after their return from the theatre, and were now sitting at the clavichord. The moment Nikoläy entered the parlour, he was surrounded by that poetical atmosphere of love, which had been reigning in their house during that winter, and which now, after Dolokhov’s proposal and lohel’s ball, seemed to have become denser, like the air before a storm, about Sdnya and Natäsha. Sonya and Natasha, dressed in the blue dresses which they had worn in the theatre, beautiful and conscious of their beauty, and happy, stood, smiling, at the clavichord. Vyéra was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawingroom. The old countess, waiting for the arrival of her husband and her son, was laying a solitaire with the aid of an old gentlewoman who was living in her house. Denisov, with sparkling eyes and dishevelled hair, was sitting at the clavichord. His feet were thrown back, and, striking the keys with his short fingers, he took chords and, rolling his eyes, sang, in his small, hoarse, but correct voice, the poem, ” The Fairy,” which he had composed, trying to pick out the music for it.

“ Fairy, tell me, pray, what power draws me To the strings which I abandoned long ago I In my heart what sacred fire awes me, And what transports ’neath thy fingers flow I “

He sang in an impassioned voice, flashing his black agate eyes upon frightened and happy Natasha.

” Beautiful ! Excellent ! ” cried Natasha. “ Another verse ! ” she said, not noticing Nikolay’s arrival.

“ Everything is as of old with them,” thought Nikolay, looking into the drawingroom, where he saw Vyéra and his mother with the old lady.

“ Ah, here is Nikoläy ! ” Natäsha ran up toward him.

” Is papa at home ? ” he asked.

“ How glad I am that you have arrived ! ” Natdsha said, without answering his question. ” We are having such a nice time. Vasili Dmitrich, you know, has remained over a day for my sake.”

” No, papa has not yet arrived,” said Sonya.

“Nikoläy, come here, my dear!” the countess in the drawingroom called out.

Nikolay went up to his mother, kissed her hand, and, silently seating himself at the table, began to watch her hands which were laying the solitaire. In the parlour could be heard laughter and merry voices, begging Natasha to do something.

” All right, all right,” cried Denisov, ” you can’t refuse now : it is your turn to play the barcarolle, and I beg you to do so.”

The countess looked around at her taciturn son.

” What is the matter with you ?” she asked Nikoläy.

” Oh, nothing,” he said, as though he were annoyed by this monotonous question. ” Will papa be back soon ? ”

” I think so.”

” They are still happy. They do not know anything ! Where shall I go to?” thought Nikoläy, walking into the parlour, where stood the clavichord.

Sdnya was sitting at the clavichord and playing the prelude to that barcarolle of which Denisov was so fond. Natäsha was getting ready to sing. Denisov was looking at her with eyes of transport.

chest straightened up, her eyes assumed a serious expression. She was not thinking of anybody or of anything at that moment, and from her mouth, which was formed for a smile, there issued sounds, those sounds which anybody may produce in the same intervals of time, but which leave us cold a thousand times, and make us shudder and weep the one thousand and first time.

During that winter Natasha for the first time began to sing in earnest, more especially because Denisov was in ecstasy over her singing. She now no longer sang in childish fashion : there was no longer that comical precision ; but still she did not yet sing well, as all good judges of singing said. ” Her voice is not yet trained ; but it is beautiful and ought to be trained,” all said. These remarks were always made long after she had stopped singing. But so long as that untrained voice with its irregular respiration and forced transitions lasted, even the judges said nothing and only listened to that untrained voice, and wanted to hear it again. In her voice there was that virgin purity, that unconsciousness of her strength, and that untrained velvetiness which so united with the imperfections of her art of singing that it seemed impossible to change anything in it without spoiling it.

” What is it ? ” thought Nikolay, hearing her voice and opening his eyes wide. ” What has happened to her ? How she sings tonight ! ” he thought. Suddenly his whole world centred in the expectation of the next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats: “Oh mio crudcle affctto— one, two, three — one, two, three — one—Oh mio cntdclc affctto

— one, two, three — one. Oh, our stupid fife ? ” thought Nikoldy. ” All this, misfortune, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honour, — all this is nonsense, — but here is the real — Well, Natasha, my dear, my little dove !

— How will she take this si ? Well done ! Thank

God ! ” and, without knowing that he was singing, he, to strengthen this si, seconded it by taking a high third. ” 0 Lord ! How good ! Did I take it ? What happiness’! ” he thought.

Oh, how that third quivered, and how it touched some-tiling in Rostov’s heart that was good and pure. This something was independent of the whole world, and higher than anything in this world. What were losses, and Ddlokhovs, and words of honour in comparison with it ? — All was nonsense • One can kill and steal, and yet be happy —

XVI.

Rostöv had not for a long time experienced such pleasure from music as on that day. But the moment Natäsha had finished her barcarolle, reality again burst upon him. He left the room without saying a word, and went downstairs to his room. Fifteen minutes later the old count returned, happy and satisfied, from the club. Upon hearing that he had arrived, Nikoläy went to see him.

” Well, have you amused yourself ? ” said Ilya Andreevich, smiling a happy and proud smile at his son.

Nikolây wanted to say, ” Yes,” but was unable to do so : he almost burst out sobbing. The count was lighting his pipe and so did not notice his son’s condition.

” Well, it is unavoidable ! ” Nikoläy thought, for the first and last time. And suddenly he said in a most careless tone, so that he was ashamed of himself, as though he were asking for the carriage to drive downtown :

« Papa, I have come to you on business. I almost forgot. I need some money.”

« Indeed ? ” said his father, who was in a peculiarly happy frame of mind. ” I told you there would not be any. How much is it ? “

« Very much,” Nikolay said, blushing, and with a stupid and careless smile, for which he later could not forgive himself for a long time. ” I have lost some at cards, that is, a great deal, very much, forty-three thousand.”

“ What ? To whom ? — You are jesting ! ” shouted

the count, suddenly blushing with an apoplectic redness in liis neck and at the back of his head, as old men blush.

” I have promised to pay it tomorrow,” said Nikoläy.

” Well ! ” said the old count, waving his hands and sinking powerless down on the sofa.

” What is to be done ? To whom has that not happened ? ” his son said, in a bold and careless voice, although at heart he regarded himself as a good-for-nothing, a scoundrel, who could not atone for his crime with his whole life. He felt like kissing the hands of his father, like kneeling down and begging his forgiveness, and yet he said, in a careless and even rude voice, that that happened to others, too.

Count Ilya Andréevich lowered his eyes when he heard these words of his son, and in embarrassment looked around for something.

” Yes, yes,” he muttered, ” it will be hard, it will be hard, I am afraid, to get it — to whom has it not happened ? Yes, to whom has it not happened ? — “

The count cast a sidewise glance at his son and left the room. Nikolay had prepared himself for a defence, but had not expected this.

“Papa! Pa-pa!” he cried after him, bursting into sobs, ” forgive me ! ” And, seizing his father’s hand, he pressed his lips to it and wept.

While the father was having an explanation with his son, a not less important discussion took place between mother and daughter. Natasha came running to her mother in great excitement.

” Mamma ! — Mamma ! — He has made — ”

” What has he made ? ”

” He has made, he has made a proposal to me. Mamma ! Mamma ! ” she cried.

The countess could not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom ? To that tiny girl Natasha, who but lately had been playing with dolls, and who was still taking lessons.

” Natasha, stop your foolishness ! ” she said, hoping that it was only a jest.

” No, it is no foolishness. I am telling you the truth,” Natasha said, angrily. ” I come to ask your advice, and you tell me that it is foolishness — ”

The countess shrugged her shoulders.

” If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has proposed to you, go and tell him that he is a fool, and that is all.”

” No, he is not a fool,” Natasha said, looking serious and offended.

” What, then, do you want ? You are all in love tonight. Well, if you are in love, go and marry him !” the countess said, with an angry laugh. ” God aid you ! ”

” No, mamma, I am not in love with him, I think I am not.”

“ Well, go and tell him so ! ”

” Mamma, are you angry ? Don’t be angry, my dear ! It is not my fault.”

“ My dear, do you want me to tell him ? ” said the countess, smiling.

” No, I will tell him myself, only teach me how. It is easy for you,” she added, in response to her smile. ” You ought to have seen how he told it to me ! I know he did not mean to tell it to me, he just said it by accident.”

” Still you must refuse him.”

” No, not at all ! I am so sorry for him. He is such a dear !”

” Well, then accept his proposal ! It is time for you to get married,” her mother said, angrily and sarcastically.

” Mamma, I am so sorry for him. I do not know how to tell it to him.”

” You do not have to tell him, — I will tell him myself,” said the countess, feeling provoked because somebody had dared to look upon this little Natäsha as upon a grown-up young lady.

” No, why should you ? I will tell him myself, while you listen at the door,” and Natasha ran through the drawingroom to the parlour, where Denisov was still sitting on the same chair, at the clavichord, covering his face with his hands.

He jumped up at the sound of her light feet.

” Natäsha,” he said, going up to her with rapid steps, ” decide my fate. It is in your hands ! ”

“Vasili Dmitrich, I am so sorry for you !— No, but you are such a fine fellow — but you must not — this — and I will love you all the time.”

Denisov bent over her hand, and she heard strange, unfamiliar sounds. She kissed his black, dishevelled, curly head. Just then was heard the noise of the countess’s rustling gown. She went up to them.

“Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honour,” the countess said, in a confused voice, which to Denisov appeared stern, “but my daughter is so young, and I thought that as the friend of my son you would first come to me. In that case you would not have placed me in a position to refuse you.”

“ Countess,” said Denisov, with drooping eyes and a guilty glance. He wanted to say something else, but hesitated.

Natäsha could not calmly endure the pitiable sight of him. She began to sob out loud.

” Countess, I am guilty toward you,” continued Denisov, in a broken voice, ” but I must tell you that I so adore your daughter and your family that I will give two lives — ” He looked at the countess and, upon noticing her stern face, he said, “ Goodbye, countess !” He kissed her hand and, without looking at Natasha, with rapid, determined steps, left the room.

On the following day Rostov saw Denisov off, as he refused to stay another day in Moscow. Denisov’s Moscow friends celebrated his departure with a band of gipsies, and he did not remember how he was placed in the sleigh, nor how he travelled the first three stations.

After Denisov’s departure, Rostdv, waiting for the money, which the old count could not collect at once, passed two more weeks at Moscow, staying all the time at home, and passing most of his time in the room of the young ladies.

Sonya was more tender and more devoted to him than before. She seemed to be anxious to show him that his loss was an exploit for winch she would love him so much the more; but Nikoldy now considered himself unworthy of her.

He scribbled the girls’ albums full of verses and notes, and, without bidding any of his acquaintances goodbye, and at last sending the forty-three thousand to Ddlokhov and receiving from him a receipt for them, he departed in the end of November to join his regiment, which was already in Poland.

PART THE FIFTH

I.

After his explanation with his wife, Pierre left for St. Petersburg. At the Torzhdk post-station there were no horses, or the inspector did not wish to give him any. Pierre had to wait. He lay down, without undressing, on a leather sofa near a round table, put his large feet in the furred boots on that table, and fell to musing.

” Do you wish the portmanteaus brought in ? Shall I make a bed for you, and get tea ready ? ” asked his valet.

Pierre made no reply, because he did not see or hear anything. He had become absorbed in reflections at the previous station, and all the way kept thinking of one thing, which was so important to him that he paid no attention to what was going on all about him. He was not interested in the question how soon he should arrive at St. Petersburg, or whether he should find a place to sleep in at the next station ; that was a matter of indifference to him in comparison with those thoughts which occupied him now, and he did not care whether he was to pass a few hours or his whole life at his present halting-place.

The inspector, his wife, the valet, a woman with Torzhdk embroidery entered the room, offering their services. Pierre did not change the position of his towering feet ; he looked at them over his glasses and could not comprehend what it was they wanted or how they could live without solving those questions which troubled him. He

himself had been troubled by one and the same series of thoughts ever since the day when he returned after the duel at Sokdlniki and passed his first tormenting, sleepless night ; but only now, in the isolation of his journey, did they take complete possession of him. No matter what he happened to think about, he continually recurred to the same questions which he could not solve, and which he could not keep away. It was as though the chief screw on which his whole life depended had suddenly broken its thread. The screw did not go in any farther, nor did it come out, but kept turning in the same groove of the nut without catching in it, and it was impossible to stop turning it.

The inspector came in and began humbly to ask his Serenity to wait two little hours, after which he would get his Serenity courier-horses, cost what it might. The inspector was obviously lying, wishing only to extort money from the traveller.

“Was it good or bad?” Pierre asked himself. “For me it was good, for the other traveller it was bad, and for him it is unavoidable, because he has nothing to eat ; he said that an officer had beaten him ; but the officer beat him because he was in a hurry. And I shot Ddlokhov because I regarded myself as insulted; and Louis XVI. was executed because he was regarded as a criminal ; a year later they killed those who executed him, for some reason or other. What is bad ? What is good ? What ought to be loved, and what hated ? What must we live for, and what am I? What is life? and what death ? What power controls all ? ” he asked himself. And there was no answer to even one of these questions, except one, which was not logical, and no answer at all to these questions. This answer was: “When you die, all is ended. When you die, you will find out everything, or you will cease asking altogether.” But it was terrible to die.

The Torzhdk peddler woman in a squeaky voice offered her wares, especially kid slippers. “ I have hundreds of roubles which I do not know what to do with, and she stands there in a torn fur coat and looks timidly at me,” thought Pierre. “ What good is there in this money ? Could this money add one hair’s breadth of happiness and peace to her soul ? Can anything in the world make her and me less subject to evil and to death ? Death, which will end all and which must come to-day or tomorrow, — in any case in a moment, in comparison with eternity.” And he again pressed against the threadless screw, and the screw turned around in one and the same spot.

His servant handed him a half-cut book, it being a novel in letters, by Mme. Souza. He began to read about the suffering and the virtuous struggle of some Amélie de Mansfeld. “Why did she struggle against her seducer,” he thought, “ since she loved him ? God could not have filled her soul with desires contrary to His will. The one who was my wife did not struggle, and, perhaps, she was right. Nothing has been invented,” Pierre again said to himself, ” nothing has been discovered. We can know only that we know nothing, and this is the acme of human wisdom.”

Everything in him and around about him appeared to be confused, senseless, and disgusting. But in this very disgust for everything that surrounded him, Pierre discovered a certain kind of irritating pleasure.

” I take the liberty of asking your Serenity to crowd yourself a little, for this gentleman,” said the inspector, entering the room and bringing in with him another traveller, who had to stop over for the lack of post-horses. The traveller was a thick-set, broad-boned, sallow, wrinkled old man, with gray, overhanging brows over sparkling eyes of an indefinite gray colour.

Pierre took his feet down from the table, rose, and lay

down on the bed which was made for him, now and then looking at the newcomer, who, with a gloomy and tired look, without paying any attention to Pierre, was taking off his wraps with the aid of his servant. Being left in his worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin coat and with his felt boots on his lean, bony legs, the traveller sat down on the sofa, leaned his large, broad-browed, short-cropped head against the back of the sofa, and looked at Bezukhi. Pierre was struck by the austere, intelligent, and penetrating expression of this glance. He wanted to strike up a conversation with the traveller, but as he got ready to turn to him with a question concerning the road, the traveller had already closed his eyes and, folding his wrinkled hands, on the finger of one of which there was a large cast-iron ring with the representation of a skull upon it, was sitting motionless, as though resting, or thoughtfully and calmly reflecting on something, as Pierre thought. The traveller’s servant was all covered with wrinkles, and was also of a sallow complexion, but he had no beard or moustache, not because he was not shaved, but apparently because they had never grown at all. The agile old servant took things out of the lunch-basket, arranged the teatable, and brought the boiling samovar. When all was ready, the traveller opened his eyes, moved up toward the table, and, having filled a glass of tea for himself, filled another for the beardless old man and handed it to him. Pierre began to be restless ; he felt the necessity, nay, even the unavoidableness, of entering into a conversation with him.

The servant brought back his empty glass turned upside down, with an unfinished piece of sugar, and asked his roaster whether there was anything he wanted.

” Nothing. Let me have the book,” said the traveller.

The servant brought him a book, which Pierre took to be of religious contents, and the traveller became absorbed in reading. Pierre looked at him. The traveller suddenly put aside his book, and, making a sign in it, closed it ; he closed his eyes and, leaning back against the back of the sofa, assumed his old position. Pierre continued to gaze at him ; he had barely had time to turn his face away, when the old man opened his eyes and fixed his firm and austere glance at Pierre’s face.

Pierre felt confused and wanted to turn away from this fixed glance, but the old man’s sparkling eyes attracted him irresistibly.

II.

” I have the honour of speaking to Count Bezukhi, if I am not mistaken,” the traveller said, leisurely and in a loud voice.

Pierre looked silently and interrogatively at his interlocutor, gazing at him above his glasses.

” I have heard of you,” continued the traveller, “ and of the misfortune which has befallen you, sir.” He seemed to underline the word “misfortune,” as though to say, “ Yes, a misfortune, however you may call it ; I know that which has happened to you in Moscow’ is a misfortune.”

” I am very sorry for you, sir.”

Pierre blushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, he bent down to the old man, smiling an unnatural and timid smile.

“ I have mentioned this not from curiosity, sir, but for far more important reasons.”

He grew silent and, without taking his eyes away from Pierre, moved a little on the sofa, thus inviting Pierre to sit down at his side. Pierre did not care to enter into a conversation with this old man, but, instinctively submitting to his wish, he went up and sat down near him.

“You are unfortunate, sir,” he continued. “You are young, I am old. I should like to aid you according to my strength.”

“ Oh, yes,” Pierre said, with an unnatural smile. “ I am very thankful to you — May I ask you where you are coming from? “

The traveller’s face was not gracious ; it was even cold and stern, but, in spite of it, the stranger’s speech and face acted upon Pierre with irresistible charm.

“ If for some reason my discourse should displease you,” said the old man, “ you must tell me so, sir.”

He again unexpectedly smiled a fatherly, tender smile.

“ Oh, no, not at all, on the contrary, I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” said Pierre. He looked once more at the hands of his new acquaintance, especially at his ring. He made out the skull upon it, which he knew to be the token of Freemasonry.

“ Permit me to ask you,” he said, “ are you a Mason ? ”

” Yes, I belong to the brotherhood of Freemasons,” said the traveller, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre’s eyes. “ In their name and in mine do I extend my fraternal hand to you.”

“ I am afraid,” said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence with which the personality of this Mason inspired him, and the habit of ridiculing the beliefs of the Masons, “ I am afraid that I am very far from comprehending, how shall I say it ? I am afraid that my manner of thinking in respect to the whole universe is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand each other.”

” I am acquainted with your manner of thinking,” said the Mason, “ and this manner of thinking, of which you speak and which you regard as the product of your mental labour, is the manner of thinking with the majority of men, — it is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Excuse me, sir, but if I had not known it, I should have refrained from speaking to you. Your manner of thinking is a sad delusion.”

“Just as I may suppose that you are in error,” said Pierre, with a feeble smile.

” I shall never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason, surprising Pierre more and more by his definiteness and firmness of speech. ” Nobody can attain the truth by himself ; only by adding one stone to another, with the participation of all the millions of generations, from our ancestor Adam up to the present, has the temple been building, which shall be a worthy edifice of the Great God,” said the Mason, shutting his eyes.

” I must tell you that I do not believe — I do not believe in God,” Pierre said, with compassion and with a certain effort, feeling the necessity of telling him the whole truth.

The Mason looked attentively at Pierre and smiled, as a rich man, having millions in his hands, would smile at a beggar saying that he did not have five roubles to make him happy.

“Yes, you do not know Him, sir,” said the Mason. ” You cannot know Him. You do not know Him, and so you are unhappy.”

“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” Pierre confirmed him, “but what shall I do ? ”

” You do not know Him, sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not know Him, but He is here ; He is within me ; He is in my words ; He is in thee, and even in those blaspheming words which thou hast just pronounced ! ” the Mason said, in a stern and quavering voice.

He stopped and sighed, apparently trying to compose himself.

“ If He were not,” he said, softly, ” thou and I would not be speaking of Him, sir. Of what, of whom have we been speaking ? Whom hast thou denied ? ” he suddenly said, with ecstatic severity and with an expression of command in his voice. ” Who has invented Him, if He is not ? Why has the supposition appeared in thee that there is such an incomprehensible being ? Why has the whole world, and thou, too, assumed the existence of such an incomprehensible being, an almighty, eternal being who is endless in all his attributes ? ”

He stopped and was silent for a long time.

Pierre could not and would not interrupt that silence.

“ He is, but it is hard to comprehend Him,” the Lias on spoke again, looking at Pierre’s face, all the time turning over the pages of the book with his hands, which he could not control on account of his inner agitation. ” If it were a man whose existence thou hadst doubted, I should have brought that man to thee, should have taken him and pointed him out to thee. But how am I, insignificant mortal, to show all His almightiness, all His eternity, all His mercy to him who is blind, or to him who shuts his eyes in order that he may not see and understand Him, and that he may not see and understand all his own abomination and sinfulness ? ” He was silent for awhile. “ Who art thou ? What art thou ? Thou deem-est thyself a wise man because thou wert able to pronounce those blasphemous words,” he said, with a gloomy and contemptuous smile, “ but thou art more stupid and more senseless than a child who, playing with the parts of an ingeniously made watch, should dare to say that because he does not understand the purpose of that watch he could not believe in the master who has made it. It is difficult to comprehend Him — We have been working for ages, from the time of our forefather Adam until now, to comprehend Him, and we are infinitely remote from attaining our end ; but in our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His grandeur — ”

Pierre listened to him with trepidation, looking with sparkling eyes at the face of the Mason ; he heard him and did not interrupt him, did not ask him questions, but with his whole soul believed that which the strange man was telling him. Whether he believed those clever arguments in the old man’s speech ; or whether he believed, as children believe, the intonations, the persuasiveness, and the sincerity in the Mason’s speech, the quivering voice which at times made him stop speaking, or his sparkling eyes which had grown old in this conviction, or that calm, that firmness, and that consciousness of his destiny, which breathed in his whole being, and which affected Pierre more than anything else, in comparison with his own moral lassitude and hopelessness, — he wanted with his whole soul to believe, and he believed and experienced a joyous keeling of calm, of regeneration, and of a return to life.

” He is comprehended not by the mind, but by life,” said the Mason.

“I do not understand,” said Pierre, conscious of a nascent doubt. He was afraid of the indistinctness and weakness of his interlocutor’s arguments ; he was afraid lest he would not believe him. ” I do not understand,” he said, “how human intelligence cannot grasp that knowledge of which you speak.”

The Mason smiled his mild, fatherly smile.

” The higher wisdom and truth is like the purest moisture which we wish to receive,” he said. ” Can I receive this pure moisture in an unclean vessel and judge of its purity ? Only by an internal purification of myself can I make the moisture pure which I imbibe.”

” Yes, yes, that is so ! ” Pierre said, joyously.

” The higher wisdom is not based on reason alone, not on those worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and so forth, into which the intellectual sciences are divided. The higher wisdom is one. The higher wisdom has one science, — the science of all, the science which explains the universe aud the position occupied in it by man. In order to obtain this science, it is necessary first to purify and renovate the inner man, and so, before knowing, one must believe and perfect oneself. In order that we may attain this end, the divine light, called conscience, has been placed in our souls.”

“ Yes, yes,” Pierre confirmed him.

” Look with thy spiritual eyes at thy inner man and ask thyself whether thou art satisfied with thyself. What hast thou obtained, being guided by thy reason alone ? What art thou ? You are young, you are rich, clever, cultured, sir. What have you done with all the gifts in your power ? Are you satisfied with yourself and with your life ? ”

“No, I hate this life,” Pierre muttered, frowning.

“ Thou hatest, — then change it, purify thyself, and in measure of thy purification wilt thou have -wisdom. Look at your life, sir. How have you passed it ? In riotous orgies and debauchery. You obtained your wealth, receiving everything from society, and giving it nothing. How have you employed your wealth ? What have you done for your neighbour ? Have you thought of the tens of thousands of your slaves ? Have you succoured them physically and morally ? No. You have made use of their labours in order to lead a life of debauch. That is what you have done. Have you chosen a place in which to serve, in order to be of use to your neighbours ? No. You passed your life in indolence. Then you got married, sir ; you took upon yourself the responsibility of guiding a young woman, — and what have you done? You did not aid her, sir, to find the path of truth, but plunged her into the abyss of falsehood and misfortune. A man offended you, and you killed him, and now you say that you do not know God and that you despise your life. There is no wisdom in this, sir ! ”

After these words, the Mason, as though fatigued by his prolonged discourse, again leaned against the back of the sofa and shut his eyes. Pierre looked at this stern, immovable, old, almost dead, face, and kept moving his lips. He wanted to say, “ Yes, an abominable, indolent, debauched life,” but did not dare to break the silence.

The Mason hoarsely cleared his throat and called his servant.

” What about the horses ? ” he asked, without looking at Pierre.

“ They have brought the relay horses,” replied the servant. “ Will you not rest yourself ? “

” No. Tell them to hitch up.”

” Is it possible he will leave me all alone, without finishing his arguments aud without offering me any aid ? ” thought Pierre, rising and lowering his head. He now and then looked at the Mason, and began to pace up and down in the room. ” Yes, I have not thought of it, but I have led a contemptible, immoral life ; but I did not like it and did not want it,” thought Pierre. “ This man knows the truth, and if he wants, he can reveal it to me,” Pierre wanted to say so to the Mason, but did not dare to tell him so.

Having packed his things, the traveller buttoned his sheepskin coat. Having finished this, he turned to Bezukhi and said to him, in a calm and civil voice :

” Whither are you travelling now, sir ? ”

“I? — To St. Petersburg,” Pierre replied, in a childish, indecisive voice. “ I thank you. I agree with you in everything. But don’t imagine that I am as bad as all that. I wish with all my heart to be that which you want me to be ; but I have never found any help from anybody— However, it is, above all, my own fault. Help me ! Teach me ! Maybe I shall be — ” Pierre could not proceed : he cleared his nose and turned his face away.

The Mason was silent for quite awhile, apparently reflecting on something.

” Succour is given only by God,” he said, ” but that measure of aid which our order is able to give, it will give you, sir. You are going to St. Petersburg, so give this to Count Willärski ! ” He took out his portfolio, and on a large sheet of paper, folded in four, wrote down a few words. “Permit me to give you one piece of advice. Upon arriving in the capital, devote your first time to isolation and self-study, and do not return to your former paths of life. And now I wish you a happy journey, sir,” he said, upon noticing his servant, who had just entered, ” and success — ”

The traveller was Osip Aleksyéevich Bazdyéev, as Pierre found out from the inspector’s book. Bazdyéev was one of the most famous Masons and Martinists of the days of Ndvikov. After his departure, Pierre for a long time paced up and down in the station room. He did not he down or ask for horses, but reflected on his sinful past and with the ecstasy of regeneration represented to himself his blissful, reproachless, virtuous future, which appeared so easy to him. He was sinful, he thought, only because he had accidentally forgotten how good it was to be virtuous. In his soul not a trace of his former doubts was left. He firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of man united for the purpose of supporting each other on the road of virtue, and such Freemasonry seemed to him to be.

III.

Upon arriving at St. Petersburg, Pierre did not inform any one of his arrival, made no calls, and passed whole days reading Thomas à Kempis, which some unknown person had sent him. Reading this book, Pierre understood only one thing: he experienced the unfamiliar enjoyment of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of a fraternal and active love between people, which had been revealed to him by Osip Aleksyéevich. A week after his arrival, the young Polish Count Willdrski, whom Pierre had known superficially in St. Petersburg society, called on him in the evening, with that official and solemn aspect with which Dolokhov’s second had called on him, and, closing the door behind him, and convincing himself that there was no one in the room but Pierre, addressed him as follows :

“ Count, I come to see you by request and to make you a proposition,” he said to him, without sitting down. ” A person who occupies a very prominent place in our brotherhood has solicited your being accepted in the brotherhood before the appointed time, and has proposed that I should be your surety. I consider it my sacred duty to fulfil the will of that person. Do you wish to enter the brotherhood of Freemasons under my guarantee ? “

The cold and stern tone of a man whom Pierre had nearly always seen at balls with a smile on his lips, in the company of the most brilliant women, perplexed Pierre.

” Yes, I do,” said Pierre.

Will drski inclined his head.

“Another question, count,” he said, “to which I ask you to reply in all sincerity, not as as a future Mason, but as a man of honour: have you recanted your past opinions ? Do you believe in God ? ”

Pierre reflected awhile.

“ Yes — yes, I believe in God,” he said.

“In that case — ” began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him :

“ Yes, I believe in God,” he repeated.

“ In that case we may go,” said Willdrski. “ My carriage is at your services.”

Willarsld was silent during the whole journey. To Pierre’s questions what he must do and how he should answer questions, Willarski told him only that brothers, worthier than he, would test him, and that all Pierre had to do was to tell the truth.

After driving through the gate of a large house, where the lodge was, and passing along a dark staircase, they entered a small lighted antechamber, where they took off their wraps without the aid of lackeys. From the antechamber they passed into another room. A man in a strange garb appeared at the door. Willdrski went up to him and softly told him something in French ; then he walked over to a small safe, in which Pierre noticed some habiliments, such as he had never seen before. Willarski took a kerchief out of the safe, placed it on Pierre’s eyes, and tied it behind into a knot, catching some of his hair into it so as to cause him pain. Then he bent down toward him, kissed him, and, taking his hand, led him away somewhere. The pain caused by the pulling of his hair made Pierre frown, and yet he smiled as though ashamed of something. His enormous figure, with pendent arms, frowning and smiling countenance, and uncertain, timid gait, followed Willarski.

After leading him some ten steps, Willdrski stopped.

” Whatever happens to you, you must bear manfully if “you have firmly decided to enter our brotherhood.”

Pierre nodded his head in the affirmative.

“ When you hear a knock against the door you will untie your bandage,” added Willärski. ” I wish you courage and success.” And, pressing Pierre’s hand, Willärski went out.

Having been left alone, Pierre continued to smile. Once or twice he shrugged his shoulders, raised his hand to the kerchief as though wishing to take it off, and again dropped it. The five minutes which he passed with his eyes tied seemed to him to be an hour. His arms felt heavy and his feet tottered ; he thought he was tired. He experienced the most complicated and varied sensations. He felt terribly about what was going to happen, and still more terribly at the thought of expressing his fear. He was curious to know what would happen to him and what would be revealed to him ; but, above all, he was happy that the moment had at last arrived when he would enter upon that path of renovation and of an active, virtuous life, of which he had been dreaming ever since his meeting with Ösip Aleksyéevich.

Heavy taps were heard against the door. Pierre took off his bandage and looked about him. The room was pitch-dark ; only in one spot a little lamp was burning in something white. Pierre went up to it and saw that the lamp was standing on a black table, on which lay an open book. The book was the Gospel ; the something white in which the lamp was burning was a human skull with its eye-sockets and teeth. After reading the first words of the Gospel : ” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” Pierre walked around the table and saw a large open box filled with something. It was a coffin full of bones. He was not at all surprised by what he saw. As he hoped to enter upon an entirely new life, quite different from the one he had been leading, he expected all kinds of unusual things, more unusual than what he saw. The skull, the coffin, the Gospel,— it seemed to him that he had expected all that and much more. He looked about him, trying to evoke in himself a sentiment of humility. “ God, death, love, brotherhood of men,” he said to himself, connecting with these words dim but joyous images of something. The door opened and some one entered.

In the dim light, to which Pierre had in the meantime become accustomed, he saw enter a man of small stature. He apparently came from the light into the darkness, and stopped for awhile ; then he cautiously moved up toward the table and placed upon it his small hands that were covered with leather gloves.

This low-statured man wore a white leather apron which covered his chest and part of his legs ; on his neck he wore something that resembled a necklace, and underneath that necklace, a large white jabot encased his elongated face, which was lighted up from below.

” Why have you come here ? ” the newcomer asked, turning in the direction where Pierre had stirred. ” Why have you, who do not believe in the truths of the world and who do not see the light, come here ? What do you want of us ? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment ? “

At the moment that the door had opened and the stranger had entered, Pierre had experienced a sensation of fear and awe, similar to what he had experienced in his childhood at a confession ; he was conscious of being face to face with a man who, according to the conditions of life, was an entire stranger to him, and who, according to the brotherhood of men, was near to him. Pierre moved with a beating heart which took his breath away toward the conductor1 (thus the brother is called who in a Masonic lodge prepares for the initiation the one who seeks admission). Pierre came nearer and recognized in the

*In the Russian original be is called “rhetor.” conductor an acquaintance, Smolyaninov, and it offended him to discover that the man who had entered was an acquaintance of his : he was only a brother and a virtuous instructor. Pierre could not pronounce a word for some time, so that the conductor had to repeat every question :

” Yes, I — I — want renovation,” Pierre said, with an effort.

” Very well,” said Smolyaninov, immediately continuing : “ Have you any idea about the means which our holy order employs in aiding you to attain your aim ? ” The conductor spoke calmly and rapidly.

“I — hope for — a guide — help — in the renovation,” said Pierre, with a quivering voice and a hesitation in his speech, due both to his agitation and to his lack of familiarity in expressing himself in Russian about abstract matters.

” What idea have you of Freemasonry ? ”

” I assume that Freemasonry is a fraternité and equality of men for virtuous purposes,” said Pierre, feeling ever more ashamed because his words did not correspond to the solemnity of the occasion. “ I assume — “

” Very well,” the conductor said, hurriedly, apparently quite satisfied with his answer. ” Have you looked for means of attaining this end through religion ? “

“ No, I considered it untrue, and have not followed it,” Pierre said in such low tones that the conductor did not hear him and asked him to repeat his words. ” I was an atheist,” replied Pierre.

” You are seeking for truth in order to apply its laws to life ; consequently you are seeking wisdom and virtue ; am I right ? ” said the conductor, after a moment’s silence.

” Yes, yes,” Pierre assured him.

The conductor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands over his chest, and began to speak :

” Now I must reveal to you the main purpose of our order,” he said, “ and if that aim coincides with yours, you will enter our fraternity with profit. The first and foremost aim and chief foundation of our order, upon which it rests, and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation of a certain mystery and its transmission to posterity, a mystery which has reached us from the most remote times, even from the first man, and on which, perhaps, the fate of the human race depends. But since this mystery is of such a character that nobody can know it or make use of it who has not been prepared by a prolonged and thorough purification of himself, not everybody may hope to come soon into its possession. For that reason we have a second aim, which consists in preparing our members, as much as is possible, to mend their hearts and purify and enlighten their intellects through those means which have been by tradition revealed to us by those men who have laboured in the search of this mystery, and thus to make them fit to receive the same. By purifying and mending our members, we try, in the third place, to mend the whole human race, by furnishing in our members the models of veneration and virtue, and thus we try with all our strength to resist the evil which reigns in the world. Think of this, and I will come again to you,” he said, leaving the room.

” To resist the evil which reigns in the world — ” Pierre repeated, and he imagined that his future activity would be in this sphere. He saw before him such men as he himself had been but two weeks before, and he mentally exhorted them. He presented to himself sinful, unhappy men, whom he aided with words and deeds ; he saw the oppressors, from whom he saved their victims. Of the three aims mentioned by the conductor, this last, the regeneration of the human race, was particularly near to Pierre. The certain important mystery which the conductor mentioned provoked his curiosity but did not appear essential to him. The second aim, the purification and regeneration of himself, interested him little, because at that moment he already was joyfully conscious of having given up his former vices and of being prepared only to do good.

Half an hour later the conductor returned, in order to inform the candidate of the seven virtues, which corresponded to the seven steps of Solomon’s temple, and which every Mason must develop in himself. Those virtues were :

(1) modesty, the preservation of the mystery of the order:

(2) obedience to the higher ranks of the order ; (3) mannerliness ; (4) love of humanity ; (5) courage ; (6) generosity, and (7) love of death.

“In the seventh place, try,” said the conductor, “by frequent reflections upon death, to bring yourself to look upon it not as your terrible enemy, but as your friend, who liberates the soul which in this miserable life has exhausted itself in labours of virtue, in order to take it to an abode of reward and of peace.”

” Yes, that must be so,” thought Pierre, when the conductor again left him after these words, leaving him to solitary reflections. “ It must be so, but I am still so weak that I love this life whose meaning is only now being revealed to me.” But the other five virtues, which Pierre tried to recall by counting them out on his fingers, he felt he possessed : courage, and generosity, and mannerliness, and love of humanity, and especially obedience, which he did not even regard as a virtue, but as some kind of happiness. It was such a joy to him now to free himself from his arbitrariness and to submit his will to those who knew the indisputable truth. The seventh virtue Pierre had forgotten and was unable to recall.

The conductor returned for the third time, after a shorter interval, and asked Pierre whether he was still firm in his intentions, and whether he was ready to submit to everything that would be expected of him.

” I am ready for everything,” said Pierre.

” I must also inform you,” said the conductor, ” that our order imparts its instructions not only by words, but also by other means, which on a true seeker after wisdom and virtue act, perhaps, even more strongly than mere verbal explanations. The decoration of this very room, as you see it, must be more eloquent to your heart, if it is sincere, than words could be; you will, perhaps, see a similar mode of explaining things in your further initiation. Our order follows the example of ancient societies, which revealed their mysteries by means of hieroglyphics. A hieroglyphic,” the conductor said, “is the designation of an object which is not of a sensual character and which contains qualities like the object which it represents.”

Pierre knew quite well what a hieroglyphic was, but did not dare to say so. He listened in silence to the conductor, feeling that the trials would soon begin.

“ If you are firm, I must proceed to the initiation,” said the conductor, coming nearer to Pierre. ” In token of your generosity, I ask you to turn over to me all your precious things.”

” But I have nothing with me,” said Pierre, assuming that he was asked to turn over everything he had.

“ Whatever you have on your person : a watch, money, rings — ”

Pierre hastened to take out his purse and his watch, but for a long time was unable to get his wedding-ring off his fat finger. When he had succeeded, the Mason said :

“ In token of obedience, I ask you to undress yourself.” Pierre took off his dress coat, his waistcoat, and his left boot, according to the indications of the conductor. The Mason opened Pierre’s shirt on his left breast and, bending down, pulled his left trouser leg above his knee. Pierre hastened to take off his right boot and to roll up his pantaloons, in order to save the stranger the trouble, but the Mason told him that that was unnecessary and gave him a slipper for his left foot. Pierre stood, with a childish smile of bashfulness, doubt, and self-abasement, which involuntarily appeared upon his face, in front of the brother conductor, waiting for his new commands.

” Finally, in sign of the purity of your heart, I ask you to reveal to me your chief passion,” he said.

” My passion ! I have had so many of them,” said Pierre.

” That passion which more than any other has made you waver on the path of virtue,” said the Mason.

Pierre tried to find it.

” Wine ? Gluttony ? Indolence ? Laziness ? Temper ? Malice ? Women ? ” he rummaged through his vices, mentally balancing them, and not knowing to winch to give the preference.

“ Women,” Pierre said, in a soft, scarcely audible voice.

The Mason did not stir, and did not speak for a long time after that answer. Finally he moved up to Pierre, took the kerchief which was lying on it, and again bandaged his eyes.

“ I tell you for the last time : turn your whole attention upon yourself ! Place chains on your passions, and seek for bliss not in the passions but in your heart. The source of blissfulness is not without, but within us.”

Pierre had for a long time been feeling this vivifying source of blissfulness, which now filled his soul with joy and tenderness.

IV.

Soon after that there came into the dark room, not the former conductor, but Pierre’s surety, Willärski, whom he recognized by his voice. To new questions in regard to the firmness of his intentions, Pierre replied :

“ Yes, yes, I am willing ! ” and walking in one boot and one slipper, with a beaming, childish smile, his fat breast being wide open, he followed Willdrski, who held an unsheathed sword to his naked breast. From the room he was led along corridors, turning to and fro, until, at last, he was brought to the door of the lodge. Willärski cleared his throat ; he was answered by Masonic gavel taps; the door opened before them. Somebody’s bass voice (Pierre’s eyes were still bandaged) put questions to him in regard to who he was, where and when he was born, and so forth. Then he was again led somewhere, his eyes being still covered, and during his walk he was told allegories about the difficulties of his journey, about sacred friendship, about the eternal Creator of the universe, about courage, with which he must endure labours and dangers.

During this journey, Pierre noticed that he was called now ” the seeker,” now ” the sufferer,” and now ” the demander,” and that each time the gavels and swords were struck in a different manner. Just as he was being led up to some object, he noticed that some confusion took place among his guides. He heard the people who surrounded him discuss some matter, while one of them insisted that he be led over some carpet. After that they took his right hand and placed it on something, while with his left he was told to put a pair of compasses against his breast ; he was told to repeat the words which some one was reading, and to swear his allegiance to the laws of the order. Then the lights were put out, a spirit-lamp was lighted, as Pierre could tell by the odour, and he was told that he would see the small light.

The bandage was taken away from his eyes, and Pierre saw, as though in a dream, in the dim light of the spirit-lamp, several men who, in similar aprons to the one which the conductor wore, stood opposite him and held swords which were directed toward his breast. Among them stood a man in a bloodstained shirt. Upon seeing all this, Pierre moved his breast forward against the swords, in order to receive them in his flesh. But the swords were removed, and the bandage was again put on his eyes.

” Now you have seen the little light,” somebody’s voice exclaimed. Then candles were again lighted, and he was told that he must see the full light, and again his bandage was taken off, and more than ten voices suddenly said : ” Sic transit gloria mundi / ”

Pierre began slowly to collect himself and to survey the room, in which he was, and the persons present. Around a long table covered with a black cloth sat about a dozen men wearing the same kind of garments as he had seen before. A few of these Pierre knew from St. Petersburg society. In the master’s chair sat a young man with a peculiar cross on his neck ; Pierre did not know him. At the right sat the Italian abbot whom Pierre had seen two years before at the house of Anna Pavlovna. Here also were a very important dignitary and a Swiss tutor, who had once lived at the house of the Kurdgins. All kept a solemn silence, listening to the words of the presiding officer, who was holding a gavel in his hand. To the wall was attached a flaming star. At one side of the table there was a small rug with various representations ; at the other there was something like an altar, with a Gospel and a skull upon it. About the table there were seven large candlesticks, resembling those used in churches. Two of the brethren led Pierre up to the altar, put his feet at right angles to each other, and ordered him to lie down, saying that he was prostrate at the gates of the temple.

” He must first get a trowel,” one of the brethren said, in a whisper.

“ Oh, never mind,” said another.

Pierre did not obey at once, but turned his perplexed, nearsighted eyes all about him, and he was suddenly assailed by doubt. “ Where am I ? What am I doing ? Are they not making fun of me ? Shall I not be ashamed to recall it all ? ” But this doubt lasted but a moment. Pierre glanced at the serious faces which surrounded him, recalled all he had already gone through, and understood that he must not stop in the middle of the road. He was terrified at his own doubt, and, trying to evoke in himself the previous sentiment of humble submission, lay down prostrate at the gates of the temple. And indeed, a feeling of humility, stronger than before, came over him.

After lying thus for awhile, he was told to get up, and a white leather apron was put on him, such as the others wore, and he was given a trowel and three pairs of gloves, and then the grand master addressed him. He told him to endeavour not to soil in any way the whiteness of that apron, which represented fortitude and immaculateness ; about the inexplicable trowel, he said that he should try to clean his heart from vices with it, and condescendingly to smooth the heart of his neighbour. Then he told him that he could not know the meaning of the first pair of gentlemen’s gloves, but that he should keep them ; the second pair he was to wear at the meetings ; finally, about the third pair, which were for ladies, he said : ” Dear brother, these woman’s gloves are also destined for you. Give them to the woman whom you will respect more than anybody else. By this gift you shall give evidence of the immaculateness of your heart to the one whom you will choose for yourself as a worthy she-Mason.” After a little silence, he added : ” But beware, dear brother, lest these gloves adorn impure hands ! ” While the grand master was saying these words, it seemed to Pierre that the presiding officer became confused. Pierre was embarrassed even more, blushed to tears, as only children blush, began to look restlessly about him, and there ensued an awkward silence.

The silence was interrupted by one of the brethren who led Pierre up to the rug and began to read to him the explanation of all the figures represented upon it: the sun, the moon, the mallet, the plumb, the trowel, the rough and the cubic stone, the pillar, the three windows, and so forth. Then Pierre was given a seat ; he was told the Masonic signs and the password, and was permitted to sit down. The grand master began to read the constitution of the order. It was very long, and Pierre from joy, agitation, and shame was unable to understand what was being read. He listened only to the last words of the constitution, which he remembered.

” In our temples we know no other degrees,” read the grand master, “but those which are between virtue and vice. Beware of making any distinction which may impair the equality. Fly to the aid of thy brother, whoever he may be ; instruct him who is erring ; lift him who has fallen, and never nurture anger or enmity against a brother. Be gracious and affable. Rouse in the hearts of all the fire of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy neighbour, and let envy never trouble that pure enjoyment. Forgive thine enemy; do not revenge thyself on him, unless by doing him good. By thus executing the higher law, wilt thou find the traces of thy ancient and lost grandeur.”

He stopped and, rising, embraced Pierre and kissed him. Pierre, with tears of joy in his eyes, looked about him, not knowing what to reply to the congratulations and renewals of acquaintances, with which they surrounded him. He did not recognize any acquaintances ; in all these men he saw only brethren, with whom he was burning with impatience to begin to work.

The grand master tapped his gavel, all seated themselves, and a Mason read an exhortation on the necessity of humility.

The grand master proposed that the Masons should fulfil this latter duty, and the important dignitary, who bore the name of alms-gatherer, began to make the round of the brethren. Pierre felt like writing down on the list all the money which he had, but he was afraid of showing pride, and so he only wrote down as much as the others had offered.

The meeting was over. Upon returning home, it seemed to Pierre as though he had just arrived from a distant journey, where he had passed dozens of years ; he was changed and had departed from the previous order and habits of life.

V.

On the day following his initiation, Pierre was sitting at home and reading a book. He was trying to grasp the meaning of the square, one side of which represented God, another the moral world, a third the physical world, a fourth the union of the two. Now and then he tore himself away from the book and the square, and in his imagination represented to himself his new plan of life. On the previous evening he had been told that the rumour of the duel had reached the emperor, and that it would be wiser for him to leave St. Petersburg. Pierre proposed to go to his southern estates and there to busy himself with his peasants. He joyfully reflected on this new life, when suddenly Prince Vasili entered his room.

” My friend, what have you done in Moscow ? Why have you quarrelled with Hélène, mon cher ? You are in error,” said Prince Vasili. ” I have found out everything ; I can assure you that Hélène is innocent before you, as Christ was before the Jews.”

Pierre wanted to answer him, but he interrupted him.

“Why did you not come straight to me? I know everything; I understand everything,” he said. “You have acted as is proper for a man who values his honour ; maybe you were a little too hasty, but of that we shall not judge. Just think, however, in what position you place her and me in the eyes of society and even of the court,” he added, lowering his head. “ She is living in Moscow, and you are here in St. Petersburg. Remember, my dear,” he jerked his hand down, ” there is nothing but a misunderstanding here ; I think you feel that way yourself. Let us together write a letter, and she will come here, and all will be explained ; otherwise, my dear, I must tell you that you may suffer.” Prince Vasili looked at him in an impressive manner. “ I know from safe sources that the empress-dowager is taking a lively interest in the whole matter. You know that she is very gracious to Hélène.”

Pierre endeavoured several times to speak, but on the one hand Prince Vasili did not give him a chance to say anything, and on the other Pierre himself was afraid to speak in that tone of definite refusal, in which he had firmly determined to reply to his father-in-law. Besides, the words of the Masonic code which said, “ Be gracious and affable,” suddenly occurred to him. He frowned, blushed, rose, and again sat down, labouring in the most difficult affair for him, — which was, to say something disagreeable to a man’s face, something that the man was not expecting, whoever he be. He had been so accustomed to submit to that tone of Prince Vasili’s careless selfconfidence, that he felt that he would not be able even now to oppose him ; at the same time he knew that on what he should say his future fate would depend,— whether he should walk on the old path, or whether he should walk on the new, which had so enticingly been pointed out to him by the Masons, and on wliich, he was sure, he would find his regeneration for a new life.

“ Well, my dear,” jestingly said Prince Vasili, “ say ‘ yes ‘ to me, and I will write to her in my own name, and we will kill the fatted calf.” But Prince Vasili had barely finished speaking, when Pierre, with an expression of fury in his face, which reminded one of his father, and without looking at his interlocutor, exclaimed, in a whisper :

“ Prince, I have not sent for you. Go, if you please, go ! ” He jumped up and opened the door for him. “ Go ! ”

he repeated, hardly believing his own boldness and glad to see the expression of perplexity and terror which had appeared on the countenance of Prince Vasili.

“ What is the matter with you ? Are you ill ? “

” Go ! ” he again said, in a quivering voice.

And Prince Vasili was compelled to leave without having received an explanation.

A week later, Pierre, bidding his new friends, the Masons, farewell, and leaving large sums for charity, left for his estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Masons in Kiev and Odessa, and promised to write to him and to guide him in his new activity.

VI.

Pierre’s affair with Dolokhov was squelched, and in spite of the emperor’s severity in matters of duel, neither the two antagonists nor the seconds suffered any consequences. But the history of the duel, confirmed by Pierre’s separation from his wife, was bruited about in society. Pierre, who was treated with condescension when he was only an illegitimate son, who was petted and praised when he was the best match in the Russian Empire, after his marriage, when marriageable girls and mothers bad nothing more to expect from him, lost a great deal in public opinion, the more so since he did not know how to gain the good-will of society, nor at all cared to gain it. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened ; people said that he was senselessly jealous, and that he was subject to the same fits of bloodthirsty rage as his father. When, after Pierre’s departure, Hélène returned to St. Petersburg, she was received by her acquaintances not only with open hands, but also with a certain shade of deference due to her misfortune. Whenever her husband was mentioned in a conversation, Hélène assumed a dignified expression which she, owing to her innate tact, had appropriated, without understanding its meaning. This expression said that she had decided to bear her misfortune without murmuring, and that her husband was her cross sent her by God. Prince Vasili expressed his opinion more freely. He shrugged his shoulders whenever Pierre’s name was mentioned, and, pointing to his forehead, said :

” Un cerveau fêlé, je le disais toujours.”

” 1 said long ago,” Anna Pavlovna said about Pierre, “ I then said immediately, and I was the first to say it ” (she insisted on her priority), “ that he was a senseless young man, who was spoiled by the corrupt notions ok the age. I said it then when all were delighted with him and he had just arrived from abroad. Do you remember how he tried that evening at my house to act like a Marat ? And this is what it has come to ! 1 did not like that marriage then, and predicted all that would happen.”

Anna Pavlovna still continued to give her evening parties, for which she had a special organizing capacity, parties at which gathered la creme de la veritable société, la fine fleur de l’essence intellectuelle de la société de Pétersbourg, as Anna Pâvlovna herself said. In addition to this refined selection of her company, Anna Pavlovna at her entertainments offered to her society some new, interesting person, and nowhere but at her evenings could the political thermometer, which showed the mood of the Legitimist court society at St. Petersburg, be read with such precision and certainty.

Toward the end of the year 1806, when all the sad details of the defeat of the Prussian army by Napoleon at Jena and Auerstadt and of the surrender of the greater part of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops had already entered into Prussia, and our second war with Napoleon had begun, Anna Pavlovna gave an evening party. La crème de la véritable bonne société consisted of the charming, unfortunate, abandoned Hélène, Mortemart, charming Prince Ippolit, just fresh from Vienna, two diplomatists, her aunt, one young man, who in the drawingroom passed under the appellation of un homme de beaucoup de mérite, a freshly created lady of honour with her mother, and a few other less important persons.

The special novelty to which Anna Pavlovna treated her guests on that evening was Boris Drubetskdy, just arrived as a courier from the Prussian army and serving as an adjutant to a very prominent person.

The political thermometer, presented to the company on that evening, read as follows: ” No matter how much all the European sovereigns and generals tried to be subservient to Bonaparte, in order to cause me and, in general, us these annoyances and aggravations, our opinion in regard to Bonaparte cannot be changed. We will not cease expressing our imperturbable opinion on this point, and all we can say to the Prussian king and to others is: So much the worse for you. Tu l’as voulu, George Dandin, that is all we can say.” It was this that the political thermometer pointed to at the soirée of Anna Pavlovna. When Boris, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawingroom, nearly all the company were present, and the conversation, guided by Anna Pävlovna, ran on our diplomatic relations with Austria, and on the hope of an alliance with her.

Boris, wearing the dandyish uniform of an adjutant, looking manly, fresh, and ruddy, entered the drawingroom with an easy manner and, as was proper, was taken to greet the aunt, after which he was introduced to the general circle.

Anna Pavlovna permitted him to kiss her lean hand, made him acquainted with a few unfamiliar persons, characterizing them to him in a whisper :

“ Le Prince Hyppolite Kouragine — charmant jeune homme. M. Krouq, charge d’affaires de Copenhague — un esprit profond^ and simply ” M. Shittoff—un homme de beaucoup de mérite ” about the person whom this characterization fitted. Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna’s cares, to his own tastes and self-control, Boris had succeeded, during the time of his service, in rising to a very important position. He was an adjutant to a very prominent person, had had an important mission to Prussia, and had just returned as a courier. He had well learned that lesson of the unwritten subordination, which had pleased him so much at Olmiitz, according to which a lieutenant could stand incomparably higher than a general, and according to which, for success in service, not effort, labours, bravery, constancy were needed, but only an ability to get along with those who reward for services, — and he frequently himself marvelled at his rapid progress and at the inability of others to grasp it. In consequence of this discovery, his whole mode of life, all his relations with his former acquaintances, all his plans for the future, were completely changed. He was not rich, but he used the last kopek he had in order to be dressed better than anybody else ; he would have gladly deprived himself of many pleasures, rather than travel in a bad-looking carriage, or appear in an old uniform in the streets of St. Petersburg. He sought the acquaintance and friendship of only such people as stood higher than himself, and who, therefore, could be useful to him. He loved St. Petersburg and despised Moscow. His memory of the house of the Posté vs and of his childish love for Natäsha was disagreeable to him, and he had not once called at their house since his departure for the army.

In the drawingroom of Anna Pàvlovna, the invitation to which he regarded as an important promotion in service, he immediately comprehended the rôle he was playing, and permitted Anna Pavlovna to make use of him and of the interest which then was connected with him ; but he carefully scanned each face and weighed the advantages which would accrue to him from cultivating this or that acquaintance. He sat down on the seat indicated to him, near beautiful Hélène, and listened to the general conversation.

” Vienne trouve les bases du traité propose tellement hors d’atteinte, qu’on ne saurait y parvenir même par une continuité de succès les plus brillants, et elle met en doute les moyens qui pourraient nous les procurer. C’est la phrase authentique du cabinet de Vienne,” said the Danish chargé d’affaires.

“C’est le doute qui est flatteur!” said the homme à l’esprit profond, with a delicate smile.

“ Il faut distinguer entre le cabinet de Vienne et l’Empereur d’Autriche,” said Mortemart. “ L’Empereur d’Autriche n’a jamais pu penser à une chose pareille ; ce n’est que le cabinet qui le dit.”

“ Eh, mon cher vicomte,” Anna Pavlovna interposed, ” l’Urope ” (she for some reason pronounced it I’Urope, as a finesse of the French language, which she could allow herself in her conversation with a Frenchman), “I’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincere.”

Immediately after, Anna Pavlovna turned the conversation to the manliness and firmness of the King of Prussia, in order to bring Boris into action.

Boris attentively listened to the one who was speaking, waiting for Iris own turn ; at the same time he succeeded in ogling his neighbour, beautiful Hélène, who, smiling, several times exchanged glances with the handsome young adjutant.

Speaking of the condition of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna most naturally asked Boris to tell of his journey to Glogau, and of the condition in which he found the Prussian army. Boris, speaking leisurely, told, in pure and correct French, very many interesting details of the troops and of the court, carefully avoiding, while reciting, any expression of his personal opinion about the facts of which he was informing them. For some time, Boris monopolized the whole attention, and Anna Pavlovna felt that the novelty presented to her guests had been received gratefully. The greatest attention during his story was evinced by Hélène. She several times asked him about certain details of his journey and seemed to Ire very much

interested in the condition of the Prussian army. The moment he had finished, she turned to him with her customary smile :

” Il faut absolument que vous veniez me voir,” she said to him in such a tone of voice that it seemed as though certain considerations, of which he could not know, made his visit peremptory.

“ Mardi, entre les huit et neuf heures. Vous me ferez grand plaisir.”

Boris promised to come, and was on the point of starting a conversation with her, when Anna Pävlovna called him away under the pretext of taking him to her aunt, who wanted to hear him.

“You know her husband ?” said Anna Pavlovna, shutting her eyes and pointing to Hélène, with a sad gesture. ” Ah, she is such an unfortunate and charming woman ! Do not speak to her about him, please don’t ! It is too hard for her ! “

VII.

When Boris and Anna Pavlovna returned to the general circle, Prince Ippolit had monopolized the conversation.

He moved forward in his armchair and said : ” Le Roi de Prusse ! ” and, saying this, burst out laughing. All turned to him. ” Le Roi de Prusse ? ” asked Ippolit, again laughing, and calmly and seriously seating himself back in his chair. Anna Pavlovna waited a little longer, but as Ippolit did not seem to wish to say anything more, she began telling how godless Bonaparte had seized Frederick’s sword at Potsdam.

“ C’est l’épée de Frédéric le Grand que je — ” she began, but Ippolit interrupted her with the words :

“Le Roi de Prusse —” but when he was again addressed, he excused himself and grew silent. Anna Pavlovna frowned. Mortemart, Ippolit’s friend, turned to him with the decided question :

” Voyons, à qui en avez-vous avec votre Roi de Prusse ? ”

Ippolit laughed, as though he were ashamed of his laughter. “Non, ce n’est rien, je voulais dire seulement — ” He was trying hard to repeat a witticism which he had heard at Vienna, and which he had been try ing all the evening to introduce. ” Je voulais dire seulement que nous avons tort de faire la guerre pour le Roi de Prusse.”

Boris smiled cautiously, so that his smile might be taken either as ridicule, or as an approval of the joke, no matter how it should be received. All laughed.

“ Il est très mauvais, votre jeu de mot, très spirituel, mais

injuste,” Anna Pävlovna said, threatening him with her little finger. “ Nous ne, faisons pas la guerre pour le Roi de Prusse, mais pour les bons principes. Ah, le méchant, ce Prince Hippolyte ! ” she said.

The conversation did not slacken all the evening, and turned mostly about political news. Toward the end of the evening it became unusually animated, when the rewards given by the emperor were mentioned.

“ Last year N–-N–-received a snuffbox with a

portrait,” said l’homme à l’esprit profond, ” why, then, can’t 8–- 8–- get the same reward?”

“ Je vous demande pardon, une tabatière avec le portrait de l’empereur est une recompense, mais point une distinction” said the diplomatist, “un cadeau plutôt.”

“ Il y eut plutôt des antécédents, je vous citerai Schwarzenberg.”

” C’est impossible,” retorted another.

” I’ll wager. Le grand cordon, c’est différent — “

When all rose, in order to leave, Hélène, who had spoken very little during the evening, again turned to Boris, asking him, and kindly and significantly commanding him, to be at her house on Tuesday.

“ I need it very much,” she said, with a smile, looking at Anna Pavlovna; and Anna Pävlovna, with that sad smile which had accompanied her words about her august protectress, confirmed Hélène’s wish. One might have thought that there was something in the words said by Boris in respect to the King of Prussia which had suddenly made it necessary for Hélène to see him. She seemed to promise him to explain to him the circumstance on Tuesday, when he should call at her house.

Upon arriving on Tuesday evening in Hélène’s magnificent salon, Boris received no clear explanation why she wanted him to come. There were other guests present, and the countess spoke little ; only as he was on the point of leaving and kissing her hand, she suddenly said to him, with a strange absence of a smile, and in a whisper :

” Venez demain diner — le soir. Il faut que vous veniez — Venez ! ”

During this stay in St. Petersburg, Boris became an intimate friend of Countess Bezukhi.

VIII.

The war was in full sway, and its theatre approached the boundaries of Russia. On all sides could be heard anathemas directed against Bonaparte, the enemy of the human race. The militia and recruits were gathering in the villages, and from the theatre of war came contradictory news, which was, as always, false and variously interpreted.

The life of the old Prince Bolkdnski, of Prince Andréy, and of Princess Märya, had changed much since 1805.

In the year 1806 the old prince was appointed to be one of the eight commanders-in-chief of the militia, who were then designated for the whole of Russia. The old man, in spite of his decrepitude, winch had become especially noticeable during the period when he regarded his son as dead, did not think it proper to refuse attending to a duty to which he had been appointed by the emperor himself, and this new activity stirred him and invigorated him. He was continually travelling about in the three Governments under his charge. He was pedantically exact in the execution of his duties, severe to the point of cruelty with his subordinates, and himself inquired into the minutest details of his business. Princess Mdrya no longer took lessons in mathematics from him, and only in the morning went, accompanied by the nurse who carried little Prince Nikoldy, as his grandfather called him, to her father’s cabinet when he was at home. The baby Prince Nikoldy occupied with his nurse and with Lavishna the apartments of the deceased princess, and Princess Marya passed the greater part of the day in the nursery, taking, so far as she could, a mother’s place with her little nephew. Mlle. Bourienne also seemed to love the little boy, and Princess Mdrya frequently deprived herself of the pleasure of caring for the little angel, as she called her nephew, and of playing with him, in order to turn him over to her friend.

Near the altar of the church at Lysyya G dry a chapel had been built over the grave of the little princess, and inside of the chapel was placed a marble monument which had been brought from Italy, and which represented an angel with spreading wings and ready to fly to heaven. The angel’s upper lip was a little raised, and once Prince Andréy and Princess Mdrya, coming out of the chapel, confessed to each other that the face of the angel strangely reminded them of the face of the deceased princess. But what was stranger still and what Prince Andréy did not tell his sister, was the fact that in the expression which the sculptor had accidentally given to the angel, Prince Andréy read the same words of mild reproach which he had then read on the face of his dead wife: “Ah, why have you done that to me ? “

Soon after the return of Prince Andréy, the old prince apportioned a separate property to Iris son by giving him the large estate of Boguchdrovo, which was about forty versts distant from Lysyya Gory. Partly on account of the painful memories connected with Lÿsyya Gory, partly because Prince Andréy did not always feel himself equal to enduring his father’s character, and partly because he needed solitude, Prince Andréy made use of Boguchdrovo, building there and passing the greater part of his time there.

Prince Andréy, after the Austerlitz campaign, firmly decided not to serve again in the army ; and when the war began and all had to serve, he, to get rid of active service, accepted a position under his father in the organization of the militia. After the campaign of 1805 the old prince and his son seemed to have exchanged parts. The old prince, stirred by his new activity, expected the very best from the impending campaign ; Prince Andréy, on the contrary, who did not take part in the war and who in the secrecy of his heart regretted it, foresaw nothing but evil.

On February 26th of the year 1807, the old prince started on a circuit through his territory. Prince Andréy remained at Lÿsyya G6ry, as generally during the absences of his father. Little Nikolay had been ill for four days. The coachmen, who took the old prince away, returned from town, bringing papers and letters for Prince Andréy.

Not finding the young prince in his cabinet, the valet went with the letters to the apartments of Princess Marya ; but he was not there, either. He was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.

“If you please, your Serenity, Petrusha has come with papers,” said one of the girl assistants of the nurse, turning to Prince Andréy, who was sitting in a small child’s chair and with trembling hands and with a frown dropping some medicine from a bottle into a wine-glass halffull of water.

“ What is it ? ” he said, angrily, and, with a careless jerk of his hand, put too many drops into the wine-glass. He poured the medicine out of the wine-glass on the floor and asked for more water. The girl handed him some.

In the room stood a crib, two trunks, two chairs, a table, and a child’s table and chair, the one on which Prince Andréy was sitting. The windows were darkened, and on the table burned a single candle, which was shielded by a bound volume of music, so that the light did not strike the crib.

“ My dear,” Princess Märya, turning to her brother, said at the crib, where she was standing, ” you had better wait — later — ”

” Oh, leave me alone ! You are speaking foolishly. You have been waiting all this time, and what did you get?” Prince Andréy said, in a malicious whisper, apparently wishing to sting Ins sister.

” My dear, really it will be best not to wake him : he has fallen asleep,” the princess said, in an imploring voice.

Prince Andréy rose and on tiptoe walked over to the crib with the wine-glass in his hand.

” Do you think we had better not wake him ? ” he said, with indecision.

” As you please — really — I think, — well, as you please,” said Princess Marya, apparently embarrassed and ashamed because her opinion had prevailed. She pointed to the girl who had called him in a whisper.

It was now the second night that neither of them had slept, passing all the time at the bedside of the boy, who was in a high fever. During these two days they did not trust the judgment of their family doctor, but sent to town for another one, and, while waiting for him, they tried all manner of means. Worn out by their sleeplessness and agitated by the boy’s illness, they put their sorrow on each other’s shoulder, reproaching each other, and quarrelling.

” Petrusha has come with some papers from your papa,” whispered the girl.

Prince Andréy left the room.

” The devil take them ! ” he muttered, and, after having listened to the verbal instructions of his father, he took the envelopes handed to him and his father’s letter, and returned to the nursery.

” Well ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

” Still the same. Wait, for the Lord’s sake ! Karl Ivänych always says that sleep is the most precious thing,” Princess Marya whispered, with a sigh.

Prince Andréy walked over to his child and touched him. He was burning.

” Get away with your Karl Ivanych ! ”

He took the wine-glass with the drops of the medicine, and again went up to the crib.

” André, it is not necessary ! ” said Princess Märya.

But he frowned at her in anger and as though in pain, and with the glass bent over his child.

” I want it,” he said. ” I beg you, give it to him ! “

Princess Märya shrugged her shoulders, but submissively took the glass, and, calling up the nurse, began to give him the medicine. The child wept and choked. Prince Andréy’s face fell; he seized his head, left the room, and sat down in the adjoining room on a sofa.

All the letters were in his hand. He opened them mechanically and began to read. The old prince wrote on blue paper, in his large, oval handwriting, using contractions now and then. He wrote as follows :

“ 1 have just received by courier a very joyful piece of news, if it is not a lie. Bénigsen is said to have obtained a full victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In St. Petersburg all rejoice, and an endless number of rewards have been sent to the army. Though he is a German, I congratulate him. I cannot make out what the Kdrcheva chief, a certain Khandrikdv, is doing : so far no additional men and no supplies have been sent. Gallop there at once and tell him that I will take his head off, and that everything must be here within a week. I have had a letter from Pétya about the battle at Preussisch-Eylau, — he took part in it, — it is all true. If those who have no business do not interfere, even the Germans can beat Buonaparte. They say he is fleeing in great disorder. Be sure and gallop at once to Korcheva and do as I order ! “

Prince Andréy sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a closely written letter on two small sheets. He put it down without reading it, and again read his father’s letter, which ended with the words, “Gallop at once to Kdrcheva and do as I order!”

” I beg your pardon, but I will not go now, so long as my child is not better,” he thought. He went up to the door and looked into the nursery. Princess Marya was still standing at the crib and softly rocking the child.

“ Yes, what other disagreeable thing was it that my father wrote me about ? ” Prince Andrey tried to recall the contents of the letter. “ Yes. Our army has obtained a victory over Bonaparte when I am not serving. Yes, yes, he is making fun of me— Well, let him do it, if it gives him pleasure,” and he began to read Bilibin’s French letter. He read, without understanding half of what was written ; he read merely to forget even for a moment what he had been thinking of so long, so exclusively, and so painfully.

IX.

Bilibin was now in the capacity of a diplomatic officer at the headquarters of the army, and, though writing in French, with French jokes and turns of speech, he described the campaign with an exclusively Russian fearlessness in judging or ridiculing our acts. Bilibin wrote that his diplomatic discretion tormented him, and that he was happy to have a safe correspondent in Prince Andréy, before whom he could pour out his bile which had accumulated in him at the sight of what was going on in the army. It was an old letter, having been written before the battle at;Preussisch-Eylau.

” Since our great success at Austerlitz, you know, my dear prince, that I do not leave the headquarters. I am really getting the taste of war, and I like it. What I have seen these three months is incredible.

” I shall begin ab ovo. The enemy of the human race, as you know, is attacking the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have betrayed us only three times in the last three years. We are taking their part in earnest. But it so happens that the enemy of the human race pays no attention to our fine speeches, and with his rude and savage manner rushes against the Prussians, without giving them a chance to finish the parade which they had begun, wallops them, and completely demolishes them in two rounds, and takes up his abode in the palace at Potsdam.

“ ‘ I am very anxious,’ the King of Prussia writes to Bonaparte, ‘ that your Majesty be received and treated in my palace in the pleasantest manner possible, and with that point in view I have with the greatest care taken all the measures which the circumstances have allowed me. I hope I have been successful ! ‘ The Prussian generals make a display of their politeness before the French, and lay down their arms at the first summons.

“The cliief of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, is asking the King of Prussia what he is to do if summoned to surrender. All these are positive facts.

” In short, having hoped to impose simply by our military attitude, it turns out that we are drawn into the war in earnest, and what is more, into a war on our own borders, with and for the King of Prussia.1 Everything is complete with us, but we lack a little thing, namely, a commanderin-chief. Since it turns out that the successes at Austerlitz might have been of a more positive character, if the commanderin-chief had not been so young, a review is made of the octogenarians, and between Prozordvski and Kâmenski the preference is given to the latter. The general arrives in a kibitka à la Suvorov, and he is received with joyous and triumphant acclamations.

“ On the 4th the first courier arrives from St. Petersburg. The bags are taken into the cabinet of the fieldmarshal, who likes to do everything himself. I am called in to help distribute the letters and select those which are intended for us. The fieldmarshal watches us and waits for the packages which are addressed to him. We look, — there are none. The fieldmarshal grows impatient, himself takes a hand in it, and finds the emperor’s letters for Count T–-, for Prince V–-, and for others. Then he

goes into a rage. He hurls fire and flame against the whole world, takes possession of the letters, breaks the seals, and reads those the emperor has addressed to others. ‘ Oh, that

1 In the original this letter is in French, and the pun pour le Roi de Prusse is untranslatable.

is the way I am treated ! I am not trusted ! I am to be watched! Very well: go!’ Then he writes the famous order of the day to General Bénigsen.

” ‘ I am wounded ; I cannot ride, consequently cannot command the army. You have brought your corps d’armée all shattered to Pultusk: here it is without protection, and without wood and without forage ; something must be done, and as you yourself yesterday addressed Count Buxhövden, you must think of retreating to our borders, which is to be executed at once.’

” ‘ During my travels,’ he writes to the emperor, ‘ the saddle has so chafed me that I am unable to mount a horse and command such a large army ; therefore I have transferred the command of the same to the senior officer after me, General Buxhövden, having sent over to him all the business of the day and everything appertaining thereunto, and having advised him, in case bread is wanting, to retreat nearer to the interior of Prussia, because there was grain left only for one day, while some regiments had none, as reported to me by the commanders of divisions, Österman and Sedmoryétski, and everything the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in the hospital at Ostrolénko until I get well again. I herewith most humbly inform you of the date of that report, and must add that if the army remains at the present bivouac fifteen days longer, there will not be one man left fit for service by spring.

” ‘ Permit an old man to retire to the country ; he is disgraced enough for not having been able to do justice to his great and glorious functions to which he has been chosen. I will be waiting here in the hospital for your most august permission, for fear of playing the part of a scribe, and not of a commander, with the army. My retirement from the army will produce no greater stir than if a blind man left it. There are thousands of such men in Russia as I am.’

” The fieldmarshal is angry with the emperor and punishes us all. That is logical, is it not ?

” That is the first act. In what follows the interest and the ridiculous situations keep multiplying, as is only natural. After the departure of the fieldmarshal, it turns out that we are facing the enemy, and that it is necessary to give battle. Buxhövden is general-in-chief by dint of seniority, but General Bénigsen does not share that view, the more so since he is with his troops in plain sight of the enemy and because he wishes to profit by the opportunity of a battle ‘ auf eigene Hand,’ as the Germans say. He gives it. It is the battle of Pultusk, which is reported to be a great victory, but which, according to my opinion, is not. We civilians have a villainous habit of deciding the gain or loss of a battle. The one who has retreated after a battle has lost it, we say, and so judged, we have lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle, but we send a courier to St. Petersburg to carry the news of a victory, and the general does not cede the command in chief to Buxhövden, hoping to receive from St. Petersburg the title of commanderin-chief in recognition of his victory. During this interregnum we begin an exceedingly interesting and original plan of manœuvres. It is not our aim, as it ought to be, to evade or attack the enemy, but simply to evade General Buxhövden, who by right of seniority should be our chief. We pursue this end with so much energy that even in crossing an unfordable river we bum the bridges, in order to separate ourselves from our enemy, who, for the moment, is not Bonaparte, but Buxhövden. General Buxhövden came within an inch of being attacked and taken by the superior forces of the enemy on account of our fine manœuvres which were saving us from him. Buxhövden pursues us, and we skip. The moment he crosses on our side of the river, we pass to the other. At last our enemy Buxhövden catches us and attacks us.

The two generals are mad, and there is even a challenge to a duel on the side of Buxhövden and an epileptic tit on the side of Bénigsen. But at the critical moment the courier who took the news of our victory to St. Petersburg brings us back our nomination as commanderin-chief, and the first enemy, Buxhövden, is crushed: we now can think of the second, of Bonaparte.

” But, behold, there arises before us a third enemy, the Orthodox army, which begins to clamour loudly for bread, meat, hardtack, hay, and what not ! The stores are empty ; the roads impassable. The Orthodox take to marauding in a manner of which the last campaign cannot give you the faintest idea. Half of the regiments form themselves into free troops, which overrun the country, putting everything to the sword and setting everything on fire. The inhabitants are completely ruined, the hospitals are crowded with the sick, and famine is all about us. Twice have the headquarters been attacked by gangs of marauders, and the commanderin-chief has been compelled to ask a battalion to chase them away. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty portmanteau and my morninggown. The emperor wants to grant the right to the chiefs of divisions to shoot the marauders, but I am afraid that that would compel one-half the army to shoot the other.”

Prince Andréy at first read with his eyes only, but later that which he read involuntarily began to interest him more and more, although he knew that Bilibin could not be trusted entirely. Upon reaching this point, he crumpled the letter and threw it away. Not that which he read in the letter angered him, but that that strange, foreign life could agitate him so much. He shut his eyes, rubbed his brow with his hand, as though expelling every participation in that which he was reading, and listened to what was going on in the nursery. Suddenly he thought he heard a strange sound behind the door. He was overcome by terror: he was afraid that something might have happened while he had been reading the letter. He went on tiptoe up to the door of the nursery, and opened it. Just as he was entering, he saw the nurse hiding something from liim with a frightened glance, and that Princess Marya was no longer at the crib.

“ My dear,” he heard behind him what he thought to be a whisper of despair, uttered by Princess Marya. As is frequently the case after long vigils and agitation, he was overcome by groundless fear: it occurred to him that the child had died. All he saw and heard seemed to confirm his fear.

“All is ended,” he thought, and a cold perspiration came out on his forehead. He went up distracted to the crib, convinced that he should find it empty, because the nurse had concealed the dead child. He pulled aside the curtains, and his frightened, roving eyes could not for a long time find the child. Finally he saw him : the ruddyfaced boy had tossed himself across the bed and was lying with his head below the pillow, smacking and moving his lips in his sleep, and breathing evenly.

Prince Andréy was rejoiced when he saw the boy, just as though he had really lost him. He bent down and, as his sister had instructed him, tried with his lips to see whether the child had any high fever. His tender brow was moist ; he touched the boy’s head with his hand : the hair, too, was moist, — so great was the perspiration the child was in. He had not died, but, on the contrary, it was evident that the crisis had passed and that he was on his way to recovery. He felt like picking up and crushing and pressing against his breast that tiny, helpless being ; he did not dare do it. He stood over him, watching his head, his hands, and his little feet that were defined underneath his coverlet. He heard a rustling noise near him, and a shadow appeared under the bedcurtain. He did not turn back, but continued to watch the even breathing of the child. The dark shadow was that of Princess Marya, who had approached the crib with soft steps, had raised the curtain, and dropped it after her. Prince Andréy recognized her, without looking back, and extended his hand to her. She pressed it.

” He is in a perspiration,” said Prince Andréy.

” I was on my way to tell you so.”

The child barely moved in his sleep ; he smiled and rubbed his forehead on the pillow.

Prince Andréy looked at his sister. The beaming eyes of Princess Marya sparkled, in the dim half-light of the curtain, more than usual from the happy tears which stood in them. Princess Märya leaned over to her brother and kissed him, getting lightly caught in the curtain. They jestingly threatened each other and stood for awhile in the dim light underneath the bedcurtain, as though they did not wish to depart from this little world, where the three of them were separated from the world at large. Prince Andréy was the first to walk away from the crib, his hair catching in the gauze of the curtain.

” Yes, this is all that is now left for me,” he said, with a sigh.

X.

Soon after his initiation in the Masonic lodge, Pierre departed for the Government of Kiev, where the greater part of his peasants were, carrying with him an instruction which he had composed for his own use.

Upon arriving at Kiev, Pierre called all the superintendents to the main office, and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that measures would immediately be taken completely to liberate the peasants from their serfdom, that until then the peasants should not be burdened with labour, that the women and children should not be sent out to work at all ; that the peasants were to receive aid ; that the punishments to be meted out were to be hortative, and not corporal ; that in every estate there were to be established hospitals, asylums, and schools. A few of the superintendents (there were among them half-educated men) listened to him in fright, interpreting the young count’s speech to the effect that he was dissatisfied with their management and their stealing of money ; others, after their first fright was passed, found Pierre’s lisping and his new, unheard-of words very funny ; a third class of superintendents simply enjoyed their master’s speech ; a fourth group, the most intelligent of them, among them the chief superintendent, immediately determined from his remarks how they had to treat the master in order to obtain their ends.

The chief superintendent expressed his great sympathy with Pierre’s intentions, but remarked that in addition to these reforms it was necessary to attend to matters that were in a bad shape.

In spite of Count Bezukhi’s enormous fortune, Pierre felt himself much less rich when he received an income of what people estimated to be five hundred thousand roubles a year than when he received ten thousand from the late count. He had a dim idea of the following budget : He paid into the Council about eighty thousand ; about thirty thousand went to the maintenance of his suburban estate and his Moscow house, and for the support of the princesses ; about fifteen thousand went for pensions, and as much for charitable institutions ; the countess received for her alimony 150,000; the interest on debts amounted to seventy thousand; the construction of a new church had cost him ten thousand for the last two years; the rest, about one hundred thousand, was spent, he did not know himself how, and he was compelled nearly every year to borrow money. Besides, the chief superintendent kept writing every year, now about fires, now about the failure of crops, and now about the necessity of making repairs in the factories and plants. And so the very first thing that presented itself to Pierre was business, for which he had the least ability and no inclination.

Pierre looked into business matters with his chief superintendent every day ; but he felt that his occupations did not advance his affairs a single step. He felt that his occupations were independent of the matter at hand, that they did not fit in with the state of affairs, and did not make it move. On the one hand, the chief superintendent presented the state of affairs in the worst possible light, pointing out to Pierre the necessity of paying off his debts and undertaking new work by means of the serf labour, to which Pierre would not agree ; on the other, Pierre demanded the immediate emancipation of the peasants, to which the chief superintendent retorted that it was first necessary to pay the debt of the Guardianship Council, and that, therefore, the emancipation could not be executed at once.

The superintendent did not say that it was altogether impossible ; he proposed for this purpose the sale of the forests in the Government of Kostroma, and of the lowlands and the Crimea estate. But all these operations were in the speech of the superintendent connected with such a complicated mass of litigations, removals of injunctions, amortizations, powers of sale, and so forth, that Pierre was only confused and kept saying : ” Yes, yes, do it!”

Pierre did not have that tenacity in practical affairs which would have made it possible for him to take hold of things at once, and so he did not like it and only pretended before his superintendent that he was occupying himself with affairs. The superintendent, on his side, tried to act before the count as though he regarded these occupations as ver}* useful for his master and very laborious for himself.

In the large city Pierre came across some acquaintances : strangers hastened to make his acquaintance and received with open arms the newly arrived nabob, the largest proprietor of their Government. The temptations in respect to Pierre’s chief weakness, to which he had confessed at lus initiation, were so strong that he could not withstand them. Again whole days, weeks, and months of Pierre’s life passed as busily between evening entertainments, dinners, breakfasts, balls, as at St. Petersburg, giving him as little time to think as before. Instead of the new life which Pierre had hoped to lead, he lived his former life, only in new surroundings.

Pierre was conscious of not fulfilling the one of the three obligations of the Masons, which enjoined him to be a model of a moral life, and of the seven virtues he was totally devoid of two, of decorum and of love of death. He consoled himself with the thought that instead he would fulfil the other purpose, the regeneration of the human race, and had other virtues, love of his neighbour and, especially, generosity.

fi An v 1

In the spring of 1807, Pierre decided to return to St. Petersburg. On his way back he intended to visit all his estates and to convince himself in person that his injunctions were carried out, and to see in what condition the people were who had been entrusted to him by God, and to whom he was trying to do good.

The chief superintendent, who regarded all the plans of the young count as mere insanity, which was disadvantageous for himself, for him, and for the peasants, made concessions. He continued to show the impossibility of emancipating the serfs, but ordered the building of large structures for schools, hospitals, and asylums in all the estates, for the master’s visit. Everywhere he arranged deputations, not pompous and solemn ones, which he knew would displease Pierre, but such as had a character of religious thanksgiving, with images and bread and salt, just such as, if he at all understood his master, ought to affect him and deceive him.

The southern spring, the calm, rapid journey in a Viennese carriage, and the solitude of the road had a cheering influence on Pierre. The estates, which he had not seen before, were one more picturesque than the other ; the people everywhere appeared to be doing well and were touchingly grateful for benefits received. Everywhere there were deputations, which, though they embarrassed him, in the depth of his heart evoked a pleasurable sensation. In one place the peasants brought him bread and salt and an image of Peter and Paul, and asked permission to erect a new altar in the church at their own expense, in honour of his saints, Peter and Paul, and in token of their gratitude for the many benefits bestowed upon them by him. In another place he was met by women with their suckling babes, thanking him for having been freed from their hard work. In a third estate the priest met him with a cross, surrounded by children whom he, by the liberality of the count, taught reading and religion. In all the estates Pierre saw, with his own eyes, the uniform stone buildings partly erected, partly in process of construction, hospitals, schools, charitable institutions, which were to be opened shortly. Everywhere Pierre saw the accounts of the superintendents, in which the manorial labour was diminished in comparison with former times, and for this received touching delegations of peasants in blue caftans, who came to thank him for it.

But what Pierre did not know was that there where the bread and salt were brought to him and an altar to Peter and Paul was being built, there was a commercial village, and a fair on St. Peter’s Day, and that the altar had been built by the rich peasants of the village, the same who came to him as a deputation, and that nine-tenths of the village population lived in the greatest misery. He did not know that, in consequence of his order not to send the women with suckling babes out to do manorial labour, these very women had to do so much harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest, who had received him with the cross, was burdening the peasants by levies of his own, and that the pupils who gathered at his house were given to him by their parents with tears in their eyes, and were bought off with large sums. He did not know that the stone buildings, which were all erected according to one plan, were being built by his own workmen, increasing the manorial labour which was diminished only on paper. He did not know that there where the superintendent showed him in the book the diminution by one-third of the manorial dues, the manorial labour had been increased by one-half. And thus Pierre was delighted with his journey over his estates, and completely returned to that philanthropic mood with which he had left St. Petersburg, and wrote ecstatic letters to his brother instructor, as he called the grand master.

” How easy it is, and how little effort it takes to do so much,” thought Pierre, ” and how little we trouble ourselves about it ! “

He was happy to hear the expressions of gratitude, but felt ashamed when he received them. This gratitude reminded him how much more he might have been able to do for these simple and good people.

The chief superintendent, a very stupid, but shrewd man, who fully understood the clever, but naïve count, and who played with him as with a toy, upon seeing the effect produced on Pierre by the receptions, now more boldly brought forward his arguments about the impossibility, and, above all, the futility of freeing the peasants who were happy as it was.

In the depth of his heart Pierre agreed with the superintendent that it was difficult to imagine happier people, and that God knew what awaited them if they were freed ; but he insisted, though involuntarily, that justice demanded their liberation. The superintendent promised to use all his effort to carry out the count’s will, knowing full well that the count would never be able to verify his acts and find out whether he had employed all measures possible to sell the forests and estates, for the purpose of clearing the indebtedness in the Council, and that, no doubt, he would never find out that the newly built structures stood empty and that the peasants continued to do manorial labour and pay the manorial dues as much as peasants elsewhere, that is, as much as they possibly could.

XI.

On returning in the happiest frame of mind from his southern journey, Pierre carried out his old intention of visiting his old friend Bolkdnski, whom he had not seen for two years.

Boguchérovo lay in an uninteresting, flat locality, covered with fields and with fir and birch forests, many of which had been cut down. The manor was at the end of a large village which lay along a straight road, and back of a newly dug, full pond, the banks of which were not yet overgrown with grass, amidst a young forest, with a few pines among them.

The manorial buildings consisted of a threshing-floor, stables, bath-house, a wing, and a large stone house with a semi-circular façade, in the course of construction. Around the house a young orchard had been planted. The fences and gates were solid and new ; under the penthouse stood two hose-carriages and a barrel, painted green ; the roads were straight, and the bridges strong and with balustrades. On all lay the imprint of precision and order. The manorial servants, whom Pierre met, pointed, in reply to the question where the prince lived, to a small, new little house which stood at the edge of the pond. The old valet of Prince Andréy, Antdn, helped Pierre out of his carriage, saying that the prince was at home. He led him to a clean, little antechamber.

Pierre was struck by the simplicity of the clean, but small house, as compared with those brilliant conditions of life under which he had last seen his friend at St. Petersburg. He hurriedly entered a small parlour, still redolent with the pine and not yet whitewashed, and was on the point of going farther, when Anton ran forward on tiptoe and knocked at the door.

“ What is it again ? ” was heard a piercing, disagreeable voice.

“ A guest,” replied Antén.

” Ask him to wait,” and a chair was removed.

Pierre rushed up to the door and ran into Prince Andréy, who, frowning and looking old, had come out to see him. Pierre embraced him and, raising his eyeglasses, kissed him on his cheeks and looked closely at him.

“ I did not expect you. I am so glad ! ” said Prince Andréy.

Pierre said nothing. He looked at his friend in surprise, riveting Iris eyes upon him. He was struck by the change which had taken place in Prince Andréy. His words were kind, there was a smile on the lips and the face of Prince Andréy, but his glance was dim and dead, and, in spite of his apparent desire to do so, he was unable to impart a joyous and merry sparkle to them. His friend had not only grown thin and pale, and looked manlier, but his glance and the wrinkle on his brow, which expressed a long concentration on something, perplexed Pierre, until he became accustomed to them.

At this their meeting the conversation, as often happens, could not for a long time assume any definite form ; they asked each other questions and replied briefly to them, although they knew that they ought to be answered at a greater length. Finally the conversation became more settled and ran on the questions, abruptly touched upon before, the questions of their past lives, the plans for the future, Pierre’s journey, his occupations, the war, and so forth. That concentration and crushed appearance, which Pierre had noticed in the glance of Prince Andréy, now was more strongly expressed in the smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when Pierre spoke with joyful enthusiasm about the past and the future. It looked as though Prince Andréy wished to take interest in what he was saying, but was unable to do so. Pierre began to feel that, in the presence of Prince Andréy, transport, reveries, hopes of happiness and goodness were improper. He felt ashamed to express all his new Masonic ideas, especially those which had been stirred up in him and had found new fuel during his last journey. He restrained himself, fearing lest he should be naïve ; at the same time he was burning to show to his friend that he now was a different, a better Pierre than he had known at St. Petersburg.

” I cannot tell you how much I have lived through during this time. I should not recognize myself.”

” Yes, we have changed much, very much since then,” said Prince Andréy.

” Well, and you ? ” asked Pierre. ” What are your plans ? ”

” Plans ? ” ironically repeated Prince Andréy. ” My plans ? ” he repeated, as though marvelling at the meaning of the word. ” You see, I am building. I want to settle here next year altogether.”

Pierre looked fixedly and in silence at Prince Andrey’s aged face.

“ No, I ask you,” said Pierre, but Prince Andréy interrupted him :

” What is the use of speaking of me ? You had better tell me about your journey, about everything you have done on your estates.”

Pierre began to tell him of what he had done on his estates, trying as much as possible to conceal the part which he had taken in the improvements. Prince Andréy several times anticipated Pierre, as though all Pierre had done was an old story, and he listened to him without any interest, as though ashamed of what Pierre was telling him.

Pierre felt embarrassed and even ill at ease in the company of his friend. He grew silent.

” Listen, my dear,” said Prince Andréy, who obviously was himself not at ease with his guest. “I am only bivouacking and inspecting here. I shall return to-day to my sister’s. I will make you acquainted with her ; but I think you know her already,” he said, apparently entertaining his guest, with whom he now seemed to have nothing in common. “We shall leave after dinner. Don’t you want to see my estate now?”

They went out and walked about until dinner, discussing the political news and their common acquaintances, like people who were not on a footing of friendship. Prince Andréy, however, spoke with some animation and interest, on subjects connected ■with his new estate and mansion, but even here, as they were standing on the scaffolding, and Prince Andréy was explaining to Pierre the future arrangement of the mansion, he suddenly stopped in the middle of his conversation.

“ However, there is nothing interesting in this. Come, let us go to dinner ! “

At dinner the conversation turned on Pierre’s marriage.

” I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andréy.

Pierre blushed, just as he always did at the mention of it, and hurriedly said :

“ I will tell you sometime how it all happened. But you know that it is all ended, and for ever.”

” For ever ? ” said Prince Andréy. ” Nothing is for ever.”

” But you know how it all ended ? Have you heard about the duel ? “

” Yes, you have passed even through that.”

” There is one thing for which I am thankful to God, and that is that I have not killed that man,” said Pierre.

” Why ? ” said Prince Andréy. ” It is very proper to kill a mad dog.”

“ No, it is not good, not just, to kill a man — “

” Why is it not just ? ” repeated Prince Andréy. ” It is not given to man to judge of what is just, and what not. Men have always erred and always will err, and in nothing more so than in what they regard as just and unjust.”

” Unjust is that which is bad for another man,” said Pierre, noticing with delight that this was the first time since his arrival that Prince Andréy had become animated, and wanted to speak, and to tell him what had made him such as he now was.

“ And who has told you what is bad for another man ? ” he asked.

“ What is bad ? Bad ? ” said Pierre. ” We all know what is bad for us.”

“ Yes, we do ; but what is bad for me, I cannot inflict upon another,” Prince Andréy said, with ever growing animation, apparently wishing to tell Pierre his new view-on things. He spoke in French. “Je ne connais dans la vie que deux maux bien réels : c’est le remord et la maladie. Il n’est de bien que l’absence de ces maux. To live for myself, escaping these two evils, that is now my wisdom.”

“ And the love for your neighbour ? and selfsacrifice ? ” Pierre hastened to say. “ No, I cannot agree with you. It is not enough to live in such a way as not to wrong and not to have remorse. I lived so : I lived for myself and wasted my life. And only now that I live, at least that I try ” (Pierre modestly corrected himself) ” to live for others, only now have I grasped the whole happiness of life. No, I will not agree with you, and you yourself do not believe what you say.”

Prince Andréy glanced silently at Pierre and smiled a sarcastic smile.

“ Wait until you see my sister, Princess Marya. You will agree together,” he said. “ Maybe you are right in your own case,” he continued, after a moment’s silence, ” but everybody lives according to his fashion : you lived for yourself, and you say that you almost wasted your life in that way, and that you found your happiness only when you began to live for others. But I have experienced the very opposite. I lived for glory. (Now what is glory ? The same love of others, the desire to do something for them, the desire to get their praise.) And so, I lived for others, and I not only came very near wasting my life, but near losing it entirely. I have become calmer only from the moment I began to live for myself.”

” But how can one live for oneself ? ” Pierre asked, getting excited. ” And your son, your sister, your father ? ”

” They are my ego, and not others,” said Prince Andréy. “ But others, your neighbour, le prochain, as you and Princess Märya call them, are the chief source of error and evil. Le prochain are your Kiev peasants, whom you wish to benefit.”

He looked at Pierre with a sarcastic and provoking glance. He evidently challenged Pierre.

” You are jesting,” Pierre said, growing ever more excited. ” What error and evil can there be in my having wished (even though I have accomplished little), in my having wished to do good, and having done a little? What evil can there be in the fact that unfortunate people, our peasants, men who are like ourselves, who grow up and die without any other conception of God and truth than what they get from ceremonies and meaningless prayers, will be instructed in the .consoling beliefs of a future life, retribution, reward, consolation ? What error and evil is there in offering material aid to men who die of diseases, in giving them a physician and a hospital, and in giving an old man an asylum ? And is it not a palpable and certain benefit if I afford rest and leisure to a peasant and a woman with a babe, who have no rest, either in the daytime, or at night ? ” said Pierre, speaking rapidly and lisping. ” I did that, though badly, though insufficiently, still, I did something toward it, and you not only cannot persuade me that that which I did was not good, but even that you believe it to be bad. But, above all,” continued Pierre, ” I know, and know it firmly, that the pleasure of doing good is the only real happiness of life.”

” Yes, if you put the question like that, then it is a different matter,” said Prince Andréy. ” I build a house, plant a garden, while you build hospitals. Either is a good pastime. But what is just and what good, let him judge who knows everything, and not us. If you want to dispute, very well, let us dispute,” he added.

They left the table and sat down on the porch, which took the place of a balcony.

” Let us discuss it,” said Prince Andréy. ” You talk about schools,” he continued, bending down one finger, ” instruction, and so forth, that is, you want to bring him out,” he said, pointing to a peasant who passed by them and pulled off his hat, ” from Iris animal state and give him moral needs, whereas to me the only possible happiness is the animal happiness, of which you want to deprive him. I envy him, and you want to make him like me, without giving him my means. Secondly, you say you want to ease his labours, whereas, in my opinion, physical labour is just such a necessity, just such a condition of life for him, as mental labour is for you and me. You cannot stop flunking. I lie down to sleep at three o’clock ; thoughts come to me, and I cannot fall asleep ; I toss about and do not sleep until morning because I think and cannot refrain from thinking, just as he cannot keep from ploughing, or mowing ; otherwise he will go to the tavern, or will grow ill. Just as I cannot endure his terrible physical labour, and should die in a week from it, so he will not be able to endure my physical indolence, from which he would only grow fat and die. Thirdly, what was it you said ? ” Prince Andréy bent down his third finger.

” Oh, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has an apoplectic stroke, he dies, and you bleed him and cure him. He will be walking about a cripple for ten years, a burden to everybody. It is more convenient and simple for him to die. Others are born, and there are too many of them, anyway. If you were sorry to lose a labourer, I could understand it, but no, you want to cure him out of love for him. He does not want that ; and besides, what an idea to imagine that medicine has ever cured a man ! I can understand that it kills ! ” he said, with an evil frown, and turning away from Pierre.

Prince Andréy expressed his thoughts so clearly and distinctly that it was evident he had thought of it before, and he spoke cheerfully and rapidly, like a man who had not spoken for a long time. His glance grew more animated in measure as his judgments became more hopeless.

” Ah, this is terrible, terrible ! ” said Pierre. ” But I cannot understand how one can live with such ideas. I have been assailed by such minutes ; it happened only lately, in Moscow and on my journey, and then I fall to such an extent that I do not live, — everything repels me — especially, I myself. Then I do not eat, do not wash myself — well, how is it with you ? “

” Why should I not wash myself ? That is not clean,” said Prince Andréy. ” On the contrary, one must try to make life as pleasant as possible. I live not by my will, consequently I must live as well as I can until my death, without being in anybody’s way.”

” But what impels you to live with such ideas ? It will only lead to sitting indolently, without undertaking anything — “

” Life does not leave us alone. I should be very happy not to have to do anything, but on the one hand, the nobility of this neighbourhood have done me the honour of choosing me for their marshal, and I had the greatest difficulty in declining that honour. They could not understand that I lack that which they need ; that I have not that good-natured and solicitous platitude which is needed in that place. Then, here was the house that I had to get built, in order to have a corner in which to be at rest. Now we have the militia.”

” Why do you not serve in the army ? “

” After Austerlitz ? ” Prince Andréy said, gloomily. ” No, much obliged. I have vowed that I would not serve in the active Russian army, and I would not, if Bonaparte were here, near Smolensk, threatening Lÿsyya Gory. No, I would not serve in the Russian army even then. And so I told you,” Prince Andréy continued, after calming down, “now we have the militia on our hands : father is commanderin-chief of the third district, and my only chance of freeing myself from active service is to be attached to him.”

“ So you serve ? ”

<< Yes.”

He was silent for awhile.

” Why, then, do you serve ? “

“I will tell you why. My father is one of the most remarkable men of his age. But he is getting old, and he is not so much cruel, as overactive. He is terrible in his habits of unlimited power, and in the especial power granted to the commanders-in-chief by the emperor. If I had two weeks ago been two hours late he would have hanged the protocolist at Yukhnov,” Prince Andréy said, with a smile. ” And so I serve, because no one has any influence with my father but myself, and I now and then save him from acts which later would cause him torments.”

” Now you see ? ”

” Yes, mais ce n’est jjas comme vov.s l’entendez,’’ continued Prince Andréy. ” I have not wished that scoundrel of a protocolist the least good, for he stole some boots from the militia ; I should even have liked very much to see him strung up ; but I was sorry for my father, that is, again for myself.”

Prince Andréy was getting more and more animated. His eyes sparkled feverishly as he was trying to prove to Pierre that in his acts there never was any desire for any good to his neighbour.

” You want to free the peasants,” continued he. “ That is very nice, but not for you (I do not suppose you have ever had a peasant flogged to death or sent to Siberia), and still less is it good for the peasants. If they are beaten, flogged, and sent to Siberia, I do not think they are any worse for it. In Siberia they lead the same bestial lives, and the scars on their bodies will heal, and they will be as happy as before. But those who really need it are the people who perish morally, who by their acts fill themselves with remorse, who suppress this remorse, and grow coarse, because they have the power of punishing arbitrarily. It is for these people that I am sorry, and for their sakes I should like to liberate the peasants. You may never have seen it, but I have seen good people, who have been educated in the traditions of this unlimited power, with their advancing age, when they become more irritable, grow cruel and coarse ; they know it, but cannot control themselves, and grow ever more unhappy.”

Prince Andréy was speaking with such vim that Pierre instinctively thought that these ideas had been inspired in Andréy by his father. He made no reply to him.

” It is for these people that I am sorry. I am sorry for their human dignity, their peace of conscience, their purity, and not for the peasants’ backs and heads, which, no matter how much you flog and shave them, remain the same backs and heads they were before.”

” No, no, and a thousand times no,— I will never agree with you,” said Pierre.

XII.

In the evening Prince Andréy and Pierre seated themselves in the carriage and drove to Lÿsyya Géry. Prince Andréy, glancing at Pierre, now and then interrupted the silence by discourses which proved that he was in a happy frame of mind.

He pointed to the fields and spoke of his improvements. Pierre kept a sullen silence, answering in monosyllables, and seeming to be absorbed in thought.

Pierre was thinking that Prince Andréy was unhappy and in error, and did not know the true light, and that he must go to the aid of Prince Andréy, enlightening and lifting him up. But the moment Pierre began to think of what he was going to tell him, he felt that Prince Andréy would with one word, with one judgment, overthrow all his precepts, and so he was afraid to begin and to expose himself to the possibility of having his beloved holiness ridiculed.

” Why do you think,” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head, and assuming the look of a butting ox, ” why do you think that way ? You must not think that way.”

“ What do I think about ? ” Prince Andréy asked him, in wonderment.

> ” About life, about man’s destiny. That must not be. I thought so myself, and I was saved, do you know by what ? By Freemasonry. No, do not smile ! Freemasonry is not a religious sect, given to ceremonies, as I myself used to think, but the best and only expression of the best and everlasting sides of humanity.”

He began to expound Freemasonry to Prince Andréy, as he understood it.

He told him that Freemasonry was the teaching of Christianity, liberated from governmental and religious fetters, the teaching of equality, brotherhood, and love.

« Our sacred brotherhood is the only thing that has a real meaning in life ; everything else is a dream,” said Pierre. ” You must know, my friend, that outside this association everything is full of falsehood and lies, and I agree with you that an intelligent and good man has nothing to do but, like yourself, to live out his days, trying not to interfere with anybody else. But make yourself familiar with our fundamental convictions, enter our brotherhood, give yourself to us, permit yourself to be guided, and you will feel yourself at once, as 1 have felt myself, a part of that immense, invisible chain, the beginning of which is lost in heaven,” said Pierre.

Prince Andréy listened to Pierre’s discourse in silence, looking straight in front of him. Several times, when the noise of the carriage prevented his catching Pierre’s words, he asked him to repeat them. Pierre saw, from the peculiar sparkle which flamed up in Prince Andréy’s eyes, that his words were not uttered in vain, and that Prince Andréy would not interrupt him, and would not laugh at his words.

They approached a river which had overflowed its banks, and they had to cross it in a ferry. While the carriage and the horses were being put on, they walked down to the ferry. Prince Andréy, leaning on the balustrade, looked silently down the river, which was gleaming in the setting sun.

” What do you think of this ? ” asked Pierre. “ Why are you silent ? ”

” What do I think ? I am listening to you. You are right,” said Prince Andréy, “ but you say : enter our brotherhood, and we will show you the aim of life and the destiny of man, and the laws governing the universe. Who are those ‘ we ’ ? How is it you know everything ? Why do I alone not see that which you see ? You see upon earth the kingdom of good and truth, but I do not see it.”

Pierre interrupted him.

” Do you believe in the future life ? ” he asked.

” The future life ? ” repeated Prince Andréy, but Pierre gave him no time to reply, and accepted his repetition as a negation, the more so since he knew Prince Andréy’s former atheistic convictions.

” You say that you cannot see the kingdom of good and truth upon earth. I, too, did not see it, and could not see it, so long as I looked upon life as the end of every thing. Upon earth, particularly upon this earth ” (Pierre pointed to the field), “there is no truth, — all is falsehood and evil ; but in the world, in the whole world, there is the kingdom of truth, and we are — now — the children of earth, and in eternity — the children of the whole universe. Do I not feel in my soul that I form a part of this immense, harmonious whole ? Do I not feel that in this immense, endless number of beings, in which the Divinity — call it the higher power, if you please — is manifested, I constitute one link, one step from the lower beings to the higher ? Since I clearly see the staircase which leads from the plant to man, why should I suppose that this staircase breaks off with me, and does not lead higher ? / I feel that I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in the universe, and that I shall always be, as I have always been. I feel that besides me there are spirits above me, and that there is truth in the universe.”

” Yes, that is Herder’s teaching,” said Prince Andréy, ” but that, my friend, will not convince me ; nothing but life and death convinces. What convinces you is that you see a precious being, who is united with you, whom you have wronged, and whose wrongs you hope to mend ” (Prince Andréy’s head quivered, and he turned his face away), ” and suddenly that being sutlers, is in agony, and ceases to exist— Why ? It is impossible that there should be no answer to it ! I believe that there is one — It is this that convinces, and it has convinced me,” said Prince Andréy.

” Yes, yes,” said Pierre, ” do I not say the same ? “

” No. All I say is that you are convinced of the necessity of a future life, not by arguments, but by this: when you go through life hand in hand with a person, and suddenly that person disappears there in the void, and you yourself stop before that abyss and look into it — And I have peered into it — “

“ Very well ! You know that there is a there, and that there is somebody ? The there is the future life, and the somebody is God.”

Prince Andréy made no reply. The carriage and the horses had long been on the other shore, and hitched, and the sun was half-hidden, and the evening frost had cast stars on the puddles near the ford, but Pierre and Andréy, to the surprise of the lackeys, the coachmen, and the ferrymen, were still standing on the ferry, and talking.

” If there is a God and a future life, then there is truth, there is virtue ; and the highest happiness of man consists in striving after it. We must live, we must love, we must believe,” said Pierre, ” that we live not only to-day, on this globe of earth, but that we have lived and shall live in eternity there, in everything.” (He pointed to heaven.)

Prince Andréy stood, leaning against the balustrade of the ferry, and, listening to Pierre, did not take his eyes off the ruddy gleam of the sun on the bluish expanse of the water. Pierre grew silent. There was a complete calm. The ferry had landed long ago, and only the waves of the stream splashed with a feeble sound against the hulk. It seemed to Prince Andréy that this splashing of the waves kept saying, to Pierre’s words : ” It is true, believe it ! “

Prince Andréy heaved a sigh and looked, with a beaming, childlike, tender glance at the heated, ecstatic face of Pierre, who was still timid in the presence of his superior friend.

“ Yes, if it all were so ! ” he said. “ Come, now, let us get into the carriage,” added Prince Andréy, and, upon leaving the ferry, he looked at the heaven, to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time, after the battle of Austerlitz, he now saw that high, eternal heaven, which he had seen, lying on the field of battle, and something long dormant, something that was best in him, suddenly awoke joyfully and youthfully in his soul. That sensation disappeared the moment Prince Andréy again entered upon the habitual conditions of life, but he knew that the feeling which he did not know how to develop was living within him. His meeting with Pierre was for him an epoch, with which a new life in Ins inner world began, though externally it seemed to be the same.

XIII.

It was dark, when Prince Andréy and Pierre drove up the main driveway of the manor at Lÿsyya O6ry. As they were approaching it, Prince Andréy with a smile directed Pierre’s attention to the agitation which took place at the back porch. A stooping old woman, with a wallet on her shoulder, and a low-statured man in black, wearing long hair, started running back to the gate. Two women ran out after them, and all four, looking back at the carriage, ran frightened up the back porch.

“These are Mdrya’s God’s people” said Prince Andréy. ” They took us for her father. This is the only thing in which she disobeys him : he orders these pilgrims to be driven away, and she receives them.”

“ What are God’s people ? ” asked Pierre.

Prince Andréy had no time to answer him. The servants came out to meet them, and he asked them where the old prince was, and how soon he was expected back.

The old prince was still in town, and he was expected back at any moment.

Prince Andréy took Pierre to his room, which was always ready to receive him in the house of his father, and himself went to the nursery.

“ Let us go to my sister,” Prince Andréy said to Pierre upon returning. ” I have not yet seen her ; she is now hiding from me and sitting with her God’s people. Serves her right : she will be embarrassed, and you will see the God’s people. C’est curieux, ma parole.”

” Qu’est-ce que c’cst que God’s people ? ” asked Pierre.

” You will see.”

Princess Mdrya was actually confused ; she blushed in spots, when they entered. In her cosy room, with lamps before the shrines, a young boy, with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk’s hood, was sitting near her on the sofa, not far from a samovdr. In an armchair near by sat a lean, wrinkled old woman, with the meek expression that is characteristic of a childish face.

“Andre, pourquoi ne m’avoir prévenue? ” she said, with a mild rebuke, standing in front of her pilgrims, like a hen before her chicks.

” Charmée de vous voir. Je suis très charmée de vous voir” she said to Pierre, while he kissed her hand.

She had known him as a child, and now his friendship with Andréy, his misfortune with his wife, and, above all, his good, simple face disposed her favourably toward him. She looked at him with her beautiful, beaming eyes, and seemed to say : ” I love you very much, but please do not ridicule my people.” Having exchanged the first few greetings in French, they sat down.

” Ah, Ivdnushka, too, is here,” said Prince Audrey, indicating the young pilgrim with his smile.

” André ! ” Princess Mdrya said, imploringly.

” Il faut qzee vous sachiez que c’cst une femme f Andréy said to Pierre.

“ André, au nom de Dieu” repeated Princess Marya.

It was evident that Prince Andréy’s sarcastic attitude to the pilgrims and the futile defence put up for them by Princess Mdrya were the customary, well-established relations between them.

“Jfais, ma bonne amie,” said Prince Andréy, “ vous devriez au contraire m’être rcconnaisante de ce que f explique à Pierre votre intimité avec ce jeune homme.”

” Vraiment ? ” Pierre said, with a curious and a serious look, for which Princess Mdrya was especially grateful to him. He glanced above his glasses at the face of

Ivanushka, who, seeing that they were talking of him, cast his cunning eyes upon them all.

Princess Märya had no cause to feel embarrassed for her people. They were not in the least intimidated. The old woman, lowering her eyes, but looking sidewise at the newcomers, turned her cup upside down on the saucer and placed her unfinished piece of sugar near by. She sat calm and immovable in her chair, waiting to have another cup of tea offered to her. Ivanushka drank his tea from the saucer and kept looking stealthily with his cunning, feminine eyes at the young people in the room.

“ Where have you been, in Kiev ? ” Prince Andréy asked the old woman.

” Yes, father,” replied the garrulous old woman, ” I have had the pleasure of receiving the holy and divine communion from the saints, at Christmas. But now, father, I am from Kolyäzin, where a great grace has been revealed — “

” And has Ivanushka been with you ? “

” I wander all by myself, benefactor,” said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass voice. ” It was only in Yukhnov that I fell in with Pelagéyushka—”

Pelagéyushka interrupted her companion ; she evidently wanted to tell what she had seen.

” In Kolyäzin, father, a great grace has been revealed.”

” What is it ? New relics ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

” Stop, Andréy,” said Princess Märya. ” Don’t tell him, Pelagéyushka ! “

” Why not, mother? Why not tell him? I love him. De is good, he is the chosen of Cod: he, my benefactor, once gave me ten roubles, and I remember him. When I was in Kiev, Kiryusha said to me, — Kiryusha is a saintly fool, a true man of God, — he goes barefoot in winter and summer, — ‘ Why do you wander in wrong places ? ‘ says he, ‘ Go to Kolyäzin, there a new miracle-working image of the most holy Mother of God has appeared.’ When I heard that, I took leave of the saints and went — ”

All were silent; only the pilgrim spoke in an even voice, sucking in the air.

” I came, father, and the people said to me : ‘ A great grace has been revealed, — myrrh is dripping from the cheek of the most holy Mother of God — ’ “

“All right, all right, you will tell later,” said Princess Märya, blushing.

” Permit me to ask her,” said Pierre. ” Did you see it with your own eyes ? ” he asked.

” Of course, father, I was deemed worthy to see it. There was such a fight on her cheek, just like the heavenly light, and from her cheek it kept dripping and dripping — ”

“ But that is deception,” naïvely remarked Pierre, who had attentively listened to the pilgrim.

“Ah, father, don’t say that!” Pelagéyushka said, in terror, turning to Princess Marya for succour.

” That is the way the people are deceived,” he repeated.

” 0 Lord Jesus Christ ! ” the old woman said, making the sign of the cross. ” Oh, father, don’t say that ! There was a ‘ jineral ’ who did not believe it ; he said that the monks were deceiving, and the moment he said that, he grew blind. And he dreamt that the Virgin of Péchersk came to him and said : ‘ Believe in me, and I will cure you ! ‘ And so he began to beg to be taken to her. I am telling you the gospel truth, — I saw it myself. He was brought blind, as he was, to her; he went up, fell down, and said : Cure me, and I will give you,’ says he, all the Tsar has granted me!’ I saw it myself, father, and I saw the decoration that is attached to her. Well, he regained his sight ! It is sinful to talk that way. God will punish you,” she turned, exhortatively, to Pierre.

“How did the decoration get on the image?” asked Pierre.

»Was the Virgin promoted to the rank of general?” Prince Andréy asked, smiling.

Pelagéyushka suddenly grew pale and wrung her hands in despair.

« Father, it is sinful for you to speak thus, — you have a son ! ” she said, suddenly passing from paleness to a purple colour.

» Father, may God forgive you for what you have said.” She made the sign of the cross. ” O Lord, forgive him ! Mother, what is this ? ” she turned to Princess Marya.

She rose and, almost weeping, began to take up her wallet. She evidently felt afraid and ashamed of having received benefaction in that house, where they could talk that way, and at the same time, was sorry henceforth to forego the benefactions.

” Why do you do that ? ” said Princess Mdrya. ” Why did you come here ? “

“ I am only jesting, Pelagéyushka,” said Pierre. ” Princesse, ma parole, je n’ai pas voulu Voffenser, I did not mean to. Don’t take it to heart ; I only jested,” he said, with a timid smile, and anxious to wipe out his guilt.

” I did it, but he only jested.”

Pelagéyushka stopped, with an incredulous glance, but on Pierre’s face there was such a sincere repentance, and Prince Andréy looked so timidly at Pelagéyushka and at Pierre, that she soon calmed down.

XIV.

The pilgrim composed herself and, again invited to speak, for a long time told them about Father Amfilokhi, who had been such a holy man that he smelled of incense, about how her friends, the monks, during her last pilgrimage to Kiev gave her the keys to the Grottoes, and how she, taking hardtack with her, passed forty-eight hours with the saints in the Grottoes. ” I would pray to one, and then to another. Then I would sleep awhile, and would again lie down with a saint ; how calm it was in there, and what grace ! I did not feel at all like coming out to God’s world.”

Pierre listened to her attentively and in all seriousness. Prince Andréy left the room. And soon after, leaving the God’s people to finish their tea, Princess Märya led Pierre to the drawingroom.

” You are very kind,” she said to him.

” Oh, I really did not mean to offend her : I understand and appreciate these feelings ! ”

Princess Marya looked at liim in silence, and smiled tenderly. ” I have known you for a long time, and I love you like a brother,” she said. ” How did you find Andréy ? ” she asked hurriedly, giving him no time to say anything in response to her kind words. ” He troubles me a great deal. In the winter his health is better, but last spring the wound opened up, and the doctor said that he ought to go somewhere to get cured. I am also afraid for his moral condition. He is not such as we women are, who find alleviation in our sorrow by weeping. He

carries it within him. To-day he is merry and animated ; but it is your arrival that has affected him so : he is rarely in such a mood. If you could persuade him to go abroad ! He needs activity, and this even, quiet life ruins him. Others do not see that, but I do.”

At ten o’clock the servants rushed to the porch, upon hearing the bells of the approaching carriage of the old prince. Prince Andrey and Pierre also went out on the porch.

” Who is this ? ” asked the old prince, as he, getting out of the carriage, noticed Pierre.

“Ah! Very glad to see you! Kiss me!” he said, upon learning who the stranger was.

The old prince was in a happy frame of mind and was kind to Pierre. Before supper, Prince Andréy, upon returning to his father’s cabinet, found the old prince in a heated conversation with Pierre. Pierre was proving to him that the time would come when there would be no war. The old prince, without getting angry, but with raillery, maintained the opposite.

” Let the blood out of the veins and fill them with water, — then there will be no war. Women’s talk, women’s talk ! ” he said, kindly slapping Pierre’s shoulder, and walking over to the table, where Prince Andréy, who evidently did not wish to take part in the conversation, was rummaging through the papers brought from town by his father. The old prince went up to him and began to speak about affairs :

” The marshal of nobility, Count Rostov, has not furnished one-half of the men. He came to town, and took it into his head to invite me to dinner — I gave him such a dinner— Look at this— Well, my dear,” Prince Nikolay Andréevich turned to his son, slapping Pierre’s shoulder, ” your friend is a fine fellow, — I like him ! He stirs me up. Many a fellow talks clever things, but I do not feel like listening to him, but he rants and stirs me, an old man. Go, go ! ” he said, ” maybe I will come to sit with you at your supper. I will dispute with him once more. You must love my silly girl, Princess Marya,” he called out to Pierre through the door.

It was only now, during his visit at Lÿsyya Gory, that Pierre fully appreciated the whole strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andréy. This charm was expressed in his relations not only with him, but also with all his relatives and homefolk. Pierre at once felt himself as an old friend of the stem old prince and of meek and timid Princess Märya, although he scarcely knew them. They all loved him. Not only Princess Mär y a, who was won over by his gentle relations with the pilgrims, looked at him with beaming glances, but the one-year-old Prince Nikolay, as his grandfather called him, also smiled at Pierre and went to his arms. Mikhail Ivänych and Mlle. Bourienne looked at him with a smile of joy, when he talked with the old prince.

The old prince came out to supper, which he apparently did for Pierre’s sake. During the two days of his stay at Lÿsyya Gory he was very kind to Pierre and invited him to come again.

When Pierre had left, and all the members of the family were together, they began to pass their opinions on him, as is always the case after the departure of a stranger, and, as rarely happens, they had nothing but good things to say of him.

XV.

Upon his return from his furlough, Rostov for the first time found out how strong his attachment was for Denisov and for the whole regiment.

As Rostdv came nearer to the regiment he experienced a feeling akin to the one which he had experienced upon approaching the house in Povarskaya Street. When he saw the first hussar in the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Deméntev and saw the pickets of the red horses, when Lavrushka joyfully called out to his master, “ The count has arrived ! ” and shaggy-haired Denisov, who had been sleeping on his bed, came running out of his earth hut and embraced him, and the officers came out to greet the newcomer, Rostdv experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sisters had embraced him, and tears of joy, which rose in his throat, prevented his speaking. The regiment was also a home, and just as unchangeable and dear a home as the home of his parents.

As he called on the commander of the regiment, received his appointment in his old squadron, went down to see the officers of the day and the foraging grounds, entered into all the minutest details of the regiment, and felt himself deprived of liberty and fettered within a narrow and invariable frame, he experienced the same quietude, the same moral support and consciousness of being at home as he experienced under his paternal roof. There was not all that disorder of the free world, in which he found no place for himself and continually erred in Ins choice; there was not Sdnya, with whom it was necessary to have explanations or avoid them. There was not the possibility of calling here and not being able to call there ; there were not those twenty-four hours of the day that could be utilized in so many different ways ; there was not that endless throng of men, of whom nobody was nearer and nobody farther ; there were not those indistinct and undetermined monetary affairs with his father, and no memory of his terrible loss to Dolokhov.

Here in the regiment everything was simple and clear. The whole world was divided into two uneven parts ; one was our Pavlogradski regiment, and the other everything else. With this everything else he had nothing to do. In the regiment everything was known, — who was the lieutenant, who the captain, who was a good man and who not, and, above all, who was a comrade. The sutler gave on credit, and the pay came regularly every four months ; there was nothing to think about or to choose, but to keep from doing that which was regarded as bad in the Pavlogrddski regiment; when you were sent anywhere you had to carry out distinctly and clearly the orders given you, and all was well.

Upon entering again on these definite conditions of his army life, Rostdv experienced joy and quietude, such as a tired man feels when he lies down to rest himself. During this campaign the army life was the more acceptable to Rostov since, after his loss to Ddlokhov (a deed for which, in spite of the consolations of his relatives, he could not forgive himself), he decided not to serve as before, but, in order to atone for his guilt, to serve well and be a perfect comrade and officer, that is, a perfect man, a thing which is so difficult in the world, and in the army seems so easy.

Rostdv, ever since his loss, had decided that in five years he would pay back his debt to his parents. They sent him ten thousand a year; he decided to take only two thousand and to leave the rest to pay off his debt with.

After repeated retreats, advances, and battles at Pultusk and at Preussisch-Eylau, our army was concentrated near Bartenstein. They were waiting for the arrival of the emperor, and for the beginning of a new campaign.

The Pavlogradski regiment, which was in that part of the army that had taken part in the expedition of the year 1805, had been newly made up in Russia and was too late for the first engagements of the campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau, and in the second half of the campaign was attached to the army in action under Plätov’s detachment.

Platov’s detachment acted independently from the rest of the army. The Pavlogrädians took part in skirmishes with the enemy, made some prisoners, and once even captured the carriages of Marshal Oudinot. In the month of April the Pavlogradski regiment encamped for several weeks near a completely ruined German village without moving from the spot.

It was thawing, the roads were muddy, it was cold, the ice on the rivers was breaking, the roads were impassable ; for several days no provision was given to either men or horses. As the supplies could not be carried over the roads, the soldiers scattered over the deserted villages around about to look for potatoes, but it was hard to find even those.

Everything had been eaten up, and the inhabitants had fled ; those who remained were worse off than mendicants, and there was nothing that could be taken from them. The soldiers, little given to compassion, frequently refused to make use of anything that belonged to them, and even gave them the last of their own.

The Pavlogrädski regiment had lost only two men in wounded during its engagements, but about one-half of the men died from hunger and diseases. The men were so sure to die in the hospitals that the soldiers who suffered from the ague or from swellings, caused by their bad food, preferred to do military service, with difficulty dragging their feet along in the ranks, rather than go to the hospitals. With the opening of spring the soldiers began to find a plant which grew up from the ground like asparagus and which they for some reason called “ Mary’s sweet root,” and scattered over the fields and meadows in search of that ” Mary’s sweet root ” (which was very bitter), digging it out with their swords and eating it, in spite of the order not to eat that injurious plant. In the spring a new disease made its appearance, — a swelling of the legs, arms, and face, the cause of which the physicians ascribed to the use of that root. Despite the prohibition, the soldiers of Denisov’s squadron continued to eat chiefly ” Mary’s sweet root,” because the last hardtack had been stretched out for two weeks, giving only half a pound to each man, while the potatoes of the last consignment were frostbitten and sprouting.

The horses, too, had been fed for two weeks on the straw thatches of the houses, and they looked horribly lean and were still covered with their winter fur, which came off in tufts.

In spite of such misfortune, the soldiers and officers continued living as of old ; though their faces were pale and swollen, and though they wore tattered uniforms, the hussars aligned themselves as usual, tended their horses, groomed them, burnished their weapons, dragged down the straw from the roofs to be used as fodder, and went to the kettles to eat, although they always rose hungry, jesting about their nasty food and their empty stomachs. Just as before, the soldiers made campfires when not on duty, warming themselves naked at the fires, smoking, cleaning and baking the putrescent, sprouting potatoes, telling stories about the campaigns with Potémkin and Suvorov, or fairy-tales about Alésha the Sly, or about Mikolka, the swain of Popov.

The officers, too, lived as before, by two or three together, in unthatched, half-dilapidated houses. The older officers busied themselves with obtaining potatoes and straw, that is, with the means of subsistence for their men, while the younger ones, as always, were busy playing cards (there was much money on hand, though no provisions), or some innocent game, such as skittles or knuckle-bones. Little was said about the general state of affairs, partly because nothing definite was known, and partly because they had a dim presentiment that the general condition of the war was bad.

Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and their relations of friendship were now much closer than before the furlough. Denisov never spoke of Rostov’s family, but from the tender friendship which the commander showed for his officer, Rostov felt that the unhappy love of the old hussar for Natäsha had something to do with his intensified friendship. Denisov tried to subject Rostov to dangers as little as possible, took care of him, and after an engagement expressed his especial delight when he saw him hale and unharmed.

During one of his reconnoitring tours, Rostov, in search of some supplies, came to a deserted, ruined village, and there found the family of an old Pole and his daughter with a suckling babe. They were almost naked and starving, and could not leave, as they had no means. Rostov took them to his stopping-place, lodged them in his quarters, and supported them for several weeks, while the old man was regaining his strength. One of Rostov’s comrades, talking about women, began to laugh at Rostdv, saying that he was more cunning than all of them, and that it would do him no harm to introduce the pretty Polish woman he had saved to all his friends. Rostov took the jest as an insult, and, flaring up, told the officer such rude things that Denisov had great difficulty in keeping the two officers from fighting a duel. When the officer left and Denisov, who did not know Rostov’s relations with the Polish woman, began to upbraid him for his temper, Rostov said to him :

” I am sorry, but she is like a sister to me, and I cannot describe to you how that offended me — because, well, because — “

Denisov slapped him on the shoulder and began rapidly to walk up and down in the room, without looking at Rostov, which was his way of doing when he was under great excitement.

” What a foolish race the Rostdvs are ! ” he muttered, and Rostov saw tears in Denisov’s eyes.

XVI.

In April the troops were stirred by the news that the emperor was coming to see the army. Rostov did not take part in the review which the emperor made at Bartenstein : the Pavlogrädski regiment was doing outpost duty far beyond Bartenstein.

They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living in an earth hut which the soldiers had dug for them and which was covered with boughs and turf. The hut was built in the following manner, which was then coming into fashion : A ditch was dug an arshin and a half in width, two in depth, and three and a half in length. At one end of the ditch, steps were made, and that was the descent, — the porch ; the ditch itself was the room, in which, with the more fortunate officers, such as the commander of the squadron, there was placed at the end opposite the entrance a board on sticks, and that was the table. On both sides of the ditch, the dirt was removed about one arshin in width, and those were the two beds and the sofas. The roof was constructed in such a way that it was possible to stand upright in the middle of the room, and on the bed one could even sit up, if one moved up toward the table. In the hut of Denisov, who lived luxuriously, because the soldiers of his squadron loved him, there was a board in the façade of the roof, with a broken, pasted-up window-pane in it. When it was very cold, the soldiers brought to the steps (which part of the dugout Denisov called his antechamber) hot coals from the campfires, and that warmed up the hut to such an extent that the officers, of whom there were always a great number with Denisov and Rostov, could take off their coats.

In April Rostov was officer of the day. At eight o’clock in the morning, upon returning home after a sleepless night, he ordered live coals brought to him, changed his linen, which was wet through from the rain, prayed, drank tea, warmed himself, put bis things in order in his corner and on the table, and with a weather-beaten, burning face, in his shirt-sleeves, lay down on his back, placing his arms under his head. He was reflecting with joy that in a few days he would get a promotion to the next rank for his last reconnoitring, and was waiting for the return of Denisov. Rostov was anxious to have a chat with him.

Outside of the but could be heard the pealing shouts of Denisov, who apparently was excited. Rostov moved up to the window to see with whom he was talking, and saw Sergeant-Major Topchéenko.

” I have told you not to let them chew that root, Mary’s root, or what do you call it ? ” shouted Denisov. ” I saw it myself : Lazarchuk brought it from the field.”

” I told them so, but they do not obey me, your Excellency,” replied the sergeant-major.

Rostdv again lay down on his bed, thinking joyfully : “ Let him have his trouble now, but I have done my work, and I will lie here, — it is nice ! ” He could hear outside now not only the sergeant-major, but also Lavrushka, Denisov’s wideawake, roguish orderly. Lavrushka was telling about some teams, hardtack, and oxen, which he had seen on his way to fetch supplies.

Outside of the hut again could be heard Denisov’s receding call and the words : ” Second platoon, saddle ! ”

” I wonder where they are going,” thought Rostdv.

Five minutes later Denisov entered the hut, lay down with his dirty feet on his bed, angrily smoked a pipe, scattered his things all about him, put on his Cossack whip and his sabre, and started to leave the dugout. To Rostov’s question whither he was going, he replied, indefinitely, that he had something to do.

” Let God and the great Tsar judge me ! ” said Denisov, on leaving. Rostdv heard outside the splashing of the feet of several horses in the mud. Rostov did not even take the trouble to find out whither Denisov had gone. After warming himself up in his corner, he fell asleep, and left the hut only in the evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared off: near the adjoining earth hut two officers and a yunker were playing at skittles, using long radishes for poles, which they were sticking into the soft ground, under general laughter. Rostdv joined them. In the middle of their game, the officers saw some carts coming toward them ; about fifteen hussars on horseback were following them. The carts, which were under the convoy of the hussars, approached the pickets, and a throng of hussars surrounded them.

“And Denisov has been worrying all the time,” said Rostdv. ” At last the supplies have come.”

” How happy the soldiers will be ! ” said the officers.

A little distance behind the hussars rode Denisov, accompanied by two officers of infantry, with whom he was talking. Rostov went up to them.

« I warn you, captain,” said one of the officers, a small, haggard fellow, who apparently was in a rage.

” I told you I would not give it back to you,” replied Denisov.

” You will be responsible for it, captain, — this is robbery, — to take the transports away from your own people ! Our soldiers have not had anything to eat for two days.”

” And mine have not eaten anything for two weeks,” replied Denisov.

“ This is highway robbery, and you will be responsible for it, dear sir ! ” the officer of infantry repeated, raising his voice.

” What do you want of me ? Eh ? ” shouted Denisov, suddenly getting excited. ” I will be responsible for it, and not you ! And you had better not buzz around here, if you know what is good for you. March ! ” he cried to the officers.

“Very well,” the little officer exclaimed, not in the least intimidated, ” if you are going to rob, I will — ”

” To the devil march, at double-quick, while you are able to ! ” And Denisov turned the horse on the officer.

” All right, all right,” said the officer, with a threat, and, turning his horse around, he rode off at a trot, shaking in the saddle.

” A dog on a fence, a live dog on a fence,” Denisov called out, applying to them the most offensive ridicule which a cavalryman can use to an infantry officer on horseback. Riding up to Rostov, he burst out laughing : ” I have captured it from the infantry, I have captured a transport by force ! ” he said. ” Well, our soldiers could not be expected to starve, could they ? “

The carts which drove up to the hussars had been intended for a regiment of infantry, but, upon learning from Lavrushka that the transport was not protected, Denisov, with his hussars, captured it. The soldiers received an abundant supply of hardtack, and there was enough left to give to the other squadrons.

On the following day, the commander of the regiment called up Denisov, to whom he said, covering his eyes with his open fingers : ” I look at it like this ; I know nothing, and will begin no action ; but I advise you to ride down to the staff, and there, in the commissary department, to straighten out matters, and, if possible, to sign a receipt for the supplies, otherwise they will be put to the account of the regiment of infantry, and the case may be taken up and end badly for you.”

Denisov rode from the commander of the regiment directly to the staff, with the sincere desire of carrying out his advice. In the evening he returned to his hut in a condition in which Rostov had never before seen his friend. Denisov could not speak, and was choking. When Rostov asked him what the matter was, he only pronounced unintelligible curses and threats in a hoarse and feeble voice.

Frightened by Denisov’s condition, Rostov asked him to undress himself and to drink some water, and sent for the doctor.

“ To try me for robbery, oh ! Let me have some more water. Let them try me, but I will always beat rascals, and I will tell the emperor. Let me have some ice,” he muttered.

The regimental doctor said that it was necessary to bleed him. A deep plate full of black blood came out of Denisov’s shaggy arm, and only then was he able to tell what had happened.

” I arrive,” said Denfsov. ” ‘ Where is your chief ? ’ They showed me. ‘ Won’t you wait awhile ? ’ ‘ I am on duty, and I have ridden thirty versts to get here : I have no time to wait, — so report to him.’ All right, the archthief comes out; he takes it into his head to reprimand me : * This is highway robbery ! ’ ‘ Not he commits robbery,’ I said, ‘ who takes provisions to feed his soldiers with, but he who takes them to put the money in his pocket ! So, please, shut up ! ’ All right. ‘ Sign a receipt at the commissary’s, and your affair will take the regular course.’ I arrive at the commissary’s. I walk in, — who, do you think, is at the table ? No, guess ! — Who is starving us ? ” shouted Denisov, striking the table so powerfully with the fist of his weakened arm that the table almost fell down, and the glasses leaped up. “ Telyänin ! ‘ What, so it is you who are starving us ? ’ I struck him on his snout as hard as I could. ‘ You scoundrel ! ’ he shouted, and such like, but still, I have had my fun,” cried Denfsov, showing his white teeth underneath his black moustache, with an expression of joy and malice. ” I should have killed him if they had not taken me away.”

“ Don’t shout so, calm yourself ! ” said Rostov. ” Your blood is flowing again: wait, I have to change your bandage.”

Denisov’s wound was dressed, and he was put down to sleep. On the next day he awoke happy and calm.

But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came with a serious and sad face to Denisov’s and Rostov’s common hut, and with a sad expression showed them the formal document addressed to Major Denisov from the commander of the regiment, in which an inquiry was made about the occurrences of the previous day. The adjutant informed them that the affair necessarily would take a very bad turn, that a court martial had been appointed, and that under the existing severe laws against marauding and the insubordination of the troops, the affair, in the most favourable case, would end with degradation.

The offended parties represented the case in such a way that it appeared that, after capturing the transport, Major Denfsov, without any provocation, appeared in a drunken condition before the commissary-in-chief, calling him a thief and threatening to assault him, and that, being led out from him, he rushed into the chancery, where he gave blows to two officials and wrenched the hand of a third.

To Rostov’s new questions, Denfsov replied, laughing, that another man must have turned up there ; that it was all nonsense ; that he was not going to be afraid of any courts, and that if those rascals should dare to tackle him, he would answer them in such a way that they would remember him.

Denfsov spoke contemptuously of the whole affair ; but Rostov knew him too well not to observe that in his heart, though he concealed it from others, he was afraid of the

court martial and was tormented by this affair which, apparently, was going to end badly. Every day new inquests were made ; there were summons to the court, and on the 1st of May Denisov was ordered to transfer the command of his squadron to the senior officer below him, and to appear at the staff to give explanations in the cases of assault at the commissariat. On the day preceding, Platov had made a reconnoitring of the enemy with two regiments of Cossacks and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as always, rode out in front of the cordon, parading his braver)’. One of the bullets from a French sharpshooter’s gun struck him in the soft part of his thigh. At any other time Denisov probably would not have left the regiment with such a light wound, but this time he made use of the occasion and, going to the hospital, declined to appear at the staff in response to the summons.

XVII.

In June took place the battle of Friedland, in which the Pavlogrddski regiment did not take part, and soon after a truce was declared. Rostov, who felt deeply the absence of his friend, had received no news from him since his departure, and, being worried by the course of his affair and by the condition of his wound, he took advantage of the truce and asked permission to visit Denisov in the hospital

The hospital was in a small Prussian town, which had twice been destroyed by the Russian and the French troops. Even because it was summer, when it is so pleasant in the fields, this place, with its broken roofs and fences and with its obstructed streets, ragged inhabitants, and drunken and sick soldiers, who loafed in it, presented an unusually gloomy appearance.

The hospital was in a stone building, standing in a yard with the remnants of a broken fence. Its window-sashes and panes were broken. Several bandaged, pale, and swollen soldiers were walking and sitting in the yard in the sun.

The moment Rostbv entered through the door of the house, he was overwhelmed by the odour of decaying flesh and of the lazaretto. On the staircase he met a Russian military surgeon, with a cigar in his mouth. He was followed by a Russian assistant.

” I cannot tear myself to pieces,” said the doctor. ” Come in the evening to Makar Aleksyéevich, — I will be there.”

The assistant again asked for something.

” Oh, do as you know best ! What difference does it make ? “

The doctor noticed Rostov, who was coming up the steps.

” What do you want here, your Honour ? ” said the doctor. ” What do you want ? Is it that you want to catch the typhus, because you have escaped the bullets ? Here, my friend, is the house of the plague-stricken.”

” Why ? ” asked Rostov.

” It is the typhus, dear sir. Whoever comes here is sure to die. Only Makéev ” (he pointed to the assistant) ” and I manage to live here. Some five of us doctors have died here already. Any new man that comes here is dead in a week,” the doctor said, with apparent pleasure. “We have summoned Prussian doctors, but our allies don’t like that.”

Rostdv explained to him that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the hussars, who was somewhere in the hospital.

” I do not know him, dear sir. You must consider that I have to attend by myself to three hospitals, with more than four hundred patients. It is lucky the Prussian charitable ladies send us coffee and about two pounds of lint a month, or else we should be entirely lost.” He laughed. ” There are four hundred of them ? Eh ? ” He turned to the assistant.

The assistant looked exhausted. He was evidently waiting for the garrulous doctor to leave.

” Major Denisov,” repeated Rostov, ” he was wounded at Molliten.”

” I think he is dead. Eh, Makéev ? ” the doctor asked the assistant, with indifference.

The assistant did not confirm his words.

” Is he a big, red-haired fellow ? ” asked the doctor.

Rostdv described Denisov’s exterior.

” There was, yes, there was such a fellow,” the doctor said, as though with pleasure, ” but he must be dead ; however, I will look it up, — I have some lists. Have you got them, Makéev ? ”

” Makar Aleksyéevich has the lists,” said the assistant. “ Please go to the officers’ department and you will see for yourself,” he added, turning to Rostdv.

“ You had better not go there, dear sir,” said the doctor, “ or you will remain here yourself.”

But Rostov bowed himself away, and asked the assistant to take him there.

” Only don’t blame me,” the doctor called out at the foot of the staircase.

Rostbv and the assistant went into the corridor. The hospital odour was so strong in this dark corridor that Rostov clutched his nose and had to stop to collect himself and be able to proceed. A door on the right opened, and a haggard, sallow man, barefooted and wearing nothing but his underwear, came out of it, walking with crutches. He leaned against the doorpost and looked with sparkling, envious eyes at the passers-by. Rostov looked through the door and saw that the sick and the wounded lay there on the floor, on straw and on their overcoats.

” May I go in and look at them ? ” asked Rostov.

” What is there to look at ? ” said the assistant.

But Rostov went into the soldiers’ room, even because the assistant obviously did not want him to go there. The odour, to which he managed to get accustomed in the corridor, was even stronger here. The odour was a little changed : it was more pronounced, and it was apparent that it originated there.

In a long room which was brightly illuminated by the sun, shining through large windows, the sick and the wounded lay in two rows, with their heads against the walls, leaving a passage in the middle. The majority of them were unconscious and paid no attention to the persons entering. Those who were in their senses raised their bodies, or their haggard, sallow faces, and all looked fixedly at Rostov with the same expression of hope for succour, of reproach, and of envy of his health. Rostov walked up to the middle of the room, looked into the doors of the neighbouring rooms, which were open, and everywhere saw the same spectacle. He stopped, looking in silence all about him. He had not expected to see it. In front of him a sick soldier, apparently a Cossack, to judge from the cut of his hair, was lying on the bare floor, almost across the middle passage. Tins Cossack lay on Ins back, stretching out his enormous legs and arms. His face was purple, his eyes were so turned that only the whites could be seen, and on his bare red legs and arms the veins were swollen like ropes. He kept striking his head against the floor, hoarsely repeating one and the same word. Rostov listened attentively to him and was able to make out his word ; it was : ” Drink, drink, drink ! ” Rostov looked around, trying to find somebody who would put the sick man back to his place and would give him some water to drink.

” Who is attending here to the patients ? ” he asked the assistant.

Just then a soldier of the baggage train, a hospital attendant, came out from the adjoining room. Upon noticing Rostov, he stopped in military fashion and saluted.

“ We wish you health, your Honour ! ” shouted the soldier, rolling his eyes on Rostov, whom he apparently took for some hospital authority.

” Take him away and give him water to drink,” said Rostov, pointing to the Cossack.

” Yes, your Honour,” the soldier readily responded, rolling his eyes more than before and straightening himself up, but still not budging from the spot.

« No, nothing is to be done here,” thought Rostov, lowering his eyes. He was on the point of leaving, when, on the right, he was conscious of a significant glance directed at him, and this made him turn around. Almost in the corner an old soldier, with a sallow, deathly lean, and stern face, was sitting in an overcoat, looking stubbornly at Rostov. Rostov saw that the old man wanted to ask him something. He went up to him and saw that only one leg of the old man was bent, the other having been taken off’ above the knee. A neighbour of this old man, who was lying motionless, with his head thrown back, at some distance from him, was a young soldier with a waxen paleness on his snubnosed, freckled face, with his eyes rolled back beyond the lids. Rostov looked at that snubnosed soldier, and a chill ran up his spine.

“But this one seems to be — ” he turned to the assistant.

“ I asked to have him taken away, your Honour,” said the old soldier, with a trembling of his lower jaw. ” He died in the morning. They are people and not dogs — “

” I will send somebody at once to take him away,” hurriedly said the assistant. ” Please, your Honour ! “

” Ret us go, let us go! ” hurriedly said Rostov, and, lowering his eyes and stooping, as though wishing to pass unnoticed between these rows of reproachful and envious eyes, he left the room.

XVIII.

Passing along the corridor, the assistant took Rostov to the officers’ department, which consisted of three rooms, with the doors all open. In these rooms there were beds ; sick and wounded soldiers were sitting and lying upon them. Several of them walked about the room in hospital cloaks. The first person, whom Rostdv met in the officers’ department, was a small, lean man without an arm, in a nightcap and a hospital cloak, walking around in the room, with a pipe in his mouth. Rostov scanned his face and tried to recall where he had seen it before.

” So God has granted us to meet here,” said the little man. “Tushin, Tushin, you remember, carried you on his gun-carriage at Schöngraben ! You see they have cut off a piece of me — ” he said, smiling, and showing him the empty sleeve of his cloak. “Are you looking for Vasili Dmitrievich Denisov ? He is my roommate,” he said, upon finding out whom it was Rostov wanted to see. ” Here, here - ” and Tushin led him to another room, from which proceeded the laughter of several voices.

“ How can they laugh, how can they even live here ? ” thought Rostov, still smelling the odour of decayed flesh, with which he had become permeated in the hospital of the soldiers, and still seeing the envious faces that accompanied him on both sides, and the face of the young soldier with the eyes turned up.

Denisov, having covered himself above his head with his coverlet, was sleeping on his bed, although it was noon.

” Ah, Rostdv ? Glad to see you,” he shouted, in the same voice with which he spoke in the regiment ; but Rostov noticed with sadness that back of this habitual nonchalance and animation a new, evil, hidden feeling was apparent in Denisov’s face, intonations, and words.

His wound, in spite of its lightness, had not healed up, although six weeks had passed since he had been wounded. In his face there was the same pale swelling which was perceptible on all the faces in the hospital. But it was not that which surprised Rostov ; he was surprised to see that Denisov did not seem to be glad of his coming and smiled unnaturally at him. Denisov did not make any inquiries in regard to the regiment, nor in regard to the general course of events. When Rostov said anything about it, Denisov did not hear him.

Rostov noticed also that it displeased Denisov to be reminded of the regiment and, in general, of that free life outside the hospital. He seemed to be anxious to forget his former life, and was interested only in his affair with the officials of the commissariat. In response to Rostov’s question, in what condition his affair was, he immediately fetched from underneath his pillow a document which he had received from the court martial, and his rough copy of the reply to it. He grew animated when he began to read his paper, and directed Rostov’s attention to the sharp rejoinders which he made to his enemies. Denisov’s hospital comrades, who had surrounded Rostdv, the newcomer from the free world without, began to scatter the moment Denisov began to read the document. Rostov saw by their faces that these gentlemen had more than once heard the story, of which they had become tired. Only his neighbour on a bed, a fat uhlan, remained sitting on his cot, frowning gloomily and smoking a pipe, while little Tushin, with the one arm, continued to listen, disapprovingly shaking his head. In the middle of his reading the uhlan interrupted Denisov.

” In my opinion,” he said, turning to Rostov, “ it would be better just to petition the emperor for mercy. They say there will lie great rewards given now, and he will certainly be pardoned — “

« I to beg the emperor? ” said Denisov, in a voice to which he wished to give its tonner energy and fire, but which sounded only like useless irritation. ” For what ? If I were a robber, I would ask his mercy, whereas I am to be tried for showing up the robbers. Let them try me, — I am not afraid of anybody. I have honestly served the emperor and my country, and I have not stolen ! And I am to be disgraced and — Listen, I tell them straight out : * If I were a pilferer of the treasury — ‘ “

“ Very cleverly written, I must say,” said Tushin. “ But that is another matter, Vasili Dmitrievich,” he also turned to Rostov. “He must submit, and Vasili Dmitrievich does not want to. The auditor told you that your case was bad.”

“ Let it be bad ! ” said Denisov.

“ The auditor has written a petition for you,” continued Tushin, “and you ought to sign it and send it by this gentleman. This gentleman ” (he pointed to Rostdv) “ no doubt has some friend on the staff. You will not get a better chance.”

” But I said that I would not act basely,” Denisov interrupted him, continuing the reading of his paper.

Rostdv did not dare to persuade Denisov, although he felt instinctively that the road proposed by Tushin and the other officers was the safest, and although he would have been happy to have a chance to aid Denisov: he knew how imperturbable Denisov’s will was, and how just the cause of his excitement.

When the reading of Denisov’s venomous papers, which lasted more than an hour, was ended, Rostov said nothing. He was in the saddest frame of mind, and passed the rest of the day in the company of Denisov’s hospital friends, who had again gathered about him, telling them what he knew, and listening to the stories of the others. Denisov kept a sullen silence during the whole afternoon.

Late in the evening Rostov got ready to leave, and asked Denisov whether he had any message to send.

” Yes, wait ! ” said Denisov, glancing at the officers. He took his documents from underneath his pillow, went up to the window, where his inkstand was standing, and sat down to write.

” Evidently a whip cannot strike as hard as an axehead,” he said, walking away from the window and handing Rostov an envelope.

It was the petition to the emperor composed by the auditor, in which Denisov, saying nothing about the guilt of the commissariat, only asked to be pardoned.

“ Hand it in ! Apparently — “

He did not finish his sentence, and smiled a sickly, false smile.

XIX.

Upon returning to the regiment, Rostov reported to the commander what condition Denisov’s affair was in, and with the letter journeyed to Tilsit to see the emperor.

On the 13th of June the Emperors of France and of Russia met at Tilsit. Boris Drubetskdy asked the important person, whose adjutant he was, to be appointed to the suite of the emperor at Tilsit.

” Je voudrais voir le grand homme” he said, speaking of Napoleon, whom he had heretofore called Buonaparte, as everybody else called him.

” Vous parlez de Buonaparte ? ” the general said, smiling.

Boris looked interrogatively at his general, and he saw at once that he was testing him in a jocular manner.

“Mon prince, je parle de VEmpereur Napoléon,” he replied.

The general smiled and tapped him on the shoulder.

” You will go far,” he said to him, and took him along.

Boris was among the few on the Nyéman on the day of the meeting of the emperors ; he saw the ferry-boats with the monograms, and Napoleon riding on the other shore, along the French guards ; he saw the melancholy face of Emperor Alexander as he sat in the tavern on the shore of the river Nyéman, waiting for the arrival of Emperor Napoleon; he saw both emperors get into the boats, and Napoleon, who was the first to land on the ferry-boat, walk in a rapid gait and, meeting Alexander, give him his hand, and then both disappear in the pavilion.

Ever since Boris had found his way into the higher spheres, he had made it his habit carefully to watch everything which was going on all around him, and to make a note of it. During the meeting at Tilsit, he inquired about the names of those persons who arrived with Napoleon, about the uniforms which they wore, and attentively listened to the words uttered by important persons. He looked at his watch the moment the two emperors entered the pavilion, and did not fail to look at it again when Alexander came out of it. The meeting had lasted one hour and fifty-three minutes: he noted down this fact in the evening, among a number of other occurrences which, so he felt, had a historical significance. As the suite of the emperor was very small, it was a very important thing to be present at the meeting of the emperors at Tilsit, if one was anxious to be successful in the service, and Boris, who was fortunate enough to be there, felt that his position was firmly established. He was not only known, but men had become accustomed to him. Twice he attended in person on the emperor, so that the emperor knew him by face, and all the people about him no longer looked upon him with disfavour as being a new person, but would have been surprised if he were not there.

Boris was living with another adjutant, Count Zylmski, a Pole. Zylmski, who had been educated in Paris, was rich and passionately fond of the French, so that nearly every day, during their stay at Tilsit, French officers of the Guard and of the general staff gathered at the rooms of Zyllnski and Boris for dinners and for lunches.

On the evening of the 24th of June, Count Zylmski, Boris’s roommate, arranged a dinner for his French acquaintances. At this supper the guest of honour was one of Napoleon’s adjutants; there were also several officers of the French Guard and a young boy, the descendant of an old aristocratic family in France, who was a page to Napoleon. On that very evening, Rostov, taking advantage of the darkness, in order not to be recognized, arrived at Tilsit in a civilian’s dress, and went to the quarters occupied by Zylinski and Boris.

In Rostov, as also in the whole army, from which he now arrived, there had not yet taken place that transformation in respect to Napoleon and the French, who from enemies had suddenly become friends, which had taken place at headquarters and in Boris. In the army they still continued to experience the former mixed feeling of malice, contempt, and terror before Bonaparte and the French. It was but lately that Rostov, with an officer of Platov’s Cossacks, insisted that if Napoleon were taken prisoner, he would not be treated as an emperor, but as a criminal. Even during his journey, Rostov, upon meeting a wounded French colonel, grew excited, proving to him that there could be no peace between a legitimate emperor and the criminal Bonaparte. For that reason Rostov was unpleasantly surprised in Boris’s room by the sight of the French officers in the very uniforms on which he had been in the habit of looking quite differently at the flanking cordon. The moment he saw a French officer issue from the door, the feeling of the war and of hostility, which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy, suddenly took possession of him. He stopped on the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy was living there. Boris, hearing a strange voice in the antechamber, came out to see who it was. His face in the first moment, when he recognized Rostdv, expressed annoyance.

” Oh, it is you ! Very glad, very glad to see you,” he, however, said, smiling and moving up to him.

But Rostdv had noticed his first movement.

“ I seem to come inopportunely,” he said. ” I should not have come, but I have some business,” he said, coldly.

“ I was merely wondering how you got away from the regiment. Dans un moment je suis à vous” he replied to a voice calling him.

” I see that I have come inopportunely,” repeated Rostov.

The expression of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris’s face. Having apparently considered and decided what to do, he with remarkable calm took hold of both his hands and led him into the adjoining room. Boris’s eyes, which had looked calmly and firmly at Rostov, seemed to be veiled now, as though the blue glasses of social intercourse were put on them. So Rostov thought.

” Please, don’t say that ! How can you be inopportune ? ” said Boris.

Boris took him to the room where the supper was set, introduced him to the guests, to whom he explained that he was not a civilian, but an officer of hussars, and an old friend of his.

” Count Zylinski, le Comte N–-N–-, le Capitaine

S–- S–-,” he named his guests.

Rostov looked gloomily at the Frenchmen, greeted them stiffly, and kept silent.

Zylinski was apparently not satisfied with this new Russian person in his circle, and said nothing to Rostdv. Boris did not seem to notice the embarrassment due to the newcomer, and tried to enliven the conversation with the same agreeable calm and the same veiling of his eyes with which he had received Rostdv. One of the Frenchmen turned to stubbornly taciturn Rostdv with customary French civility, asking him whether it was not for the purpose of seeing the emperor that he had come to Tilsit.

” No, I have some business,” Rostdv replied, curtly.

Rostdv had been in an unhappy frame of mind ever since he had noticed the dissatisfaction in Boris’s face, and, as is always the case with people who are not in a good mood, it seemed to him that all looked hostilely at him and that he was in everybody’s way. And, indeed, he was in everybody’s way, and himself remained outside the general conversation struck up by the company. ” Why is he sitting here ? ” the glances which the guests cast upon him seemed to say. He rose and walked over to Boris.

” I embarrass you,” he said to him, softly. ” Come, let us speak about my affair, and I will leave.”

“ Not in the least,” said Boris. “But if you are tired, let us go to our room, and you can lie down there and rest.”

” Indeed — “

They entered a small sleeping-room, where Boris slept.’ Rostov did not sit down, but began with irritation, as though Boris were guilty of something, to tell him of Denisov’s affair, asking him whether he would and could intercede for him before the emperor through his general, by transmitting the letter. When they were left alone, Rostov convinced himself for the first time that he could not look at his ease into Boris’s eyes. Boris, crossing one leg over the other and patting with his left hand the slender fingers of his right, listened to Rostov, as a general listens to a report of his subordinate, now looking to one side, now gazing with the same veiled glance straight into Rostov’s eyes. Rostov felt awkward every time he did so, and lowered his eyes.

“ I have heard about some such affair, and I know that the emperor is very severe in such cases. I think it would be better not to bring it to the notice of his Majesty. In my opinion it would be best just to ask the commander of the corps — But, in general, I think — ”

” If you do not want to do anything, say so ! ” Rostov almost shouted, without looking at Boris.

Boris smiled.

” On the contrary, I will do what I can, only I thought — “

Just then Zylinski’s voice calling Boris was heard at the door.

“ Go, go ! ” said Rostov. He refused to go to the supper and, remaining all alone in the little room, he kept pacing it up and down and listening to the merry French conversation in the neighbouring room.

XX.

Rostov arrived in Tilsit on a day which was least favourable for presenting Denisov’s case. He could not go himself to the general of the day, because he was in his dress coat and had come to Tilsit without the permission of his superiors, and Boris could do nothing on the following day, even if he wanted to. On that day, the 27th of June, the first conditions of the peace were signed. The emperors exchanged decorations : Alexander received the decoration of the Legion of Honour, and Napoleon that of St. Andrew of the first degree, and for that day was set a banquet given by a battalion of the French Guard to a battalion of the Preobrazhénski regiment. The emperors were to be present at this banquet.

Rostov felt so ill at ease with Boris that, when Boris came to see him after supper, he pretended to be asleep ; on the following morning he left the house, without seeing him. Nikolay roved through the town in his dress coat and round hat, watching the Frenchmen and their uniforms, and looking at the houses occupied by the emperors. He saw in the square the tables set and the preparations that were being made for the dinner, and the decorations in the streets, with the Russian and French colours, and the large monograms of A. and N. In the windows of the houses were also flags and monograms.

“ Boris does not want to help me, and I do not wish to ask for his aid. So much is certain,” thought Nikolây. “ Everything is ended between us ; but I will not leave before having done all in my power for Denisov and, above all, before handing the letter to the emperor. To the emperor ? He is here ! ” thought Rostov, involuntarily again walking up to the house occupied by Alexander.

In front of the house stood his riding-horses, and the suite was coming together, apparently to ride out with the emperor.

“I may see him any moment,” thought Rostov. “If I only could hand him the letter in person and tell him all ! Should I be arrested for being in a dress coat ? Impossible! He would understand on whose side justice is. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be juster and more magnanimous than he? Even if I should be arrested for being here, what of it?” he thought, looking at an officer who entered the house occupied by the emperor. “Other people walk in, why not I ? So, nonsense ! I will go and hand the petition to the emperor : so much the worse for Drubetskdy, who has brought me to this.”

And with a determination which he had not expected of himself he walked toward the house occupied by the emperor.

” No, I will not miss the chance now, as I missed it after the battle of Austerlitz,” he thought, expecting any moment to meet the emperor and feeling his blood rushing up to his heart at this thought. “ I will fall down before his feet and will implore him. He will raise me up, will listen to me, and will even thank me. ‘ I am happy to be able to do good, but to correct an injustice is the greatest happiness,’ ” were the words which Rostov imagined the emperor would say. He went, past people who looked at him with curiosity, up the porch of the house occupied by the emperor.

From the porch a broad staircase led straight upstairs ; on the right a closed door was seen. Under the staircase there was a door to the lower story.

“ Whom do you want ? ” somebody asked.

” I want to hand a letter, a petition, to his Majesty,” Nikolay said, in a trembling voice.

“ A petition goes to the officer of the day, this way.” A door downstairs was pointed out to him. ” Only it will not be received.”

Upon hearing this indifferent voice, Rostdv became frightened at what he was doing. The thought that he might see the emperor any moment was so seductive and, therefore, so terrible to him that he was ready to run, but the harbinger whom he had met opened the door to the officer of the day, and Rostov entered.

A plump man of short stature, of about thirty years of age, wearing white pantaloons and jack-boots, was standing in the room. He had no coat on, and a valet was fastening a pair of beautiful, new, silk-embroidered suspenders over his batiste shirt ; Rostdv for some reason noticed these suspenders. That man was speaking with some one in the next room.

” Bien faite et la beauté du diable,” he said. Upon seeing Rostov, he stopped speaking and frowned.

” What do you want ? A petition ? — “

” Quest-ce que c’est ? ” somebody asked from the next room.

“ Encore un pétitionnaire,” replied the man in the suspenders.

” Tell him to come later. He will come out at once, and will ride out ! “

” Later, later, tomorrow. It is late — ”

Rostov turned around and was on the point of leaving, but the man in the suspenders asked him :

” From whom is it ? Who are you ? “

” From Major Denisov,” replied Rostdv.

” Who are you ? An officer ? “

” A lieutenant. Count Rostov.”

” What boldness ! Hand it to your superior officer ! Go, go ! ” And he began to put on the uniform brought to him by his valet.

Rostov again went out into the vestibule and saw that there were already on the porch a number of officers and generals in parade uniform, by whom he had to pass.

Cursing his boldness and trembling at the thought that he might meet the emperor at any moment and be arrested and disgraced in his presence, fully understanding the impropriety of his act, and repenting it, Rostov, lowering his eyes, got out of the house, which was surrounded by a brilliant suite, when somebody’s familiar voice called him and somebody’s hand stopped him.

” What are you, my dear, doing here in a dress coat ? ” a bass voice asked him.

It was the general of cavalry, the former chief of the division in which Rostov had served ; during this last campaign he had gained the emperor’s special favour.

Rostov was frightened and began to justify himself, but, upon noticing the good-natured and jocular face of the general, he stepped aside with him and in an agitated voice told him of the affair and asked him to intercede for Denisov, whom the general knew. The general, having listened to Rostov’s story, shook his head with a serious look.

” I am sorry, real sorry for the man. Let me have the letter ! “

Rostov had barely had time to give him the letter and tell him the whole affair of Denisov, when rapid steps with spurs were heard on the staircase, and the general walked away from him and moved up to the porch. The gentlemen of the emperor’s suite ran downstairs and rushed up to the horses. Groom Ennet, the same who had been at Austerlitz, brought up the emperor’s horse, and on the staircase was heard a soft creak of steps, which Rostov recognized at once. Forgetting his danger of being recognized, Rostdv moved up with several curious townspeople to the very porch, and, after two years, he again saw the same adorable features, the same face, the same glance, the same gait, the same union of grandeur and of meekness. And the feeling of transport and love for the emperor arose in its former strength in Rostov’s soul. The emperor, in the uniform of the Preobrazhénski regiment, in white chamois-leather pantaloons and tall jack-boots, with a decoration which was not familiar to Rostov (it was the decoration of the Legion of Honour), came out on the porch, holding his hat under his arm, and putting on his glove. He stopped, looking about him and illuminating everything with his glance. He said a few words to a few of the generals. He also recognized the former chief of the division to which Rostov had belonged, and he smiled at him, and called him up.

The whole suite stepped aside, and Rostov saw that the general was speaking quite awhile with the emperor.

The emperor said a few words to him and moved forward toward his horse. Again the group of the suite and the throng of the people in the street moved up toward the emperor. Stopping at his horse and taking hold of the saddle with one hand, the emperor turned to the general of cavalry and spoke in a loud voice, with the evident intention of being heard:

” I cannot, general. I cannot because the law is stronger than I,” said the emperor, putting his foot into the stirrup. The general respectfully bent his head, and the emperor seated himself in the saddle and rode down the street at a gallop. Rostov, beside himself with enthusiasm, ran with the crowd after him.

XXI.

In the square, toward which the emperor was riding, there stood, facing each other, on the right, a battalion of the Preobrazhénski regiment, on the left, a battalion of the French Guard in bearskin caps.

While the emperor was approaching one wing of the battalions, who presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the other wing, and in front of them Rostdv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else. He wore a small hat, the sash of St. Andrew over his shoulder, an open blue uniform over a white waistcoat, and was riding at a gallop on a spirited and thoroughbred Arabian gray steed, caparisoned with a crimson, gold-embroidered housing. Upon approaching Alexander, he raised his hat, and at this motion Rostov’s eye of a cavalryman did not fail to observe that Napoleon did not sit firmly in his saddle. The battalions shouted “ Hurrah ! ” and “ Vive Vempereur ! ” Napoleon said something to Alexander. Both emperors got down from their horses and took each other’s hands. On Napoleon’s face there was a disagreeable smile of dissimulation. Alexander was telling him something with a kind expression of his countenance.

Despite the pressure exerted by the horses of the French gendarmes, who were holding the crowds in check, Rostov watched the movements of Emperor Alexander and of Bonaparte without taking his eyes off them. He was exceedingly surprised to find Alexander treating Napoleon as an equal, and Napoleon turning quite freely to Alexander, as to an equal, as though the nearness to an emperor were a natural and habitual thing with him.

Alexander and Napoleon, with a long procession of their suites, walked over to the right -wing of the Preobrazhénski battalion, precisely where the throng of people was standing. The crowd suddenly found itself so close to the two emperors that Rostov, who was standing in the front row, was frightened lest he should be recognized.

” Sire, je vous demande la permission de donner la Légion d’honneur au plus brave de vos soldats,” spoke a sharp, clear voice, enunciating every letter. It was undersized Bonaparte who was saying it. He looked up straight into Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what he was saying, and, bending his head, smiled a pleasant smile.

“A celui qui s’est le plus vaïllament conduit dans cette dernière guerre,” added Napoleon, sharply accentuating every syllable, with provoking calm and selfconfidence surveying the ranks of the Russian soldiers who stood before him, still presenting arms and immovably looking into the eyes of their emperor.

” Votre Majesté me permettra-t-elle de demander l’avis du colonel ? ” said Alexander, hurriedly making several steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of the battalion. In the meantime Bonaparte was taking off the glove from his small white hand, but, tearing it, he threw it away. An adjutant rushed up from behind and picked it up.

” To whom shall it be given ? ” Emperor Alexander softly asked Kozldvski in Russian.

” To whom may it please you to give it, Majesty ? “

The emperor frowned instinctively and, looking around, said :

“ He must have an answer.”

Kozlovski looked at his ranks with a determined glance, and in this glance took in also Rostov.

“ Does he mean me ? ” thought Rostdv.

“ Làzarev ! ” the colonel commanded, with a frown, and the first soldier in order, Lazarev, briskly came forward.

“ Where are you going ? Stand here ! ” several voices whispered to Lazarev, who did not know where to go.

Lazarev stopped, looking frightened and sidewise at the colonel, and his face twitched, as happens with soldiers who are called out before the ranks.

Napoleon barely turned his head around and put back his plump little hand, as though wishing to take something. The men of his suite, who immediately guessed what the matter was, began to move around and to whisper, transmitting information from one to another, and the page, the one Rostdv had seen the night before at Boris’s, ran forward and, respectfully bending before the extended hand, placed into it the decoration with the red ribbon, not letting him wait a minute for it. Napoleon pressed two fingers together, without looking back. The decoration was between them. Napoleon walked over to Lazarev, who, rolling his eyes, kept looking stubbornly at his emperor; he turned back to look at Emperor Alexander to show him that that which he was doing now he was doing for his ally. The small white hand with the decoration touched the button of the soldier Ldzarev, as though Napoleon knew that, in order that this soldier might be for ever happy, rewarded, and distinguished above everybody else in the world, it was only necessary for Napoleon’s hand to touch his breast. Napoleon only touched Ldzarev’s breast with the cross and, dropping his hands, turned to Alexander, as though he knew that the cross ought to stick to Läzarev’s breast. The cross did stick to it.

Obliging Russian and French hands immediately seized the cross and attached it to his uniform. Ldzarev looked gloomily at the little man with the white hands, who had done something to him, and, continuing to present arms, again started to look straight into Alexander’s eyes, as though to ask him whether he should stand there, or walk away, or do something else. But nothing was said to him, and he continued standing quite awhile in that immovable attitude.

The emperors mounted upon their horses and rode away. The soldiers of the Preobrazhénski regiment, breaking ranks, mingled with the French Guardsmen and sat down at the tables prepared for them.

Lazarev sat in the place of honour ; both Russian and French officers embraced and congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and of the people came up to take a look at Lazarev. The din of the Russo-French conversation and laughter hovered about the tables in the square. Two officers with heated faces, merry and happy, walked past Rostov.

” It is a fine treat ! All on silver,” said one. ” Have you seen Läzarev ? “

« Yes.”

“ They say that the Preobrazhénski battalion will entertain them tomorrow.”

” What luck this Lazarev has ! Twelve hundred francs as a life pension.”

” I call this a cap, boys ! ” shouted a Preobrazhénski soldier, putting on the shaggy cap of a Frenchman.

” It is superb, just excellent ! ”

“Did you hear the parole?” said one officer of the Guard to another. “The other day it was Napoleon, France, bravoure; yesterday it was Alexandre, Russie, grandeur ; one day our emperor gives the parole, and the next it is Napoleon. Tomorrow the emperor will send the cross of St. George to the bravest of the French Guardsmen. He can’t do otherwise : he has to return the compliment.”

Boris, with his companion, Zylinski, also came to look at the banquet of the Preobrazhénski regiment. Upon returning, Boris noticed Rostov, who was standing at the corner of a house.

“ Rostov, how are you ? We have not seen each other again,” he said to him. He could not keep from asking him what the matter was with him, for Rostov’s face looked so strange and gloomy, and so distracted.

“ Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostov.

“ Will you call again ? ”

“ Yes, I will.”

Rostov stood for a long time at the corner, looking at the banqueting soldiers from a distance. A painful labour was taking place in his brain, and he was unable to end it. Terrible doubts began to rise in his soul. Now he thought of Denisov with his changed expression and his submissiveness, and the whole hospital with those torn arms and legs, and with its filth and its diseases. So vividly did it seem to him that he smelled the hospital odour of decaying flesh, that he looked around to see whence that odour proceeded. Then again he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte with his white hand, who now was an emperor, and whom Emperor Alexander loved and respected. What then, were those torn arms and legs, and those dead people for ? And again he thought of Läzarev rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself thinking such strange thoughts that he was frightened of them.

The savour of the food of the Preobrazhénski regiment and his hunger brought him out of that condition : he had to eat something before leaving. He went to a hotel which he had seen in the morning. In the hotel he found such a mass of people, of officers, who, like him, had arrived in civilian’s clothes, that he had great difficulty in getting a dinner. Two officers of the same division with him joined him. The conversation naturally turned on the peace. The officers, Rostov’s companions, like the greater part of the army, were dissatisfied with the peace which had been concluded after Friedland. They said that if they could have held out a little longer Napoleon would have been ruined, because his troops had no more hardtack, and no ammunition. Nikolay ate, but more particularly drank, in silence. The inner work, which was going on in him, still tormented him. He was afraid to abandon himself to his thoughts, and could not keep away from them. Suddenly, in response to the words of one of the officers that it was a shame to look at the French, Rostov began to shout in unjustifiable excitement, which very much surprised the officers :

“ How can you judge what would be better ? ” he cried, while his face was suffused with blood. ” How can you judge of the emperor’s actions ? What right have we to censure him ? We cannot understand the aim or the acts of the emperor.”

” But I have not said a word about the emperor,” the officer tried to justify himself, being unable to explain Rostov’s rage, except that he was drunk.

But Rostdv did not listen to him.

“ We are not diplomatic officials, but soldiers, and nothing else,” he continued. ” If we are told to die, let us die ! If we are punished, it means that we are guilty ; it is not for us to pass judgment. If it pleases the Tsar, our emperor, to recognize Bonaparte as an emperor and to conclude a peace with him, it is right that he should. If we were going to pass judgment on everything, there would be nothing sacred. In the same way we may proceed to say that there is no God, nothing,” Nikolay shouted, striking the table with his fist, which, to the understanding of his interlocutors, was irrelevant, but which, according to the march of his ideas, was quite proper.

“ It is our business to do our duty, to fight, and not to think, — that is all,” he concluded.

” And to drink,” said one of the officers, who did not wish to have an altercation.

“ Yes, and to drink,” Nikolay called out. ” Oh, there ! Another bottle ! ” he shouted.

PART THE SIXTH

I.

In the year 1808 Emperor Alexander journeyed to Erfurt for a new meeting with Emperor Napoleon, and in the higher society of St. Petersburg much was said about the grandeur of that solemn meeting.

In 1809 the close friendship of the two lords of the world, as Napoleon and Alexander were called, reached such a point that, when, in that year, Napoleon declared war against Austria, a Russian corps crossed the border in order to cooperate with Alexander’s former enemy, Bonaparte, against his former ally, the Emperor of Austria; and that in the higher spheres the marriage between Napoleon and one of the sisters of Emperor Alexander was spoken of as a possibility. But, in addition to the external political combinations, the attention of Russian society was at that time turned with peculiar vividness to the internal reforms which were being produced in all the parts of the administration.

In the meantime the actual lives of men, with their material interests of health, disease, work, rest, with their interests of ideas, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, passions, went on, as always, independently and outside of the political friendship or enmity toward Napoleon Bonaparte, and outside of all possible reforms.

Prince Andréy for two years did not leave the country. All the undertakings on his estates, which Pierre

had been considering without accomplishing anything, eternally passing from one thing to another, all these undertakings had been accomplished by Andréy, without telling anybody about it and without any apparent labour.

He possessed in the highest degree that practical persistency, which Pierre was lacking, and which gave motion to his work, without any effort or violence.

One of his estates of three hundred souls of peasants was registered as consisting of free agriculturists (that was one of the first cases in Russia) ; in others the corvee was changed into tenant pay. In Bogucharovo a trained midwife was installed by him to aid in childbirths, and the priest for a salary taught the rudiments to the children of the peasants and of the manorial servants.

Half of his time Prince Andréy passed at Lÿsyya Gory with his father and his son, who was still in the hands of the nurses; the other half he lived in his Bogucharovo hermitage, as his father called his village. In spite of the indifference to all external occurrences in the world, such as he had evinced in the presence of Pierre, he zealously kept in touch with them and received many books, and he noticed, to his surprise, that when people came to see his father or him from St. Petersburg, from the very whirlpool of life, these people were, in the knowledge of external and internal politics, far behind himself, who never left the country.

In addition to his occupations on the estates and the general reading of the greatest variety of books, Prince Andréy busied himself at that time with critical considerations on the conduct of our unfortunate last two campaigns and with the composition of a project for the reform of our military statutes and regulations.

In the spring of the year 1809, Prince Andréy went to the Ryazan estates of his son, whose guardian he was.

Warmed by the vernal sun, he was sitting in his carriage, looking at the first grass, the first leaves of the birches, and the first puffs of the white clouds scudding over the bright azure of the sky. He was not thinking of anything, but looking cheerfully and thoughtlessly on both his sides.

They crossed the ferry on which he had had a conversation with Pierre the year before. They passed a dirty village, threshing-floors, gardens, an incline with the snow still lodging near the bridge, a rutted clay slope, strips of fields and of green bushes here and there, and entered a birch forest on both sides of the road. In the forest it was almost warm ; no breeze was stirring. The birches, all besprinkled with green, viscid leaves, did not stir, and beneath last year’s leaves, raising them, sprouted the first green grass and lilac flowers. The small pines which were scattered here and there through the birches by their coarse perennial verdure disagreeably reminded one of winter. The horses snorted as they entered the forest and began to sweat more heavily.

Lackey Peter said something to the coachman, and the coachman made an affirmative answer. But apparently Peter was not satisfied with the coachman’s sympathy; he turned back on his box.

“Your Serenity, it is so light!” he said to his master, with a respectful smile.

« What ? “

” It is light, your Serenity ! “

” What is he talking about ? ” thought Prince Andréy. ” Yes, no doubt about spring,” he thought, looking about on both sides of him. ” Everything is green now — how early ! The birches, the bird cherries, and the elders are green. But the oaks do not show yet. Here is an oak.”

At the edge of the road stood an oak. It was, no doubt, ten times as old as any birch composing the forest, and it was ten times as thick and twice as tall as any birch. It was an immense oak, which two men could scarcely encompass ; its boughs had apparently been broken off long ago, and its torn bark was overgrown with old knots. With its immense, unsymmetrical, towering, gnarled arms and fingers, it stood, an old, cross, disdainful monster, among the smiling birches. Only the dead and eternally green small pine-trees, which were scattered through the wood, together with the oak, did not want to submit to the charms of spring, and wished to see neither spring, nor sun.

“ Spring, and love, and happiness ! ” this oak seemed to say. “How is it you do not get tired of this eternal, stupid, senseless deception. Always the same, and always a deception ! There is no spring, no sun, no happiness. See, there they sit, the crushed, dead pines, eternally the same; and I, too, stand sprawling with my broken and tom fingers, wherever they may grow, — whether from my back, or from my sides ; as they have grown, so I stand, and I do not believe in your hopes and your deceptions.”

Prince Andréy several times looked back at that oak, as he passed through the forest, as though he were expecting something from it. There were flowers and grass under the oak, but the oak continued to stand frowning, immovable, monstrous, and stubborn among them.

“ Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,” thought Prince Andréy. ” Let others, younger ones, submit to that deception, but we know fife, — our life is ended ! ” A whole new series of thoughts, hopeless, but sad and agreeable, rose in Prince Andréy’s soul in connection with that oak. During this journey he seemed to reflect on his whole past life, and came to the same soothing, though hopeless, conclusion as before, that there was nothing new for him to undertake, and that he ought to live his days out, doing no evil, not troubling himself about anything, and wishing nothing.

II.

Prince Andréy had to see the county marshal of nobility, in matters relating to his guardianship of the Ryazan estate. The marshal was Count Ilya Andréevich Rostdv, and in the middle of May Prince Andréy went to see him.

It was already the warm period of spring. The forest was all clad in verdure ; the roads were dusty, and it was so hot that, driving past the water, he felt like taking a swim.

Prince Andréy, in no happy frame of mind and busy reflecting on the questions which he would have to put to the marshal, was approaching, over a garden avenue, the mansion of the Posté vs at Otrddnoe. On the right, he heard a merry noise of female voices and saw a bevy of girls running across his road. In front of all, nearest to the carriage, ran a black-haired, very slender, strangely slender, black-eyed girl in a yellow chintz dress, her head tied with a white handkerchief, beneath which peeped out strands of loose hair. The girl was shouting something, but, upon seeing a stranger, she ran back laughing, without looking at him.

Prince Andréy suddenly felt pained. The day was so beautiful, the sun so bright, everything around him so merry ; and this slender, pretty child did not know and did not wish to know of his existence, and was satisfied and happy with her separate, no doubt foolish, but happy and jolly life.

“ What is she so happy about ? What is she thinking about ? Certainly not of the military code, nor of the arrangement of the tenant pay in the Ryazan estates. What is she thinking about? And what makes her so happy ? ” Prince Andréy instinctively asked himself with curiosity.

Prince Ilyâ Andréevich was living in the year 1809 at Otradnoe just as in former years, that is, receiving almost the whole Government as his guests, with hunts, theatres, dinners, and musicians. He was glad to see Prince Andréy, as he would have been to see any new guest, and made him stay overnight almost by force.

In the course of a tiresome day, during which he was entertained by the elder hosts and by the more honoured of the guests, with whom the house of the old count was full on account of an approaching nameday, Bolkonski, watching Natasha, who kept laughing and making merry among the younger part of the company, asked himself : ” What is she thinking about ? What is she happy about ? ”

In the night, being all alone in a new place, he could not fall asleep for a long time. He read, then put out the candle, and again lighted it. The room, with its inside shutters, was warm. He was angry at that foolish old man (so he called Rostov), who detained him by saying that the necessary documents had not yet been forwarded from the city, and he was angry at himself for having stayed.

Prince Andréy rose and went up to the window in order to open it. The moment he opened the shutters, the moonlight, as though it had long been keeping watch at the window, burst into the room. He opened the window. It was a fresh, motionless, bright night. Underneath the window was a row of clipped trees black on one side, and silvery in the moonshine on the other. Under the trees there was a lush, wet, curly verdure, with here and there silvery blades and stems. Farther away, beyond the black trees, there was a roof sparkling with dew ; to the right stood a curly tree, with bright trunk and branches, and above it was the almost full moon in the clear, almost starless, vernal sky. Prince Andréy leaned on the window, and his eyes rested on that sky.

The room of Prince Andréy was in the middle story. The rooms above him were also occupied ; their inmates were not asleep. He heard feminine voices above him.

” Only once more,” said a woman’s voice, which Prince Andréy recognized at once.

“ But when will you sleep ? ” replied another voice.

” I will not, I cannot, — what shall I do ? Now, for the last time — “

Two feminine voices sang a musical phrase, which was the end of something.

” Oh, how excellent ! Now let us sleep, and let there be an end of it ! “

« You go to sleep, but I cannot,” answered the first voice, coming nearer to the window. She apparently was leaning over the sill, because the rustling of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was calm and as though petrified, even the moon and its light and shadows. Prince Andréy himself was afraid to move, for fear of betraying his involuntary presence.

“ Sonya, Sénya ! ” again was heard the first voice. ” How can you sleep ! See how charming it is ! Oh, how beautiful ! Get up, Sonya,” she said, almost with tears in her voice. “ There has never before been such an exquisite night.”

Sonya reluctantly made some reply.

” No, you must see for yourself what a moon it is ! Oh, how exquisite! Come here! My dear, darling, come here ! Well, do you see ? I just feel like sitting down on tiptoe, like this, and putting my hands below my knees, — tighter, tighter, as tight as possible, and like pressing hard and flying away. Like this ! “

“ Look out, you will fall down ! “

A struggle was heard and Sonya’s dissatisfied voice : “ It is two o’clock ! “

“ Oh, you only spoil everything for me. Go, go ! “

Again everything was quiet, but Prince Andréy knew that she was still sitting there : he now and then heard her move, and sometimes sigh.

” 0 Lord, Lord ! What is this ? ” she suddenly exclaimed. ” It is time to go to sleep î ” and she slammed the window.

” No care has she for my existence ! ” thought Prince Andréy, while listening to her conversation, for some reason fearing and expecting her to say something about him. ” Again she ! As though on purpose ! ” he thought. In his soul there suddenly rose such an unexpected tangle of youthful thoughts and hopes, which contradicted all his life, that he, feeling himself incapable of explaining his condition, immediately fell asleep.

III.

On the following day Prince Andréy bade the count goodbye, without waiting for the ladies to make their appearance, and departed.

It was now the beginning of June when Prince Andréy, returning home, again drove through the birch grove, in which the old, gnarled oak had made such a strange and memorable impression upon him. The bells sounded more mu filed than six weeks before, for the foliage in the forest was full grown, shady and dense, and the young pine-trees, scattered through the woods, did not impair the universal beauty, but, harmonizing with the general character, sent forth their tender, green, and puffy shoots.

It had been hot the whole day ; a storm was gathering somewhere, but only a small cloud sprinkled down on the dust of the road and on the lush foliage. The left side of the forest was dark, being in the shade; the right side was wet and glistened in the sun, barely swaying in the wind. Everything was in bloom ; the nightingales trilled and rolled their songs, now near, and now far.

” Yes, here, in this forest, was that oak, with which we were in accord,” thought Prince Andréy. ” Where is it ? ” again thought Prince Andréy, looking at the left side of the road, and, without knowing it, nor recognizing the tree, enjoying the sight of the tree which he was looking for. The old oak, all transformed, spreading like a tent its lush, dark foliage, gleamed, lightly swaying, in the rays of the evening sun. Neither the gnarled fingers, nor the scars, nor the old misgivings and sorrow, — nothing

was to be seen. Through the rough century bark young, lush leaves, without steins, sprouted, so that it was hard to believe that the old fellow had brought them forth.

” Yes, it is the same oak,” thought Prince Andréy, and he was suddenly overcome by a causeless, vernal feeling of joy and renovation. All the best moments of his life suddenly burst upon him at the same moment. Austerlitz with the high heaven, and the dead, reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre on the ferry-boat, and the girl who was agitated by the beauty of the night, and the night itself, and the moon, and — all that suddenly occurred to him.

“No, life is not ended at thirty-one years,” Prince Andréy suddenly decided definitely, and without appeal. ” It is not enough for me to know what is within me, others must know it too : Pierre, and the girl who wanted to fly to heaven, all must know, that my life may not flow for myself alone, that they may not live so independently of my life, that it be reflected on all, and that they may all live with me ! “

Upon returning from his journey, Prince Andréy decided to go in the fall to St. Petersburg, and was trying to find all kinds of excuses for such a determination. A whole series of clever, logical arguments, why he ought to go to St. Petersburg and why he should even serve, were each moment at his service. He could not understand how he could ever have doubted the necessity of taking an active part in life, just as a month before he could not have believed that the idea of leaving the country would ever occur to him. It seemed clear to him that all his experience of life would be vain and meaningless, if he did not apply it to affairs and did not take an active interest in life. He could not comprehend how before, on the basis of just such poor, clever arguments, it had appeared clear that he would lower himself if now, after his lessons of life, he should again believe in the possibility of being useful, and in the possibility of happiness and love. Now reason dictated something quite different to him. Andréy began to feel dull in the country ; his former occupations did not interest him, and frequently, while sitting all alone in his cabinet, he got up, walked over to the mirror, and for a long time looked at his face. Then he turned aside and looked at the portrait of Liza, who, with her locks gathered à la grecque, looked tenderly and merrily at him out of her gold frame. She no longer told her husband those terrible words ; she looked simply and merrily at him. And Prince Andréy, putting his hands behind his back, for a long time walked in the room, now frowning, now smiling, thinking those senseless, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a crime, which were connected with Pierre, with glory, with the girl at the window, with the oak, with feminine beauty and love, which had changed his whole life. If, at such moments, somebody entered the room, he was especially dry, severely determined, and, more particularly, disagreeably logical

” Mon cher,” Princess Marya would tell him, when coming upon him at such a moment, ” Nikolay cannot go out to-day : it is too cold.”

“ If it were warm,” Prince Andréy would answer her dryly at such a moment, “ he would have on nothing but his shirt, but, as it is cold, you must put on his warm wraps, which have been invented for just such occasions. It is this that follows from the fact that it is cold, and not that the child should stay in when it needs fresh air,” he would say, with extraordinary logicalness, as though to punish somebody for all that secret, illogical mental work which was going on within him. Princess Marya at such moments thought how mental work only dried up the hearts of men.

IV.

Prince Andrey arrived in St. Petersburg in the month of August of the year 1809. It was the apogee of the glory of young Speränski and of the energy of the reforms introduced by him. In that same month the emperor, having been thrown out of a carriage, had hurt his leg, and so remained three weeks in Peterhof, having daily and exclusive meetings with Sperànski. At that time there were prepared not only the two famous ukases, which so frightened society, about the abolition of the court ranks, and about the examinations for the ranks of college assessor and Councillor of State, but also the whole constitution of the realm, which was to have changed the whole existing judicial, administrative, and financial order of the Russian government, from the Council of State down to the township organization. Now were being realized and materialized those indistinct, liberal dreams, with which Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had attempted to realize with the aid of his coadjutors, Czartorÿzski, Novosiltsov, Kochubéy, and Strogandv, whom he jestingly called the comité de salut publique.

Now Speranski took their place in the civil administration, and Arakchéev in military matters. Prince Audrey, soon after his arrival, appeared at court, being a gentleman of the chamber, and was present at the appearance of the emperor. The emperor, meeting him twice, did not bestow a single word on him. Prince Andréy had thought even before that he was not agreeable to the emperor, that his face and his whole being displeased 228 him. In the dry, distant glance, with which the emperor looked at him, Prince Andréy, more than before, found a confirmation of his suspicion. The courtiers explained to Prince Andréy that the emperor’s inattention to him was due to the fact that his Majesty was dissatisfied because Bolkonski had not served since the year 1805.

“ I know myself that we are powerless in our sympathies and antipathies,” thought Prince Andréy, ” and so it would be useless for me to think of presenting to the emperor in person my note in regard to the military code» and the affair must speak for itself.”

He mentioned his note to the old fieldmarshal, the friend of his father. The fieldmarshal appointed an hour, received him kindly, and promised that he would report to the emperor. A few days later Prince Andréy was informed that he was to appear before the minister of war, Count Arakchéev.

At nine o’clock of the appointed day, Prince Andréy appeared in the reception-room of Count Arakchéev.

Prince Andréy did not know Arakchéev in person, and had never seen him, but everything he knew of him inspired him with little respect for that man.

” He is the minister of war, a trusty servant of the emperor ; nobody has anything to do with his personal characteristics ; he has been commanded to examine my note, consequently he alone can give it currency,” thought Prince Andréy, waiting among many important and unimportant persons, in the waiting-room of Count Arakchéev.

Prince Andréy, during his service, which had nearly always been that of an adjutant, had seen a large number of persons waiting for an audience, and the characters of such persons were quite clear to him. The persons who were waiting in Arakchéev’s waiting-room had an entirely different character. On the faces of the less important

persons waiting for their turn, there was written the feeling of bash fulness and submission ; on the more distinguished faces there was a common expression of awkwardness, concealed under an apparent ease and banter at themselves and their condition, and at the expense of the minister. Some walked thoughtfully up and down ; others whispered and laughed, and Prince Andréy heard them use the nickname of Sila Andréich, and the words, ” We’ll catch it from the uncle,” which referred to Count Arakchéev. One general, an important person, apparently offended because he had to wait so long, was sitting down with legs crossed and smiling contemptuously at himself.

But the moment the door was opened, nothing but terror was expressed in the faces of all. Prince Andréy asked the officer of the day to give his name a second time, but he was ridiculed, and the officer told him that his turn would come in proper time. After a few persons had been led in and brought out again by the adjutant from the cabinet of the minister, an officer, who had startled Prince Andréy by his humble and frightened look, was let in through the terrible door. The officer’s audience lasted for a long time. Suddenly the peals of a disagreeable voice were heard beyond the door, and the pale officer, with trembling lips, came out and passed through the waiting-room, clasping his head.

After him, Prince Andréy was taken to the door, and the officer of the day said to him, in a whisper : ” To the right, at the window.”

Prince Andréy entered a clean, unpretentious cabinet, and at the table saw a man of forty years of age, with a long body, a wrinkled, long, closely cropped head, with scowling brows over brownish green, dull eyes, and a pendent, red nose. Arakchéev turned his head toward him, without looking at him.

“ What do you ask for ? ” asked Arakchéev.

” I ask for nothing, your Serenity,” Prince Andréy said, softly.

Arakchéev’s eyes were turned upon him.

” Sit down ! ” said Arakchéev. “ Prince Bolkdnski ? “

” I ask for nothing, but the emperor has deigned to send my note to your Serenity — ”

” Permit me to tell you, my dear, that I have read your note,” Arakchéev interrupted him, uttering kindly only the first few words, without looking at Prince Andréy, and falling more and more into a grumbling and disdainful tone. “You propose new military laws ? There are many laws, and there is no one to carry out the old ones. Everybody is writing laws nowadays, — it is easier to write than to do.”

” I have come at the request of the emperor to find out from your Serenity what course you will give to the note ? ” Prince Andréy said, civilly.

” I have put a resolution on your note and have sent it to the committee. I do not approve,” said Arakchéev, rising and getting a paper down from the table. ” Here it is ! ” He handed it to Prince Andréy.

Across the paper there was written, without capitals, without orthography, without punctuation marks : ” Improperly composed because of an imitation copied from the french military code and unnecessarily departing from the military statutes.”

” To what committee has the note been given ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

“To the committee on the military code, and I have proposed your Honour as a member, — only without salary.”

Prince Andréy smiled.

“ I do not wish it.”

“ A member without salary,” repeated Arakchéev. “ I have the honour ! Oh, there, call them in ! Who is it now ? ” he shouted, bowing to Prince Andréy.

V.

While waiting for the official announcement of his having been put on the committee, Prince Andréy renewed his old acquaintance, especially with those persons who, he knew, were powerful and might be useful to him. He experienced in St. Petersburg a feeling which was akin to what he had felt on the eve of the battle, when he was assailed by restless curiosity and was insuperably drawn to the higher spheres, where the future was prepared on which the fate of millions depended. He felt, from the irritation of the old men, the curiosity of the uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the haste and agitation of all, the endless number of committees and commissions, of the existence of which he learned something new every day, that now, in 1809, they were getting ready here in St. Petersburg to give an enormous civil battle, of which the commanderin-chief was an unfamiliar, mysterious, and apparently brilliant man, Speranski. And the question of the reform, which be understood but dimly, and Sperdnski, the chief factor in it, began so to absorb all his attention that his preoccupation with the military code soon began to take a secondary place in his consciousness.

Prince Andréy was most fortunately circumstanced in order to be well received by all the higher circles of the St. Petersburg society of his day. The party of the reformers received him with open arms, in the first place, because he had a reputation for cleverness and was thought to be a well-read man, and, in the second, because by the emancipation of his serfs he passed for a liberal The party of the dissatisfied old men turned to him for sympathy in their condemnation of the reforms, expecting him to share the views of his father. The society of women received him with open arms, because he was a rich and distinguished match, and almost a new person with the aureole of a romantic history concerning his supposed death and the tragic end of his wife. Besides, the general opinion of all those who had known him before was to the effect that he had changed much for the better in the last five years, having become softer in manners and more manly, that there was no longer in him the former simulation, haughtiness, and sarcasm, but that calm which is acquired with age. All spoke of him, all were interested in him and wanted to see him.

On the evening of the day after his visit to Count Arakchéev, Prince Andréy was at the house of Count Kochubéy. He told Count Kochubéy about his meeting with ” Sila Andréich ” (Kochubéy spoke of Arakchéev that way, with the same indefinite smile which Prince Andréy had seen in the waiting-room of the minister of war).

“Mon citer, even in this you will not escape Mikhail Mikhaylovich. C’est Ic grand faiseur. I will tell him about it. He promised to be here this evening — “

” But what has Speranski to do with military statutes ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

Kochubéy smiled and shook his head, as though marvelling at Bolkénski’s naïveté.

” I spoke with him about you the other day,” continued Kochubéy. ” We spoke of your free agriculturists — “

” So it is you, prince, who have freed your peasants ? ” said an old man of the times of Catherine, turning contemptuously toward Bolkdnski.

” It was a small estate which brought me no income,” replied Bolkdnski, trying to minimize his act in order not to irritate the old man in vain.

“ Vous craignez d’etre en retard,” said the old man, looking at Kochubéy.

“There is one thing I cannot understand,” continued the old man : ” Who will plough the land if they are to be made free ? It is easy to write laws, but hard to govern. Just as in the present case, count, I should like to ask you who will be a chief of a chancery if all have to pass examinations ? “

“ Those who will pass their examinations, I suppose,” replied Kochubéy, crossing his legs and looking around.

“ Now here is Pryamchnikov, an official of mine, a fine man, a treasure of a man, — he is sixty years old, so he is to pass an examination ? “

” Yes, that is troublesome because of education not being disseminated, but — ” Count Kochubéy did not finish his sentence ; he rose, took Prince Andréy’s hand, and went with him to meet a tall, bald-headed, blond man of about forty years of age, with a large, open brow, and an unusual strange whiteness on his long face. The newcomer wore a blue dress coat, a cross on his neck, and a star on his left breast. This was Speränski. Prince Andréy immediately recognized him, and he had a twinge in his heart, as in decisive moments of life : he did not know whether it was respect, envy or expectancy. The whole figure of Speränski had a special type by which he could be recognized. In the society in which Prince Andréy moved, he had never seen such a calm and such self-possession united with awkward and sluggish movements, such a firm, and yet soft, glance of the halfclosed and moist eyes, such firmness in a meaningless smile, such a fine, even, soft voice, and, above all, such a tender whiteness as that of his face and especially of his somewhat broad, but exceedingly plump, gentle, white hands. Such a whiteness and softness of face Prince Andréy had seen only in the case of soldiers who had passed a long time in a hospital. This was Speränski, secretary of state, the emperor’s secretary and his companion at Erfurt, where he frequently met Napoleon and conversed with him.

Prince Andréy attentively watched Sperdnski’s every word and movement. As is frequently the case with people, especially with those who severely judge their neighbours, Prince Andréy, upon meeting a new person, especially such as Speränski was, whom he knew by reputation, always wanted to find in him all human perfections.

Speränski said to Kochubéy that he was sorry not to have been able to come earlier, as he had been detained at court. He did not say that he had been detained by the emperor. Prince Andréy noticed this affectation of modesty. When Kochubéy gave him the name of Prince Andréy, Speränski slowly transferred his eyes to Bolkonski, keeping the same smile, and looking at him in silence.

” I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I have heard of you, as everybody has,” he said.

Kochubéy said a few words about the reception given Bolkénski by Arakchéev. Speränski smiled a little more.

” The director of the commission of the military code is a good friend of mine, Magnitski,” he said, clearly enunciating every word, “ and if you wish it, I will make you acquainted with him.” He stopped on the period. ” I hope that you will have his sympathy, and that you will find him ready to cooperate with anything sensible.”

Immediately a circle was formed about Speränski, and the old man who had mentioned his official, Pryamchnikov, turned with a question to Speränski.

Prince Andréy did not take part in the conversation, but kept watching every motion of Speränski, that man that but a short time ago had been an insignificant seminarist, and that now held in his hands — those plump, white hands — the fate of Russia. Prince Andréy was surprised to see that unusual, disdainful calm with which Speränski replied to the old man. He seemed to be addressing his condescending words from an immeasurable

height. When the old man began to speak too loudly, Speränski smiled and said that he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of that which pleased the emperor.

After having spoken awhile in the general circle, Speranski rose, and, walking over to Prince Andréy, called him aside to the other end of the room. It was evident that he considered it necessary to occupy himself with Bolkonski.

” I have not had a chance of speaking with you, count, during that animated conversation, into which I was drawn by that estimable old gentleman,” he said, smiling a meek, contemptuous smile, as though to suggest thrlt Prince Andréy and he fully comprehended the insignificance of those men with whom he had just been speaking. This address flattered Prince Andréy. ” I have known you for a long time : in the first place, on account of your affair with the peasants, it being the first example of the kind, which it would be so desirable to see imitated by others ; and, in the second, because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new ukase concerning the court ranks, which have called forth so much discussion and censure.”

” Yes,” said Prince Andrey, “my father did not want me to take advantage of that right : I began serving from the lower ranks.”

” Your father, a man of the past generation, apparently stands higher than his contemporaries, who condemn this measure which only reestablishes natural justice.”

” However, I think there is some ground for this censure,” said Prince Andréy, trying to struggle against Sperdnski’s influence, which he was beginning to feel. It was not pleasant for him to agree in everything with him : he wanted to contradict. Prince Andréy, who generally spoke easily and well, was now embarrassed for words, when speaking with Speranski. He was too much occupied with observing the personality of the famous man.

“ The ground is probably that of personal vanity,” Speranski calmly interposed.

” Partly also for reasons of state,” said Prince Andréy.

” What do you mean by that ? ” said Sperdnski, softly lowering his eyes.

” I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” said Prince Andréy. ” His idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur, me parait incontestable. Certains droits et privilèges de la noblesse me paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment.”

The smile disappeared on Speranski’s white face, and his physiognomy was the gainer by it. Apparently Prince Bolkdnski’s idea seemed interesting to him.

” Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,” he began, speaking French with evident hesitation, and enunciating the words more slowly than in Kussian, but still calmly. He said that honour, l’honneur, could not be supported by privileges that were injurious to the service, that honour, l’honneur, was either a negative conception of the non-commission of prejudicial acts, or a well-known source of emulation for the gaining of approval and of rewards, in which this emulation found its expression.

His arguments were compressed, simple, and clear.

” The institution which supports this honour, the source of emulation, is an institution resembling the Legion d’honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, which is not harmful to the success of the service, but cooperates with it, and not class or court privileges.”

“ I do not gainsay ; but it cannot be denied that the court privileges have reached the same ends,” said Prince Andréy : ” every courtier regards it as his duty worthily to bear his’position.”

” But you did not wish to make use of it, prince,” said Speranski, showing by his smile that he wished with a

pleasantry to terminate tbe discussion which was awkward for his interlocutor. “If you will do me the honour of calling at my house on Wednesday,” he added, ” I, having had a conversation with Magnitski, will inform you of that which may interest you, and, besides, I will have the pleasure of conversing more freely with you.”

He shut his eyes, bowed, and à la française, without bidding farewell and trying to be unnoticed, left the parlour.

VI.

During the first of his stay in St. Petersburg, Prince Andréy felt that the whole composition of his thoughts, which had been worked out in his solitary life, was completely overshadowed by the petty cares which took hold of him in St. Petersburg.

Upon returning home of an evening, he wrote down in a memorandum four or five necessary visits or rendezvous for appointed hours. The mechanism of life, the division of the day in such a way as to get everywhere in time, took away the greater part of the energy of life. He did nothing, and did not even think of anything, or get time for thinking, but only spoke, and he spoke successfully, that which he had had leisure to reflect upon in the country.

He sometimes noticed with displeasure that he frequently had occasion, on one and the same day, to repeat the same thing in various societies. But he was so busy for days at a time that it did not occur to him that he was not thinking of anything in particular.

Sperânski had made a strong impression on Prince Andréy, both at his first meeting with him at the house of Kochubéy, and also later, at his own house, on Wednesday, where Speranski had received him privately and had had a long talk with him.

Prince Andréy regarded such an enormous number of men as despicable and useless beings, he was so anxious to find in another that living ideal of perfection toward which he was tending, that it was quite natural for him

to believe that in Speranski he had found this ideal of an absolutely sensible and virtuous man. If Sperdnski had belonged to the same class of society from which Prince Andréy himself had sprung, with the same general education and moral habits, he would soon have discovered his weak, human, unheroic sides, but now Sperdnski’s peculiar, logical trend of mind inspired him with greater respect, the less he understood him. Besides, Sperdnski, either because he esteemed the ability of Prince Andréy, or because he found it necessary to gain him over, coquetted before him with his unbiassed, calm intellect, and flattered him with that refined flattery, in connection with a display of selfconfidence, which consists in the tacit recognition of Iris interlocutor as the only man, outside of himself, capable of understanding the stupidity of everybody else and the cleverness and depth of his own thoughts.

During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski frequently said : ” We look at everything which rises above the general level of deep-rooted habit — ” or, with a smile: “But we want the wolves to be satisfied and the sheep unharmed — ” or: “They cannot understand it — ” with an expression which said: “We, you and I, understand who they and who we are.”

This first, long conversation with Speranski only intensified Andréy’s feeling which he had had at his first meeting with Speranski. He saw in him a clever, severely logical man with an enormous intellect, who by energy and persistency had obtained the power which he was using for the benefit of Russia. Speranski was, to Prince Andréy’s thinking, a man who explained sensibly all the phenomena of life, who regarded as important only that which was sensible, and who knew how to apply to everything that measure of reasonableness which he wished himself to attain to. Everything appeared so simple, so clear, in Speranski’s exposition that Prince Andréy involuntarily agreed with him in everything. If he retorted or disputed, he did so because he purposely wanted to be independent and did not wish unconditionally to submit to Sperdnski. Everything was good and well, but there was one thing which troubled Prince Andréy, and that was Speranski’s cold, mirrorlike glance, which did not permit one to penetrate into his soul, and bis tender, white hand, at which Prince Andréy instinctively looked, as one looks at the hands of one who has power. The mirrorlike glance and the tender hand for some reason irritated Prince Andréy. Another thing which affected Prince Andréy disagreeably was the unusual contempt for people, which he had observed in Speranski, and the wealth of methods in the arguments which he adduced in confirmation of his opinions. He employed all the possible weapons of thought but comparison, and, as it seemed to Prince Andréy, he passed too boldly from one to another. Now he placed himself in the arena of the practical reformer, from which he censured the dreamers, and now he assumed the attitude of a satirist, and ironically ridiculed his adversaries ; now he became severely logical, and now again he rose into the spheres of metaphysics. (This latter weapon of argumentation he employed most frequently.) He transferred the question to metaphysical heights, passed to the definition of space, time, and thought, and, carrying away from there refutations, again descended to the level of the question under discussion.

In general, the chief characteristic of Speranski’s mind, which had struck Prince Andréy, was an unquestioned, imperturbable faith in the power and legality of mind. Apparently, Speranski could never be assailed by the thought, so natural to Prince Andréy, that it was impossible to express every thought, and he could never be assailed by doubt that all he thought and believed might be nonsense. It was this peculiar trend of Sperdnski’s mind which more than anything else made him attractive to Prince Andréy.

During the first of his acquaintance with Speranski, Prince Andréy experienced for him an impassioned feeling of transport, similar to that which he had once experienced for Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a priest, whom foolish people could despise as a seminarist, as many actually did, caused Prince Andréy to be especially cautious with his feeling for Speranski, and unconsciously only intensified it in him.

On that first evening passed in his house, while speaking of the commission to formulate laws, Speranski ironically told Prince Andréy that a commission of laws had existed for 150 years, that it had cost millions, without accomplishing any tiring, and that Rosenkampf had pasted labels on all the articles of comparative legislation.

« This is all for which the government has paid millions ! ” he said.

“ We wish to give a new judicial power to the Senate, and we have no laws. For that reason it is a shame that such people as you, prince, should not be serving.”

Prince Andréy said that for that one ought to have a legal education, which he did not have.

” But nobody has it, so what of it ? It is a circulus viciosus from which we must issue by force.”

A week later, Prince Andréy was a member of the commission for the formation of a military code, and, what he had never expected, the cliief of the department of the commission for drawing up the laws. At Speranski’s request, he took the first part of the civil code under discussion and, with the aid of the Napoleonic code and of Justinian, he worked on the part entitled ” The Rights of Individuals.”

VII.

Two years before, in 1808, Pierre, upon returning to St. Petersburg, after his journey to his estates, involuntarily had come to stand at the head of the St. Petersburg Freemasonry. He founded table and grave lodges, solicited new members, and worked for the union of di lièrent lodges and for the acquisition of original charters. He gave his money for the building of temples, and, so far as he could, made up the deficiencies of the alms, to which the majority of the members contributed parsimoniously and irregularly. He supported, almost at his own expense, an asylum for the poor, which the order had founded in St. Petersburg.

In the meantime his life went on as of old, with the same distractions and the same looseness of manners. He was fond of eating and drinking well, and, although he regarded it as immoral and degrading, was unable to keep away from the entertainments of bachelors, which he attended freely.

In the whirl of his occupations and distractions, Pierre, nevertheless, began to feel, at the end of a year, that the soil of Freemasonry, on which he was standing, was slipping away from him, as he tried to stand more firmly upon it. At the same time he felt that the deeper the soil was sinking underneath his feet, the more he was united with it, almost against his will. When he had joined the Masons, he had experienced the sensation of a man who trustingly places his foot on the surface of a bog. Putting his foot upon it, he goes down. In order to convince himself of the firmness of the soil on which he is standing,

he puts down the other foot, and sinks lower still, and against his will walks knee-deep through the bog.

Osip Aleksyéevich was not in St. Petersburg. He had of late withdrawn from the affairs of the St. Petersburg lodges, and was living in Moscow, which city he never left. All the brothers, the members of the lodges, were people whom Pierre knew in life, and it was hard for him to see in them only brothers in Freemasonry, and not Prince B–-, Ivan Vasilevich D–-, and so forth, whom he

knew in life mostly as weak and insignificant men. Beneath their Masonic aprons and insignia, he saw their uniforms and crosses, for which they were eagerly striving in life. Many a time, when collecting alms and finding only twenty or thirty roubles signed for the parish by some ten members, the majority of these only promising to pay, though half of them were as rich as he, Pierre recalled the Masonic oath that every brother promised to give all his property for his neighbour ; and in his soul rose doubts, on which he endeavoured not to dwell.

All the brothers whom he knew he divided into four classes. Among the first he counted those brothers who did not take an active part either in the affairs of the lodges, or in human affairs, but who - were exclusively occupied with questions such as the triple appellation of God, or the three elements, sulphur, mercury, and salt, or the meaning of the square and of all the figures of the temple of Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Masons, to which belonged mostly the older brothers, but Ôsip Aleksyéevich, in Pierre’s opinion, did not share their interests. His heart did not lie in the mystic side of Freemasonry.

Among the second class Pierre counted himself and brothers like him, who were seeking and wavering, who had not yet found the straight and intelligent path in Freemasonry, but who hoped to find it sometime.

Among the third class he counted such brothers (these constituted the largest number) who saw in Masonry nothing but external forms, caring nothing for its contents and meaning. Such were Willdrski and even the grand master of the main lodge.

Finally, among the fourth class there was also a large number of brothers, especially of such as had joined the brotherhood recently. Those people who, according to Pierre’s observation, believed in nothing, wished for nothing, and who entered the lodge only in order to cultivate the acquaintance of young, rich men who were influential by their connections and by birth, and were numerous in the lodge.

Pierre began to feel himself dissatisfied in his activity. The Freemasonry, especially that which he knew here, he sometimes thought, was based on nothing but externals. It did not occur to him to doubt Freemasonry itself, but he suspected that the Russian Freemasonry was on a wrong path and had deviated from its source. For that reason Pierre went, at the end of a year, abroad, in order to devote himself to the higher mysteries of the order.

In the summer of the year 1809 Pierre returned to St. Petersburg. From the correspondence of our Masons with those abroad it was learned that Bezukhi had gained the confidence of many distinguished persons, had become familiar with many secrets, had been promoted to the highest degree, and was bringing home with him many things for the common good of Freemasonry in Russia. The St. Petersburg Masons all called on him, trying to gain his favour, and all thought that he was concealing and preparing something.

A solemn meeting of the second degree was called, and Pierre promised to transmit to the St. Petersburg brothers the information given him by the higher guides of the order. The meeting was well attended. After the usual ceremonies, Pierre rose and began his speech.

is necessary to found a universal inode of government, which shall spread over the whole world, without impairing the civil ties, so that all the governments may be continued in their usual way and that they may be enabled to do everything but that which is counter to the great aim of our order, which is the triumph of virtue over vice. Christianity itself had this aim in view. It taught men to be wise and good, and for their own advantage to follow the example and the injunctions of the best and wisest of men.

” Then, when everything was merged in darkness, preaching naturally sufficed : the newness of the truth gave it special force, but nowadays we need much stronger means. Nowadays it is necessary for man, who is guided by his senses, to find sensuous charms in virtue. It is impossible to eradicate the passions ; all that is necessary to do is to direct them toward noble ends, and so it is necessary that each shall satisfy his passions within the limits of virtue, and that our order shall furnish the means for it.

” As soon as there shall be a certain number of worthy men in each State, each of them shall form two others, and they shall be closely connected, — then everything will be possible for our order, which has already done much good to humanity.”

This speech not only produced a strong impression, but also an agitation in the lodge. The majority of the brothers, seeing in this speech dangerous designs of illuminism, received Pierre’s speech with a coldness which surprised him. The grand master began to retort to Pierre. Pierre began to expound his ideas with increasing ardour. There had not been such a stormy meeting for a long time. Parties were formed : some accused Pierre of illuminism ; others supported his views. Pierre was for the first time at this meeting struck by the endless diversity of human opinions, which causes the same truth to appear differently

to any two persons. Even those of the members who seemed to be on his side comprehended him in their peculiar fashion, with limitations and changes to which he could not agree, because the chief purpose of Pierre consisted in transmitting his thought to others in the precise form in which he understood it.

At the end of the meeting, the grand master malevolently and ironically reprimanded Bezukhi for his ardour and because he had been guided in his discussion, not so much by his love of virtue as by the excitement of the contest. Pierre made no reply to him and only asked curtly whether his proposition would be accepted. He was told that it would not, and Pierre, without waiting for the customary formalities, left the lodge and drove home.

VIII.

Pierre was again assailed by that ennui, of which he was afraid. After his speech at the lodge, he passed three days at home on the sofa, without receiving any one or going anywhere.

Just then he received a letter from his wife, who begged for a meeting with him, writing him about her anxiety to see him, and about her wish to devote all her life to him.

At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she should return to St. Petersburg from abroad.

Soon after the letter, one of the less respected brother Masons broke into Pierre’s solitude. Leading up the conversation to Pierre’s marital relations, he gave him brotherly advice, by telling him that his severity to his wife was unjust, and that Pierre was sinning against the first laws of Freemasonry, which ordered him to forgive a repenting person.

At the same time his mother-in-law sent for him, imploring him to come to see her for a few moments, in order to discuss a very important matter with him. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and that they wanted to bring his wife and him together, which was not at all disagreeable to him in the condition in which he was. It did not make any difference to him : Pierre regarded nothing in life as a matter of great consequence, and under the influence of his ennui, which had taken complete possession of him, he did not think much of his freedom, nor of his desire to punish his wife.

“Nobody is right, nobody is wrong, — consequently she is not guilty, either,” he thought. If Pierre did not at once consent to unite again with his wife, it was so because in the condition of ennui, in which he was, he felt unable to undertake anything. If his wife had come to him then, he would not have driven her away. What difference could it make to Pierre whether he was living with his wife, or not, in comparison with that which now interested him ?

Without giving any reply to his wife, or to his mother-in-law, Pierre, late one evening, got ready to travel and left for Moscow, in order to see Osip Aleksyéevich. Pierre wrote in his diary as follows :

” Moscow, November 17. I have just returned from my benefactor, and I hasten to note down everything which I there experienced. Osip Aleksyéevich lives poorly and has been suffering dreadfully for nearly three years from his bladder. No one has ever heard a groan of his, or a word of murmuring. From early morning until late at night, with the exception of the hours when he eats the simplest kind of food, he works at science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on which he was lying ; I made to him the sign of the Knights of the Orient and of Jerusalem, and he answered with the same, and with a mild smile asked me of what I had learned and acquired in the Prussian and Scotch lodges. I told him everything as best as I could ; I told him of the propositions which I had made in our St. Petersburg lodge, and informed him of my bad reception and of the rupture between me and the brothers. Osip Aleksyéevich, after some silence, during which time he was reflecting something, expounded to me his view, which momentarily enlightened me on the whole past and on my future path on which I should have to travel. He surprised me by asking me whether I remembered what the triple purpose of the order was. It was (1) to guard and perceive the secret ; (2) to purify and perfect oneself for the reception of the same ; (3) to perfect the human race by means of the desire for such a purification. What is the chief and first purpose of these three ? Of course, the perfection and purification of oneself. Toward this aim we can all tend independently of circumstances. But, at the same time, this aim demands the greatest labour from us, and so, blinded by pride, we, forgetting this aim, interest ourselves in the mystery winch in our impurity we are unworthy to perceive, or in the perfection of the human race, when we ourselves present an example of abomination and debauch. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, because it has been carried away by social activities and because it is puffed up with pride. For this reason Osip Aleksyéevich condemns my speech and my whole activity. I agree with him in the depth of my heart.

” Concerning our conversation about my domestic affairs, he said to me : ‘ The chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, consists in self-perfection. Frequently we think that by removing all the difficulties we attain that aim so much the quicker; on the contrary, sir/ he said to me, ‘ only amidst worldly agitation can we attain the three chief aims: (1) self-knowledge, — for man can know himself only by comparison; (2) perfection,— for it is obtained only through struggle ; and (3) the chief virtue, — love of death. Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity, and can cooperate with our innate love of death or regeneration to a new life.’

“ These words are the more remarkable since Osip Aleksyéevich, in spite of his painful physical suffering, is never tired of life ; he loves death, but, in spite of his whole purity and the exaltation of his inner man, he does not deem himself sufficiently prepared for it. Then my benefactor explained to me the full meaning of the square of creation and showed to me that the numbers three and seven were at the base of everything. He advised me

not to detach myself from the company of the St. Petersburg brothers and, occupying in the lodge only offices of the second degree, to try to divert the brothers from paths of pride and to take them to the true road of self-knowledge and perfection. In addition to this he advised me personally to watch myself first of all, and for this purpose he gave me a note-book, the one in which I am now writing, and in which I shall in the future write all my acts.”

” St. Petersburg, November 23. I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and told me that Hélène was here and that she implored me to listen to her, that she was innocent, that she was unhappy on account of my desertion, and many things more. I knew that if I ever admitted her to my presence, I should not be able to refuse her any request. In my misgivings I did not know to whom to go for aid and advice. If my benefactor were here, he would have told me what to do. I retired to my room, read the letters of Osip Aleksyéevich, recalled my conversations with him, and concluded from it all that I must not refuse a supplicant and that I must extend a helping hand to all, especially to a person so closely connected with me, and that I ought to bear the cross. But if I have forgiven her for virtue’s sake, then my union with her should have only a spiritual aim. Thus I decided, and thus I wrote to Osip Aleksyéevich. I told my wife that I asked her to forget the past, that I begged her to forgive me for any wrong I may have done her, but that I had nothing to forgive her for. It gave me pleasure to tell her so. She need not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have taken up the upper apartments in the large house, and I am experiencing the happy sensation of regeneration.”

IX.

As at all times, the higher society of those days, which came together at court and at grand balls, was divided into several circles, each with its own nuance. Among them the most numerous was the French circle, of the Napoleonic alliance, of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt. In this circle Hélène occupied one of the most prominent places, the moment she settled with her husband in St. Petersburg. At her house gathered the gentlemen of the French embassy and a large number of men who were known for their wit and their amiability, and who belonged to that circle.

Hélène had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the emperors, and from there brought with her an acquaintance with the most distinguished men of Europe who were about Napoleon. Napoleon himself, noticing her in the theatre, said about her : ” C’est une superbe animal ! ” Her success in her capacity of a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise Pierre, because with her advancing years she had become more beautiful than ever. But what did surprise him was that during these two years his wife had managed to earn the reputation ” d’une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que belle.” The famous Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page letters. Bilibin kept his mots in store, to tell them for the first time in the hearing of Countess Bezukhi. To be received in the salon of Countess Bezukhi was regarded as a diploma of wit; young people read books before any soirée given by Hélène so as to have something to talk about in her

salon, and secretaries of legations and even ambassadors confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that Hélène was to a certain extent a power. Pierre, who knew that she was dreadfully stupid, sometimes was present, with a strange feeling of doubt and fear, at her soirées and dinners, where the guests talked politics, poetry, and philosophy. At these soirées he experienced the feeling which a legerdemain performer must experience, who is in constant fear that his deception will be discovered at any moment. But, either because stupidity was necessary for the success of such a salon, or because the people deceived found pleasure in the deception, the deception was not discovered, and the reputation d’une femme charmante et spirituelle was so firmly established in the case of Hélène Vasilevna Bezukhi, that she could say the greatest banalities and insipidities, and yet all were delighted with every word of hers and tried to find its hidden meaning, which she herself did not suspect.

Pierre was the kind of a husband this brilliant society woman needed. He was that absent-minded original, that grand seigneur, who was in nobody’s way, and who did not spoil the general impression of the high tone of her drawingroom, but, on the contrary, by his contrast to the elegance and tact of his wife, served as a convenient background for her.

Pierre, on account of his long continued concentration on other than material matters and on account of his sincere contempt for everything else, had, in the last two years, acquired, in the company of his wife, which did not interest him, that tone of indifference, of carelessness, and of benevolence in respect to all persons, which is not acquired artificially and which, for some reason, inspires involuntary respect. He entered his wife’s drawingroom as he would a theatre ; he was acquainted with everybody, was equally glad to see all, and equally indifferent to everybody. Now and then he entered into a conversation which interested him, and then he, without reference to the presence or absence of les messieurs de Vambassade, lisping, expressed his opinions, which frequently were not at all in keeping with the tone of the moment. But the opinion about the odd husband of la femme la plus distinguée de Pétersbourg was so well established, that no one took his sallies in earnest.

Among the many young men who daily frequented the house of Hélène, Boris Drubetskdy, who had in the meantime advanced far in service, was the most intimate person in the house of the Bezukhis, after Hélène’s return from Erfurt. Hélène called him “ mon page ” and treated him like a child. Her smile to him was the same as to any one else, but now and then Pierre hated that smile. Boris treated Pierre with peculiar, dignified, and melancholy respect. This shade of respect also troubled Pierre. Pierre had so painfully suffered three years before from the insult offered him by his wife, that now he saved himself from the possibility of a similar insult, in the first place, because he was not her husband, and, in the second, because he did not allow himself to suspect.

” No, having now become a bas-blcu, she has for ever given up her former passion,” he said to himself. ” There are no examples of a bas-bleu ever being carried away by affairs of the heart,” he repeated to himself a rule which he had read somewhere and in which he had absolute faith. But, strange to say, the presence of Boris in his wife’s drawingroom (he was nearly always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre : it fettered all his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom of his movements.

” What a strange antipathy ! ” thought Pierre. ” Formerly I used to like him quite well.”

In the eyes of the world, Pierre was a great lord, a somewhat blind and funny husband of a famous woman, a clever original, who was doing nothing and harming no

one, a fine good fellow. But in Pierre’s soul there was at that time taking place a complicated and difficult labour of inner development, which revealed much to him and led him to many spiritual doubts and pleasures.

X.

He continued his diary, and this is what he wrote down during that time :

“ November LL. Arose at eight o’clock and read the Holy Writ ; then I went to the office ” (Pierre, by the advice of his benefactor, had entered the service, being appointed on one of the committees), ” returned home, and dined alone (the countess has many guests whom I do not like) ; I ate and drank in moderation, and after dinner I copied some pieces for the brothers. Toward evening I went down to the countess and there told a funny story about B–—,

and only when all were laughing loud recalled that I ought not to have done so.

” I am going to bed in a happy and calm spirit. 0 Lord, help me to walk on Thy path, (1) to vanquish anger by meekness and hesitation, (2) passion, by abstinence and disgust, (3) to depart from vanity, but not to withdraw (a) from affairs of state, (&) from domestic cares, (c) from relations of friendship, and (d) from economic occupations.”

” November 27. Arose late and, upon awakening, lay for a long time on my bed, abandoning myself to laziness. 0 Lord ! Help me and strengthen me that I may be able to walk in Thy path ! Read the Holy Writ, but -without the proper feeling. Brother Urusov came, and we talked of worldly affairs. He told about the new projects of the emperor. I began to censure them, but thought of my rules, and of the words of my benefactor that a true Mason must be a zealous worker in the country, when his interest is demanded, and a calm observer of that

to which he is not called. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G–-V–-and O–-called on me to have

a preliminary talk about the admission of a new brother. They impose upon me the duty of a conductor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then we talked of the meaning of the seven pillars and the seven steps of the temple, the seven sciences, seven virtues, seven vices, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother 0–-was very eloquent. In

the evening the initiation took place. The new quarters added much to the grandeur of the spectacle. Boris Drubetskoy was initiated. I proposed him, and I was the conductor. A strange feeling agitated me during the whole time I passed with him in the dark temple. I discovered in myself the feeling of hatred toward him, which I am trying in vain to overcome. It is for this reason that I should sincerely like to save him from evil and to lead him on the path of truth, but the evil thought respecting him did not leave me. It seemed to me that his purpose in entering into the brotherhood consisted only in the desire to cultivate the acquaintance of people, and to curry the favour of those who are in our lodge. Outside of the reasons that he several times asked whether such and such persons were in our lodge (to which I could make no reply to him), and that, in my opinion, he is not capable of feeling any respect for our holy order, and that he is too occupied and satisfied with the external man to desire any spiritual perfection, I had no reasons for having any doubts about him ; but I thought that he was not sincere, and during the whole time that I was face to face with him in the dark temple, I thought that he contemptuously smiled at my words, and I really felt like pricking his bare breast with the sword placed against it. I could not be eloquent, and was unable to communicate my doubts to the brothers and to the grand master. Great Architect of Nature! Aid me to find the true paths that lead out of the labyrinth of falsehood ! “

After that three sheets were omitted in the diary, and then came this :

” I had a long, instructive, private conversation with Brother V–-, who advised me to stick to Brother

A–-. Much was revealed to me, though I am un

worthy. Adonai is the name of Him who created the universe. Elohim is the name of Him who rules all. The third name is unutterable and means the All. The conversations with Brother V–— strengthen, refresh,

and confirm me on the path of virtue. In his presence there is no place for doubts. I now clearly see the difference between the poor teaching of the human sciences and that of our holy, all-embracing teaching. The human sciences divide everything in order to comprehend, and kill everything in order to examine. In the sacred science of our order all is one, all is conceived in its totality and while living. The trinity, the three elements of things, consists of sulphur, mercury, and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and of a fiery property ; in connection with salt, it by its fieriness evokes in the salt a craving, by means of which it attracts the mercury, grasps it, holds it, and in union with it produces various bodies. Mercury is a liquid and volatile spiritual substance, — Christ, the Holy Ghost, He.”

” December 3. Rose late, read the Holy Writ, but was insensible. Then went out and walked in the parlour. Wanted to think, but, instead, my imagination presented an occurrence which took place four years ago. Mr. Ddlokhov, meeting me in Moscow after my duel, told me that he hoped that I now enjoyed complete spiritual calm, in spite of the absence of my wife. I then made no reply. Now I recalled all the details of that meeting, and in my heart I spoke the most malicious of words to him, and gave him most stinging answers. I came to my senses and abandoned that thought only when I found myself at a white heat of anger ; I have

not repented sufficiently for it. Then came Boris Drubetskdy and began to tell all kinds of occurrences ; but I was dissatisfied with his visit from the start, and told him something unpleasant. He replied. I flew in a passion and told him many unpleasant and even rude things. He was silent, and I bethought myself when it was too late. 0 Lord, I do not know how to treat him ! My egotism is the cause of it. I place myself higher than him, and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient with my rudeness, while I, on the contrary, feel contempt for him. O Lord, grant that I in his presence may better see my baseness and act in such a manner that he, too, may profit from it ! After dinner I fell asleep, and just as I fell asleep I clearly heard a voice say : ‘ It is your day.’

” In my sleep I saw that I was walking in darkness, and suddenly I was surrounded by dogs, but I continued to walk without fear; suddenly a small dog caught me with its teeth at my hip, and would not let go of me. I began to choke it with my hands. The moment I tore it away from me, another, a larger dog, began to bite me. I began to lift it, and the more I lifted it, the larger and heavier it grew. Suddenly Brother A–-appeared, and,

taking me by my hand, he led me along, up to a building, to enter which I had to walk over a narrow plank. I stepped upon it, and the plank bent back and fell down, and I began to climb on the fence, which I barely could touch with my hands. After great efforts I dragged my body along in such a way that my feet were hanging on one side of the fence, and the rest of my body on the other. I looked around and saw that Brother A–-was

standing on the fence and indicating to me a large avenue and a garden, and in the garden there was a large and beautiful building. I awoke. 0 Lord, Great Architect of Nature ! Help me to pull off the dogs — my passions and the last of them, which includes the strength of all of the former ones, and help me to enter that temple of virtue, the vision of which I had in my sleep.”

« December 7. I dreamt that I saw ésip Aleksyéevich in my house. I was very happy and wanted to treat him hospitably. I was talking to others without cessation, when suddenly it occurred to me that that might not please him, and I wished to approach him and embrace him. The moment I came near, I saw that his face was transformed, — it had become young, and he was softly telling me something from the teaching of the order, so softly that I could not make it out. Then we all left the room, and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the floor. He was telling me something. I wanted to show him my sensitiveness, and so, without listening to his words, I began to examine the condition of my inner man and the grace of God overshadowing me. And tears appeared in my eyes, and I was satisfied because he had noticed them. But he looked at me in anger and leaped up, interrupting his speech. I became frightened and asked him whether what he had said had any reference to me ; but he made no reply, and looked kindly at me, after which we were transferred to my sleeping-room where my double bedstead is standing. He lay down on the edge of it, and I burned with the desire to fondle him and to lie down near him. And he asked me : ‘ Tell me in truth what your chief passion is ? Have you found it out ? I think you have.’ I was embarrassed by that question and replied that I was living with my wife, as he had advised me to do, but not as her husband. To this he replied that it was not right to deprive my wife of love, and gave me to understand that it was my duty to show her love. But I replied that I was ashamed of it, and suddenly everything disappeared. I awoke, and found in my thought the text of Holy Writ, ‘ The life was the light of men ; and the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not.’ Ôsip

Aleksyéevich’s face was youthful and bright. On this day I received a letter from my benefactor in which he writes to me about the duties of the conjugal state.”

” December 9. I had a dream from which I awoke with a quivering heart. I seemed to be at home in Moscow, in my house, in the large sofaroom, and from the drawingroom came Ösip Aleksyéevich. It seemed as though I immediately discovered that the process of regeneration had taken place with him, and rushed up against him. I kissed his face and his hands, and he said to me : * Have you noticed that my face is changed ? ‘ I looked at him, continuing to hold him in my embrace, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair on his head, and that his features were all changed. I said to him : ‘ I should have recognized you if I had met you accidentally,’ and at the same time I thought : ‘ Am I telling the truth ? ‘ And suddenly I saw that he was lying like a corpse; then he slowly came to and went with me to my large cabinet, holding a large book in writing, of the size of royal folio. I said : ‘ I have written it.’ And he replied by the inclination of his head. I opened the book, and all the pages had beautiful drawings. I knew that these pictures represented the amorous adventures of the soul with her lover. And on these pages I saw the beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent raiment, and with a transparent body, flying to the clouds. And I knew that this maiden was nothing but the representation of the Song of Songs. And, looking at these drawings, I felt that I was doing wrong and that I could not tear myself away from them. 0 Lord, aid me ! 0 Lord, if Thy abandonment of me is Thy

action, Thy will be done! but if I myself be the cause of it, instruct me what to do ! I shall perish from my perversity, if Thou abandonest me altogether.”

XL

The monetary affairs of the Rostôvs did not improve in the course of the two years that they passed in the country.

Although Nikoldy Rostov, firmly sticking to his intentions, continued to serve in oblivion in a forgotten regiment, spending comparatively little money, the life in Otrddnoe was such, and Mitenka, in particular, so conducted the affairs, that the debts grew larger with every year. The only way out of the difficulty, which presented itself to the old Count Rostdv, was to serve, and so he came to St. Petersburg to find some place and, at the same time, to give the girls a last good time, as he said.

Soon after the arrival of the Rostovs in St. Petersburg, Berg proposed to Vyéra, and his proposal was accepted.

Although in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to the higher society, without knowing themselves or thinking of what society they belonged to, in St. Petersburg their society was mixed and indefinite. In St. Petersburg they were provincials, to whom those very people that the Rostdvs had entertained at Moscow, without asking to what society they belonged, would not deign to descend.

The Rostovs lived as hospitably at St. Petersburg as they had lived in Moscow, and the greatest diversity of people came to take supper with them : there were Otradnoe neighbours, old, impoverished landed proprietors with their daughters, and the lady of honour, Peronski, and Pierre Bezukhi, and the son of the county postmaster, who was serving in St. Petersburg. Of the men, the

intimate friends of the house in St. Petersburg very soon came to be Boris, Pierre, whom the old count, upon meeting in the street, took to his house, and Berg, who passed whole days at a time at the Rostovs, paying such attention to the elder Countess Vyéra as a young man pays who intends to propose.

Berg had shown everybody his right hand which had been wounded at Austerlitz, and had told how he had held the entirely useless sword in his left. He had been telling this event with such persistency and such importance that all believed in the purpose and merit of his deed, and he received two rewards for Austerlitz.

He had also distinguished himself in the war in Finland. He had picked up a piece of a grenade, by which the adjutant had been killed by the side of the commanderin-chief, and had brought it to his chief. Just as at Austerlitz, he had continued so long telling persistently of his deed that all came to believe that what he did was right, and Berg received two rewards for the war in Finland. In 1809 he was a captain of the Guard, with decorations, and occupied an advantageous office in St. Petersburg.

Although some unbelievers smiled whenever the deserts of Berg were mentioned to them, they could not help admitting that Berg was a brave officer who did his duty well and stood in good repute with the authorities, and a moral young man with a brilliant career ahead of him and with an assured position in society.

Four years before, Berg, meeting a German comrade of his in the parterre of the Moscow theatre, pointed to Vyéra Ros té v and said in German : ” Das soll mein Weib werden,” and even then he determined to marry her. Now, in St. Petersburg, he considered the position of the Rostdvs and his own, and he decided that the time had come, and so he made the proposal.

Berg’s proposal was at first received with a perplexity which was not at all flattering to him. At first it appeared strange that the son of an obscure Livonian nobleman should propose to Countess Rostov; but the chief characteristic of Berg consisted in such a naive and good-natured egotism that the Rostovs instinctively thought that it would be well since he himself was convinced that it was well, and even very well. Besides, the affairs of the Rostdvs were in bad shape, a fact which the suitor must have known, and, above all, Vyéra was twenty-four years old ; she went out in society, and although she was unquestionably pretty and sensible, no one had ever proposed to her. The consent was given.

” Do you see,” Berg said to his companion, whom he called a friend only because he knew that all people had friends, ” do you see, I have considered everything well : I should not marry if I had not considered it, or if it for any reason were inconvenient. But now, on the contrary, my parents are taken care of, for I have fixed them as tenants in the Baltic provinces, and I can live in St. Petersburg with my salary and with her dowry, and, considering my moderation, I can live well. I do not marry her for her money, — that I regard as disgraceful, but a wife must bring with her her part, just as the husband brings his. I serve, and she has. connections and some means. This means something in our days, does it not ? And, above all, she is a beautiful, respectable girl, and she loves me — “

Berg blushed and smiled.

” And I love her because she is sensible, and has a very good character. Now, her sister, she is of the same family, and yet she is something quite different, — she has a disagreeable character, and no intelligence, and — you know — just disagreeable. But my fiancée — Well, you will come to — ” continued Berg, intending to say ” dine with us,” but he changed bis mind and said ” take tea with us,” and rapidly thrusting forward his tongue, he

let out a small, round ring of tobacco smoke, which was a complete expression of his dreams of happiness.

After the first sensation of perplexity, evoked in the parents by Berg’s proposal, there reigned in the house that solemnity and joy which is habitual in such cases, but the joy was not sincere: it was only external. In the feelings of the relatives as regards this marriage there could be observed embarrassment and shamefacedness, as though they were conscience-stricken for having loved Vyéra so little and getting her so readily off their hands. The old count was embarrassed more than the rest. He probably would have been unable to say what the cause of his embarrassment was, whereas, in reality, it was the state of his financial affairs. He had positively no knowledge of what he possessed, what his debts were, and what he would be able to apportion to Vyéra as her dowry. When the daughters were born, for each of them three hundred souls were set aside as a dowry ; but one of these villages had already been sold, and the other was mortgaged and soon to be sold for the debt, consequently it was impossible to give her an estate. Nor did he have any money.

Berg had been a fiancé for more than a month, and only a week was left to the wedding, and the count had not yet solved the question of the dowry and had not yet spoken to his wife about the matter. Now the count thought of giving Vyéra the Ryazan estate, and now of selling the timber, and now again of borrowing money on a personal note. A few days before the wedding, Berg early in the morning entered the cabinet of the count and with an agreeable smile respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him know what the dowry of Countess Vyéra would be. The count was so confused at this expected question that he said the first thing that occurred to him.

” I am glad to see you care about it, I am glad. You will be satisfied — “

And, patting Berg on the shoulder, he rose, wishing to cut short the conversation ; but Berg, with a pleasant smile, explained to him that if he did not know for sure what Vyéra would receive, and did not get at least a part of it in advance, he would be compelled to withdraw his word.

“ Because you will see for yourself, count, that if I permitted myself to marry without having any definite means for the support of my wife, I should be acting basely — “

The count, wishing to be magnanimous and to avoid being subjected to new requests, made an end to the conversation by saying that he would give him a personal note for eighty thousand roubles. Berg smiled a meek smile, kissed the count on his shoulder, and told him that he was very thankful to him, but that he was absolutely unable to begin the new life without receiving thirty thousand in cash.

“ At least twenty thousand, count,” he added, ” and then you will make the personal note out for sixty thousand.”

” Yes, yes, all right,” the count said, hurriedly, ” but, my dear, I will give you the twenty thousand, and, besides, a note for eighty thousand, — that is what I will do. Kiss me!”

XII.

Natasha was sixteen years old, and it was the year 1809, four years since she had kissed Bons and had promised to wait for him. Since then she had not once seen Bons. Before Sonya and her mother she freely admitted, whenever Boris was mentioned, that all was over, that what had been before was mere childishness which ought not to be mentioned and which had been forgotten long ago. But in the very depth of her heart, the question whether her obligation to Boris was a jest or a serious matter, a binding promise, tormented her often.

Boris had not seen the Rostdvs since the year 1805, when he left Moscow for the army. He had been in Moscow several times during that period, or had passed near to Otradnoe, but he never called on the Rostovs.

It sometimes occurred to Natasha that he did not want to see her, and her guesses were confirmed by the sad tones in which the elder ones spoke of him :

“ Nowadays people do not remember their old friends,” said the countess, whenever Boris’s name was mentioned.

Anna Mikhaylovna, who of late had not called so often on the Rostdvs, also kept herself with peculiar dignity and always spoke ecstatically and gratefully of the high qualities of her son and of the brilliant career which he was making. When the Rostovs arrived in St. Petersburg, Boris called on them.

He drove to their house without any agitation. The memory of Natasha was for Boris a most poetical memory. At the same time, he went there with the firm intention of giving both her and her relatives clearly to understand that his childish relations with Natäsha could not be obligatory either for her or for him. He occupied a brilliant position in society, thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezukhi, and a brilliant position in the service, thanks to the protection of a distinguished person whose full confidence he had, and he had some germinating plans of marrying one of the wealthiest matches in St. Petersburg, which might easily be realized. When Boris entered the drawingroom of the Rostdvs, Natdsha was in her room. Upon hearing of his arrival, she rushed blushing into the drawingroom, beaming with more than a kindly smile.

Boris remembered Natäsha in a short dress, with black eyes gleaming underneath her locks, and with a desperate, childish laughter, as he had known her four years before, and so, when Natdsha entered and looked quite different, he became embarrassed, and his face expressed ecstatic surprise. This expression on his countenance gave Natdsha pleasure.

“Well, do you recognize your little teasing friend?” said the countess.

Boris kissed Natasha’s hand, and said that he was surprised at the change which had taken place in her.

” How pretty you have grown to be ! “

“I should say I am!” said Natdsha’s laughing eyes.

” And does papa look older ? ” she asked.

Nat«4sha sat down and, without entering into Boris’s conversation with the countess, silently surveyed her childish fiance down to the smallest details. He was conscious of the burden of that stubborn, kindly glance, and now and then looked at her.

Boris’s uniform, spurs, necktie, manner of wearing the hair, were of the very latest and comme il faut. Natdsha noticed that at once. He was sitting a little sidewise on his chair, near the countess, fingering with his right hand the painfully clean, tightly fitting glove of his left, spoke

with a peculiar pressure of his lips about the entertainments of high life at St. Petersburg, and with mild ridicule recalled the former times at Moscow and his Moscow acquaintances. Not by accident, so Natdsha thought, he mentioned, in connection with the higher aristocracy, the ball of some ambassador, which he had attended, and the invitation which he had received from this or that person.

Natasha sat all the time in silence, looking stealthily at him. This glance irritated and confused Boris more and more. He kept looking back at Natasha, and frequently broke off his sentences. He sat not longer than ten minutes and then rose to bow himself out. The same curious, provoking, and slightly sarcastic eyes were looking at him. After his first visit, Boris said to himself that Natasha was as attractive to him as she had been before, but that he must not submit to this feeling because marrying that girl, who had hardly any fortune, would be the death of his career, and while the renewal of Iris former relations without any marriage in view would be an ignoble act. Boris decided to avoid meeting Natasha, but, in spite of his determination, he came back after a few days, and began to call often and to pass whole days at the house of the Rostovs. He felt that he had to have an explanation with Na trisha, to tell her that the past had to be forgotten, that in spite of everything she could not be his wife, that he had no fortune, and that her parents would never give her to him. But he somehow never had a chance to make that explanation, and he was too embarrassed to talk to her about it. With every day he became more and more entangled. Natrisha, so her mother and Sdnya thought, seemed to be in love with Boris, as of old. She sang her favourite songs to him, showed him her album, compelling him to write something in it, did not allow him to mention the past, and, instead, gave him to understand that the present was nice; every day he went away in a mist without saying that which he had intended to say, not knowing what he was doing or why he had come, or how it would all end. Boris quit calling on Hélène, received every day reproachful letters from her, and still continued passing whole days at a time with the Rostdvs.

XIII.

One evening, when the old countess, wearing a nightcap and nightgown and having put away her false locks, and displaying only a thin strand of hair which escaped underneath her white calico cap, was, with sighs and groans, making the low obeisances of the evening prayer, her door creaked, and Natäsha, herself in a nightgown and with her hair put up in curl-papers and wearing slippers on her bare feet, ran into the room. The countess looked around and frowned. She was saying her last prayer, “ Will my bed be my grave ? ” Her devout mood was gone. Natasha, red in her face and agitated, stopped in her run, when she saw her mother praying, sat down, and instinctively put out her tongue, as though threatening herself. When she saw that her mother continued to pray, she ran on tiptoe up to the bed, rapidly rubbed one little foot against another so as to rid herself of the slippers, and jumped on that bed which the countess was afraid might be her grave. It was a high feather bed, with five diminishing pillows upon it. Natasha leaped upon it, sunk down in the feather bed, rolled over to the wall, and began to toss about under the coverlet, now lying straight, now bending up her knees to the chin, or kicking and laughing a barely audible laugh, and now covering up her head, and now again looking at her mother. The countess finished her prayer and with a stern face walked over to the bed ; but, upon seeing that Natasha lay there, with her head all covered up, she smiled her kindly, feeble smile.

” Well, well, well ! ” said the mother.

“ Mamma, may I talk with you ? Yes ? ” asked Natasha. ” Well, let me kiss you just once under the chin, and once more, and that is all.” And she embraced her mother’s neck and kissed her under the chin. In her treatment of her mother, Natasha evinced an external rudeness of manners, but she was so cautious and quick that, no matter how she embraced her mother, she was able to do so without causing her any pain or unpleasantness.

” What is it tonight ? ” said her mother, having adjusted herself on her pillows. She waited until Natésha, having twice rolled over her, was lying by her side under the same coverlet, with her hands stretched out and with a serious expression on her face.

These nightly visits of Natasha, which lasted until the count’s return from the club, were one of the favourite pleasures of daughter and mother.

” What is it tonight ? I, for my part, must tell you — ” Natâsha closed her mother’s mouth with her hand.

“ About Boris — I know,” she said, with a serious look, ” and it is for this reason that I have come to see you. Don’t say it! I know it myself. No, you may say it.” She took her hand away. ” Say it, mamma ! Is he not sweet ? “

” Natâsha, you are sixteen years old, and at your age I was married. You say that Boris is sweet. He is very sweet, and I love him like a son, but what do you wish?— What do you think about it? You have completely turned his head — I see that — “

Saying this, the countess looked back at her daughter. Natäsha was lying quiet, looking straight ahead of her at one of the redwood sphinxes carved at the corners of the bed, so that the countess could see only her daughter’s profile. This face startled the countess by its peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.

Natäsba was thinking and making combinations.

” Well ? ” she said.

“You have turned his head. Why have you done so? What do you want of him ? You know that you cannot marry him.”

” Why ? ” said Natdsha, without changing her position.

” Because he is young ; because he is poor ; because he is a relative of yours ; because you yourself do not love him.”

” How do you know it ? “

“ I do know it. It is not good, my dear.”

” But if I want to — ” said Natasha.

” Stop saying silly things,” said the countess.

“ But if I want to — “

“ Natasha, I am serious — “

Natasha did not allow her to finish her sentence. She drew up to her the countess’s large hand and kissed its back, and then its palm, then turned it back and began to kiss it on the knuckles of the lower joints, and then in the intervals, and again on the knuckles, saying all the time, ” January, February, March, April, May.”

” Speak, mamma ! Why are you silent ? Speak - ” she said, looking at her mother, who was casting a tender glance at her daughter, which contemplation seemed to make her forget what she wanted to say.

“ It is not good, my darling. Everybody will not understand your childish union, and it may hurt you in the eyes of other young men who come to see you and find you so close to him, and, above all, it torments him. He may have found a rich match, which is to his liking, but now he is simply beside himself.”

” Is he ? ” asked Natasha.

” I will tell you about myself. I had a cousin — “

” I know, Kirill Matvyéevich. But he is an old man ? “

” He was not always old. But listen, Natäsha, I will have a talk with Boris. He must not call so often — “

” Why must he not, if he likes to ? “

” Because I know that it will all end in nothing.”

” How do you know ? No, mamma, you must not talk to him. How foolish! ” said Natasha, in the tone of a person who is about to be deprived of his property. ” Suppose I shall not marry him : let him come to see me, if it gives him pleasure ! “

Natäsha smiled and looked at her mother.

“Not to marry, but so” she said.

” What do you mean, my dear ? ”

” Why, so ! What of it if I do not marry ? Let him come, so.”

“ So, so,” repeated the countess, and, shaking with her whole body, she laughed out with the kindly, sudden laughter of an old woman.

” Stop laughing, stop ! ” cried Natdsha. “ You are shaking the whole bed. You are dreadfully like myself : just such a giggler— Wait — ” She grasped both of the countess’s hands, kissed one of them on the knuckle of the little finger, “June,” and continued to kiss July, August, on the other hand.

“Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think ? Were they ever as much in love with you ? He is so sweet, so sweet, so sweet ! Only, he is not quite after my taste,— he is as thin as the dining-room clock — Don’t you understand ? — He is thin, gray, bright — ”

“What nonsense are you talking there?” said the countess.

Natasha proceeded :

“ Don’t you understand ? Nikolay would have understood, — Bezukhi, — that blue, that dark blue fellow with the red, is on the square.”

” You are coquetting with him, too,” the countess said, laughing.

“No, he is a Freemason, so I have learned. He is a fine fellow, dark blue with red, — how shall I explain it to you — ”

” Little countess,” was heard the count’s voice behind the door, “ are you not asleep ? “

Natdsha jumped down in her bare feet, grabbed the slippers in her hands, and ran to her room.

She could not fall asleep for a long time. She was thinking all the time that nobody could understand what she understood, and what there was in her.

” Sdnya ? ” she thought, looking at the sleeping, rolled up kitten with the enormous braid. ” No, she can’t ‘ She is so virtuous. She is in love with Nikoldy and does not want to know anything else. Mamma does not understand, either. How strange that I am so clever and — she is so sweet,” she continued, speaking of herself in the third person, and imagining that a very clever man, the cleverest and best of men, was saying it to her. ” There is everything, everything in her,” continued that man. “ She is uncommonly clever, sweet, and, then, pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile, — she swims, she rides excellently, and her voice! Indeed, one may say she has a remarkable voice!” She sang her favourite musical phrase from Cherubini’s opera, threw herself down on the bed, laughed at the joyous thought that she would soon be asleep, called out to Dunyasha to put out the light, and, before Dunyasha had left the room, she had passed to another, a still more happy, world of dreams, where everything was easy and nice, as in reality, but somehow better, because it was in a different way.

On the following day the countess invited Boris to her house. She had a talk with him, after which he stopped calling on the Rostdvs.

XIV.

On the 31st of December, on the eve of the year 1810, a ball was given at the house of a dignitary of the reign of Catherine. The diplomatic corps and the emperor were to be there. The well-known house of the dignitary on the English Quay was illuminated by an endless number of lights. At the brilliantly lighted entrance, decorated with red cloth, stood the police: there were not only the gendarmes, but the chief of police himself was there with dozens of police officers. Carriages drove away, and ever new carriages, with lackeys in red and with lackeys with feathers in their hats, kept driving up. Out of the carriages stepped men in uniforms, decorations, and sashes; ladies in velvets and ermines cautiously stepped down the noisily thrown back carriage steps, and hastily and noiselessly walked up the carpets of the entrance.

Whenever a new carriage drove up, a whisper ran through the crowd, and hats were taken off.

“ The emperor ? No, a minister — a prince — an ambassador— Do you not see the feathers?” were the words heard in the crowd. One of the crowd, dressed better than the rest, seemed to know everybody, and he gave the names of the more famous dignitaries of the time.

One-third of the guests had already arrived at the ball, but at the Rostovs’, who were to be there, hurried preparations in the way of dressing were still going on.

There had been many conversations and preparations for this ball in the family of the Rostdvs, and many fears

that the invitation would not arrive, that the dresses would not be ready, and that nothing would go as it ought to go.

With the Rostdvs was going Märya Ignätevna Perdnski, a friend and relative of the countess, a lean, sallow maid of honour of the old court, who was guiding the provincial Rostdvs in the higher St. Petersburg society.

At ten o clock in the evening the Rostdvs were to call for the lady of honour at the Tauric Garden ; it was now five minutes to ten, and the ladies were not yet dressed.

This was Natasha’s first grand ball. She rose on that day at eight o’clock in the morning and passed the whole day in a feverish activity and in worry. All her strength had been directed since morning toward having everybody, herself, mamma, and Sdnya, dressed in the best possible manner. Sdnya and the countess entrusted themselves entirely to her. The countess was to wear a peony velvet dress, while the two girls were to wear white crape over rose-coloured silk slips, with roses in the corsage. The hair was to be dressed à la grecque.

Everything essential had been done: the feet, arms, neck, ears, had been carefully washed, perfumed and powdered, as was proper for a ball ; the silk open-work stockings were already on their legs, and the white velvet shoes with the ribbons were on their feet ; the hairdressing was almost complete. Sonya was getting through dressing, and so was the countess ; but Natâsha, who had attended to everybody, was still dressing. She was sitting before the mirror, with a dressing-sack over her thin shoulders. Sonya, dressed, was standing in the middle of the room, attaching the last ribbon, which produced a squeaking sound under the pin, as she drove it in with her small finger, making it smart.

” Not like that, not like that, Sdnya,” said Natasha, turning her head away and with her hands clutching the hair which the maid, who was holding it, had had no time to let out of her hands. “ You must not wear the ribbon in that fashion. Come here ! ”

Sonya squatted down, and Natdsha put the ribbon on in a different way.

” Excuse me, lady, but I cannot comb you,” said the maid who was holding Natäsha’s hair.

” O Eord ! you can do it later. Eike this, Sdnya ! ”

” Will you be done soon ? ” was heard the voice of the countess. “ It is ten o’clock.”

“ Directly, directly. And are you ready, mamma ? ”

” I need only pin on my toque.”

” Don’t do it without me,” cried Natdsha. ” You will not do it right ! ”

” But it is ten already.”

It had been decided to arrive at the ball at half-past ten, and Natasha had still to be dressed, and they had to drive to the Tauric Garden.

After finishing her hairdressing, Natasha, in a short skirt, underneath which could be seen her ball shoes, and in her mother’s sack, ran up to Sdnya to examine her, after which she went to her mother. She turned her head sidewise and pinned on her toque, and, giving her mother a passing kiss on her gray hair, again ran back to the maids who were hemming her skirt.

The trouble was that Natäsha’s skirt was too long, and two maids kept biting off threads and hurriedly hemming the skirt. A third, with pins between her lips and teeth, was running from the countess to Sdnya, while a fourth was holding the whole crape dress high up in her hand.

” Mavrusha, hurry up, my dear ! ”

” Eet me have the thimble, countess ! ”

” How soon will you be done ? ” said the count, who came in from another room. ” Here is some perfume. Miss Perdnski must be tired waiting.”

” It is done, lady,” said the maid, lifting the shortened crape dress, and blowing and shaking something off, as

though to express by that gesture her consciousness of the airiness and purity of that which she was holding in her hand.

Natasha began to put on the dress.

” In a minute, papa ! Don’t come in ! ” she called out to her father, who had opened the door, while she was under the crape of the skirt, which covered her whole face.

Sdnya slammed the door to. A minute later the count was admitted. He wore a blue dress coat, stockings and shoes, and was perfumed and pomaded.

” Oh, papa, how nice you look ! It is just fine ! ” said Natäsha, standing in the middle of the room and straightening out the folds of the crape.

“ Excuse me, lady, excuse me ! ” said the maid, kneeling down, pulling the dress in shape, and with her tongue transferring the pins from one side of her mouth to the other.

” As you please ‘ ” Sdnya called out, with an expression of despair in her voice, as she examined Natasha’s dress. “ As you please, only it is again too long ! “

Natdsha walked off a little way to look at herself in the pier-glass. The dress was too long.

” Upon my word, lady, it is not too long,” said Mavrusha, creeping on the floor after her mistress.

” Well, if it is too long, we will tack it, — in one moment it will be done,” said determined Dunyâsha, taking a pin out of the kerchief over her breast, and beginning to work once more on the floor. Just then the countess, in her toque and velvet dress, entered bashfully and with soft steps.

” Oh, my beauty ! ” cried the count. ” She is nicer than both of you ! ” He wanted to embrace her, but she, blushing, turned away, so as not to have her dress crushed.

” Mamma, your toque a little more to one side ! ” said Natasha. “ I will change it for you,” and she rushed forward, which caused the girls, who were sewing and who could not follow her at once, to tear off a small piece of crape.

” 0 Lord ! What is this ? Upon my word, it is not my fault — “

” Never mind, I’ll tack it, and it won’t be seen,” said Dunyasha.

“ My beauty, — a very queen ! ” said the nurse, coming through the door. ” And Sonya ! Oh, what beauties ! ”

At fifteen minutes past ten they finally seated themselves in the carriages and drove away. It was still necessary to go to the Tauric Garden.

Miss Perdnski was ready. In spite of her old age and homeliness, the same thing had taken place with her, as at the house of the Rostovs, though not with the same haste (it was a common occurrence with her) ; just as there, her old, homely body was perfumed, washed and powdered ; just as carefully she was washed behind her ears, and, just as at the house of the Rostdvs, her old maid went into ecstasies over the raiment of her mistress, when she appeared in the drawingroom in a yellow dress with the decoration of a maid of honour. She praised the toilets of the Rostovs.

The Rostovs praised her good taste and toilet, and, carefully watching their dresses and their coiffures, seated themselves in the carriages at eleven o’clock and drove to the ball.

XV.

Natasha had not had a moment of rest since morning and had not had a single chance to think of what was awaiting her.

In the damp, cold air, in the narrow space and halfdarkness of the carriage, she for the first time formed a vivid picture of what was in store for her there, at the ball, in the illuminated halls : the music, the flowers, the dances, the emperor, the whole brilliant youth of St. Petersburg. What awaited her was so beautiful, that she did not even believe that it would all be: it was all so incompatible with the impression of the cold, and the narrowness and darkness of the carriage. She understood completely what was in store for her only when she walked over the red carpet of the entrance, entered the vestibule, took off her furs, and went with Sdnya, in front of her mother, between the flowers of the illuminated staircase. Only then she recalled how she had to act at the ball, and she tried to assume that majestic attitude which she regarded as necessary for a girl at a ball. But, fortunately, she felt that her eyes were roving : she saw nothing clearly, her pulse beat one hundred times a minute, and her blood began to pound at her heart. She was unable to assume that attitude which would have made her ridiculous, and she walked along in trepidation, which she was endeavouring to conceal. And this was precisely the manner which suited her most. Guests came in in front of them and behind them, and they, too, spoke softly to each other, and they, too, wore ball dresses. The mirrors on the staircase reflected ladies in white, blue, pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare hands and necks.

Natasha looked into the mirrors, but could not tell herself from the rest in the reflection : everything was blended into one brilliant procession. Upon entering the first hall, the even din of voices, steps, and greetings deafened Natdsha ; the light and splendour blinded her. The host and hostess, who had been standing at the door for half an hour and saying to each guest, ” Charmé de vous voir,” also met the Bostdvs and Miss Peronski.

The two girls in white dresses, with similar roses in their black hair, made a similar curtsey, but the hostess instinctively cast a more prolonged glance at slender Natdsha. She looked at her, and gave her a special smile, in addition to her smile as a hostess. Looking at her, the hostess, perhaps, thought of her golden, irretrievable maiden days, and of her first ball. The host, too, followed Natasha with his eyes, and asked the count which one was his daughter.

” Charmante ! ” he said, kissing the tips of his fingers.

In the hall stood the guests, crowding at the entrance door, waiting for the emperor. The countess placed herself in the first row of that throng. Natasha heard several persons ask about her, and she was conscious of their gaze. She saw that she had found favour in the eyes of those who were looking at her, and this observation calmed her a little.

” There are some here who look like us, and some look even worse,” she thought.

Miss Peronski pointed out the more distinguished guests to the countess.

” This is the Dutch ambassador, — you see that grayhaired man,” she said, pointing to an old man, with a silvery grayness to his profuse, curly hair, surrounded by ladies, whom he was making laugh by something he said.

‘ ” And there she is, the queen of St. Petersburg, Countess Bezukhi,” she said, pointing to Hélène, who had just entered.

” How beautiful ! She does not fall behind Märya Antônovna ; see how the young and the old are courting her. She is beautiful and clever. They say Prince–—

is desperately in love with her. Now these two are not so pretty, but they have an even greater following.”

She pointed to a lady and her homely daughter who were crossing the hall.

” This girl is worth millions,” said Miss Perénski, ” and here are the would-be bridegrooms.”

” This is the brother of Countess Bezukhi, Anatol Kuragin,” she said, pointing to the handsome chevalierguardsman who went past them, who from the height of his raised head was looking at something beyond the ladies. « How handsome he is 1 He is spoken of in connection with that rich girl. Your cousin, Drubetskoy, is also paying her attentions. They say she has millions. — Why, that is the French ambassador,” she said of Caulaincourt, about whom the countess was asking her. “Just look at him ! He walks about like a king. And yet the Frenchmen are very pleasant people. There are no pleasanter people in society. And there she is ! No, our Marya Antonovna is best of them all ! How simply she is dressed ! Charming ! — And that one there, the fat man in glasses, is the universal Freemason,” she said, pointing to Bezukhi. ” Put him in a line with his wife, and he will appear like a scarecrow ! “

Pierre was walking, swaying his heavy body, pushing his way through the crowd, lurching to the right and left as though he were crossing a crowd in the market-place. Apparently he was in search of somebody.

Natdsha was glad to see the familiar face of Pierre, the scarcecrow, as Miss Perénski had called him, and she knew that Pierre was looking for them in the crowd, and particularly for her. Pierre had promised her to be at the ball and to introduce her to gentlemen.

But, before reaching them, Bezukhi stopped near a handsome, dark-complexioned man of low stature, in a white uniform, who, standing at the window, was talking with a tall man with decorations and a sash. Natdsha immediately recognized the young man in the white uniform : it was Bolkénski, who seemed to her much younger, more cheerful, and better looking than before.

” Here is another acquaintance, Bolkénski, — do you see him, mamma,” said Natasha, pointing to Prince Andrey. ” Do you remember ? He stayed overnight at our house at Otràdnoe.”

” Oh, you know him ? ” said Miss Peronski. ” I can’t bear him. Il fait à present la pluie et le beau temps. There is no limit to his pride ! He is like liis father. He has connected himself with Speränski, and is writing some kind of projects. See how he treats the ladies ! She is talking to him, but he has turned away,” she said, pointing to him. “ I would teach him a lesson if he tried to treat me like that ! ”

XVI.

Suddenly everybody came into motion. The crowd began to speak, moved forward, and back again, and between two receding rows, at the sound of the music which struck up a tune, entered the emperor. Behind him came the host and the hostess. The emperor walked rapidly, bowing to the right and left, as though trying as fast as possible to get rid of this first minute of the meeting. The musicians played a polonaise, which was at that time famous for the words which had been composed for it. They began with ” Alexander, Elizabeth, you delight us ! ” The emperor went to the drawingroom, and the throng rushed after him to the door; several persons hurriedly surged to and fro, with changed expressions on their faces. The crowd again whirled back from the door of the drawingroom, in which the emperor appeared, speaking with the hostess. A young man with a frightened expression pressed against the ladies, asking them to step aside. Several ladies, with faces which expressed complete forgetfulness of all the conditions of society, and ruining their toilets, pressed forward. Men came up to the ladies, and they began to arrange themselves in pairs for the polonaise.

All drew back, and the emperor, smiling and leading the hostess by the hand, without keeping time with the music, came out of the door of the drawingroom. He was followed by the host with Mme. M. A. Narishkin, then the ambassadors, the ministers, and a number of generals, whose names Miss Perdnski mentioned one after the other. More than half the ladies had gentlemen and were walking or were getting ready to walk in the polonaise. Natasha felt that she was going to be left with Sdnya and her mother among the minority of the ladies, who were pressed back to the wall and had not been invited for the polonaise. She was standing, dropping her slender arms, and, with an evenly rising, scarcely defined bosom, holding her breath, and with sparkling, frightened eyes was looking in front of her, with an expression which said that she was ready for the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow. She was interested neither in the emperor, nor in all the distinguished persons to whom Miss Perénski was pointing. She had but one thought : ” Is it possible nobody will come up to me ? Is it possible that I shall not be among the first to dance ? Will none of these men who are here notice me ? They do not seem to see me now, and if they do, they look at me with an expression which says, ‘ It is not she, so there is nothing to look at.’ No, it cannot be ! ” she thought. ” They must know how I want to dance, how excellently I dance, and how nice it will be for them to dance with me.”

The sounds of the polonaise, which had been heard for quite awhile, were beginning to sound sad in Natdsha’s ears, as a distant memory. She felt like weeping. Miss Perdnski had walked away from them. The count was at the other end of the hall ; the countess, Sdnya, and she were standing all alone in this crowd, as though they were in the woods, of no interest and no use to any one. Prince Andrey passed by them with a lady without recognizing them. Handsome Anatdl, smiling, was saying something to the lady whom he was leading, and he looked at Natasha’s face with the expression with which one looks at a wall. Boris twice passed near them and each time turned his face away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, walked over to them.

Natäsha felt offended by this family reunion, there at the ball, as though there were no other place for family chats but at a ball. She paid no attention to Vyéra, who was telling her something about her green dress.

Finally the emperor stopped near his last lady (he had danced with three), and the music ceased. A busy adjutant rushed up against the Rostovs and asked them to step aside, although they were standing at the wall, and from the gallery were heard the distinct, cautious, enticingly even sounds of a waltz. The emperor smiled and looked down the hall. A minute passed, and no one had yet begun. The adjutant in charge of the ball walked over to Countess Bezukhi and invited her. She smiled, and raising her hand, placed it, without looking, on the shoulder of the adjutant. The adjutant, who was a complete master of himself, confidently, leisurely, and evenly clasped his lady’s waist, and started at first in a gliding fashion along the outer circle, and at the corner of the hall caught her left hand and turned her around, and through the accelerated sounds of the music could be heard only the measured clicks of the spurs of the adjutant’s rapid and agile feet, and after every three beats the velvet dress of his lady puffed up and fluttered at each turn. Natasha looked at them and was ready to weep, because it was not she who was dancing the first turn of the waltz.

Prince Andréy, in the white uniform of a colonel of the cavalry, in stockings and shoes, animated and merry, was standing in the first row of the circle, not far from the Rostdvs. Baron Fiirhof was talking with him about the first meeting of the Council of State, which was to take place on the next day. Prince Andréy, as a man who was standing near to Sperdnski and who was taking part in the labours of the commission of legislation, could give definite information about the coming meeting, concerning which there were conflicting rumours. But he was not listening to what Fiirhof was saying to him, and was looking now at the emperor, now at the gentlemen who were getting ready to dance, but who did not have the courage to enter the inner circle.

Prince Andréy was watching these gentlemen who were timid in the presence of the emperor, and the ladies who were dying to be invited.

Pierre went up to Prince Andréy and took his hand.

” You always dance. There is here one of my protégées, young Miss Rostév, so invite her ! ” he said.

” Where ? ” asked Bolkonski. ” Excuse me,” he said, turning to the baron, ” we will finish this conversation in some other place, but at a ball we must dance.” He walked ahead, in the direction pointed out to him by Pierre. //He was at once struck by Natasha’s despairing face, expressive of a sinking heart. He recognized her, divined her feeling, saw that she was a débutante, recalled her conversation at the window, and with a happy expression on his face walked over to Countess Rostév.

” Permit me to make you acquainted with my daughter,” the countess said, blushing.

” I have the pleasure of knowing her, if the countess will remember me,” Prince Andréy said, with a civil, low bow, which was at odds with Miss Peronski’s remarks about his rudeness. He went up to Natasha and put forth his arm to clasp her waist, even before he had finished his invitation for the dance. He proposed to dance the waltz with her. The timorous expression of Natasha’s face, which was ready for despair and for transport, suddenly was lighted up by a happy, grateful, childish smile.

” I have been waiting for you so long,” this frightened and happy girl seemed to say by her smile, which appeared instead of the tears that were ready to well up, as she raised her arm to place it on the shoulder of Prince Andréy. They were the second pair that entered the circle. Prince Andréy was one of the best dancers of his time. Natäsha danced superbly. Her little feet, in the velvet ball shoes, were doing their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of her, while her face beamed with the ecstasy of happiness. Her bare neck and arms were thin and not beautiful in comparison with Hélène’s shoulders. Her shoulders were thin, her bosom not yet defined, her arms slender; but Hélène seemed to be covered with a varnish from the thousands of glances which glided down her body, while Natasha looked like a girl who had a low-cut dress on for the first time, and who would certainly have been ashamed of it, if she had not been assured that it was proper.

Prince Andréy was fond of dancing and, wishing as soon as possible to rid himself of political and clever conversations, with which he was approached by everybody, and wishing at the earliest time possible to break that annoying circle of hesitation, due to the emperor’s presence, had started to dance and had chosen Natasha, because Pierre had pointed her out to him, and because she was the first pretty woman upon whom his eyes had fallen ; but the moment he had embraced that slender, flexible waist, and she stirred close to him, and smiled close to him, the wine of her charm went to his head : he felt as though vivified and grown younger, when, drawing breath again and having brought her back, he stopped and began to look at the dancers.

XVII.

After Prince Andréy, Boris walked over to Natasha and invited her to dance with him ; then came also the adjutant who had started the ball, and other young men, and Natasha, turning her superfluous gentlemen over to Sdnya, was happy, and, red with excitement, did not stop dancing the whole evening. She neither saw nor heard anything which interested everybody else at that ball. She not only did not notice that the emperor had for a long time been speaking with the French ambassador, and that he spoke with particular kindness to one of the ladies; that such and such a prince said or did this or that ; that Hélène had an enormous success and had attracted the special attention of so and so; she did not even see the emperor, and noticed his absence only from the fact that the ball became livelier after his departure. Before supper, Prince Andréy again danced with Natasha, this time a cotillon. He reminded her of their first meeting in the avenue at Oträdnoe, and of her having been unable to fall asleep during the moonlit night, and told her that he involuntarily had overheard her. Natäsha blushed at this recollection and tried to find excuses, as though there had been something disgraceful in the feeling which Prince Andréy had involuntarily been a witness of.

Prince Andréy, like all people grown up in society, was fond of meeting those who did not bear the society imprint on them. And such Natäsha was, with her surprise, her joy, her timidity, and even her blunders in

speaking French. He treated her with especial tenderness and care. Sitting near her and speaking with her about the simplest and most insignificant subjects, Prince Andréy admired the joyous gleam of her eyes and smile, which had reference not to the remarks made, but to her inner happiness. Whenever Natasha was chosen, and she rose with a smile and danced through the hall, Prince Andréy admired especially her timorous gracefulness. In the middle of the cotillon, Natdsha, having finished a figure, and still breathing heavily, was walking over to her seat. A new gentleman again invited her to dance. She was tired and out of breath and evidently intended to refuse, but immediately again joyfully raised her arm on her gentleman’s shoulder, and smiled at Prince Andréy.

“I should be glad to rest and sit with you, — for I am tired ; but you see how I am sought after, and I am happy and love all, and you and I understand it all,” and many, many more things her smile said. When the gentleman left her Natasha ran across the hall in order to take two ladies for the figures.

“If she walks over first to her cousin, and then to another lady, she will be my wife,” Prince Andréy unexpectedly said to himself, as he looked at her.

She first went up to her cousin.

” What nonsense sometimes comes to one ! ” thought Prince Andréy. ” But it is certain that this girl is so sweet, so original, that she will not dance a month before she will be married. She is rare here,” he thought, when Natasha, adjusting a rose which had slipped in her corsage, sat down near him.

At the end of the cotillon the old count, in his blue dress coat, walked over to the dancers. He invited Prince Andréy to his house and asked his daughter whether she was amusing herself. Natasha made no reply and only smiled a reproachful smile which said, “ How can you ask such a question ? “

” I have never in my life had such a time ! ” she said, and Prince Andréy noticed how rapidly her arms rose to embrace her father and immediately fell again. She was at that highest stage of happiness when a person becomes absolutely good and does not believe in the possibility of evil, misfortune, and sorrow.

At this ball, Pierre for the first time felt himself offended by the position which his wife occupied in the higher spheres. He was gloomy and absent-minded. There was a broad wrinkle across his brow, and, standing at the window, he was looking over his glasses, without seeing any one.

Natésha, on her way to supper, passed by him.

She was struck by Pierre’s gloomy, unhappy face. She stopped opposite him. She wanted to help him, to transmit to him part of her happiness.

“ How merry this is, count ! ” she said. ” Don’t you think so ? ”

Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, apparently not understanding what she had said to him.

” Yes, I am very glad,” he said.

” How can people be dissatisfied with anything ? ” thought Natàsha. ” Especially such a good man as this Bezukhi ? “

To Natasha’s thinking, all the people at the ball were equally good, nice, fine people, who loved each other: nobody could offend anybody else, and therefore all ought to be happy.

XVIII.

On the following day, Prince Andréy recalled the ball of the previous evening, but he did not long dwell on it. ” Yes, it was a very brilliant ball. And — yes, Miss Rostov is very sweet. There is something fresh, something original, non-Petersburgian in her, which distinguishes her from the rest.” That was all he thought of the ball. He drank his tea and sat down to work.

But, either from fatigue or from a sleepless night (it was not a good day for work, and Prince Andréy could do nothing), he criticised his own work, as often was the case with him, and was glad to hear that some one had called on him.

The guest was Bitski, who served in different commissions, who went to all societies in St. Petersburg, — an impassioned advocate of new ideas and of Speranski, and a busy newsmonger of St. Petersburg, — one of those men who choose a direction like a garment, according to the fashion, but who, for that very reason, seem to be the warmest partisans of that direction. He ran into Prince Andréy’s room with a careworn expression on his face, and, barely having had time to take off his hat, began to talk at once. He had just learned the details of the morning meeting of the Council of State, which was presided over by the emperor, and told of them with enthusiasm. The emperor’s speech had been remarkable. It was one of those speeches which are made only by constitutional monarchs.

“ The emperor said openly that the Council and the 294

Senate constituted the estates of the realm ; he said that the government must have for its base, not arbitrary power, but firm principles. The emperor said that the finances should be reformed, and the budget should be made public,” said Bitski, with special emphasis on certain words, and opening his eyes wide.

” Yes, to-day’s event is an era, the greatest era in our history,” he concluded.

Prince Andréy listened to the story of the opening of the Council of State, for which he had been waiting with such impatience, and to which he ascribed great importance, and he was surprised that this event, after it had happened, not only did not stir him, but appeared more than unimportant to him. He listened to Bitski’s story with a calm smile. The very simple thought ran through his head : ” What business have Bitski and I with what it has pleased the emperor to say in the Council ! Can all that make me happier and better ? “

This simple reflection suddenly destroyed for Prince Andréy all his former interest in the reforms which were being accomplished. On that day Prince Andréy was to dine at Sperânski’s, ” en petit comité” as the host had told him as he invited him. The dinner in the circle of his family and of his friends, given by a man whom he had admired so much, had at first interested Prince Andréy very much, the more so since he had not seen Sperânski heretofore in his domestic circle ; but now he did not feel like going there.

However, at the appointed hour, Prince Andréy entered Sperânski’s small house near the Tauric Garden. In the parquetted dining-room of the small house, which sparkled in its cleanliness (reminding one of monastic cleanliness), Prince Andréy, who was a little late, found at five o’clock the whole company of the petit comité, composed of Sperânski’s intimate friends, all gathered. There were no ladies except Sperânski’s young daughter (with a long

face, resembling that of her father) and her governess. The guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While in the antechamber, Prince Andréy heard loud voices and a clear, melodious laugh, such as people laugh on the stage. Somebody was speaking in a voice resembling that of Sperànski, accentuating every ” ha.” Prince Andréy had never heard Sperànski laugh, and this thin, melodious laugh of the statesman surprised him.

Prince Andréy entered the dining-room. The whole company was standing between two windows at the small table with the appetizers. Sperànski, in a gray dress coat, with the decoration, apparently in the same white waistcoat and high white necktie, in which he had been at the famous meeting of the Council of State, was standing at the table, with a happy expression on his countenance. The guests surrounded him. Magnitski, turning to Mikhail Mikhaylovich, was telling an anecdote. Sperànski listened, laughing in advance, to what Magnitski was going to say. As Prince Andréy entered the room, Magnitski’s words were again drowned in laughter. Stolypin was laughing in a loud bass, chewing a piece of bread and cheese ; Gervais hissed in a soft giggle, and Sperànski was laughing a clear, thin laugh.

Sperànski, still laughing, gave Prince Andréy his white, tender hand.

“ Very glad to see you, prince,” he said. ” One minute,” he turned to Magnitski, interrupting his story. ” We have agreed to have a dinner for pleasure, and so not a word of business.” And he again turned to the storyteller and again laughed.

Prince Andréy in wonderment and disappointed sadness listened to his laughter, and looked at laughing Sperànski. It was not Sperànski, but another man, so Prince Andréy thought. Everything which before had appeared so mysterious and attractive in Sperànski, now became clear and unattractive to Prince Andréy.

At the table the conversation did not die down for a moment, and seemed to consist of a collection of funny anecdotes. Magnitski had barely finished his story when somebody else expressed his readiness to tell something which was funnier still. The anecdotes referred not so much to the world of the government service as to the officials in that service. It looked as though in this society the insignificance of these men had been definitely settled, and that the only relation which could exist to them was one of good-natured banter. Sperànski told how at the Council of that morning a deaf dignitary, to the question what his opinion was, replied that he was of the same opinion. Gervais told a whole story about the revision, which was remarkable for the stupidity of all persons concerned. Stolypin, stammering, broke in on the conversation, and began fervently to tell of the disorders and abuses of the old order of things, threatening to give a serious turn to the conversation. Magnitski began to jest Stolypin for his fervour. Gervais put in a joke, and the conversation assumed the former merry turn.

Apparently Sperànski liked after his labours to rest and make merry in the circle of his friends, and all of his guests, comprehending his desire, tried to amuse him while amusing themselves. But this merriment appeared heavy and the opposite of merry to Prince Andréy. The thin voice of Sperànski affected him unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter somehow offended his feelings by its false note. Prince Andréy did not laugh and was afraid that he would be out of place with the company. But nobody noticed his being out of tune •with the general mood, — they were all too happy to see it.

He tried several times to take part in the conversation, but his words were every time thrown out, like a cork from the water, and he was unable to jest with them.

There was nothing bad or improper in what they were

saying : everything was sharp and clever, and might have been funny ; but something which is the salt of merriment was lacking, and they did not even know that it existed.

After dinner Speranski’s daughter and her governess rose. Sperânski patted his daughter with his white hand and kissed her ; but the gesture appeared unnatural to Prince Andréy. The men remained, in English fashion, at the table, drinking port. In the middle of an incipient conversation about the Spanish affairs of Napoleon, of which all approved, Prince Andrey began to contradict them. Sperânski smiled, and, evidently wishing to turn the conversation from this new direction, told an anecdote, which had no relation to the matter in hand. For a few moments all were silent.

After remaining for some time at the table, Sperânski corked the wine-bottle and, saying, ” Nowadays good wine does not run at will,” gave it to the servant and rose from table. All got up and, speaking just as noisily, went to the drawingroom. Two envelopes, which were brought by a courier, were handed to Sperânski. He took them and went to his cabinet. When he came out, the general merriment died down, and the guests began to speak softly to each other.

” Let us have a declamation ! ” said Sperânski, coming out of the cabinet. “ A wonderful talent ! ” he turned to Prince Andréy.

Magnitski immediately got up, struck a pose, and began to declaim French jocular verses which he had composed to ridicule well-known persons in St. Petersburg, and he was several times applauded. Prince Andréy, at the end of the declamation, walked over to Sperânski to bid him goodbye.

” Where are you going so early ? ” asked Sperânski.

” I promised to be at an evening entertainment — ” They were silent. Prince Andréy looked close by into those mirrorlike, impermeable eyes, and it appeared funny to him how he could have expected anything from Speranski and from all the activity which was connected with him, and how he could have ascribed any seriousness to Sperânski. That accurate, cheerless laugh kept for a long time dinning in the ears of Prince Andréy, even after he left Sperânski.

Upon returning home, Prince Andréy began to recall Ins St. Petersburg life for the last four months, as though it were something new. He recalled his efforts, his requests, the history of his project of the military code, which was taken under advisement, and which they were trying to suppress only because another project, a very bad one, had been written out already and had been presented to the emperor ; he thought of the meetings of the committee, of which Berg was a member ; he recalled how in these meetings they had submitted to very careful and minute discussion everything which had any reference to the form and the process of the meetings of the committee, and how carefully and expeditiously everything was obviated which had anything to do with the essence of the case. He recalled his work in the matter of the code of legislation, his assiduous translation of the articles of the Boman and French codes into Russian, and he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly thought of his Bogucharovo, of his occupations in the country, of his journey to Ryazan ; he thought of Ins peasants, of Elder Bron, and, applying to them the ” rights of individuals,” which he had been dividing into paragraphs, he began to wonder how he could have wasted his time so long on such useless work.

XIX.

On the following day Prince Andréy made calls at certain places where he had not yet been, and among them he called on the Rostévs, with whom he had renewed his acquaintance at the last ball. Not only did propriety demand that he should call on them, but he wanted to see at her own house that peculiar, animated girl, who had left such a pleasant impression on him.

Natasha was one of the first to meet him. She wore a blue dress, the one she generally wore at home, and which made her even more attractive to Prince Andréy than she had appeared to him in the ball dress. She and the whole family of the Rostovs received Prince Andréy simply and with open arms, as an old friend. The whole family, which Prince Andréy had severely criticized before now seemed to him to be composed of good, simple, nice people. The hospitality and frankness of the old count, especially agreeable and striking in St. Petersburg, were such that Prince Andréy could not refuse an invitation to dinner.

” Yes, they are good, excellent people,” thought Bolkonski. ” Of course, they have not the dimmest notion of the treasure they have in Natasha; but they are good people, who form the best background against which this extremely poetical, exquisite girl, who is full of life, stands out sharply.”

Prince Andréy felt in Natäsha the presence of an entirely new and strange world, full of unknown joys, of that strange world which had so vexed him then, in the avenue of Otradnoe, and at the window, in the moonlit night. Now this world no longer vexed him, it was not a strange world to him ; and he, having entered it himself, was discovering new enjoyment in it.

After dinner, Natasha, at the request of Prince Andréy, went to the clavichord and began to sing. Prince Andréy was standing at the window, talking with the ladies and listening. In the middle of a phrase Prince Andréy grew silent and suddenly felt that a lump was rising in his throat, of the possibility of which he had never been conscious in himself. He glanced at singing Natäsha, and something new, which gave him happiness, took place in his soul. He was happy, and at the same time he was sad. He had absolutely no cause for weeping, but he was ready to weep. For what ? For his former love ? For the little princess ? For his disappointments ? For his future hopes? Yes and no. The chief thing for which he felt like weeping was the suddenly realized vivid consciousness of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and indefinable, which had been in him, and something narrow and corporeal, which he himself, and even she, was. This contrast vexed him and gave him pleasure during her singing.

The moment Natäsha had finished singing, she went up to him and asked him how he liked her voice. She asked it and only then became confused, seeing that she ought not to have asked that question. He smiled, looking at her, and said that he liked her singing as much as everything else which she did.

Prince Andréy left the Rostovs late in the evening. He lay down to sleep from habit, but he soon saw that he could not fall asleep. He lighted a candle and sat up in his bed, then rose, again lay down, not feeling in the least annoyed by his sleeplessness : he had such a new, joyous feeling as though he had come out from a close room into the fresh air. It did not occur to him that he was in love

with Natasha ; he was not thinking of her ; he only presented her to his mind, and thus his whole life appeared to him in a new light.

” Why do I worry and vex my life away in this narrow, closed frame, when life, the whole of life with all its joys, is open to me ? ” he said to himself. And he began, for the first time after a long period, to make happy plans for the future. He decided that he must think of the education of his son, by finding an educator for him, and entrusting his son to him ; then he would take his dismissal, and would go abroad, to England, Switzerland, and Italy.

” I must make use of my liberty, so long as I feel so much strength and such youth in me,” he said to himself. ” Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I am alive, I must live and be happy,” he thought.

XX.

One morning Colonel Adolph Berg, whom Pierre knew, as he knew everybody in Moscow and St. Petersburg, came, in a brand-new uniform, and having his hair pomaded over his forehead, just as the Emperor Alexander Pävlovich wore it, to see him about some matter.

“ I have just called on the countess, and was so unfortunate as not to get my request granted ; I hope that I will be more fortunate with you, count,” he said, smiling.

” What do you wish, colonel ? I am at your service.”

” I have now fully settled in my new quarters,” Berg informed him, apparently supposing that it would give Pierre pleasure to hear it, ” and so I should like to give a small party for my friends and those of my wife.” He smiled a sweeter smile. “ I wanted to ask the countess and you to do me the honour of taking tea and supper with us.”

It was only Countess Hélène Vasflevna, who regarded the society of the Bergs as below her dignity, who could have been so cruel as to refuse the invitation. Berg gave such a clear explanation why he wished to have a small select company at his house, and why this would give him pleasure, and why he would be stingy’ with money for cards or for something bad, but would not stint liimself to have a select company at his house, that Pierre could not refuse and promised to come.

” Only don’t come late, count, if I may ask you ! Say ten minutes to eight, if I dare ask you. We shall have a party. Our general will be there. He is very kind to

me. We shall eat supper, count. So please do me the favour ! “

Contrary to his customary habit of being late, Pierre on that night arrived at the house of the Bergs at fifteen, instead of ten, minutes to eight.

The Bergs were already prepared for their guests.

Berg and his wife were sitting in a clean, bright cabinet, which was ornamented with small busts and pictures and new furniture. Berg was sitting near his wife, wearing a new uniform, which was all buttoned up, and was explaining to her that it was always proper to have acquaintances among people who stand higher, because only then is there any pleasure in having acquaintances. ” You learn something, and you may ask for something. See how I have risen from the first ranks!” Berg did not count his life by years, but by imperial rewards. “ My comrades are still nothing, and I am in command of a regiment pro teni. I have the pleasure of being your husband” (he rose and kissed Vyéra’s hand, but on the way toward her straightened out a corner of a rug). ” How did I obtain this all ? Chiefly by my ability to choose my acquaintances. Of course, one must be virtuous and prompt.”

Berg smiled at the thought of his superiority over his weak wife, and grew silent, considering that his sweet wife was, after all, a weak woman who could not grasp all the worth of a man, what it was ” ein Mann zu sein.” Vyéra, too, smiled at the same time, being conscious of her superiority over her virtuous and good husband, who, according to Vyéra’s ideas, understood life wrongly, as did all men. Berg, judging all women from his wife, regarded them all as weak and silly. Vyéra, judging from her husband and generalizing her observation, concluded that all men ascribed great intellect to themselves, while in reality they did not understand anything, and were proud and egotistical.

Berg rose and, cautiously embracing his wife, in order not to crumple her lace pelerine, for which he had paid a great sum, kissed her in the middle of her lips.

” But, — we must not have children too soon,” he said, by an unconscious association of ideas.

« Yes,” replied Vyéra, ” I do not want them myself.

We must live for society.”

“Princess Yusupov had one just like it,” said Berg, with a happy and kindly smile pointing to the pelerine.

Just then the arrival of Count Bezukhi was announced. Husband and wife exchanged a self-satisfied smile, both ascribing the honour of this visit to themselves.

“ This is what it means to know how to make acquaintances,” thought Berg. ” This is what it means to know how to bear oneself ! ”

” Only please, when I entertain the guests,” said Vyéra, ” do not interrupt me, because I know how to entertain each, and what is to be said to the different people.”

Berg smiled.

” That won’t do, because now and then men must talk together about men’s affairs,” he said.

Pierre was received in the brand-new drawingroom, in which it was impossible to sit down anywhere without impairing the symmetry, cleanliness, and order, and so it was naturally not strange if Berg proposed for the sake of the distinguished guest to disturb the symmetry of a chair, or sofa, but, apparently being himself in a state of morbid indecision in regard to this matter, he left the solution of this question to the choice of the guest. Pierre broke the symmetry, by drawing a chair toward him, and Berg and Vyéra immediately began the evening, interrupting each other and entertaining the guest.

Vyéra, who had made up her mind that Pierre was to be entertained by a conversation dealing with the French embassy, went at it at once. Berg, however, deciding to have a masculine subject of conversation, interrupted his

wife’s speech by touching on the war with Austria, and involuntarily jumped from the general subject to personal considerations regarding the offer that had been made to him to take part in the Austrian campaign, and about the causes which led him to decline the offer. Although the conversation was not very logical, and Vyéra was angry at her husband’s interference, both husband and wife felt with delight that, although only one guest was present, the evening had begun very well, and that it resembled any other evening with its conversation, its tea, and its burning lights, just as one drop of water resembles another.

Soon Boris, Berg’s old comrade, arrived. He treated Berg and Vyéra with a certain shade of superiority. After Boris there arrived a lady with her husband, a colonel, and then the general himself, then the Rostévs, and then the evening was certainly like any other evening. Berg and his wife could not restrain a happy smile at the sight of the motion in their drawingroom, at the sound of the incoherent talk, and the rustling of dresses, and scuffing of feet. Everything was as anywhere else; most natural was the general, who praised the quarters, slapped Berg on the shoulder, and, with paternal arbitrariness directed the position of the cardtable. The general sat down by the side of Count Ilya Andréevich, as the most distinguished guest after himself. The old people with the old, the young with the young, the hostess at the teatable, on which there were just such patties in a silver tray as there had been at the evening at the Bénins, — everything was just as anywhere else.

XXI.

Pierre, as one of the most distinguished guests, was to play boston with Ilyd Andréevich, the general, and the colonel. At the cardtable Pierre came to sit opposite Natdsha, and he was struck by the change that had taken place in her since the ball. Natdsha was taciturn, and she was not only not so beautiful as at the ball, but would have been decidedly homely, if she did not look so gentle and indifferent.

” What is the matter with her ? ” thought Pierre, looking at her. She was sitting by the side of her sister, at the teatable, and was reluctantly saying something to Boris, who had sat down near her. Pierre had just received a full hand and, to the delight of his partner, took five points, but, as he heard greetings exchanged and the sound of somebody’s steps that entered the room just as he was to receive the money, he again looked at her.

” What has happened to her ? ” he said to himself, still more astonished than before.

Prince Andréy was standing in front of her, with a respectful and gentle expression on his face, talking to her. She, raising her head and blushing, was looking at him, trying at the same time to restrain her impulsive breathing. Again there flamed up the bright light of an inner, dormant fire. She was all transformed. She was again the beautiful girl she had been at the ball.

Prince Andréy walked over to Pierre, and Pierre noticed a new, youthful expression on the face of his friend.

Pierre several times changed his seat during the game,

dow facing Natasha, and now sitting with his back to her, but during all the six rubbers he kept watching her and his friend.

“Something very important is taking place between them,” thought Pierre, and a joyful and at the same time bitter feeling agitated him and made him forget his own sorrow.

After six rubbers the general rose, saying that it was impossible to play that way, and Pierre was set at liberty. Natdsha was at one side talking with Sdnya and Bons, while Vyéra, with a delicate smile, was conversing with Prince Andréy. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether it was not a secret what they were talking about, sat down near them. Vyéra, who had noticed the attention which Prince Andréy was paying to Natäsha, found that at an evening, a real evening, it was absolutely necessary to make delicate remarks about sentiments, and, availing herself of the opportunity when Prince Andréy was alone, she began to talk to him about sentiments in general and about her sister in particular. She felt that she had to apply her diplomatic art to such a clever man as she knew Prince Andréy to be.

When Pierre came up to them, he noticed that Vyéra was in a self-satisfied transport of conversation, while Prince Andréy seemed to be embarrassed, which was rare with him.

« What is your opinion about it ? ” Vyéra was saying, with a delicate smile. ” You, prince, are so penetrating, and you at once can see through the character of people. What do you think about Natalie ? Is she capable, like other women” (Vyéra meant herself), “of loving a man and for ever remaining faithful to him ? I regard this as real love. What do you think, prince ? “

” I know your sister too little,” Prince Andréy replied, with a sarcastic smile, behind which he tried to conceal his confusion, “to be able to decide such a delicate

question ; besides, I have noticed that tne it»© ».–—

is attractive, the more constant she is,” he added, looking at Pierre, who had just walked over to them.

” Yes, it is so, prince ! In our day,” continued Vyéra (speaking of “our day ” in the same strain as all narrowminded people speak of it, who suppose that they have discovered and properly value the peculiarities of our time, and that the character of people changes with the times), “in our day a girl has so much liberty, that Ic plaisir d’etre courtisée frequently suppresses the real feeling in her. Et Natalie, il faut l’avouer, y est très sensible.”

The return to Natasha again made Prince Andréy frown unpleasantly ; he wanted to get up, but Vyéra continued with a still more refined smile :

“ I think no one has been courtisée so much as she,” said Vyéra, ” but until lately no one has seriously pleased her. Do you know, count,” she turned to Pierre, ” even our dear Cousin Boris, who had been, entre nous, very, very much dans le pays du tendre — “

Prince Andréy frowned and kept silent.

“ You are acquainted with Boris ? ” Vyéra said to him.

“ Yes, I know him — “

” He has no doubt told you about his childish love for Natasha ? “

“ Oh, there has been a childish love ? ” Prince Andréy asked, with a sudden blush.

“ Yes. Vous savez entre cousin et cousine cette intimité mène quelquefois à l’amour : le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. N’est-ce pas ? “

“ Oh, no doubt,” said Prince Andréy, and suddenly becoming animated, he began to jest with Pierre about the necessity of his being careful with his fifty-year-old cousins at Moscow. In the middle of his jesting remarks he rose, and, taking Pierre by his arm, led him to one side.

“ Well, what is it ? ” asked Pierre, looking in surprise at

the strange animation of his friend, and noticing the glance which he in rising cast at Natasha.

” I must. I must speak with you,” said Prince Andréy. ” You know our lady’s gloves ” (he meant the Masonic gloves which were given to a newly chosen brother to be bestowed by him on the beloved woman). ” I — No, I will speak to you later about it.” And with a strange gleam in his eyes and a restlessness in his motions, Prince Andréy went up to Natasha and sat down near her. Pierre saw Prince Andréy ask her something, and she blushed as she gave him an answer.

Put just then Berg went up to Pierre, asking him persistently to take part in a discussion between the general and the colonel concerning the Spanish affairs.

Berg was satisfied and happy. His smile of joy did not leave his face. The evening was very fine and precisely such as all other evenings which he had seen. Everything was just right : the refined ladies’ conversations, the cards, the general at the cards, raising his voice, the samovär, the pastry ; but one thing was lacking, which he had seen at other evenings, and which he was anxious to imitate. There had been no loud dispute between the men about some important subject. The general had just begun it, and it was for this that Berg wanted Pierre.

XXII.

On the next day Prince Andréy went to the Rdstovs for dinner, having been invited by Count Ilyä Andréevich, and remained there the whole day.

Everybody in the house knew for whom it was Prince Andréy was calling, and he did not conceal the fact that he tried to be the whole day with Natäsha. Not only in the soul of Natäsha, who was frightened, but happy and transported, but in the whole house a dread was felt of what was going to happen. The countess looked with sad and stern eyes at Prince Andréy as he talked with Natäsha, and timidly and pretending to be interested began some petty talk, whenever he looked back at her. Sonya was afraid to leave Natäsha, and yet was afraid of being in the way, whenever she was with them. Natâsha paled from the dread of expectancy, when she was for a moment left alone with him. Prince Andréy surprised her by his timidity. She felt that he had something to tell her, but that he could not make up his mind to it.

When Prince Andréy left in the evening, the countess went up to Natdsha and said, in a whisper :

« Well ? “

” Mamma, for the Lord’s sake, don’t ask me now ! I can’t talk about that,” said Natdsha.

But notwithstanding this, Natésha lay that night agitated and frightened, with motionless eyes, for a long time in her mother’s bed. She told her mother how he had praised her, how he told her that he would soon go abroad, and how he asked her where they would be in the summer, and how he had inquired all about Boris.

” But — but there has never been anything like it with me ! ” she said. ” Only I feel so much afraid in his presence, oh, so much afraid ! What does it mean ? Does it mean that it is the real thing ? Mamma, are you asleep ? “

“ No, my dear, I am afraid myself,” replied her mother. « Go ! ”

” I will not sleep, anyway. How foolish it is to sleep ! Mamma, mamma, I have never felt like that before,” she said, with surprise and fear of the feeling of which she was conscious. ” Who could have expected it ? “

It seemed to Natdsha that she had been in love with him the first time she had seen him at Otradnoe. She was afraid of that strange, unexpected happiness which was that the one she had chosen then (she was firmly convinced of it) should be the one she now met again, and that he, so she thought, should not be indifferent to her. ” Why should he have to come to St. Petersburg just when we are here ? And how strange that we should meet at that ball ! It is all fate. It is evident that it is fate, that everything has been tending toward it. When I saw him then for the first time, I had a peculiar feeling.”

” What was he telling you ? Some poetry ? Read it to me — ” her mother said, pensively, asking her about the verses which Prince Andréy had written into her album.

” Mamma, is it not a disgrace because he is a widower ? ”

” Stop, Natasha ! Pray to God ! Les mariages se font dans les deux.”

“ Darling mother, how I love you ! How happy lam!” cried Natasha, weeping tears of happiness and agitation, and Embracing her mother.

At this very time Prince Andréy was sitting with Pierre, and telling him of his love for Natasha and of his firm determination to marry her.

On that day Countess Hélène Vasflevna gave a grand entertainment, to which came the French ambassador, the prince who of late had become a constant visitor at the house of the countess, and many elegant ladies and gentlemen. Pierre was downstairs, where he walked from one parlour to another and startled the guests by his concentrated, absent-minded, and gloomy look.

Pierre of late felt the approach of fits of hypochondria and was trying with desperate effort to struggle against it. Since the intimacy of the prince with his wife, Pierre had suddenly been appointed a gentleman of the chamber, and ever since then he had begun to feel ashamed and oppressed in grand society, and he was assailed more and more by his former gloomy thoughts about the vanity of everything human. His gloomy mood was intensified by the observation of the contrast of the sentiment existing between his protégée Natasha and Prince Andréy on the one hand and of his own condition on the other. He endeavoured to avoid thinking of his wife, as well as of Na trisha and Prince Andréy. Again everything appeared insignificant to him in comparison with eternity, and again the question arose, ” For what ? ” And so he compelled himself to work day and night at Masonic labours, hoping in that way to ward off the approach of the evil spirit. Leaving the apartments of the countess at midnight, Pierre sat down upstairs in an old morninggown in a smoke-filled, low room, at a table, in order to copy out original Scotch acts, when somebody entered his room. It was Prince Andréy.

” Oh, it is you,” said Pierre, with a distracted and dissatisfied look. ” I am working, as you see,” he said, pointing to his copy-book with that expression of retirement from the inclemencies of life with which unhappy men look upon their work.

Prince Andréy, with a beaming, transported face, turned once more to life, stopped before Pierre and, without noticing his sad countenance, smiled at him with the egotism of happiness.

” Well, my dear,” he said, ” I wanted to tell you something yesterday, and I have come to see you for that very purpose. I have never experienced anything like it. I am in love, my friend.”

Pierre suddenly drew a deep sigh and dropped his heavy body down on the sofa by the side of Prince Andréy.

” With Natasha Rostov, eh ? ” he said.

” Yes, yes, who else could it be ? I should never have believed it, but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I was tormented, and I suffered, but even this torment I would not give up for anything in the world. I have not lived heretofore. Only now I live, but I cannot live without her. But can she love me ? — I am too old for her — Why do you not speak ? — “

“I ? I ? What did I tell you ? ” Pierre suddenly said, rising and beginning to walk up and down in the room. ” I always thought so — This girl is a treasure, such a treasure — She is a rare girl — My dear friend, I ask you not to philosophize, not to doubt, but to marry her, to marry her, to marry her — I am sure that there will not be a happier man than you.”

” But she !”

” She loves you.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” said Prince Andréy, smiling, and looking straight into Pierre’s eyes.

” She loves you, I know it,” Pierre cried, angrily.

” Listen to me ! ” said Prince Andréy, taking hold of his arm and stopping him. ” Do you know what condition I am in ? I must tell somebody everything.”

” All right, all right, talk, — I am glad to hear it,” said Pierre, and his face changed, the wrinkles left his face, and he cheerfully listened to Prince Andréy.

Prince Andréy looked like a different man. Where was his ennui, his contempt for life, his disenchantment ? Pierre was the only man before whom he had the courage to tell his secret ; and he unburdened his whole heart to him. Now he boldly and easily made plans for a long time in the future, saying how he could not sacrifice his happiness for the caprice of his father, how he would make his father give his consent to this marriage, and love her, or how he would marry her without his consent ; now he marvelled at the sentiment which had taken possession of him, as though it were something strange, foreign, and detached from him.

“ I should not have believed it if anybody had told me that I was capable of such love,” said Prince Andréy. “ It is not at all the feeling which I had before. The whole world is divided for me into two halves : the one is she, and there is all the happiness of hope, the light ; the other is everything else where she is not, and there is pining and darkness — ”

“Darkness,” repeated Pierre, “yes, yes, I understand it.”

“ I cannot help loving the light, — it is not my fault that I do. And I am so happy ! Do you understand me? I know that you are glad for my sake.”

“ Yes, yes,” Pierre assured him, looking at him with emotion and with sadness. The brighter the fate of Prince Andréy appeared to him, the gloomier did his own seem to him.

XXIII.

For the marriage his father’s consent was necessary, and so Prince Andréy on the following day went to see his father.

His father received his son’s communication with outward calm, but with inward fury. He could not understand how one should want to change his life and bring something new into it, while his own was on the decline. “If they would only let me live out my days as I wish, — and then they can do as they please,” the old man said to himself. But with his son he used the diplomacy which he used in important cases. He assumed a calm tone, and considered the whole matter.

In the first place, the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards family, wealth, and distinction. In the second place, Prince Andréy was not in his first youth and not strong (the old man dwelt more especially on this), while she was very young. In the third, he had a son whom it was a pity to leave in the hands of a young girl. ” Finally, in the fourth,” said his father, looking sarcastically at his son, ” I ask you to delay the matter for a year, during which time go abroad, get cured, find a German for Prince Nikolay, as you intended to do, and if then your love, passion, stubbornness, whatever you may call it, is still strong, marry her. This is my last word, remember, my last ! ” the prince ended in such a voice that it became apparent that nothing would make him change his determination.

Prince Andréy saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feeling or that of his bride would not stand the test of a year, or that he himself, the old prince, would die by that time, and he decided to do his father’s will : to propose and to put off the marriage for a year.

Three weeks after his last evening at the Kostovs, Prince Andréy returned to St. Petersburg.

On the day after her conversation with her mother, Natâsha waited a whole day for Bolkénski, but he did not come. On the next day, and three days later, it was the same. Pierre, too, did not come, and Natdsha, who did not know that Prince Andréy had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence.

Thus three weeks passed. Natasha did not want to go out anywhere, and walked, indolently and sadly, like a shadow, from one room to another ; in the evenings she wept in secret, and did not come to see her mother at night. She kept blushing and was irritated. She thought that all knew of her disappointment, and that they laughed at her and pitied her. With all her real sorrow, this grief from vanity only intensified her misfortune.

Once she came to the countess, with the intention of telling her something, and suddenly burst out weeping. Her tears were those of an offended child, who does not know what it is punished for.

The countess began to calm Natasha. Natasha, who at first was listening to her mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her :

” Stop, mamma ! I am not thinking, and I do not want to think of it ! He came, and then he just stopped, just stopped — ”

Her voice trembled, and she came very near crying again, but she regained her composure and calmly proceeded :

” I do not want to marry at all. And I am afraid of him : I am now calm, very calm — ”

On the following day after this conversation, Natasha put on her old dress which she always wore in the morning and in which she had so often made merry, and there began with her her former mode of life, which she had given up since the ball She drank her tea, went to the parlour which she liked for its excellent resonance, and began to sing her solfeggios. After finishing her first lesson, she stopped in the middle of the parlour and repeated a musical phrase which she liked especially well. She listened with delight to the charm (as though unexpected to her) with which these sounds filled the emptiness of the hall and again died down, and she was happy. ” What is the use of thinking about it ? I am happy as it is,” she said to herself, and began to walk up and down in the room, stepping not with simple steps over the parqueted floor, but from the heels to the toes (she wore a new pair of her favourite shoes), and, with the same delight with which she had been listening to the sounds of her voice, she now listened to the thud of the heels and the creak of her toes. As she passed by a mirror, she looked into it. ” It is I ! ” the expression of her face seemed to say at the sight of herself. ” All right ! I do not need anybody.”

A lackey wanted to come in and fix something in the parlour, but she did not let him in, and, closing the door after him, continued her walk. She returned on that morning to her favourite condition of love of herself and self-admiration. ” What a charming girl this Natäsha is ! ” she again said to herself, in the words of a third, collective, masculine person. “She is pretty, has a good voice, is young, and does not trouble any one, — so let her alone ! ” But, no matter how much she was left alone, she could not have her peace, and that she was conscious of.

The outer door of the vestibule was opened, somebody asked, ” Are they at home ? ” and somebody’s steps were heard. Natäsha was looking in the mirror, but she did not see herself. She heard sounds in the antechamber. When she, finally, saw her face, it was pale. It was he. She was sure of that, although she had hardly heard his voice behind the closed door.

Pale and frightened, Natäsha ran into the drawingroom.

” Mamma, Bolkonski has come ! ” she said. ” Mamma, it is terrible ! It is intolerable ! I do not want to — suffer ! What shall I do? “

The countess had had no time to answer her, when Prince Andréy entered the drawingroom with a disturbed and serious expression on his face. The moment he saw Natäsha, his face began to beam. He kissed the hands of the countess and of Natäsha, and sat down near the sofa.

“ We have not had the pleasure for quite awhile — ” the countess began, but Prince Andréy interrupted her, answering her question and evidently hurrying to say what he had to say.

” I have not called all this time because I was at my father’s : I had to see him on a very important matter. I returned only last night,” he said, turning to Natäsha. “ I must speak to you, countess,” he added, after a moment of silence.

The countess heaved a deep sigh and lowered her eyes.

” I am at your service,” she muttered.

Natäsha knew that she ought to leave, but she was unable to do so : something compressed her throat, and she looked rudely and with open eyes straight at Prince Andréy.

” Directly ? This very minute ? — No, it cannot be ! ” she thought.

He again looked at her, and this glance convinced her that she had made no mistake. Yes, this very minute her fate was to be decided.

” Go, Natäsha, I will call you,” said the countess, in a whisper.

Natasha looked with frightened and imploring eyes at Prince Andréy and at her mother, and went out.

” I have come, countess, to ask for the hand of your daughter,” said Prince Andréy.

The face of the countess was flushed, but she did not say anything.

“Your proposition,” the countess began, speaking deliberately. He was silent, and looked her straight in the eye. “ Your proposition ”—she was getting embarrassed — ” is agreeable to us, and I accept your proposition, — lam glad of it. And my husband — I hope — but it will depend on her — “

” I will tell her only when I have your consent — Do you give it to me ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

” Yes,” said the countess, extending her hand to him, and, with a mixed feeling of aloofness and tenderness, she pressed her lips to Ins brow, as he leaned over her hand. She wanted to love him as her son ; but she felt that he was a stranger and a terrible man for her. “ I am convinced that my husband will give his consent,” said the countess, ” but your father — “

” My father, to whom I have communicated my plans, has made it an absolute condition of his consent that the wedding is not to be for a year. And I wanted to inform you of this,” said Prince Andréy.

“It is true, Natäsha is still very young, but so long ! ”

” It could not be otherwise,” Prince Andréy said, with a sigh.

” I will send her to you,” said the countess, leaving the room.

” 0 Lord, have mercy on us. ” she thought, as she went to look for her daughter.

Sonya said that Natäsha was in the sleeping-room. Natasha was sitting on her bed, pale, with dry eyes, looking at the images and making the sign of the cross, as she was whispering something. Upon seeing her mother she leaped down and rushed up toward her.

” What is it, mamma ? What ? ”

” Go, go to him ! He asks for your hand ! ” the countess said coldly, as Natäsha thought. “ Go, go ! ” her mother said, in sadness and reproach, to her daughter, who was running away. She heaved a deep sigh.

Natasha did not remember how she entered the drawingroom. Upon passing through the door and seeing him, she stopped. ” Is it possible this strange man has now become every tiling to me ? ” she asked herself, and immediately she said : ” Yes, everything : he is now dearer to me than everything in the world.”

Prince Andréy walked over to her, lowering his eyes.

” I have loved you ever since I saw you for the first time. May I hope ? ”

He looked at her, and was struck by the serious passionateness of the expression of her face. Her face said : “ Why ask ? Why doubt what one cannot help knowing ? Why speak, since it is impossible in words to express the feelings ? “

She came near him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.

“ Do you love me ? ”

” Yes, yes,” Natäsha muttered, as though in anger. She heaved a loud sigh, and another, oftener and offener, and burst out weeping.

” What is it about ? What is the matter with you ? ”

“ Oh, I am so happy,” she replied, smiling through tears. She bent down toward him, thought for a second, as though asking herself whether she might do so, and kissed him.

Prince Andréy held her hand, looked into her eyes, and did not find in his soul his former love for her. In his soul something seemed to have dropped down : there was no longer the former poetical and mysterious charm of

desire, but a pity for her womanly and childish weakness, a fear before her devotion and confidence, an oppressive and at the same time joyful consciousness of obligations which for ever bound him to her. The present feeling, though not as bright and poetical as before, was more serious and stronger.

“Has your mamma told you that it cannot be for a year yet ? ” said Prince Andréy, continuing to look into her eyes.

” Is it possible that I, that child-girl (all speak thus of me),” thought Natasha, ” am now, from this moment on, the wife, the equal, of this strange, dear, clever man, who is respected even by my father ? Is it true ? Is it true that from now on I no longer may jest with life, that I am an adult, that from now on I am responsible for every deed and word of mine ? What was it he asked me ? “

” No,” she replied, but she did not understand what it was he was asking her.

” Forgive me,” said Prince Andréy, ” but you are so young, and I have experienced so much in life! I am afraid for you. You do not know yourself.”

Natasha was listening with concentrated attention, trying to make out the meaning of his words, but in vain.

” Though the year which delays my happiness will be hard for me to bear,” continued Prince Andréy, ” you will have time to verify your feelings during that period. I ask you to make me happy in a year ; but you are free. Our engagement will remain a secret, and, if you convince yourself that you do not love me, or that you love an— ” said Prince Andréy, with an unnatural smile.

” Why do you say that ? ” Natasha interrupted him. ” You know that I loved you on that day when I saw you for the first time at Otradnoe,” she said, being firmly convinced that she was telling the truth.

” In a year you will know yourself — ”

” A who-ole year ! ” suddenly said Natasha, only now fully comprehending that the marriage had been put off. ” But why a year ? Why a year ? ”

Prince Andréy began to explain to her the cause of the delay. Natäsha was not listening to him.

” And can it not be otherwise ? ” she asked. Prince Andréy made no reply, but in his face was expressed the impossibility of changing that decree.

” It is terrible ! No, it is awful, awful ! ” Natäsha suddenly exclaimed, again bursting out into tears. ” I shall die waiting a year : it is impossible, it is terrible ! ”

She looked into the face of her fiancé and she saw upon it an expression of compassion and perplexity.

” No, no, I will do everything,” she said, suddenly stopping her flow of tears, ” I am so happy ! ”

Her father and her mother entered the room and blessed the pair.

From that day on Prince Andréy began to call on the Bostovs as Natésha’s fiancé.

XXIV.

There was no announcement made of Bolkonski’s engagement to Natdsha ; Prince Andréy insisted on the secret being kept. He said that since he was the cause of the delay, he had to bear the whole burden of it. He said that he had bound himself for ever by his word, but that he did not wish to bind her, and gave her full liberty. If she should feel in six months that she did not love him, she would be right to refuse him. Of course, neither the parents nor Natdsha wanted to hear of it ; but Prince Andréy insisted upon it.

Prince Andréy called every day at the house of the Rostovs, but he did not act as Natésha’s fiancé : he said “ you ” to her and kissed only her hand. Between Prince Andréy and Natasha there established themselves, after the proposal, entirely different relations from those before: they were more sincere and more simple. They thought they had not known each other before. Both were fond of recalling how they had looked upon each other, when they were still nothing ; now they felt themselves to be entirely different beings : then they pretended, but now they were simple and frank.

At first the family felt awkward with Prince Andréy ; he appeared to them as a man from a strange world, and it took Natdsha quite awhile to make them understand Prince Andréy ; she assured them all with pride that he only seemed to be so different, but that he was in reality like everybody else, and that she was not afraid of him, and that nobody ought to fear him. In a few days the whole family became accustomed to him, and they without embarrassment carried on the former mode of life, in which he took an active part. He knew how to talk about farm matters with the count, and about dresses with the countess and with Natäsha, and about albums and embroidery with Sénya. Sometimes the family, either when left alone, or in Prince Andréy’s presence, wondered how it had all happened, and how everything seemed to have been predetermined : the arrival of Prince Andréy at Otrddnoe, and their arrival in St. Petersburg, and the resemblance between Natdsha and Prince Andréy, which the nurse had observed during his first visit, and the conflict of Prince Andréy with Nikoläy in the year 1805, and many other signs of what had happened were now taken notice of by the family.

In the house reigned that poetical ennui and silence, which always accompany the presence of a promised pair. Frequently all who were present were silent. At times they rose and left, and the pair, being left alone, also remained silent. They seldom spoke of their future life. Prince Andréy felt terribly at the thought of it. Natäsha shared his feeling, as she shared all his other feelings, which she continually divined. Once Natasha began to ask him about his son. Prince Andréy blushed, a thing which now frequently happened to him, and which Natäsha was especially fond of. He said that his son would not live with them.

« Why ? ” Natasha asked, in fright.

” I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and then — “

” How I should love him ! ” said Natdsha, immediately divining his thought. “ But, I know, you do not want any pretext for accusing yourself and me.”

The old count now and then walked over to Prince Andréy, kissed him, and asked his advice in respect to Pétya’s education or Nikoläy’s service. The old countess sighed, looking at them. Sénya was afraid that she was all the time a superfluous person with them, and tried to find excuses for leaving them alone, even when they did not want it. When Prince Andréy spoke (he was an excellent raconteur), she listened to him with pride ; when she spoke, she observed with fear and joy that he looked attentively and inquisitively at her. She asked herself in perplexity : ” What is he trying to find in me ? What does he want to get with his glance ?” Now and then she entered into her peculiar, senselessly merry mood, and then it gave her special pleasure to hear Prince Andréy laugh. He did not laugh often, but when he did, he abandoned himself completely to his laughter, and after every such laugh she felt herself drawn nearer to him. Natäsha would have been quite happy, if the thought of the imminent separation had not frightened her, just as he grew pale and cold at the very thought of it.

On the eve of his departure from St. Petersburg, Prince Andréy brought Pierre with him, who had not called on the Eostovs since the ball. Pierre seemed to be distracted and confused. He was talking to the mother. Natasha sat down with Sdnya to the chess-table, thus inviting Prince Andréy to sit down near them.

“You have known Bezukhi for quite awhile?” he asked. ” Do you like him ? ”

” Yes, he is an excellent man, but so funny.”

And, as always when she spoke of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes about his absent-mindedness, anecdotes which frequently were wrongly ascribed to him.

” You know I have confided our secret to him,” said Prince Andréy. “ I have known him since childhood. He is a treasure. I ask you, Natalie,” he suddenly said, seriously, — “I am leaving, — God knows what may happen. You may stop lov— Well, I know I ought not to say that. Whatever may happen to you when I am away — “

“ What can happen ? “

“ Whatever sorrow you may have,” continued Prince Andréy, “ I beg you, Mlle. Sophie, — whatever it may be, — turn to him alone for advice and aid. He is the most absent-minded and the funniest of men, but he is a treasure.”

Neither the parents, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andréy himself could have foreseen how the separation from her fiancé would affect Natasha. She kept walking that day through the house, looking red in her face and agitated, and with dry eyes, busying herself with the most trifling things, as though she did not understand what awaited her. She did not weep even at the moment when he, bidding her goodbye, for the last time kissed her hand. ” Don’t leave ! ” was all she said. She said it in a voice which made him think that he ought really to stay, and which he did not forget for a long time afterward. When he left she did not weep ; but she sat several days in her room without weeping, not interested in anything, and saying, now and then : ” Ah, why has he gone ? ”

But two weeks after his departure, she, unexpectedly to those who surrounded her, awoke from her moral illness, and became the same she had been, but with a changed moral physiognomy, just as children get up after a prolonged illness with a changed countenance.

XXV.

The health and the character of Prince Nikolây Andréevich Bolkonski became very much enfeebled during tliis last year of his son’s departure. He became more excitable than ever, and all the outbursts of his causeless anger generally fell on the head of Princess Marya. He seemed to seek out all her sore spots, in order to cause her as cruel moral sufferings as possible. Princess Mârya had two passions, and consequently two joys, her nephew Nikoläy and religion, and both were favourite themes for the attacks and the ridicule of the prince. No matter what the subject under discussion was, he always turned the conversation to the superstition of old maids, or to the spoiling of children.

” You want to make him an old maid like yourself, — but it is useless. Prince Andréy needs a son, and not a girl,” he would say. Or, turning to Mlle. Bourienne, he asked her, in the presence of Princess Märya, how she liked our popes, and the images, and himself made fun of them.

He never ceased offending Princess Märya painfully, but his daughter did not even have to make an effort over herself in order to pardon him. Could he be guilty before her? and could her father, who, she knew, nevertheless loved her, be unjust to her? And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word, ” justice.” All the complex laws of humanity centred for her in one simple and clear law, — the law of love and self-renunciation, enjoined by Him who in love had suffered for humanity, while He Himself was God. What business did she have with the justice and injustice of other people ? She had herself to suffer and love, and this she did.

In the winter Prince Andréy arrived at L/syya Gory, and he was happy, gentle, and meek, as Princess Märya had not seen him for a long time. She felt that something had happened to him, but he did not tell Princess Marya about his love. Before his departure, Prince Andréy for a long time conversed with her father about something, and Princess Märya noticed that before his leaving they were both dissatisfied with each other.

Soon after the departure of Prince Andréy, Princess Märya wrote a letter to her friend in St. Petersburg, Julie Karagin, whom Princess Märya was dreaming, as girls always dream, of getting married to her brother, and who at that time was in mourning for her own brother, who had been killed in Turkey.

” Sorrows are, apparently, our common lot, my dear and tender friend Julie.

” Your loss is so terrible that I cannot explain it in any other way than as an especial dispensation of God, who, loving you, wants to try you and your excellent mother. Ah, my friend, religion, and religion alone, can deliver us from despair, if not console us ; religion alone can explain to us what, without its aid, man cannot comprehend : why, wherefore, good, exalted beings, who know how to find happiness in life, who harm nobody, but who are necessary for the happiness of others, are called to God, and why such are left to live as are bad, useless, harmful, or such as are a burden to themselves and to others. The first death which I have seen and which I shall never forget, — the death of my dear sister-in-law, — has produced such an impression on me. Just as you ask fate why your beautiful brother should have died, just so I asked why that angel, Lfza, died, who not only had done no harm to anybody, but who never harboured any other than kind thoughts about any one. My friend, five years have passed since then, and I, with my insignificant mind, begin to understand why she had to die, and in what way that death was only an expression of the infinite grace of the Creator, all the acts of whom, though we generally do not understand them, are only manifestations of His infinite love toward His creation. I often think that perhaps she was too angelic and too innocent to have been able to bear all the duties of motherhood. She was faultless as a young wife ; perhaps she could not be such a mother. Now, she not only has left to us, but especially to Prince Andréy, the purest sympathy and the purest memories, but she, no doubt, will get there a place which I dare not expect for myself. And her untimely and terrible death has had a propitious effect, not only upon herself, but also upon me and upon my brother, in spite of all the grief it has caused us. Then, at the moment of loss, these thoughts did not occur to me ; then I should have driven them away in terror, but now it is all clear and indubitable.

” I write all this to you, my friend, to convince you of the truth of the Gospel, which for me has become the rule of my life ; not one hair will fall from our heads except by His will But His will is guided only by His infinite love for us, and so everything which happens to us is for our good.

” You ask me whether we shall pass the next winter in Moscow. In spite of all my desire to see you, I do not think I can, nor do I wish it. You will be surprised to hear that Buonaparte is the cause of it. It is like this : the health of my father is getting perceptibly weaker ; he cannot bear contradictions and is growing ever more irritable. This irritability is directed mainly against political affairs. He cannot get over it that Buonaparte is having relations with all the emperors of Europe, as with his equals, but especially with our emperor, the grandson of the Great Catherine ! As you know, I am entirely indifferent to political affairs, but from the words of my father and from his conversations with Mikhail Ivanovich I know what is going on in the world, and especially all the honours which are bestowed on Buonaparte, who, as it seems, is regarded as a great man and as the Emperor of France everywhere in the world but in Lysyya G6ry. My father cannot get over this. It seems to me that my father, more especially on account of his view of the political affairs and foreseeing the conflicts which he will have, on account of his habit of expressing his thoughts freely, irrespective of anybody, does not like to talk about the journey to Moscow. All he would gain from his cure, he would lose on account of his disputes about Buonaparte, which are unavoidable. In any case this will be decided soon.

” Our domestic life proceeds as of old, except for the absence of brother Andréy. As I have already written to you, he has changed very much of late. After his grief, he has morally revived only now, during this last year. He is such as I used to know him in bis childhood : good, tender, with a treasure of a heart, the like of which I do not know. He has come to see, I think, that life is not ended for him. But, while morally changed, he is physically enfeebled. He is thinner than he used to be, and more nervous. I am afraid for him, and am glad that he has undertaken this journey abroad, which the physicians have been prescribing for him for a long time. I hope it will mend him.

” You write to me that in St. Petersburg they talk of him as of one of the most active, cultivated, and clever young men. You will forgive me my family pride, — I have never doubted it. It is impossible to recount here all the good he has done here, beginning with the peasants and ending with the gentry. When he came to St. Petersburg, he received only his due.

” I wonder how rumours reach Moscow from St.

Petersburg, especially such false ones as the one you write to me about, — the rumour of the proposed marriage of my brother to little Miss Rost-6v. I do not think that Andréy will ever marry, especially her, and for these reasons: in the first place, I know that, although he seldom speaks of his deceased wife, the grief of this loss is too deeply rooted in his heart ever to allow him to think of giving her a successor, and a stepmother to our little angel ; in the second, because, so far as I know, that girl is not the kind of a woman to please Prince Andréy. I do not think that Prince Andréy has chosen her for his wife, and I will say it frankly, I do not wish it.

“I have been prattling too much, — for this is my second sheet. Goodbye, my dear friend ! May God take you under His holy and mighty protection ! My dear friend, Mlle. Bourienne, sends her kisses to you.”

XXVI.

In the middle of summer, Princess Marya received an unexpected letter from Prince Andréy in Switzerland, in which he informed her of a strange and unexpected piece of news. Prince Andréy informed her of his engagement to Natdsha Postév. His whole letter breathed of a transport of love for his fiancée, and of tender friendship for his sister and confidence in her. He wrote her that he had never loved as now, and that only now he had come to understand life ; he begged his sister to forgive him for not having said anything to her about it during his stay at Ly-syya G6ry, though he had spoken of Iris determination to Iris father. He had not told her because she would have asked her father to give his consent, and, not being able to attain her aim, she only would have irritated him, and would have had to bear all the brunt of his displeasure.

” However,” he wrote, ” then the matter was not so settled as it is now. Then my father set a time, which was a year ; and now six months, one-half of the time, has passed, and I am firmer than ever in my determination. If the doctors did not detain me here, at the watering-place, I would now be in Russia, but now I must delay my return for another three months. You know me and my relations with my father. I need nothing of him ; I always have been and always will be independent of him, but it would destroy half my happiness to do anything contrary to his will, to earn Iris anger, when it is perhaps only a short time that he will be among us. I am writing him a letter about the same matter, and I ask you to choose a good moment in which to transmit it

to him and to inform me how he looks upon the whole matter, and whether there is any hope of his willingness to shorten the time by four months.”

After much hesitation, and many doubts and prayers, Princess Marya handed the letter to her father. On the following day the old prince calmly said to her :

“ Write to your brother to wait until my death — It is not long — I will deliver him — “

The princess wanted to retort, but her father gave her no chance, and began to raise his voice higher and higher.

“Get married, get married, my dear! Fine family! — Clever people, eh ? Pich, eh ? Yes. Nikolay will have a good stepmother ! Write him to get married tomorrow, if he wants to. She will be Nikolay’s stepmother, and I will marry the Bourienne woman ! — Ha, ha, ha, he won’t be without a stepmother himself! Only that he must know that I do not want any more women in my house. Let him marry her, but he will have to live by himself. Maybe you will go to live with him ? ” he turned to Princess Marya. “ God be with you, tinkle along the snow, along the snow, — along the snow ! “

After that outburst, the prince never again mentioned the matter. But the repressed annoyance at his son’s pusillanimity found its expression in the relations of the father to the daughter. To the former excuses for ridicule was now added a new one, the conversation about the stepmother, and his kindness to Mlle. Bourienne.

” Why should I not marry her ? ” he said to his daughter. ” She will make an excellent princess ! ”

To the consternation of Princess Marya, her father really began to get on a footing of greater intimacy with the Frenchwoman. Princess Marya wrote to Prince Andréy of the reception which his letter had had, but she consoled her brother and said that she hoped to get her father used to the idea.

Nikolay and his education, Andréy and religion, were the consolations and joys of Princess Marya; but, as every person must besides have some personal hope, there was in the deepest secrecy of Mârya’s heart a hidden dream and hope, which gave her the chief contentment in life. This consoling dream and hope she found in the God’s people, — the saintly fools and pilgrims, who visited her secretly from the prince. The more Princess Marya lived, the more she became acquainted with life, the more she was surprised by the nearsightedness of men who were seeking enjoyments and happiness here, upon earth; who were labouring, suffering, struggling, and doing each other harm, in order to obtain that impossible, visionary, and sinful happiness. Prince Andréy had loved his wife, and she had died ; he is not satisfied with it, but wants to unite his happiness with another woman. Her father did not want it, because he desired a more distinguished and a richer match for him. And all of them struggle and suffer, and are vexed, and ruin their souls, their eternal souls, in order to attain happiness, the term of which is but a moment.

” Not only do we know it by our own knowledge, but Christ, the son of God, came down upon earth to tell us that this is only a temporal life, a test, and yet we hold to it and think to find happiness in it. Why has no one comprehended it ?” thought Princess Marya. ” None but these despised God’s people, who with wallets on their shoulders come to see me by the back entrance, fearing lest they be noticed by the prince, not that they may not suffer from him, but that they may not cause him to commit a sin. To leave the family, the home, and all the cares of worldly matters, in order, without clinging to anything, to walk about in ragged garments of coarse cloth, under a strange name, without doing any harm to any one, and praying for them, praying for those who drive them, and for those who protect them, — there is no higher truth and no higher life than this ! “

There was one pilgrim, Feddsyushka, a little, quiet, pockmarked woman of fifty years, who for more than thirty years had been walking barefoot and in chains. Princess Marya was especially fond of her. Once, when Feddsyushka in a dark room, illuminated by but one little lamp, was telling about her life, Princess Mdrya was suddenly struck with such force by the idea that Feddsyushka was the only one who had found the true path of life that she decided to start out on pilgrimages herself. When Feddsyushka went to sleep, Princess Mdrya for a long time thought about it, and finally decided that, however strange it might appear, she ought to go on pilgrimages. She confided her intention only to a monk, who was her spiritual father, Father Akfnfi by name, and he approved of her intention. Under the pretext of getting a present for the pilgrim women, Princess Marya provided herself with a full pilgrim outfit, — a shirt, bast shoes, a caftan, and a black kerchief. Princess Mdrya often went up to the secret drawer, asking herself in indecision whether the time had not yet come to carry out her intention.

Frequently, when listening to the stories of the pilgrims, she was stirred by their simple speeches, which, though they were mechanical for the pilgrims, were full of meaning to her, so that she was several times ready to throw everything away and run away from the house. In her imagination she already saw herself walking with Feddsyushka, wearing a coarse shirt, marching with a staff and a wallet over the dusty road, directing her pilgrimage, without envy, without human love, without wishes, from saints to saints, and finally there where there is no sorrow, no sobs, but only eternal joy and bliss.

” I will come to one place, and I will pray ; before I shall get used to it and like it, I will move on. And I will walk until my feet refuse to walk any farther, and I will lie down and die somewhere, and finally shall arrive at that eternal, calm harbour where there is no sorrow, no sighing ! ” thought Princess Mdrya.

But when she saw her father and especially little Nikoldy, she weakened in her determination, wept softly, and felt that she was a sinner : she loved her father and her nephew more than God.

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PART THE SEVENTH

I.

The Biblical tradition says that the absence of labour — indolence — was the condition of blissfulness of the first man previous to his fall. The love of indolence has remained the same in the fallen man, but the curse still weighs down man, and not only for the reason that we must earn our bread in the sweat of our brow, but because according to our moral natures we cannot be indolent and inactive. A secret voice tells us that we ought to be guilty for having been indolent. If a man could find a condition in which, being indolent, he could feel himself useful and doing his duty, he would be rediscovering one side of primeval bliss. Such a condition of obligatory and reproachless indolence is enjoyed by a whole class, the military. In this obligatory and reproachless indolence the chief attractiveness of the military service has always consisted.

Nikolây experienced this bliss fully, continuing after the year 1807 to serve in the Pavlogradski regiment, in which he now commanded a squadron, which he took over from Denfsov.

Rostdv was a good fellow, though a little rude in manners ; his Moscow acquaintances would have found him to be a little ” mauvais genre” but he was loved and respected by his companions, his subordinates, and his superiors, and he was satisfied with life. Later on, in 1809, his mother kept complaining more and more frequently in her letters to him that their affairs were getting worse and worse, and that it would soon be time for him to come home, in order to give his old parents pleasure and to allay their worry.

Reading these letters, Nikolay was terrified at the idea that they wished to take him out of the circle in which he, having fenced himself in from all the turmoil of life, was living so calmly and so quietly. He felt that sooner or later he would have to enter again into that whirlpool of life, with improvements and ruinous state of affairs, with accounts of superintendents, disputes, intrigues, connections, and society, with Sonya’s love and the promise made to her. All that was terribly difficult and mixed, and he replied to his mother’s letters with cold, classical letters, beginning with, “Ma chère, maman’,’ and ending with, “ Votre obéissant fils,” without saying anything about the time when he intended to return.

In 1810 he received a letter from his relatives, in which he was informed of Natasha’s engagement to Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year because the old prince would not give his consent. This letter pained and offended Nikolay. In the first place, he was sorry to see Natasha leave the house, because he loved her more than anybody else in the family ; in the second place, he, from his point of view as a hussar, was sorry that he had not been present, because he would have shown that Bolkonski that the family union with him was not such a great honour, and that, if he loved Natasha, he could get along without the consent of his crazy father. For a moment he hesitated in his intention of asking for a furlough, that he might see Natasha as a fiancée ; but the time for the manœuvres was at hand, and there were the considerations about Sonya and about the whirlpool of life, and Nikoléy postponed it again. But in the spring of the same year he received a letter from his mother, who wrote to him without her husband’s knowledge, and this letter convinced him that he must go. She wrote to him that, if Nikoldy did not come to look after matters, the whole estate would be sold under the hammer and all would have to go a-begging. The count was so weak, had so confided in Mitenka, and was so good, and all cheated him so much, that everything was going worse and worse. ” For the Lord’s sake, I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and your whole family miserable,” wrote the countess.

The letter had an effect upon Nikolay. He had that common sense of mediocrity which showed him what was to be done.

Now he had to take at least a furlough, if not his dismissal. He did not know why he had to go ; but, after a good afternoon nap, he ordered his gray Mars to be saddled, which had not been ridden for a long time and which was a terribly spirited stallion, and, after returning home with his stallion in a lather, he informed Lavrushka (Denisov’s lackey remained with Rostov) and his comrades who came to see him in the evening that he was asking for a furlough and that he was going home. Though it was hard and strange for him to think that he should leave without hearing from the staff (in which he was interested very much), whether he was promoted to the rank of captain, or whether he would get the decoration of St. Anna for his last manœuvres ; although it looked strange to him that he should leave without selling Count Goluchowski a troyka of sorrels, which the Polish count had been trying to buy of him, and on which he had bet that he would sell them for two thousand ; although it seemed incomprehensible that even without him the ball would be given by the hussars to Miss Przazdziécki, to get even with the uhlans who had given a ball to Miss Borzozdwski, — he knew that he had to leave this clear, good world for some other place where there is nonsense and a tangle. His furlough came in a

week. The hussars, his comrades, not only in the regiment, but also in the brigade, gave Rostov a dinner which cost fifteen roubles a head by subscription, — there were two bands of music and two choirs of singers; Rostov danced the national trepdk with Major Bdsov ; the drunken officers swung and embraced him, and then let him fall down ; the soldiers of the third squadron swung him again and cried, ” Hurrah ! ” Then Rostdv was placed in a sleigh and accompanied as far as the first station.

During the first half of the journey, from Kremenchug to Kiev, all the thoughts of Rostdv, as is always the case, were behind him, — in the squadron; but, having started on his second half, he began to forget his Sergeant-Major Dozhoyvéyko, and restlessly began to ask himself how he should find things at Otradnoe. The nearer he approached it, the more intensely he thought of his home (as though a moral feeling were subject to the law of accelerated motion, which is in proportion with the square of the distance). At the last station, before reaching Otrddnoe, he gave the driver a pourboire of three roubles, and, upon coming in sight of the house, he rapidly ran up the porch.

After the transports of the first meeting, and after that strange feeling of disappointment in comparison with what was expected (” They are all the same, why, then, did I hurry home ? ”), Nikolay began to get used to his old domestic life. His parents were the same as ever, only a little older. The only new thing about them was a certain restlessness and sometimes a disagreement between them, which had not been before, and which, as Nikolay soon learned, was due to the disturbed state of affairs. Sdnya was in her twentieth year. She had stopped growing pretty and promised nothing more than what was already ; but even that was enough. She breathed happiness and love from the moment that Nikolay arrived, and the true, imperturbable love of that girl gave him much pleasure. Nikoldy was most surprised at Pétya and at Natasha. Pétya was now a big, thirteen-year-old, handsome, clever, mischievous boy, whose voice was just beginning to change. Nikolay wondered, looking at Natasha, and he said, laughing :

“ You are a different woman.”

” Well, have I lost my good looks ? “

” Not at all, but how important you look ! Princess ! ” he said to her, in a whisper.

” Yes, yes, yes,” Na tris ha said, joyously.

Natasha told him her romance with Prince Andréy and of his arrival at Otrddnoe, and showed him his last letter.

” Well, are you glad ? ” asked Natdsha. ” I am now so calm and so happy ! “

“ I am very glad,” replied Nikoldy. ” He is an excellent man. Well, are you in love ? “

” How shall I say it? ” replied Natdsha. ” I was in love with Boris, with my teacher, with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel calm and firm. I know that there are no better men than he is, and I feel so calm and happy now. It is different from what it was — ”

Nikolay expressed to Natdsha his dissatisfaction at the postponement of the wedding for a year ; but Natasha made a furious onslaught on her brother, proving to him that it could not have been different, that it would have been bad to enter the family against the will of his father, and that she herself wanted it.

” You do not understand a thing,” she said.

Nikoldy grew silent and agreed with her.

Her brother frequently marvelled at her. She did not look a bit like a fiancée in love, who was separated from her intended. She was even, calm, and merry, as at any time before. Nikolriy was surprised at it, and he even looked incredulously on Bolkonski’s engagement. He did not believe that her fate was already settled, the more so

since he did not see Prince Andréy with her. He could not help thinking that something was wrong in the proposed marriage.

“ Why this delay ? Why were they not publicly engaged ? ” he thought. Upon speaking at one time to his mother about his sister, he, to his surprise and partly to his joy, found that his mother in the depth of her heart sometimes looked incredulously at this marriage.

” Here he writes,” she said, showing her son a letter from Prince Andréy, with that secret feeling of displeasure which a mother always has with the future conjugal happiness of her daughter, ” he writes that he will not be back before December. What affair is it that can detain him ? No doubt his health ! He is very feeble. Don’t tell Natdsha! Don’t be deceived by her happy looks : she is living her last girlish days now, but I know how she feels every time we get a letter from him. However, if God grants it so, everything will go well,” she concluded every time. “ He is an excellent man.”

II.

During the first of his stay, Nikoläy was serious and lonesome. He was vexed by the impending necessity of taking part in those stupid affairs of the estates, for which his mother had sent for him. In order to throw this burden down from his shoulders as soon as possible, he on the third day after his arrival went angrily, without telling any one whither, to the wing, and, with a scowl, asked Mitenka to give him an account of everything. What this account of everything was, Nikoläy knew even less than terrified and puzzled Mitenka. The conversation and Mitenka’s account did not last long. The elder, the assistant village mayor, and the scribe, who had been waiting in the antechamber of the wing, with terror and delight heard the booming of the rising voice of the young count, and the terrible curses which were uttered one after the other.

“Robber! Ungrateful creature!— I will cut to pieces such a dog ! You are not dealing with papa — Thief — ” and so forth.

Then these people saw, with no less delight and terror, how the young prince, red in his face and with his eyes suffused with blood, pulled Mitenka out by the collar, how he, with great agility and at the proper time, interlarded his words with a kick with his foot and knee in Mitenka’s back, crying, ” Out with you ! Rascal, let me not hear your breath again !”

Mitenka went sprawling down six steps and ran away into a thicket. (This thicket was the place of refuge of

the culprits at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself used to conceal himself in this thicket whenever he came back intoxicated from town, and many inhabitants of Otradnoe, who ran away from Mitenka, knew the salutary effect of this thicket.)

Mitenka’s wife and sisters-in-law, with frightened faces, rushed into the vestibule from the room, in which was boiling a clean samovar, and in which rose a tall clerk’s bed under a crazy-quilt.

The young count, out of breath and paying no attention to them, walked past them with determined steps and went into the house.

The countess, who had learned at once from the maids what had happened in the wing, on the one side felt satisfied that now their state of affairs would improve, and, on the other, was very much disturbed about how her son would stand it. She came up several times on tiptoe to his door, and only heard him smoke one pipe after another.

On the following day, the old count called his son aside and said to him, with a timid smile :

” Do you know, my dear, you have excited yourself in vain! Mitenka has told me everything.”

“ I knew,” thought Nikolay, ” that I would never understand anything here, in this stupid world.”

” You became excited because he had not entered those seven hundred roubles. They are all transferred to the other side, where you did not look.”

” Papa, he is a scoundrel and a thief, I know. What I have done, I have done ; and if you do not want me to, I sha’n’t say a word to him.”

“ No, my dear ! ” (The count was himself embarrassed. He felt that he was a poor manager of his wife’s estate, and that he was blameworthy before his children, but he did not know how to mend matters.) ” No, I ask you to look after things, for I am old, I — “

” No, papa, you must forgive me if I have caused you any unpleasantness ; I know less than you about this.”

” The deuce take them, with these peasants, and with the money, and the transference on pages ! ” he thought. ” I know what paroli at six levees is, but transference on another page is beyond me,” he said to himself, and from that time on never again had anything to do with affairs. Only once the countess called in her son and informed him that she had a note of Anna Mikhaylovna for two thousand roubles, and asked Nikolay what he was going to do about it.

” I will do like this,” replied Nikolây. ” You tell me that it depends on me : I do not like Anna Mikhäylovna, nor do I hke Boris, but they have been friendly with us and they were poor. So I will do like this ! ” and he tore the note, making the old countess weep tears of joy at this deed of his. After that, young Rostdv no longer meddled with business matters, but devoted himself with passion to the chase with hounds, which, though the old count devoted himself to it on a grand scale, was new to Nikolây.

III.

It was now the time of the first frosts, when the rain-soaked earth in the autumn appeared congealed in the morning; the grass had begun to curl up and its dark verdure stood out from the strips of the dark brown winter fields, which the cattle had trodden down, and from the light yellow fields of spring grain and the red rectangle of buckwheat. The elevated places and the forests, which at the end of August had been green islands among the black winter fields and stubbles, were now golden and dark red islands amidst dark green winter fields. The gray rabbit had already half his winter coat ; the young foxes were beginning to scatter, and the wolf cubs were of the size of dogs. It was a fine time for hunting. The hounds of the impassioned young hunter, Rostov, were in hunting trim, but they were a little worn out, and so it was decided at a general council of the hunters to give them three days’ rest, and on September 16th to go on the chase, by beginning in an oak forest where there was an untouched litter of wolves.

Such was the state of affairs on September 14th.

All that day the hunting party stayed at home ; it was beginning to freeze and the wind was sharp, but toward evening it grew milder and it thawed. On the following morning, Rostov, in his morninggown, looked out of the window, and he saw that there could be no better day for the hunt : it looked as though the sky were melting and coming to the earth without any wind. The only motion which there was in the air was the soft motion of the slowly descending microscopic drops of mist. Transparent drops hung on the bared limbs of the garden trees, and they fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in the truck garden looked shining wet, like poppy seeds, and in the near distance blended with the dim and moist shroud of the mist.

Nikoläy stepped out on the porch which was wet with the fresh mud which had been carried upon it. There was an odour of withering leaves and of hounds in the air. The broad-backed, black-spotted bitch Milka, with large, bulging black eyes, rose when she saw her master, drew back, and lay down in rabbit fashion, then suddenly jumped up and licked his nose and moustache. Another greyhound in the garden walk, upon seeing his master, bent his back and rushed headlong to the porch and, raising his tail, began to rub against Nikoldy’s feet.

” 0 hoy ! ” was at that time heard that inimitable hunter’s call which combines the deepest bass with the thinnest tenor, and around the corner came the master of the hounds, Danilo, a grayhaired, wrinkled hunter, with his hair clipped in a semicircle, in Ukrainian fashion ; he carried a bent whip in his hand, and had that expression of independence and contempt for the whole world which is found only in hunters. He took off his Circassian cap before his master, and looked disdainfully at him. This disdain was not offensive to the master: Nikolay knew that this disdainful and superior man, Danilo, was, after all, his man and his hunter.

” Danilo ! ” said Nikoldy, feeling timidly that at the sight of this hunting weather, of these hounds, and the hunter, he was already seized by that insuperable hunting feeling in which a man forgets all his previous resolves, just as a man in love acts in the presence of his sweetheart.

” What is your order, Serenity ? ” he asked in the bass of a proto-diaconus, which had become hoarse from urging

on the dogs, and two black, sparkling eyes looked stealthily at the silent master. “ Well, will you hold out ? ” these eyes seemed to say.

” It is a fine day, is it not ? Fine for hunting, and fine for baiting, eh?” said Nikolay, scratching Milka behind the ear.

Danilo made no reply and only winked.

“I sent Uvdrka out at daybreak to listen,” was heard his bass, after a moment’s silence. ” He says that the she-wolf has gone with her cubs into the Otrddnoe forest, — they have been howling there.” This forest, surrounded on all sides by fields, was about two versts from the manor.

” I suppose we shall have to go there ? ” said Nikoläy. ” Come to me with Uvärka.”

“As you please ! “

” So wait with the feeding ! “

” Yes, sir.”

Five minutes later Danilo and Dvérka were standing in Nikoldy’s large cabinet. Although Danilo was small of stature, the sight of him produced the same effect as though one were to see a horse or a bear on the floor, in the midst of the paraphernalia of human existence. Danilo felt that himself and, as usual, was standing at the very door, trying to speak in as low a voice as possible and not to move, so as not, perchance, to break any of the rooms belonging to his master, and was trying to get through with what he had to say as soon as possible and walk out into the fresh air, from underneath a ceiling to out under the sky.

Having finished his inquiries and having made Danilo confess that the hounds were all right (Danilo himself was anxious to ride out), Nikolay ordered the horses saddled. Just as Danilo was on the point of leaving, Natdsha, not yet combed and dressed, wrapped in her nurse’s shawl, ran rapidly into the room. Pétya came with her.

“ You are going ? ” said Natdsha. “ I knew you would ! Sdnya said you would not go, but I knew that this was a day that you could not miss.”

” We are going,” Nikolay replied, reluctantly, as he did not wish to take Natdsha and Pétya, since it was going to be a serious chase. “We are going, but only for wolves : it will not be interesting for you.”

” You know that it is my greatest pleasure,” said Natdsha. ” It is not nice of you : you are going all by yourself, — you have told them to saddle, and we heard nothing about it.”

“Vain to the Pusses are all obstacles, — we are going too ! ” shouted Pétya.

“ But you can’t ! Mamma said that you must not,” Nikoldy said, turning to Natdsha.

“I will go, by all means,” Natdsha said, in a determined voice. “ Danilo, have our horses saddled, and let Mikhdyla take out my leash,” she turned to the master of the hounds.

Danilo, to whom it appeared indecent and difficult enough to be in a room, felt that it was quite impossible for him to have anything to do with a lady. He lowered his eyes and hastened to get out, as though he was not concerned in that, and feared that he might in some strange manner harm the lady.

IV.

The old count, who always hunted on a grand scale, and who now had turned the whole chase over to his son, on that 15th of September was himself getting ready to go out on the chase.

An hour later the hunting party was all ready and at the porch. Nikolay, with a serious and stem expression, which showed that he had no time to devote to trifles, passed by Natasha and Pétya, who were telling him something. He examined all the parts of the chase, sent several leashes and the hunters to ambush, mounted his bay Donéts and, whistling to the dogs of his leash, started across the yard of the threshing-floor into the field, which led to the Otradnoe grove. The horse of the old count, a cream-coloured gelding, called Viflyânka, was led by the count’s groom ; he himself was to reach his hidingplace in a vehicle.

There were in all fifty-four hounds under the charge of six keepers. Outside of the masters, there were eight men who looked after more than forty greyhounds which were following them, so that with the leashes of all the hunting party there were in all 130 dogs, in charge of twenty mounted hunters.

Every dog knew his master and the call. Every hunter knew his business, his place, and his purpose. The moment they all left the enclosure, they noiselessly and silently spread evenly along the road and the field which led to the Otradnoe forest.

The horses went over the field as over a fluffy carpet, now and then splashing in puddles, when they crossed roads. The misty sky continued imperceptibly and evenly to descend to the earth. The air was calm, warm, soundless. Now and then could be heard the soft whistling of a hunter, or the snorting of a horse, or a blow with the hunting whip, or the whimpering of a dog out of his place.

Having ridden for about a verst, five riders with their dogs issued from the mist, riding up toward the Rostov chase. In front of them was a fresh-looking, handsome old man with a long gray moustache.

“ Good morning, uncle,” said Nikolay, when the old man rode up to him.

” Sure thing, march ! — I knew,” said the uncle (he was a distant relative of the Rostovs and had a small estate in the neighbourhood). ” I knew that you would not hold out, and you did well to ride out. Sure thing, march ! ” he repeated his favourite phrase. ” Take the grove at once, for my Girchik has reported to me that the Ilagins are with their chase in the brush : they will take your litter away under your very nose, sure thing, march ! ”

“ I am making for it. Well, shall we mix the packs ? ” asked Nikolay.

The greyhounds were put together into one pack, and the uncle rode by Nikolay’s side. Natasha, wrapped in shawls, underneath which could be seen her animated face with her sparkling eyes, galloped up to them, accompanied by Pétya, hunter Mikhayla, and a groom, whom the nurse had sent along to keep close watch on her. Pétya was laughing at something, and striking and jerking his horse. Natdsha was sitting firmly and gracefully on her black Aräbchik, and she checked him with a sure hand and without any effort.

The uncle looked disapprovingly at Pétya and at Natdsha. He did not like to mingle fun with the serious business of the chase.

” Good morning, uncle ! We are out, too ! ” cried Pétya.

“Good morning, good morning, but don’t crush the dogs,” the uncle said, sternly.

“ Nikolay, what an excellent dog Trumla is ! He has recognized me,” said Natasha, in reference to a hound.

” In the first place, Trumla is not a dog, but a hound,” thought Nikolay, looking sternly at his sister and trying to let her feel the distance which ought to have separated them at that moment. Natasha understood it.

” Don’t think, uncle, that we are going to be in anybody’s way ! ” said Natàsha. “We will stand in our places and we will not move.”

“ And well it will be, little countess,” said the uncle. “ Only don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “ otherwise sure thing, march! there is nothing to hold on to.”

The oasis of the Otradnoe forest could be seen within seven hundred feet, and the houndkeepers were approachin” it. Rostév and the uncle decided from which side o

the hounds were to be let in. Nikolay pointed out a place where Natàsha was to stand, and where there was no possibility of anything running past, and himself rode up toward his ambush above a ravine.

“ Well, nephew, you are taking a stand for the big wolf,” said the uncle. ” Don’t let him escape you ! ”

“ That depends on luck,” replied Rostov. “ Here, Karày ! ” he shouted, replying by this call to the words of the uncle. Karày was a homely, whiskered old dog who was known for tackling a full-grown wolf all by himself. All took up their places.

The old count, who knew his son’s passion for the chase, hurried so as not to be late, and before the houndkeepers had taken up their stands, Ilyà Andréevich, happy, ruddy, with bagging cheeks, drove up with his black horses to his stand. Having fixed his short fur coat and put on the necessary hunter’s appliances, he climbed on his sleek, well-fed, gentle, good Viflyànka, which was getting as gray as he himself was. The vehicle was sent back. Count Ilyà Andréevich, though not an impassioned hunter, knew well all the laws of the chase : he rode into a thicket near which he was stationed, fixed his reins, adjusted himself in the saddle, and, feeling that every tiling was in order, looked back with a smile.

Near him stood his valet, an old rider now too heavy for the saddle, Semén Chekmàr. Chekmàr held three hounds in the leash; these three wolf-killing dogs were, like their master and his horse, entirely too fat. Two other intelligent old dogs, not in the leash, lay down on the ground. About a hundred feet farther off, at the edge of the forest, stood another groom of the count’s, Mitka, a dare-devil rider and impassioned hunter. Following his old custom, the count had before the chase drunk a silver cup of hunter’s mulled brandy, and had washed down his lunch with half a bottle of his favourite Bordeaux.

Ilyâ Andréevich was a little red from his wine and from the ride ; his moist eyes sparkled with a peculiar brilliancy, and he, wrapped in his short fur coat and sitting in his saddle, had the aspect of a child taken on an outing.

Lean Chekmàr, -with his sunken cheeks, having attended to his duties, was looking at his master, with whom he had lived on close terms for thirty years, and, seeing his happy frame of mind, he expected a pleasant conversation with him. A third person cautiously came up to them (apparently he was trained for it) from the forest and stopped back of the prince. This person was an old man with a gray beard, in a woman’s capote and a tall nightcap. It was the buffoon Nastàsya Ivànovna.

” Well, Nastàsya Ivànovna,” winking to him, the count said in a whisper. “ You scare the beast, and you will catch it from Danilo.”

“ I myself have whiskers,” said Nastàsya Ivànovna.

“ Hush ! ” hissed the count, turning to Semén.

” Have you seen Natalya Ilinichna ? ” he asked Semén.

“ Where is she ? “

“Peter Ilich and she are standing near the Zhärov steppe,” Semén replied, smiling. “ Though she is a lady, she knows the chase.”

“ Don’t you admire her manner of riding, eh ? ” asked the count. ” It is good enough for any man ! “

” Of course I do. It is daring and fine ! “

“ And where is Nikolay ? Is he above the Lyadov height ? ” the count asked, in a whisper.

“ Yes. He knows where to stand. He knows the chase so well, that Danilo and I have often wondered,” said Semén, who knew how to please his master.

“ He rides well, eh ? How does he look on horseback, eh ? “

” Like a picture ! The other day he chased a fox in the Zavarzin steppe. He took some terrible leaps,— his horse is worth a thousand roubles, but there is no price to the rider himself. Yes, it would be hard to find such a fine fellow ! “

“ It would be hard to find,” repeated the count, apparently sorry that Semén’s speech had already come to an end. ” To find ? ” he said, turning back the skirt of his fur coat and taking out his snuffbox.

” The other day he came out from mass in full regalia, and then Mikhail Siddrych — ” Semén did not finish his sentence, for in the quiet air he could hear clearly the chase accompanied by the yelping of not more than two or three hounds. He listened with bent head and silently threatened his master. “ They have struck the litter,” he whispered, “ and they are making straight for the Lyädov height.”

The count forgot to erase the smile that was on his face and kept looking into the distance along a vista, holding his snuffbox in his hand, without taking a pinch. Soon after the barking of the dogs there resounded Danilo’s bass horn, announcing the wolf ; the pack joined the first three hounds, and they could be heard barking that prolonged hounds’ bark with the peculiar whimpering, which indicates that they are on the track of a wolf. The keepers no longer urged them on, but kept calling ” Ulyulyu ! ” and Danilo’s voice, now in a deep bass, and now in a piercing tenor, rose above them all. Danilo’s voice seemed to fill the whole woods, to leave the forest, and to sound far into the field.

After listening for a few seconds in silence, the count and his groom convinced themselves that the hounds had divided up into two packs : one of these, the larger one, which was howling excitedly, began to recede ; the other part of the pack rushed down the forest, past the count, and with this pack could be heard the ” Ulyulyu ” of Danilo. Both these packs blended their sounds, and both were getting farther away. Semén sighed and bent down to fix the leash in which a young dog had become entangled ; the count, too, sighed, and, noticing his snuffbox in his hand, opened it and took a pinch. ” Back ■ ” Semén cried at the dog who had run out of the forest. The count shuddered and dropped his snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna climbed down and started to pick it up.

The count and Semén were looking at him. Suddenly, as often happens, the cry of the pack sounded near by, as though the barking mouths of the hounds and Danilo’s call of ” Ulyulyu ” were right in front of them.

The count looked back, and to the right of him saw Mitka, who with rolling eyes was looking at the count and, raising his cap, was pointing forward to the other side.

“ Look out ! ” he shouted, in a voice which showed that this word had long been working painfully to find vent. He let the hounds go and himself galloped in the direction of the count. The count and Semén leaped out from the forest and saw the wolf to the left of them. He was

galloping with a soft waddle and gentle leaps in the direction of the clearing where they were standing. The furious hounds whined and, tearing away from the leash, rushed against the wolf, past the feet of the horses.

The wolf checked himself, like one sick with the quinsy, awkwardly turned his broad head to the dogs, and, waddling as softly as before, jumped two or three times and, swishing has brush between his legs, disappeared in the forest. At the same time, one, two, three hounds leaped out from the opposite side of the clearing, and the whole pack bore over the field, with a bark, resembling weeping, and made for the place where the wolf had again made for the woods. Behind the hounds, the hazel-brush was swayed aside, and there appeared Danilo’s brown horse, now blackened by sweat. On its long back, rolled up in a bundle and leaning forward, sat Danilo without a cap, with his dishevelled gray hair over his red, perspiring face.

“ Ulyulyulyu, ulyulyu ! ” he shouted. When he saw the count, lightning flashed in his eyes.

” D–-” he shouted, threatening the count with his

raised whip.

” To lose the wolf ! — What hunters ! ” and, as though regarding the frightened and confused count as unworthy of any further remarks, he with all the fury which he had in store for the count struck the sunken sides of the perspiring dark brown gelding and bore down after the hounds. The count stood like one punished, looking around and trying with a smile to get Semén to express his compassion with his condition. But Semén was not there : he was making his way through the brush to cut off the wolf’s retreat to his hidingplace. The men with the greyhounds, too, cut off his escapes from the sides. But the wolf went through the brush, and not one hunter intercepted him.

V.

In the meantime Nikolay Rostov was standing in his place, waiting for the beast. By the approaching or the receding of the chase, by the sound of the voices of the dogs with which he was familiar, by the nearness and rise of the voices of the houndkeepers, he was conscious of something going on in the forest. He knew that in the wood there were young and full-grown wolves ; he knew that the hounds were broken into two packs, that they were baiting a wolf somewhere, and that something untoward had happened. He was waiting for the wolf to appear at any time. He was making a thousand different combinations of how the beast would run and from what side, and how he would bait it. His hope was giving way to despair. He turned several times to God with the prayer that the wolf might come out as soon as possible ; he prayed with that impassioned and conscience-stricken feeling, ■with which people pray in moments of great excitement which depends on some insignificant cause.

“What would it cost Thee,” he said to God, “to do this for me ? I know that Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask Thee for it ; but, for God’s sake, let a full-grown wolf come out on my side, so that Kardy, in plain view of ‘ uncle,’ who is looking at me from over there, may clutch his throat with a death-grip.”

During that half-hour, Rostov cast a thousand persistent, strained, restless glances at the clearing in the forest, with its two lonely oaks and their aspen underbrush, and at the ravine, with the washed-out edge, and

at the uncle’s cap, which could barely be seen behind some bushes on the right.

“No, I shall not have that piece of good luck,” thought Rostdv, “ no, it will not be ! I never have any luck, neither in cards, nor in war.” Austerlitz and Ddlokhov flashed brightly, one after the other in rapid succession, through his imagination. ” All I ask for is to have just one chance in my life to bait a full-grown wolf ! ” he thought, straining his hearing and his sight, looking at the left and again at the right, and trying to distinguish all the minutest shades of the sounds of the chase. He again looked at the right, and he saw something running over the open field and straight at him. ” No, it cannot be ! ” thought Rostdv, with a deep sigh, as a man sighs when that which he has been expecting for a long time suddenly comes to pass. The greatest happiness was being realized, and it was all so simple, without any noise, without splendour, without any previous tokens. Rostov did not believe his eyes, and that doubt lasted longer than a second. The wolf ran forward and, with difficulty, took a ditch which was in his way. It was an old, gray-backed beast, with a well-filled, reddish belly. He was running leisurely, apparently convinced that nobody saw him. Rostov looked at his dogs, without daring to breathe. They were lying down or standing, and did not see the wolf, nor did they know what was up. Old Karay, turning back his head and showing his yellow teeth, was growling and snapping at a flea on his hind thigh.

” Ulyulyulyu ! ” Rostov exclaimed, in a whisper, opening wide his lips. The hounds, clanking their chains, leaped up and pricked their ears. Kardy finished scratching his thigh and got up, and, pricking his ears, slightly swayed his tail, on which the hair hung in tufts.

” Shall I let them loose, or not ? ” Nikoldy said to himself, while the wolf was moving up toward him, getting away from the forest. Suddenly the whole physiognomy of the wolf changed ; he shuddered, upon seeing directed against him a pair of human eyes, which, no doubt, he had never before seen. He slightly turned his head toward the hunter, and stopped. ” Forward or back ? Oh, it makes no difference, — forward ! ” he seemed to be saying to himself, and dashed ahead with his soft, free, leisurely, but determined leaps, without turning to look back.

” Ulyulyu ! ” Nikoldy cried, in an excited voice, and his good horse of his own accord ran downhill, leaping over ruts to cut off the wolf’s escape ; and faster still bolted the hounds. Nikolay did not hear his own shout; he did feel that he was galloping ; he did not see the dogs, nor the place where he was galloping ; he only saw the wolf which, increasing his pace, was running in the same direction, down a ravine. The first hound to reach the wolf seemed to be black-spotted, broad-backed Milka, who was gaining all the time on the wolf. Nearer, nearer — now she caught up with him. But the wolf barely threw a side glance at her, and, instead of dashing forward, as Milka always did, she suddenly raised her tail and pressed against her fore legs.

” Ulyulyulyulyu ! ” shouted Nikolay.

Red Lyubin rushed ahead of Milka, went headlong for the wolf and caught him by his hind legs, but immediately jumped frightened over on the other side. The wolf squatted, gnashed his teeth, and again rose and galloped ahead, accompanied within three feet by all the hounds, who did not dare approach him.

” He will get away ! No, it is impossible ! ” thought Nikolây, continuing to cry in a hoarse voice.

” Karay ! Ulyulyu ! ” he shouted, looking with his eyes for the old dog, his only hope. Karriy, with all his old strength, stretching forward as much as he could and looking at the wolf, galloped heavily at one side of the

wolf, so as to cut off his escape. But from the swiftness with which the wolf leaped, and from the slowness of the dog’s gait, it was evident that Karäy’s calculation was faulty. Nikolay saw, but a short distance before him, that forest where the wolf would be sure to disappear, if he once reached it. In front of them appeared some dogs and a hunter, who was galloping almost straight toward them. There was some hope left. A strange, dark brown, long dog of somebody else’s leash flew in front of the wolf and almost knocked him down. The wolf rose faster than one would have expected him to and made for the dark brown dog, and buried his teeth in him ; the bloodstained dog, with his side slit open, whining pitifully, stuck his head into the ground.

” Darling Karay ! Darling ! ” wept Nikolay.

The old dog, with the tufts of hair flapping on his thighs, thanks to the delay caused by crossing the wolf’s path, was now already within five steps of him. The wolf seemed to see his danger, looked askance at Karây, hid his brush between his legs, and increased his gait. Just then Nikolây saw that something happened to Karay, — he was at once on the wolf’s back, and with him rolled a somersault into a rut which was in front of them.

The moment when Nikolay saw the wolf and hounds wallowing in the rut, and underneath the hounds the gray fur of the wolf, his stretched out leg, and his frightened head with the dropping ears, vainly trying to breathe (Karay was holding him by the neck), — the moment when Nikolay saw all this was the happiest in his life. He took hold of the bow of the saddle, ready to dismount, in order to stab the wolf, when, suddenly, the head of the beast stuck out of all that mass of dogs, and then his fore legs stood out of the rut. The wolf gnashed his teeth (Karay was no longer clutching his throat), jumped with his hind legs out of the rut, and, taking his tail between his legs, got away from the dogs and moved ahead.

Karay, with bristling fur, having apparently been hurt or wounded, with difficulty raised himself from the rut.

” 0 Lord ! Why am I punished so ? ” Nikoläy cried, in despair.

The hunter of the uncle was galloping from the other direction to cut off the wolf’s escape, and his dogs again stopped the beast. He was again surrounded.

Nikoldy, his groom, the uncle, and his hunter kept circling about the beast, calling ” Ulyulyu,” getting ready at any minute to dismount whenever the wolf got on his haunches, and every time moving onward, when the wolf shook off the dogs and moved toward the brush which was to save him.

In the beginning of this baiting, Danilo, having heard the calls, ran out to the clearing. He had seen Kardy taking hold of the wolf, and he had stopped his horse, supposing that all was ended. But when the hunters did not dismount, and the wolf shook off the dogs and started to run, Danilo gave the reins to his horse, not to reach the wolf, but to make in a straight line for the brush, so as to cut off his escape, and Kardy ran in that same direction. Thanks to the direction which he took, he reached the wolf just as the uncle’s dogs stopped him for the second time.

Danilo galloped in silence, holding his unsheathed dagger in his left hand, and thrashing with his whip the drawn sides of his dark brown horse.

Nikoldy did not see or hear Danilo until his horse, breathing heavily, passed by him, and he heard the sound of a falling body and saw Danilo lying on the wolf’s back, trying to catch his ears. It was evident to the dogs, and the hunters, and the wolf, that now everything was ended. The beast, dropping his ears in fright, tried to rise, but the hounds clung to him. Danilo raised himself a little, took a falling step, and with his whole weight, as though lying down to rest, fell upon the wolf, taking hold of his

ears. Nikolay wanted to stab, but Danilo said, in a whisper : “ It is not necessary, — we will gag him ! ” and, changing his position, he stepped on the wolf’s neck. Ä stick was put into the wolf’s jaws and he was tied up as though the leash were put upon him, his legs were fastened together, and Danilo turned him two or three times from one side to the other.

In sight of the tired, but happy faces, the live, full-grown wolf was thrown on a recalcitrant and snorting horse, and, accompanied by the yelping dogs, he was taken to the spot where all were to gather. All rode or walked up to see the wolf, which, dropping his high-browed head with the stick in his mouth, turned his large, glassy eyes on all that crowd of hounds and men which surrounded him. When he was touched, he, shuddering with his fettered legs, looked wildly and at the same time simply at everybody. Count Ilyd Andréevich, too, came up and touched him.

” Oh, what a big one ! ” he said. “ Is he full-grown, eh ? ” he asked Danilo, who was standing near him.

” Yes, he is, your Serenity,” replied Danilo, hastening to take off his cap.

The count recalled his missing the wolf and his conflict with Danilo.

” But, my friend, you are a cross man,” said the count.

Danilo said nothing and only smiled bashfully a childishly meek and pleasant smile.

VI.

The old count rode home ; Natasha and Pétya promised to come home soon. The chase was continued, as it was early yet. In the middle of the day the hounds were sent into a ravine which was overgrown with a dense young forest. Nikolay, standing on a stubble field, could see all his hunters.

Opposite to Nikolay there were green fields, and there one of his hunters was standing all alone behind a protruding hazel-bush. The hounds had just been brought out, when Nikoläy heard the peculiar call of one of his dogs, Voltdrn. The other dogs joined him, now growing silent, and now again starting the pursuit. A minute later the horn was blown in the forest, announcing the presence of a fox, and the whole pack ran over a mound, in the direction of the green fields away from Nikoläy.

He saw the houndkeepers in red caps galloping at the edges of the overgrown ravine ; he saw also the dogs, and was waiting for the fox to appear at almost any time on the other side, in the field.

The hunter who was standing in the ditch moved and let out the dogs, and Nikolay saw a small, strange, red fox, which, spreading its bush, was racing over the field. The hounds were coming up to it. Now they were near; now the fox began to move in circles, to the right and left, whirling his bush all around him ; and suddenly somebody’s white dog rushed up upon him, and then a black dog, and all became mixed, and the hounds stood in star shape, barely moving, and showing their diverging

backs. Two hunters galloped up to the hounds : one in a red cap, and another, a stranger, in a blue caftan.

” What is this ? ” thought Nikolay. ” Where does this hunter come from ? It is not the uncle’s hunter ! “

The hunters took away the fox, but stood for a long time on foot, without tying up the game. Near them the horses with their protruding saddles were tethered, and the dogs lay around. The hunters were swinging there arms and doing something with the fox. From there also proceeded the sound of the horn, — the conventional signal for a fight.

” It is Ilagin’s hunter who is having a fight with our Ivkln,” said Nikolay’s groom.

Nikolay sent his groom to call up his sister and Pétya, and rode at a pace to the spot where the houndkeepers were collecting the hounds. A few hunters galloped up to the place of the fight.

Nikolay dismounted from his horse and stopped near the hounds with Natasha and Pétya, who had come up in the meantime, waiting to see how the matter would end. From the clearing came the fighting hunter with the fox in straps ; he rode up to the young master. He took off his cap from a distance and tried to speak respectfully ; but he was pale and out of breath, and his face showed rage. He had one black eye, but, apparently, he did not know it.

” “What was the matter there ? ” asked Nikoläy.

” Why, he wanted to hunt the fox with our hounds I And it was my mouse-coloured bitch that caught him. Go and straighten it out with him ! He grabbed the fox. Well I gave it to him with the fox. Now he is in the straps. Maybe you want this ! ” said the hunter, pointing to his dagger, and evidently imagining that he was still speaking with his enemy.

Nikoldy exchanged no further words with the hunter, asked his sister and Pétya to wait for him, and rode up to the place where was the hostile chase of Ilagin.

The victorious hunter rode into the crowd of the hunters, and there, surrounded by sympathetic and curious hearers, told them of his exploit. The trouble was that Ilagin, with whom the Bostdvs were at odds and in litigation, was hunting in places which were supposed to belong to the Bostdvs, and it looked as though he had ordered his hunters to go on purpose to the forest in which the Bostdvs were hunting, and had allowed one of bis hunters to bait the fox with hounds not his own.

Nikoldy had never seen Ilagin, but, as was his habit, not knowing any moderation in his judgments and in his feelings, he, upon hearing of the arbitrariness of this landed proprietor, hated him with his whole soul and regarded him as his worst enemy. He now rode up in rage and agitation toward him, clutching his whip in his hand, fully prepared for the most determined and perilous actions against his enemy.

He had barely ridden out of a jutting strip of forest, when he saw riding up to him a stout gentleman in a beaver cap, mounted on a beautiful black horse and accompanied by two grooms.

Instead of an enemy, Nikoläy found in Ildgin a distinguished-looking, civil man, who was very anxious to get acquainted with the young count. Biding up to Bos-tév, lidgin raised his beaver cap and said that he was sorry for what had happened ; that he would have the hunter punished for having allowed himself to bait with dogs not his own, and that he solicited the count’s acquaintance, and offered him his possessions in which to hunt.

Natàsha, who was afraid that her brother would do something terrible, followed him at some distance, in agitation. When she saw that the enemies were bowing politely to each other, she rode up to them. Ilagin raised his beaver cap higher when he saw Natasha, and, with a pleasant smile, he said that the countess represented Diana,

both on account of her passion for the chase, and also on account of her beauty, of which he had heard a great deal.

In order to atone for his hunter’s guilt, Ilagin persistently asked Rostov to come with him to his uplands, which were a verst away, and which he kept for his special use ; according to his words it was chock-full of hares. Nikoldy consented to go, and the chase, now double in size, started.

To reach I login’s uplands it was necessary to cross fields. The hunters divided into groups. The masters rode together. The uncle, Rostov, Ilagin kept looking stealthily at each other’s dogs, and restlessly tried to find among them such as would be rivals of their own.

Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small thoroughbred, lean, red-spotted bitch in Ilagin’s leash, with its firm muscles, fine nose, and bulging black eyes. He had heard of the speed of lidgin’s dogs, and in this beautiful bitch he saw a rival to his Milka.

In the middle of a calm discussion about the crops of that year, which Ilagin had started, Nikolay pointed to the red-spotted bitch.

” You have a fine bitch there ! ” he said, in a careless tone. ” Does she speed well ? ”

” This one ? Yes, she is good — she hunts well,” Ilagin spoke in an indifferent tone about his red-spotted Erzä, for which the year before he had given his neighbour three families of manorial servants. ” So up your way, count, they do not brag of the harvest ? ” he continued the conversation which he had begun ; but, considering it a sign of politeness to pay the young count back in the same coin, Ilagin surveyed his dogs and selected Milka, who attracted his attention by her breadth.

” Your black-spotted dog is fine !” he said.

” Yes, she is fair, — a good racer,” replied Nikolay.

« If now a full-grown hare should run across the field, I would show you the kind of a dog she is ! ” he thought, and, turning to his groom, he said that he would give a rouble to him who would find a couching hare.

” I cannot understand hunters who are envious of a beast or of the dogs,” continued Ilagin. “ Let me tell you about myself, count. It gives me pleasure to be out riding ; what greater pleasure can there be than falling in with such company ? ” He again took off his beaver cap before Natäsha. ” But it makes no impression on me how many skins I bring home.”

” Yes.”

” Nor does it offend me to see somebody else’s dog, and not mine, catching the game. All I care for is to watch the sport, — is not that right, count ? And so I judge — “

” Atu ! ” was just then heard the prolonged call of one of the greyhound-keepers. He was standing on a small mound in the stubble-field, with raised whip, and once more repeated his drawling ” Atu ! ” This sound and the raised whip meant that he saw a couching hare in front of him.

“Ah, he has espied one,” Ilägin said, carelessly. ” Well, shall we have some sport, count ? “

” Yes, we must ride up. Shall we go together ? ” replied Nikolay, closely watching Erza and the uncle’s red Rugäy, the two dogs of his rivals, with whom he had never had a chance to compare his hounds. “Suppose they should outrun my Milka! ” he thought, moving by the side of the uncle and of Ilägin toward the hare.

“ Is it a full-grown hare ? ” asked Ilagin, riding up to the hunter who had espied him, looking around with some excitement and whistling to Erzä.

“ And you, Mikhail Nikanorych ? ” he turned to the uncle. The uncle was looking morose.

“ Why should I contend with you, since yours are a sure thing, march ! Your dogs are worth thousands, and a village has been paid for each of them. You try your dogs, but I will look on ! “

” Bugäy ! Here, here ! ” he cried. ” Bugäyushka ! ” he added, involuntarily expressing by this diminutive his tenderness and the hope which he placed in his red dog. Natäsha saw and felt the agitation which the two old men and her brother tried to conceal, and she was agitated herself.

The hunter on the mound was standing with uplifted whip, and the masters rode up to him at a pace ; the hounds, which were walking near the horizon, were turning away from the hare ; the hunting crew was also away. Everything was moving slowly and in even measure.

“Which way does his head lie ?” asked Nikoldy, riding up to within one hundred steps of the hunter who had espied him. Before the hunter had any chance to answer, the gray hare, anticipating danger, got up and started to run. The pack of hounds in braces darted with a howl downhill after the hare ; on all sides, the greyhounds, that were not on the leash, rushed after the hounds and the hare. All the slowly moving houndkeepers, calling ” Halt ! ” to their dogs, and the greyhound-keepers, calling “ Atu ! ” to set theirs against the hare, galloped across the field. Calm Ilagin, Nikolay, Natdsha, and the uncle flew, themselves not knowing how and where, seeing only the dogs and the hare, and fearing lest they should lose a single moment of the sport. It happened to be a full-grown and swift-footed hare. He leaped up, but did not run at once, but only moved his ears and listened to the noise and tramp, which were heard on all sides. He took some ten leisurely leaps, letting the dogs get close to him, and finally, choosing his direction and weighing the danger, dropped his ears and flew at the highest speed. He had been lying in the stubbles, but before him were the green fields, which were soft. The two dogs of the hunter who had espied him, being nearest to the hare, were the first to start in his pursuit ; but before they had run any distance, Hagin’s red-spotted Erzil rushed out, came within a dog’s length of the hare, started after him with terrible rapidity, aiming for the hare’s tail, and, thinking that he had caught him, turned a somersault. The hare bent his back and flew faster still Back of Erz£ darted broad-backed, black-spotted Milka, who was rapidly gaining on the hare.

“ Milka, darling ! ” was heard Nikolay’s triumphant call It looked as though Milka would strike the hare at any moment ; but the hare suddenly stopped, and Milka flew beyond him. Handsome Erza once more bolted after him and kept close to his tail, figuring on getting hold of his hind leg, in order not to make a mistake again.

” Erzd, dear ! ” was heard Hagin’s tearful voice. Erzä paid no attention to his prayer. Just at the moment when all expected that she had him, he darted sidewise on the balk between the sowed field and the stubbles. Again ErzL and Milka, like a span, running abreast, were gaining on the hare ; but the hare had an easier time on the balk, and the dogs could not get up so close to him.

” Bugay, Bugäyushka ! A sure thing, march ! ” a new voice shouted, and Bugay, the uncle’s red, hunchbacked dog, stretching himself out and bending his back, ran abreast with the other two dogs, got ahead of them, strained all his strength with terrible self-oblivion, knocked him from the balk into the ploughed field, made another greater effort in the field, sinking in it up to his knees, and all that could be seen was his turning a somersault with the hare and getting his back all smeared with mud. The pack of dogs surrounded him in the form of a star. A minute later all stood near the crowding dogs. The happy uncle dismounted and cut off the hare’s hind leg. He shook him, to let the blood run off, and in agitation looked all about him, with roving eyes, unable to find a place for his hands and feet, and kept talking, not knowing to whom, or what he was saying.

” Now this is a sure thing, march — I call this a dog — he has outrun thousand-rouble dogs, — sure thing, march ! ” he said, out of breath and looking angrily about him, as though scolding somebody and as though all were his enemies and had offended him, and he at last had found a way of justifying himself. ” Here are your thousand-rouble dogs, — sure thing, march ! “

” Rugäy, here is a hare’s foot for you ! ” he said, throwing down to him the mud-covered foot, which he had cut off. “ You have deserved it, — sure thing, march ! “

“ She got fagged out, — she had taken three runs all by herself,” said Nikoläy, paying attention to no one, and not caring whether they heard what he said, or not.

“Well, he just ran across the hare!” said Ilagiu’s groom.

” When she gets tired, any cur will catch the hare,” said Ilagin, red in his face and with difficulty drawing breath from excitement and the hard ride.

At the same time Natäsha screeched so joyfully and with such transport that the sound rang in the ears. With this screech she expressed all that which the other hunters had expressed by their simultaneous expressions. That screech was so strange that at any other time she would have been ashamed of it, and all would have been perplexed. The uncle himself tied the hare to bis saddle, throwing him briskly and nimbly over the horse’s back, as though rebuking all with that motion, and, with an expression which said that he did not care to speak to anybody, he mounted his sorrel and rode off. The rest, looking morose and offended, scattered in various directions, and only after some time could they regain their former pretence of indifference. They kept looking for a long time at red Rugày, who, with his mud-bespattered, hunchbacked spine, clattering with the chain, walked behind the legs of the uncle’s horse, with the calm expression of a victor.

“ Well, I am just like the rest so long as there is nothing to hunt; but at a chase it is a different thing!” this dog’s expression seemed to say, so Nikolay thought.

When, a long time afterward, the uncle rode up to Nikolay and began to speak with him, Nikolay felt flattered because the uncle, after all that had happened, deigned to speak with him.

VII.

When, in the evening, Ilagin bade Nikolay goodbye, Nikoläy was such a distance from home that he accepted the uncle’s invitation to stay at Ins house, in his village of Mikhaylovka.

“ If you turned in to my house, — sure thing, march ! ” said the uncle, ” it would be very well ; you see the weather is damp,” said the uncle, “ you would rest yourself, and the countess could be taken home in a vehicle.”

The uncle’s proposition was accepted, and a man was sent to Otradnoe for the vehicle ; Nikolay, Natäsha, and Pétya rode to the uncle’s manor.

Five male manorial servants, large and small, rushed out on the main porch to receive their master. Dozens of women, old and young, made their appearance on the back porch, to get a glimpse of the company. The presence of Natäsha, a lady on horseback, carried the curiosity of the uncle’s manorial servants to such bounds that many, unembarrassed by her presence, moved up toward her, looking straight into her eyes and making remarks about her in her hearing, as though she were a wonder, and not a human being, and could not hear nor understand what was being said of her.

“Arinka, just look, she is sitting sidewise! She is sitting, but the skirt is fluttering— And she has a horn ! “

“ 0 Lord, and a knife !”

” A regular Tartar woman ! “

” How is it you haven’t turned a somersault? ” asked the boldest of them, turning directly to Natäsha.

The uncle got down from his horse at the porch of his frame house, in the middle of a wild-growing garden, and, surveying his servants, shouted a command for the superfluous people to disappear, and to get everything ready for the reception of the guests of the chase.

All scattered. The uncle took Natäsha down from her horse and, taking her hand, led her up the frail board steps of the porch. In the house, which was not whitewashed, the bare wood forming the walls, it was not particularly clean : it did not appear that the purpose of the inmates was to have no spots, — at the same time there was no neglect. The vestibule smelled of fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins were hanging there.

The uncle took his guests through the antechamber into a small parlour with a round birch table and a sofa, then into his cabinet with a ragged sofa, worn rug, and with portraits of Suvdrov, of the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The cabinet had a strong odour of tobacco and of dogs. In the cabinet the uncle asked his guests to sit down and to make themselves at home, while he himself went out. Rugäy, his back still muddy, entered the cabinet and lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his teeth and tongue. From the cabinet there went a corridor, in which could be seen a screen with torn curtains. Beyond the screen could be heard women’s laughter and whispering. Natäsha, Nikoläy and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Pétya leaned on his arm and at once fell asleep; Natäsha and Nikoläy sat in silence. Their faces were burning; they were very hungry and ver)’ happy. They looked at each other (after the chase, in the room, Nikoläy no longer regarded it as necessary to show his masculine superiority over his sister) ; Natäsha winked to her brother, and neither of them could hold back long. They burst out into a melodious laugh, without being able to discover any good cause for it.

A little later, the uncle came in in a short coat, blue’ pantaloons, and short boots. Natasha felt that this very costume, in which she had seen him with surprise and ridicule in Oträdnoe, was a real costume, which was in no way worse than long coats or dress coats.

The uncle, too, was in a happy frame of mind. He was not in the least offended by the laughter of brother and sister (it never would have occurred to him that they would laugh at his manner of life), and himself joined their groundless merriment.

” Really, young countess, — sure thing, march ! — I have never seen a finer one than you ! ” he said, handing Nikolay a pipe with a long stem, and with a habitual gesture placing another, a short one, between his own three fingers.

” You have passed a day which would be hard enough for any man, and yet you do not show it ! “

Soon after uncle had entered, the door was opened by a barefoot woman, as could be told by the sound of her steps, and a fat, ruddy, goodlooking woman, of about forty years of age, with a double chin, and full, ruby lips, entered carrying a number of things on a tray. She surveyed the guests with hospitable dignity and attractiveness in her eyes and all her motions, and respectfully bowed to them with a kindly smile. Notwithstanding her more than usual obesity, which compelled her to protrude her chest and abdomen and hold back her head, this woman (the uncle’s stewardess) stepped very lightly. She walked over to the table, put down the tray, and nimbly took with her white plump hands the bottles, the lunch, and the dessert from the tray and placed it all on the table. Having finished this, she walked away, and with a smile on her face stopped at the door.

” I am she ! Do you understand your uncle now ? ” her appearance said to Nikolay. Why not understand him ? Not only Nikoläy, but even Natasha understood the uncle and the meaning of the frown and of the happy, self-satisfied smile which barely wrinkled his lips at the time when Anisya Fédorovna entered the room. On the tray there were herb brandy, berry wine, mushrooms, buttermilk, rye cakes, fresh and boiled honey, mead, apples, raw and roasted nuts, and nuts in honey. Then Anisya Fédorovna brought honey and sugar jams, and ham, and a chicken which had just been roasted.

All that had been gathered, prepared, and cooked by Anisya Fédorovna. All that, by its taste and odour, reminded one of Anisya Fédorovna. All was savoury and clean, and reminded one of neatness and of an agreeable smile.

” Eat, countess,” she kept saying, as she handed this or that to Natäsha. Natasha ate of everything, and she thought that such buttermilk cakes, with such a flavour of jams, such honeyed nuts, and such a chicken she had never seen or eaten before. Anisya Fédorovna left the room. Rostov and the uncle, washing down the supper with cherry brandy, were discussing the past and the future chases, and talking of Rugäy and of Ilagin’s dogs. Natasha, with sparkling eyes, was sitting straight on the sofa, listening to them. She tried several times to wake up Pétya, in order to give him something to eat, but he said something unintelligible, evidently without waking up. Natasha felt so happy, so at ease in these new surroundings, that she was only afraid lest they should come too soon with the vehicle. After a silence which accidentally ensued, as frequently happens with people who for the first time receive acquaintances at their house, the uncle said, replying to the thought which was in the minds of his guests:

” This is the way I am ending my days — When I die, — sure thing, march, — nothing will be left. “Why then sin ? “

The uncle’s face was interesting and even handsome, as he said this. Rostov involuntarily thought of the good things he had heard his father and the neighbours say of the uncle. He had in the circuit the reputation of being a most noble and unselfish original. He was called in to settle family disputes; he was made executor; secrets were confided to him, and he was elected to be a judge and to hold other offices, but he stubbornly refused to be in public service, and passed his fall and spring in his field on his sorrel gelding, in the summer at home, lying in his wild-growing garden.

“ Why don’t you serve, uncle ? “

“ I have served, but I gave it up. I am not fit for it, sure thing, march, I can’t make out anything. That is your affair, — but I have not enough brains for that. When it comes to the chase, that is another matter, that is a sure thing, march ! — Open the door ! ” he shouted. ” Why did you shut it ? ”

The door at the end of the corridor led into the bachelor hunters’ room; thus was called the servants’ room for the hunters. A rapid plashing of bare feet was heard, and an invisible hand opened the door into the hunters’ room. From the corridor could be heard the distinct sounds of the balalayka, on which apparently a master of his art was playing. Natasha had been listening quite awhile to these sounds, and now she stepped out into the corridor, in order to hear them more distinctly.

” Mitka the coachman is playing it — I bought him a good balaläyka, — I like it,” said the uncle.

It was a custom with the uncle every time he returned from the chase, to have Mitka play on the balalàyka. The uncle was fond of this kind of music.

“How nice! Really it is fine!” said NikolKy, with a certain involuntary nonchalance, as though he were ashamed to confess that he was fond of this music.

” How nice ? ” reproachfully said Natàsha, conscious of the tone in which her brother had said it. ” It is not nice, but simply a joy ! “

Just as the mushrooms, the honey, and the herb brandy of uncle seemed to be the best in the world, so this song at that moment appeared to her to be the acme of musical perfection.

” More, please, more,” Natasha said through the door, the moment the balaläyka stopped. Mitka tuned up and again dashingly strummed “ The Lady ” with chords and variations. The uncle sat and listened, bending his head sidewise with a barely perceptible smile. The motive of ” The Lady ” was repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was tuned several times, and again the same sounds were heard, and the hearers did not get tired, but wanted to hear more and more of it. Anisya Fédorovna entered and leaned her obese body against the doorpost.

“Just listen to him,” she said to Natdsha, with a smile, which remarkably resembled that of the uncle. “ He is a fine musician,” she said.

” He does not play this part right,” the uncle suddenly said, with an energetic gesture. ” There ought to be trills here, — sure tiling, march ! — trills — ”

” Can you play yourself ? ” asked Natasha.

The uncle made no reply, and only smiled.

” See, Anisya, whether the strings are all on the guitar ! I have not had it in my hands for quite awhile, — sure tiling, march ! I have neglected it.”

Anisya Fédorovna readily went with her light step to execute the order of her master and brought the guitar.

Without looking up, the uncle blew off the dust, with his bony fingers tapped on the lid of the guitar, tuned it, and adjusted himself in his chair. He grasped the guitar above the fingerboard (with something of a theatrical gesture, by arching the elbow of his left arm), and, beckoning to Anisya Fédorovna, began to play, not ” The Lady,” but, after taking one clear, melodious chord, evenly,

calmly, and firmly, in a slow measure to strum the well-known song, ” On the pavement of the street.” The motive of the song ran out in Nikolay’s and Natasha’s souls, keeping time with his playing, and in harmony with that measured merriment, which breathed in Anisya Fédorovna’s whole being. Anisya Fédorovna blushed and, covering her face with her kerchief and laughing, left the room. The uncle continued to play clearly, carefully, energetically, looking with an inspired look at the place which Anisya Fédorovna had left. There was a mere suggestion of a smile on one side of his face, underneath his gray moustache ; especially was this noticeable when the song became livelier, the time faster, and the arpeggios more frequent.

” Exquisite, exquisite, uncle ! More, more ! ” cried Natäsha, the moment he had ended. She leaped up from her seat, embraced her uncle, and kissed him. ” Nikolay, Nikolay ! ” she said, looking at her brother, as though asking him, ” What is this ? ”

Nikolay, too, was very much pleased with his playing. Anisya Fédorovna’s smiling face again appeared at the door, and with her there were other faces.

“ To the sparkling spring goes she, — Says he, Maiden, wait for me ! “

played the uncle, took another arpeggio, abruptly stopped, and shrugged his shoulders.

“ Go ahead, go ahead, dear uncle,” Natasha groaned with an imploring voice, as though her whole life depended upon it. The uncle rose, and he looked as though there were two men in him : one of them smiled a serious smile at the merrymaker, and the merrymaker made a naïve and correct step before the dance.

” Well, niece ! ” cried the uncle, swinging to Natasha the hand which had just taken a chord.

Natäsha threw off her shawl, which she had thrown over herself, ran in front of the uncle and, with arms akimbo, moved her shoulders, and stopped.

Where, how, when had the young countess, who had been educated by an emigrant Frenchwoman, imbibed this spirit from the Russian air which she breathed ? Where did she learn this manner of dancing, which the pas de châle ought to have eradicated long ago ? The spirit and the manner were inimitable, untutored, Russian, such as the uncle expected from her. The moment she stood there, smiling triumphantly, proudly, roguishly, the first fear which had seized Nikolay and all the persons present, the fear that she would not do the right thing, passed away, and they freely admired her.

She did it right and so well, so absolutely well, that Anisya Fédorovna, who immediately handed her the necessary kerchief, had tears in her eyes, though she was laughing, as she looked at this slender, graceful, strange little countess, brought up in silk and velvet, who was able to understand that which was in Anisya, and in Anisya’s father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian man.

“ Well, little countess, — sure thing, march ! ” the uncle said, with a merry smile, having finished the dance. ” Come now, niece ! If we could only get you a fine husband, — sure thing, march ! “

” 8he has one,” Nikolay said, smiling.

” Oh ? ” the uncle said, in surprise, looking interrogatively at Natasha. Natasha, with a happy smile, nodded her head affirmatively.

” And a fine one at that ! ” she said. But the moment she said this, a new series of thoughts and feelings rose in her. ” What meant Nikoldy’s smile, as he said, ‘ She has one ’ ? Is he glad of it, or not ? He seems to think that my Bolkénski would not have approved of this our merriment, and would not have understood it. Yes, he would have understood everything. Where is he now ? ” thought Natasha, and her face suddenly became serious. But tliis lasted only a second. ” I must not think, I must not dare think of it ! ” she said to herself and, smiling, again sat down near the uncle, asking him to play something else.

The uncle played another song and a waltz; then, after some silence, he cleared his throat and sang his favourite hunting-song.

” Fluffy snowflakes fell at night, And the hare-tracks could be seen — “

The uncle sang as the people sing, with the full and naïve conviction that the whole meaning of the song was in its words, that the musical accompaniment came of its own accord, and that there was no separate tune, but that the tune was merely to give measure to the words. For this reason his unconscious accompaniment, like the song of a bird, was exceedingly beautiful. Natasha was in ecstasy at the uncle’s singing. She decided that she would not study any longer on the harp, but that she would play only the guitar. She asked the uncle to let her have his guitar, and immediately picked out chords on it for the song.

After nine o’clock there arrived a line-carriage and a buggy for Natasha and Pétya, and with them came three men on horseback, sent out to find them. The count and the countess did not know where they were, and were worrying about them, so the messenger said.

Pétya was carried like a dead body and deposited in the line-carriage ; Natäsha and Nikoläy sat down in the buggy. The uncle wrapped up Natäsha and bade her goodbye with unwonted tenderness. He accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge, where the carriages had to ford the brook, and ordered the hunters to precede them with lanterns.

” Goodbye, dear niece,” he shouted from the darkness, not in the voice in which Natäsha had generally heard him speak, but in the one in which he had sung, ” Fluffy snowflakes fell at night.”

In the village, through which they were driving, red fires could be seen, and there was a pleasant odour of smoke in the air.

” What a charming man the uncle is ! ” said Natäsha, when they reached the highway.

” Yes,” said Nikoläy. “ Are you not cold ? ”

” No, I am comfortable, quite comfortable. I feel so well,” Natäsha said, with some perplexity. They were silent for quite awhile.

It was a dark, damp night. The horses could not be seen ; they could only be heard splashing through the invisible mud.

What was going on in that childish, impressionable soul, which so eagerly caught and retained the most varied impressions of life ? How did everything lodge in her soul ? In any case, she was very happy. They were not far from home when she suddenly sang the motive of the song, ” Fluffy snowflakes fell at night,” a motive which she had been trying to catch all the way home, and which she finally caught.

” Have you caught it ? ” said Nikolay.

“What were you thinking about just now, Nikolay?” Natasha asked him.

They were in the habit of asking each other this question.

” I? ” said Nikoläy, as though regaining consciousness. ” You see, at first I thought that red Bugäy resembled the uncle, and that if he were not a dog, but a man, he would be keeping the uncle, not for the chase, but for his looks. Is not the uncle fine ? What have you been thinking about ? “

“I ? Wait, wait ! Yes, at first I thought we were travelling and thinking that we were going home, while we were going God knows whither in the darkness, and that we should soon find out that we were not at Otradnoe, but in some fairy kingdom. And then I thought— No, nothing more.”

” I know, no doubt you were thinking about him,” Nikolay said, smiling, as Natasha could tell by the sound of his voice.

“ No,” replied Natäsha, although in reality she had been thinking about Prince Andréy and how he would have liked the uncle. ” And then I kept repeating all the way, * How well Anisya walked, how well —’ ” said Natasha.

And Nikoläy heard her sonorous, causeless, happy laugh.

“Do you know,” she suddenly said, “I know that I shall never be so happy and calm again as I am now.”

« What nonsense, stupid nonsense ! ” said Nikolay, thinking at the same time, ” What a fine girl my Natasha is ! I shall never have such a friend as she is. What good is there in her getting married ? We could be travelling this way all the time ! “

“ What a fine boy this Nikoläy is ? ” thought Natasha. “ Oh ! There is still a light in the drawingroom,” she said, pointing to the windows of the house, which gleamed beautifully in the damp, velvety darkness of the night.

VIII.

Count Ilya Andreevich gave up his office as marshal of the nobility because it caused him too many expenses. But Ins affairs did not improve. Natäsha and Nikoläy frequently saw their parents having secret, disquieting talks, and heard rumours of the intended sale of the large family home of the Rostovs and of the suburban estate. Having given up the office of marshal, Rostov no longer kept such an open house, and the life at Otradnoe went on more calmly than in former years ; but the immense manor and the wing were just as full of people, and more than twenty sat down at the table. All these were inmates of the house, almost members of the family, or such as necessarily had to live in the house of the count. Such were the Dimmlers, the musician and his wife, Vogel, the teacher of dancing with his family, the old maid Byélov, who had always lived in the house, and many others : Pétya’s teachers, the former governess of the young ladies, and simple people who found it more advantageous or more comfortable to live with the count than at home. There were not so many guests as formerly ; but, on the whole, life ran in the same old way, without which life would have been unthinkable to the count and the countess. There was the same chase as before, except that Nikoläy had increased it ; there were the same fifty horses rad fifteen coachmen in the stable; the same expensive gifts on namedays, and great gala-dinners for the whole county ; there were the same whist and boston

parties, when he so displayed his own cards that his neighbours could not help beating him every day out of hundreds of roubles, so that they came to look on the privilege of playing with Ilya Andréevich as the most profitable of investments.

The count walked about in his affairs as in an enormous net, trying not to believe that he was enmeshed, though with every step he became more and more entangled ; he felt that he was unable to tear the net which held him, and at the same time did not have the patience cautiously and assiduously to unravel it. The countess, with her loving heart, felt that her children were being ruined, that the count was not to blame, that he could not act otherwise than he did, and that he himself suffered, without being able to mend matters, from the ruinous condition of his own fortune and of that of his children, and she tried to find means for helping the matter. From her feminine standpoint there was but one means, and that was Nikolày’s marrying a rich girl. She felt that this was her last hope, and that if Nikolay should refuse the match which she had found for him, they would have for ever to give up the hope of mending matters. This match was Julie Karagin, the daughter of good, virtuous parents, who had been known to the Rostdvs since her childhood, and who now, through the death of her last brother, became a very rich match.

The countess wrote directly to Madame Karägin in Moscow, proposing to her a marriage between their children, and received a favourable reply from her. Madame Kardgin replied that she, on her side, was satisfied, and that everything would depend on her daughter’s wish. She invited Nikolay to visit them in Moscow.

With tears in her eyes, the countess several times told her son that now that her daughters were provided for, her only wish was to see him married. She said that she would be ready to go quietly to her grave, if that happened. Then she said that she had a fine girl in mind and tried to get his opinion on marriage.

In other conversations she praised Julie and advised Nikolay to go for the holidays to Moscow. Nikoldy saw what his mother’s talks were tending to, and at one of these conversations he invited her to make a full and frank statement. She told him that the only hope of improving matters now was based on his marrying Julie Kardgin.

” If I loved a girl without a fortune, would you, mamma, want me to sacrifice my feeling and honour for a fortune ? ” he asked his mother, without seeing the cruelty of his question and meaning only to give expression to his nobility of thought.

“ No, you did not understand me,” said his mother, being at a loss to justify herself. ” You did not understand me, Nikolay. I wish you happiness,” she added, feeling that she was not telling the truth, and that she was all mixed up. She burst out weeping.

” Mamma, don’t weep! Tell me that you wish it, and you know that I will give up my whole life, — everything, — in order to make you happy,” said Nikolay. ” I will sacrifice for you everything, even my feelings.”

But the countess did not wish to put the question like that : she did not want her son’s sacrifice ; she would have preferred to make sacrifices herself.

“ No, you did not understand me. Let us not talk about it!” she said, wiping away her tears.

« Yes, maybe I am loving a poor girl,” Nikoldy said to himself. ” Shall I sacrifice my feelings and my honour for a fortune ? I wonder how mother could have told me such a thing. Because Sonya is poor, I cannot love her,” he thought, ” I cannot respond to her true, loyal love ! I am sure I shall be happier with her than with such a doll as Julie. I can always sacrifice my feelings for my relatives,” he said to himself, “but I am unable to command my feelings. If I love Sonya, my feeling is stronger and higher than anything else for me.”

Nikolay did not go to Moscow. The countess did not renew her conversation about marriage with him, and with sadness, and at times with anger, noticed how her son was becoming ever more intimate with dowerless Sdnya. She upbraided herself for it, but could not help grumbling and finding fault with Sonya, whom she frequently stopped and addressed as ” you ” instead of “ thou ” and called “ my dear.” The good countess was more particularly angry at Sonya because this poor, black-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so good, so devoted and grateful to her benefactors, and so sincerely, unchangeably, and with such self-oblivion in love with Nikolay that it was impossible to rebuke her for anything.

Nikolay stayed the whole time of his furlough in the house of his parents. From the fiancé, Prince Andréy, a letter, the fourth, was received from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have been long ago on his way to Russia, if his wound had not suddenly opened up in the warm climate, so that he was compelled to delay his journey until the next year. Natasha was as much in love with her fiancé, as much satisfied with this love, and as easily impressed by all the pleasures of life ; but, at the end of the fourth month of their separation, she began to be assailed by moments of sadness, against which she fought in vain. She was sorry for herself, sorry to be pining away all this time to no purpose, whereas she felt herself so capable of loving and of being loved.

There was sadness in the house of the Rostévs.

IX.

It was the time of the Christmas holidays, but, except for a grand mass, and the solemn and tedious congratulations of the neighbours and manorial servants, and the new garments worn by all, there was nothing peculiar to indicate the holidays, whereas the windless frost of twenty degrees Réaumur, the bright, blinding sunshine, and the starlight of the winter nights demanded a definite celebration of this time of the year.

On the third day of Christmas, all the inmates of the house scattered to their rooms after dinner. It was the most tedious time of the day. Nikolay, who in the morning had been calling on the neighbours, was asleep in the sofaroom. The old count was resting in his cabinet. In the drawingroom, Sonya was sitting at a round table, copying a design. The countess was playing solitaire. Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon, was sitting with a sad face at the window, by the side of two old women. Natäsha entered the room, walked over to Sonya, looked to see what she was doing, then went up to her mother, and there stood without saying anything.

“ Why are you walking about like a homeless person ? ” said her mother. ” What do you want ? “

” I want him — directly, this very minute,” said Natäsha, with sparkling eyes, and without a smile.

The countess raised her head and looked steadily at her daughter.

” Don’t look at me ! Mamma, don’t look, or I shall burst out weeping.”

” Sit down ! Stay with me awhile,” said the countess.

“ Mamma, I want him ! Why do I suffer so, mamma ? ” Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she rapidly turned around, in order to conceal them, and left the room.

She went to the sofaroom, where she stood awhile in thought, and then went to the maids’ room. There an old chambermaid was grumbling at a young girl, who, out of breath, had just come in from the cold.

“ Stop your playing ! ” said the old woman. “ There is a time for everything.”

” Let her go, Kondrätevna ! ” said Natäsha. “ Go, Mavrusha, go ! ”

Having sent Mavrusha away, Natäsha went through the parlour to the antechamber. An old servant and two lackeys were playing cards. They stopped playing and rose at the sight of the young lady.

“ What shall I do with them ? ” thought Natäsha.

” Oh, Nikita, go — Where shall I send him ? Oh, yes, go to the barn-yard and bring me, if you please, a cock ; and you, Misha, bring me some oats ! “

“ A little oats you wish ? ” Misha said, cheerfully, ready to run the errand.

” Go, begone ! ” said the old man.

” Fédor, and you get me a piece of chalk ! ”

As she went past the buffet-room, she ordered the samovär to be prepared, though it was not at all the time for tea.

Butler Fdka was the crossest man in the whole house. Natäsha was fond of trying her power on him. He did not believe her, and went to ask whether it was so.

“ Oh, the young lady ! ” said Foka, with a simulated frown at Natäsha.

Nobody in the house sent the people so much on errands and gave them so much to do as Natäsha. She could not look indifferently at people without sending them somewhere. It looked as though she was trying to find out whether she could make them angry ; but the servants were always ready to execute her orders.

” What shall I do now ? Where shall I go ? ” thought Natäsha, walking slowly along the corridor.

” Nastäsya Ivänovna, what is born of me ? ” she asked the buffoon, who, in his woman’s jacket, was coming up toward her.

” Of you are born fleas, dragon-flies, grasshoppers,” replied the buffoon.

” 0 Lord, O Lord, it is still the same ! Where shall I go ? What shall I do with myself ? ” and, with a rapid clatter of her feet, she ran upstairs to where the Vogels were living. In the room of the Vogels were sitting the two governesses ; on the table stood plates with raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing where it was cheaper to live, whether in Moscow or in Odessa. Natäsha sat down, listened to their conversation with a serious and thoughtful face, and then got up. ” The island of Madagascar,” she muttered. “ Ma-da-gas-car,” she repeated, pronouncing each syllable separately and distinctly, and, without replying to the question of Madame Schoss as to what she was saying, she left the room.

Pétya, with his valet, was also upstairs : he was getting some fireworks ready, which he intended to fire off in the evening.

“ Pétya, Pétya ! ” she called out to him. ” Take me downstairs.”

Pétya ran up to her and offered her his back. She jumped on it and embraced his neck with both her hands, and he started to run downstairs with her.

“No, I do not want to, — the island of Madagascar,” she said, and, leaping down, went downstairs by herself.

After having made the circuit of her kingdom, having tried her power, and having convinced herself that all were loyal to her, even though it was all very tiresome, Natdsha went to the parlour, took the guitar, sat down in a dark corner behind a safe, and began to strum the bass strings, trying to play a phrase which she happened to remember from an opera which she had heard in St. Petersburg while in Prince Andréy’s company. For any outsiders, her music would have had no meaning, but in her imagination a whole series of recollections arose from these sounds of the guitar. She sat back of the safe, gazing at a beam of light which fell through the open door of the buffet-room, and listened to her own thoughts, and passed into reveries. She was in a reminiscent mood.

Sonya crossed the parlour with a wine-glass, on her way to the buffet-room. Natasha looked at her and at the crack in the buffet-room door, and it appeared to her that she was recalling that there had once been that crack and Sonya had passed by with a wine-glass.

“ Yes, it was just like that,” thought Natasha. ” Sonya, is it you?” Natasha called out, strumming on the bass string.

” Oh, you are here ! ” Sonya said, with a shudder, walking up and listening to the music. ” What is it, — ‘ The Storm ‘ ? ” she said, timidly, being afraid that she was making a mistake.

” Precisely in this way she shuddered then, and came up to me, and smiled timidly,” Natdsha thought, “and just so I then thought that something was lacking in her.”

“No, it is the choir from the ‘Watercarrier,’ — don’t you hear?” and Natasha sang the rest of the motive, so that Sonya might understand it.

” Where were you going ? ” asked Natasha.

“ I wanted to change the water in the wine-glass. I am finishing the design.”

” You are always busy, but I can’t be,” said Natasha. “ Where is Nikolay ? ”

“ I think he is asleep.”

“Sonya, go and wake him up!” said Natdsha. “Tell him that I want him to come and sing with me ! ”

She remained sitting and reflecting on how strange it was that it seemed to have all happened before, and without solving this question, nor caring any more about it, she was in her imagination once more transferred to the time when she had been with him, and he had been looking at her with the eyes of a lover.

“ If he only would come at once ! I am so afraid that it will not be ! The main thing is that I am getting old, — that is where the trouble is ! There will not be in me that which there is now. Maybe he will come today, at once. Maybe he has arrived, and is sitting in the drawingroom. Maybe he came yesterday, and I have forgotten it.”

She rose, put down the guitar, and went to the drawingroom. All the inmates of the house, the teachers, governesses, and guests were already sitting at the teatable. The servants were standing around the table, but Prince Andréy was not there, and there was no change in the course of events.

“ Ah, there she is,” said Ilyd Andréevich, upon noticing Natdsha, who had just entered. ” Come, sit down by my side ! ”

But Natasha stopped near her mother, looking around, as though in search of something.

“ Mamma ! ” she said, ” give him to me, give him to me, mamma ! Quick, quick ! ” and again she had difficulty in restraining her tears.

She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation of the elders and of Nikoldy, who had come to the table.

“ 0 Lord, 0 Lord ! The same faces, the same talk, and papa holds the cup and blows upon the tea in just the same fashion ! ” thought Natdsha, in terror feeling the

disgust which was rising within her against all the people of her home for being all the time the same.

After tea, Nikolay, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sofaroom, to their favourite corner, where they always began their intimate conversations.

X.

” Does it ever happen with you,” Natäsha said to her brother, after they had seated themselves in the sofaroom, “ that it seems to you that there will be nothing, nothing, and that everything which is good has been ? And don’t you feel, not exactly lonesome, but sad ? “

“ I should say it does,” he said. “ I have had it happen that every one else would be in a happy and cheerful frame of mind, while it would occur to me that it was all dreadfully tiresome, and that it was time for all to die. One day, while in the regiment, I did not go to the esplanade where the music was playing — and I suddenly felt so lonely — ”

“ Oh, I know that. I know, I know,” Natäsha interrupted him. ” When I was very small, it used to happen to me, too. Do you remember, once I was punished for the cherries, and you were all dancing, while I was sitting in the classroom and sobbing ; I shall never forget it : I felt so sad, and I was so sorry for everybody, and for myself, and for everybody, for everybody. And, above all, I had done no wrong,” said Natäsha. “ Do you remember ? ”

” I do,” said Nikoläy. “ I remember that I came to you afterward, and wanted to console you, and, do you know? — I was ashamed to do it. We were awfully funny. I then had a wooden doll, and I wanted to give it to you. Do you remember it ? “

” And do you remember,” said Natäsha, with a thoughtful smile, “ how a long, long time ago, when we were tiny children, our uncle called us into his cabinet, in the old

house, and it was dark in there, — and we went there, and there stood — “

” A negro,” Nikolay finished the sentence, with a smile of joy. “ Of course I remember it. I do not know to the present moment whether it really was a negro, or whether we dreamt of it, or we were told about it.”

” He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth. He was standing and looking at us — “

” Do you remember, Sdnya ? ” asked Nikoläy.

“ Yes, yes, I have a dim recollection of something,” Sdnya replied, timidly.

“ I have asked father and mother about that negro,” said Natasha. ” They say that there was no negro. And yet you yourself remember him ! “

” I should say I do. I can see his teeth even now.”

” How strange! It is as though I had dreamt about it.

I like such things.”

“And do you remember how we rolled eggs in the parlour, and suddenly two women began to whirl around on the carpet. Did it happen, or not? Do you remember how nice it was? ”

“ Yes. And do you remember how father, dressed in a blue fur coat, fired off his gun on the porch ? “

They rummaged, smiling joyful smiles of recollection, not through the sad memories of advanced age, but through the memories of poetical youth, — those impressions from the distant past, where dreams blend with reality, — and they laughed softly, as though having a definite pleasure.

Sonya, as always, did not keep up with them, though they had all memories in common. Sonya did not remember many of the things which they now recalled, and what she did remember did not rouse in her that poetical feeling which they were experiencing. However, she shared the joy of their memories, and endeavoured to experience it herself. But she did take a heartfelt interest in their recollections of her first arrival. Sonya told them how she had been afraid of Nikolay, because he had some cords on his blouse and because the nurse told her that she, too, would be sewn up in cords.

« I remember how I was told that you had been born under a head of cabbage,” said Natasha, “and I also remember that I did not dare to disbelieve it, although I knew that it was not so, and how odd I felt.”

During this conversation the head of a chambermaid was thrust through the back door of the sofaroom.

“ Countess, they have brought the cock ! ” the maid said, in a whisper.

“I do not want it! Pdlya, tell them to take him back ! ” said Natäsha.

In the middle of the conversation which was going on in the sofaroom, Dimmler entered the room and walked over to the harp, which was standing in a corner. He took off the cover, and the harp produced a false sound.

” Eduard Karlych, please play us my favourite nocturne of Mr. Field,” was heard the voice of the old countess from the drawingroom.

Dimmler took a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nikolay, and Sonya, he said : “ Young people, how quietly you sit there ! “

” Yes, we are philosophizing,” said Natäsha, turning back her head. Then she continued the conversation, which now turned on dreams.

Dimmler began to play. Natasha softly, on tiptoe, went to the table, took the candle, carried it out, and, after returning, quietly sat down in her old place. In the room, especially on the sofa, where they were sitting, it was dark, but through the large windows the silvery light of the full moon fell on the floor.

” Do you know, I think,” Natasha said, in a whisper, moving up toward Nikolay and Sdnya, after Dimmler had finished playing and was softly fingering the strings, apparently in indecision whether to stop or to begin a new piece, ” that when you begin to recall things, you go back and back in your memory, beyond the time when you were in the world — “

” That is metempsychosis,” said Sdnya, who had always studied well and had a good memory. “The Egyptians believed that our bodies had been in animals and would again return into animals.”

“ No, I do not believe that we were once animals,” Natasha said, in the same whisper, though the music had stopped, “ but I know for sure that we were once angels up there and down here, and so we remember — ”

“May I join you ?” said Dimmler, who had softly come up to them, seating himself near them.

“If we once were angels, why should we have fallen ? ” asked Nikolay. “ No, that is not possible ! ”

“ We have not fallen ! Who told you so ? How do I know that I existed before ? ” Natasha retorted, convincingly. “ The soul is immortal — consequently, if I shall live for ever, I must have existed before, through eternity.”

“ Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,” said Dimmler, who had come up to the young people with a meek, disdainful smile, but now was speaking just as softly and seriously as they.

“ Why is it difficult to imagine eternity ? ” said Natäsha. “There is to-day, there will be tomorrow, there has always been, always will be, yesterday, two days ago — ”

“ Natasha ! Now it is your turn ! Give us a song ! ” was heard the countess’s voice. “ Why are you sitting there like conspirators ? ”

“ Mamma, I do not feel like singing ! ” said Natäsha, but she rose nevertheless.

They did not feel like interrupting the conversation, and even grown-up Dimmler did not like to leave the cosy corner of the sofaroom, but Natäsha got up, and Nikoläy sat down at the clavichord. Natäsha, as always, stood in the middle of the parlour, choosing the best place for the resonance, and began to sing her mother’s favourite song.

She had said that she did not feel like singing, but not for a long time before, nor afterward, did she sing so well as on that evening. Count Ilyä Andréevich heard her singing in the cabinet, where he was talking to Mitenka, and, like a pupil, who, reciting a lesson, gets mixed in his words, when he is in a hurry to get out to play, so he mixed up the orders to his manager, and finally grew silent, while Mitenka, himself listening in silence, stood smiling before the count. Nikolay riveted his eyes on his sister, and breathed deeply whenever she did so. Sdnya listened, thinking all the time what an enormous difference there was between her and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anywhere near as enticing as her cousin. The old countess was sitting with a smile of sadness and happiness on her face and tears in her eyes, now and then shaking her head. She was thinking of Natasha, and of her own youth, and of the unnatural and terrible in the future marriage of Natasha to Prince Andréy.

Dimmler sat down near the countess and, shutting his eyes, was absorbed in listening to the song.

“ Really, countess,” he said at last, “ she has a European talent, — there is nothing for her to learn. Such softness, tenderness, power — ”

“ Oh, how I am afraid for her, how I am afraid ! ” said the countess, forgetting to whom she was speaking. Her maternal feeling told her that there was something too much in Natasha, which would keep her from being happy. Natäsha had not yet finished singing, when fourteen-year-old, excited Pétya ran into the room with news that the masks had come.

Natäsha suddenly stopped.

“ Fool ! ” she cried to her brother, ran up to a chair, fell

down upon it, and burst out weeping so hard that she could not stop for a long time.

“It is nothing, mamma, really nothing. Pétya has just frightened me,” she said, trying to smile, but the tears kept coursing, and sobs choked her tliroat.

The manorial servants, in the mummery of bears, Turks, tavern-keepers, ladies, looking terrible and funny, and bringing in with them the cold and merriment, at first crowded timidly in the antechamber ; then, hiding one behind the other, they pushed their way into the parlour ; and, at first bashfully, then more boldly and more merrily, they began to sing and dance, and play the Christmas games. The countess, having recognized certain masks and having laughed heartily at them, went into the drawingroom. Count Ilyâ Andréevich sat with a beaming smile in the parlour, applauding the players. The young people had disappeared.

Half an hour later there appeared, among the masks, an old lady in a crinoline, — that was Nikolay ; a Turkish woman, — that was Pétya ; a clown, — that was Dimmler ; a hussar, — Natdsha, and a Circassian, — Sonya, with burnt-cork moustaches and eyebrows.

The spectators did not recognize them and expressed their surprise and admiration. The young people found their costumes so fine that they thought they ought to let others see them. Nikolay, who wanted to take all out riding in his troyka over the excellent road, suggested that they should take about ten masks with them and go to see the uncle.

” No, you must not, — you will only excite the old man,” said the countess. ” Besides, there is not enough space there to turn around. If you must go, go and see the Melyukdvs.”

Madame Melyukdv was a widow with children of all ages, and with various tutors and governesses, living within four versts of the Rostovs.

” Now, this, ma chère, is clever,” the old count chimed in, getting excited himself. ” Wait, I will put on a costume myself and will go with you. I’ll stir up Pashéta.”

But the countess refused to let the count go, because he had been suffering with a sore leg for the last few days. It was decided that Ilyd Andréevich could not go, but that if Luiza Ivdnovna (Madame Schoss) would go, the ladies could be taken to the Melyukdvs. Sdnya, who was always timid and bashful, began to beg Luiza Ivdnovua not to refuse them the pleasure.

Sonya’s make-up was the best. Her moustache and eyebrows became her exceedingly well. All said that she was uncommonly pretty, and she was in an animated and energetic frame of mind, which was unusual with her. An inner voice told her that that evening or never her fate would be decided, and in her male attire she appeared an entirely different person. Luiza Ivanovna gave her consent, and half an hour later four trdykas with bells, with their runners creaking and whining on the frozen snow, drove up to the porch.

Natésha was the first to give the tone to the Christmas merriment, and this merriment, reflected from one to another, growing and growing, reached its height just as all came out into the cold air and, talking and shouting, laughing and calling to each other, seated themselves in the sleighs.

Two troykas were of an ordinary kind ; the third was that of the old count, with an Orlov trotter in the centre ; the fourth was Nikoläy’s, with his small, black, shaggy centre horse. Nikoläy, in his old woman’s attire, over which he had put on a hussar’s overcoat, tucked up at the waist, was standing in the middle of his sleigh, holding the reins in his hands.

It was so light that he could see the harness plates gleaming in the moonshine, and the eyes of the horses,

who looked in fright at the noisy merrymakers under the dark roof of the entrance.

Nikolay’s sleigh was occupied by Natasha, Sdnya, Madame Schoss, and two maids. Himmler with his wife and Pétya seated themselves in the sleigh of the old count ; the masked manorial servants occupied the other two.

“Forward march, Zakhar !” Nikolay called out to his father’s coachman, in order to have a chance to overtake him on the road.

The trdyka of the old count with squeaking runners, as though freezing fast to the snow, moved forward, tinkling a deep-sounding bell. The side horses pressed against the shafts and, pressing their feet against the solid shining snow, cut it into pieces like sugar.

Nikoläy started after the first trdyka; the other two squeaked and whined behind him. At first they drove at a slow trot over a narrow road. So long as they went past the garden, the shadows from the bared trees often fell across the road and concealed the bright moonlight, but the moment they drove beyond the enclosure, the snow-covered plain, sparkling like diamonds, with a grayish blue sheen, all bathed by the gleam of the moon, and motionless, lay on all sides. Suddenly the front sleigh was jarred by getting into a rut; in the same manner the following sleighs were jarred, and, boldly breaking the fettered calm, they began to stretch out one behind the other.

“ A rabbit track, many tracks ! ” was heard Natasha’s sonorous voice in the frosty air.

” How bright it is, Nicolas !” said Sonya.

Nikoläy looked back at Sdnya and bent down so as to see her face better. An entirely new, sweet face, with a black moustache and eyebrows, looked at him, in the moonlight, out of sable furs.

“ This was once Sdnya,” thought Nikoläy. He looked closer at her and smiled.

“ What is it, Nicolas ? “

” Nothing,” he said, again turning to his horses.

When they reached the travelled highway, which was all sleek from the runners, and all cut up by the sponge tracks, visible in the moonlight, the horses began themselves to pull on the reins and to increase their gait. The left side horse, bending its head, tugged at its traces in leaps. The centre horse swayed to and fro, moving its ears, as though asking, ” 8hall I begin, or is it too early yet ? ” In front, far away, tinkling its deep-voiced bell, could be clearly made out Zäkhar’s black trdyka on the white snow. From his sleigh could be heard loud calls and the laughter of the masks.

“ Come now, my darlings ! ” shouted Nikoläy, pulling the reins on one side, and drawing back his hand with the whip. Only by the stronger wind which seemed to blow into their faces, and by the tugging of the side horses and their changed gait, could they see how fast the trdyka flew. Nikoläy looked back. The other troykas, shouting and screaming, and waving their whips over the centre horses, were coming up from behind. The centre horse of Nikoläy’s trdyka swayed evenly under his arch, being ready even to increase his pace, whenever there should be any need for it.

Nikoläy caught up with the first troyka. They drove down an incline and came out on a broad, well-travelled road over a meadow, near the river.

” Where are we ? ” thought Nikoläy. “ I suppose on the upland meadow. No, this is something new, something which I have never seen before. It is not the upland meadow, nor Démkin’s mound, but God knows what ! This is something new and fairy like. I do not care what it is ! ” And, shouting to his horses, he began to drive past the first trdyka.

Zäkhar checked his horses and turned back his face, which was covered to the eyebrows with hoarfrost.

Nikolay sent his horses forward ; Zdkhar stretched out his arms and, smacking his lips, let his horses fly.

” Look out, master,” he cried. The trdykas, side by side, flew faster still, and swiftly alternated the legs of the galloping horses. Nikolay was gaining on Zäkhar. Zakhar, without changing the position of his extended arms, raised one hand with the reins.

” You are mistaken, master,” he shouted to Nikolay. Nikolay let his horses go at a gallop, and passed beyond Zakhar. The horses scattered the fine, dry snow on the people in the sleigh ; near them could be heard the various sounds of the bells, and they could see the rapidly moving feet of their horses, mingling with the shadow from the other sleigh. The squeak of the runners over the snow and the screams of the women resounded on all sides.

Again stopping his horses, Nikolay looked all around him. There was the magic plain, all saturated with the moonlight and glistening with its scattered stars.

” Zakhar is calling for me to turn to the left ; why to the left ? ” thought Nikolay. ” Are we going to the Melyukdvs ? Is this Melyukovka ? God knows where we are travelling, and God knows what is happening to us, and what is happening to us is so strange and so good.”

He looked back into the sleigh.

“Look, his moustache and lashes are all white,” said one of the strange, goodlooking men, with a thin moustache and eyebrows.

“ This one, I think, was once Natàsha,” thought Nikoläy, “ and this one is Madame Schoss ; and maybe not. I do not know who this Circassian with the moustache is, but I love him.”

” Are you not cold ? ” he asked.

They did not answer him, and only laughed. Himmler, in the sleigh behind them, was shouting, apparently something funny, but it was not possible to hear him.

” Yes, yes,” laughing replied the voices.

” See what a magic forest with changeable black shadows and diamond sparkles, and a row of marble steps, and silver roofs of magic buildings, and the piercing squeak of animals ! And if this is indeed Melyukdvka, then it is exceedingly strange that we should have travelled God knows where and yet come out at Melyukdvka,” thought Nikolay.

It was indeed Melyukdvka, and maids and lackeys, carrying candles, rushed out, with merry faces, to the porch.

” Who is it ? ” some one on the porch asked.

“The count’s masks, — so I see by the horses,” said some voices.

XL

Pelageya Danilovna Melyükôv, a broad-chested, energetic woman in eyeglasses and an ample capote, was sitting in the drawingroom, surrounded by her daughters, whom she was trying to amuse. They were quietly pouring wax and watching the shadows of the figures arising from it, when the voices and steps of the masks were heard in the anteroom.

The hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, having in the antechamber cleared their throats and wiped off their faces which were covered with hoarfrost, entered the parlour, where candles were hurriedly lighted. Clown Dimmler with Nikolây, the lady, started the dance. Surrounded by yelling children, the masks, covering their faces and changing their voices, bowed before the hostess and stationed themselves in the room.

” Oh, it is impossible to tell them ! Why, this is Natasha ! See what she looks like ! Really, she reminds me of somebody. How nice Eduard Kàrlych looks! I did not recognize him. How he dances ! 0 Lord, and there is a Circassian! How becoming it is to Sénya. And who is this ? Well, you have given us lots of fun ! Take away the tables. Nikita! Vdnya ! And we were sitting here so quietly.”

“ Ha, ha, ha ! — “What a hussar ! Just like a boy, and look at her feet ! — I can’t see — ” voices were heard saying.

Natdsha, the favourite of the young Melyukdvs, with them disappeared in the back rooms, to which were brought cork and all kinds of gowns and pieces of male attire, which bared arms of girls received through the doors from the lackeys. Ten minutes later, the whole family of the young Melyukdvs joined the masks.

Pelagéya Danilovna, having given orders to clear up the place for the guests and to treat the gentlemen and manorial servants, without taking off her glasses and with a repressed smile walked between the masks, looking straight into their faces and not recognizing one of them. She not only could not tell the Rostdvs and Dimmler, but not even her own daughters, nor the male gowns and uniforms which they had on.

” Who is this woman ? ” she said, turning to her governess, and looking into the face of one of her daughters representing a Kazdn Tartar. “ It must be one of the Rostdvs. And you, Mr. Hussar, in what regiment are you serving? ” she asked Natdsha. ” Give a pastille to the Turk, to the Turk, I say,” she said to the butler who was carrying around refreshments. “ Their religion does not prohibit that.”

Now and then, as she looked at the strange and funny capers which the dancers cut, having decided that so long as they were in disguise and no one would recognize them there was no cause for feeling embarrassed, Pelagéya Danilovna covered her face with her handkerchief, and her whole obese body shook with the irrepressible, kindly laughter of an old person.

“ Oh, darling Sdsha ! Sdsha dear ! “

After the Russian dances and the round dance, Pelagéya Danilovna combined all the gentlefolk of the party and the manorial servants into one large circle. A ring, a cord, and a rouble were brought, and the games began.

In an hour all the costumes were crumpled and crushed and the burnt cork moustaches and eyebrows were smeared all over the perspiring, heated, merry faces. Pelagéya Danilovna began to recognize the masks, expressed her delight at the excellent make-up, at the way the costumes were becoming, especially to the ladies, and thanked all for having given her such a good time. The guests were called to supper in the drawingroom, while the manorial servants were treated in the parlour.

” To tell fortunes in the bath-house is terrible ! ” an old maid, who was living at the house of the Melyukévs, said at the supper.

” Why ? ” asked the eldest daughter of the Melyukévs.

” You won’t go there ! It takes courage — “

“ I will go,” said Sonya.

“Tell us what happened to the young lady,” said the second Miss Melyukév.

“It was like this: a young lady went,” said the old maid, ” and she took with her a cock and two covers, — as is proper, and sat down. She sat awhile, and suddenly she heard some one driving up — with little bells, and the sleigh stopped. Then she heard him come. He came in, in human shape, like an officer. He came and sat down with her at the table.”

” Ah, ah ! ” cried Natäsha, rolling her eyes in terror.

“ What, and he could talk ? “

“ Yes, like a man, just as is proper, and he began to persuade her to go with him, and she ought to have entertained him until cockcrow ; but she lost her courage ; she lost her courage and covered her face with her hands. And then he seized her. It was lucky the maids just then came running in — ”

” What is the use of frightening them ? ” said Pelagéya Danilovna.

” Mamma, you yourself used to tell fortunes — ” said one of her daughters.

“ How do you tell fortunes in the granary ? ” asked Sénya.

” Well, you just go up to the granary and listen. If you hear somebody driving in a peg, and tapping, — then it is bad ; but if you hear grain poured in, it is good.”

” Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the granary ? ”

Pelagéya Danilovna smiled.

“ Oh, I have forgotten it — ” she said. ” None of you will go there, will you ? ”

” Why not, I will. Pelagéya Danilovna, let me go ! ” said Sonya.

” All right, if you are not afraid.”

” Luiza Ivdnovna, may I ? ” asked Sénya.

While they had been playing the ring, the cord, or the rouble game, or while they were talking as they were doing then, Nikolay did not leave Sénya, and kept looking at her with entirely different eyes. It seemed to him that only now, thanks to her painted moustache, he had for the first time found out who she really was. Sénya was indeed very happy, animated, and pretty on that evening, more so than Natäsha had ever seen her before.

” So this is what she is ! And I am a fool ! ” he thought, looking at her beaming eyes and at her happy smile of transport, which caused her cheek to dimple under the moustache, and which he had not observed in her before.

” I am not afraid of anything,” said Sénya. “ May I go at once ? ”

She rose. She was told where the granary was, and how she had to stand in silence and listen, and a fur coat was handed to her. She threw it over her head and cast a glance at Nikolay.

” What a charming girl ! ” he thought. “ What have I been thinking about all this time ! ”

Sénya went out into the corridor in order to go to the granary. Nikoldy hurried out by the main entrance, saying that he felt warm. It was, indeed, very close in the house from the crowd which was gathered within.

In the open there was the same motionless cold, and the same moon, only brighter than when they had come out. The light was so strong and there were so many

stars on the snow that one did not care to look at the heavens and did not notice the real stars. The heavens looked dark and lonesome, — on earth there was merriment.

” Fool ! I am a fool ! What have I been waiting for so long ? ” Nikolay thought, and, running down on the porch, he went around the corner of the house, along the path which led to the back entrance. He knew that he should find Sonya there. In the middle of the road there stood cords of wood, covered with snow, and casting shadows ; over them and at their sides, intermingling, shadows of leafless lindens fell upon the snow and upon the path. The path led to the granary. The log wall of the granary and the roof were covered with snow and shone in the moonshine as though cut out of some precious stone. A tree crackled in the garden, and again all was quiet. The lungs seemed to inhale not air, but some eternally young power and joy.

On the maids’ porch feet clattered on the steps and gave a sonorous squeak on the last step which was covered with snow, and the voice of an old maid was heard saying :

“ Straight out, along the path, lady. Don’t look around ! ”

” I am not afraid,” replied Sdnya, and on the path, in the direction toward Nikolay, Sdnya’s feet in thin shoes squeaked and whined on the snow.

Sonya was wrapped in her fur. She was within two steps of him when she saw him ; she saw him not such as she had known him and as she used to be a little afraid of him. He wore a woman’s attire and dishevelled hair, and had a happy smile for Sonya, which was new to her. Sonya ran up to him.

” She is entirely different, and still the same,” thought Nikolay, looking at her face, which was all lighted up in the moonshine. He put his hands under the fur coat which covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to his breast, and kissed her lips, above which was the moustache smelling of burnt cork. Sonya kissed him in the very middle of his lips and, straightening out her little hands, took hold of both his cheeks.

“ Sdnya ! — Nicolas ! ” was all they said. They ran up to the granary, and each returned by a different entrance.

XII.

When all went back from Pelagéya Danilovna, Natdsha, who always saw and noticed everything, arranged things in such -a way that Luiza Ivanovna and she took seats in Dimmler’s sleigh, while Sdnya went with Niko-Idy and the maids.

Nikoldy no longer raced, but travelled leisurely home, and, scanning Sonya’s face in the strange moonlight, tried to find, in this transforming light and underneath the eyebrows and the moustache, his former and his present Sdnya, from whom he decided he would never part. lie looked at her and, as be recognized both and recalled the smell of burnt cork, mixed with the sensation of the kiss, he inhaled the frosty air with full lungs, and, as he looked at the receding earth and the gleaming sky, he again felt himself to be in a magic kingdom.

” Sdnya, are you comfortable ? ” he asked her now and then.

“ Yes,” Sdnya replied. ” And you ? “

In the middle of the road, Nikoldy gave the reins to the coachman and ran for a moment to Natasha’s sleigh, where he stood on the wing. ” Natdsha,” he said to her in a whisper, in French, “do you know, I have made up my mind in respect to Sdnya.”

“Have you told her so?” asked Natdsha, all agleam with joy.

” Oh, how strange you look with your moustache and eyebrows, Natdsha ! Are you glad ? ”

“ I am so glad, so glad ! I was getting angry with you. I have not told you that you were not treating her right. Nicolas, she is such a good soul! How glad I am ! I am sometimes bad, but I should have been ashamed to be happy without Sdnya,” Natasha continued. “ Now I am so happy ! Go, run to her! “

“ No, wait ! How funny you are !” said Nikoldy, looking at her all the time, and discovering in his sister, too, something new, unusual, and enticingly tender, which he had not seen in her before. ” Natdsha, it is fairylike, don’t you think so ? “

” Yes,” she replied, ” you have done well.”

“ If I had seen her before such as she now is,” thought Nikoldy, ” I should have asked her long ago what to do, and should have done everything she told me to, and all would have been well.”

“ So you are glad, and I have done well ? “

” Yes, so well ! It is just lately that I had a quarrel with mamma about it. Mamma said that she was setting her cap for you. How can she say that ? We almost came to words. I will never allow anybody to say or think anything bad about her, because there is nothing but goodness in her.”

“ So it is good ? ” said Nikoldy, again watching the expression of his sister’s face, in order to find out whether it was true, and, creaking with his boots, he leaped down from the wing and ran back to his sleigh. The same happy, smiling Circassian, looking at him underneath her sable cloak, was sitting there, and this Circassian was Sonya, and this Sdnya was certainly going to be his happy and loving wife.

After arriving home and telling their mother how they had passed their time at the Melyukdvs’, the young ladies went to their rooms. They undressed themselves, but they did not wash off their moustaches for a long time, and sat up talking about their happiness. They were telling each other how they would live when married, how their husbands would be friends, and how they would be happy. On Natasha’s table stood the mirrors which Dunyasha had fixed for her in the evening.

« When will it all be ? I am afraid never. It is too good to be true ! ” said Natésha, rising and walking up to the mirrors.

” Sit down, Natésha ! Maybe you will see him,” said Sonya.

Natésha lighted some candles and sat down.

” I see somebody with a moustache,” said Natésha, who saw her face.

” You must not laugh, lady ! ” said Dunyasha.

With the aid of Sdnya and of the maid, Natasha found the proper position for the mirror: her face assumed a serious look and she grew silent. She sat there for a long time, looking at the row of receding candles in the mirrors, thinking (in accordance with the superstition) that she would see either a coffin, or him, Prince Andréy, in the last dim, blended square. But, however much she was inclined to regard the smallest spot as a human figure, or as a coffin, she did not see anything. She began to blink, and went away from the mirror.

” Why do others see, while I see nothing ? ” she said. ” Sonya, sit down yourself ! You must tonight by all means,” she said. ” Look for me, — I am so frightened tonight ! ”

Sdnya sat down at the mirror, arranged to suit herself, and began to look.

“ Now Sdnya Alekséndrovna will certainly see something,” Dunyasha said, in a whisper, ” but you laugh too much.”

Sénya heard these words and she heard Natésha answering in a whisper :

“1 know that she will see it; she saw it last year, too.”

About three minutes all were silent.

“ By all means ! ” Natasha whispered, without finishing the sentence.

Suddenly Sdnya pushed aside the mirror which she was holding, and closed her eyes with her hand.

« Oh, Natasha ! ” she said.

“ Did you see anything ? Did you ? ” cried Natésha, holding up the mirror.

Sdnya had not seen anything. She had just wanted to blink and to get up when she heard Natasha’s voice, saying “ By all means ! ” She did not wish to deceive Dunyésha, or Natésha, and she was tired. She did not know herself why or how the sound had escaped her, as she had covered her eyes.

« Did you see him ? ” asked Natésha, taking hold of her hand.

” Yes. Wait — I — saw him,” Sdnya said, instinctively, herself not knowing whom it was Natésha meant by “ him,” whether it was Nikoléy, or Prince Andréy.

« Why can’t I say that I saw something ? Others say that they do ! And who is there to accuse me of having seen or not seen anything ? ” it suddenly flashed through Sonya’s mind.

“ Yes, I saw him,” said Sonya.

” How was he ? How ? Standing or lying ? ”

« No, I saw — There was nothing at first, and then I saw him lying.”

« Andréy lying ? Is he ill ? ” Natésha asked, riveting her frightened eyes upon her companion.

” No, on the contrary. He had a pleasant face, and he turned to me,” and as she was saying this, she actually believed things had happened as she was telling them.

“ Well, and then ? ”

” Then I did not make out : there was something blue and red — “

« Sénya, when will he come back ? When shall I see him ? 0 Lord, how I am afraid for him and for myself,

and how terribly I feel about everything — ” Natasha said, and, without replying a word to the consolations offered by Sonya, she lay down on her bed, and long after the candle was extinguished she lay motionless, with open eyes, and looked at the chill moonlight shining through the frozen windows.

XIII.

Soon after the Christmas holidays Nikolay informed his mother of his love for Sonya and of his firm determination to marry her. The countess, who had for a long time been noticing what was going on between Sdnya and Nikoläy, and who had been expecting this explanation, listened to him in silence and told him that he could marry whomsoever he wished, but that neither she nor his father would give him their blessing for such a union. Nikoläy felt for the first time that his mother was dissatisfied with him, and that, in spite of her whole love for him, she would not yield. With a cold demeanour and without looking at her son, she sent for her husband; and when he came, the countess wanted to inform him, coldly and abruptly, in the presence of her son, of the matter in hand, but she gave way and wept tears of vexation, and left the room. The old prince began in indecision to admonish his son and to ask him to abandon his intention. Nikoläy replied that he could not be untrue to his word, and his father, heaving a sigh and apparently embarrassed, suddenly interrupted his speech and went out to see the countess. In all his conflicts with his son, the count was not able to rid himself of the consciousness of his own guilt for the bad state of affairs, and so he was not angry with him for his refusal to marry a rich girl and his choice of dowerless S6nya ; indeed, he could not help thinking so much the more vividly that, if the affairs were not in such a bad shape, Nikoläv could not have found a better wife than Sduya,

and that only he, with his Mitenka and his own invincible habits, was responsible for the whole state of affairs.

The parents never again mentioned the matter to their son ; but a few days later the countess called in Sdnya, and with severity, which neither the one nor the other had expected, upbraided her niece with having enticed her son and with ingratitude. Sdnya, in silence and with drooping eyes, listened to the cruel words of the countess, and did not understand what was demanded of her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. The thought of self-renunciation was her favourite idea ; but now she was unable to comprehend what she was to sacrifice and for whom. She could not help loving the countess and the whole family of the Rostdvs, nor could she help loving Nikolay and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was taciturn and sad, and made no reply. Nikoläy felt that he could not bear this situation much longer, and so he went to have an explanation with his mother. Nikoläy now begged his mother to forgive him and Sdnya and give her consent to their marriage, and now threatened that he would marry her secretly, if they did not stop persecuting her.

The countess, with a coldness which he had never seen in her, replied to him that he was of age, that Prince Andréy was going to marry without Iris father’s consent, and that he could do the same, but that she would never recognize the ” intrigante ” as her daughter.

Exploding at the word “intrigante,” Nikoldy, raising his voice, told his mother that he had never thought that she would make him sell his feelings, and that if it was so, he was talking for the last time with her. But he did not succeed in saying the final word which, judging by the expression of his face, his mother had been expecting in terror, and which would for ever have remained as a cruel recollection for both of them. He had not finished his sentence when Natasha, with a pale and serious face, entered through the door, where she had been standing and listening.

“Nikolay, you are speaking nonsense. Keep quiet, keep quiet ! I tell you, keep quiet ! ” she almost shouted, in order to drown his voice.

“ Mamma, darling, it is not so — dear, poor mother,” she turned to her mother, who, feeling herself on the brink of a separation, looked in terror at her son, but who, carried away by the conflict and through stubbornness, did not wish to and could not surrender.

” Nikolay, I will tell you later, — go away ! Listen to me, mother dear ! ” she said to her mother.

Her words had no meaning, but they had the desired effect.

The countess sobbed out loud and buried her face in her daughter’s bosom, and Nikolay got up, clasped his head, and left the room.

Natkîsha undertook the work of pacification, and carried her efforts so far that Nikolay received his mother’s promise that Sonya should not be persecuted, and himself promised that he would not do anything in secret.

In the beginning of January, Nikolay, sad and serious, at variance with his parents, but, as he thought, passionately in love, left for his regiment, with the firm intention of settling affairs in the army, taking his dismissal, and coming home to marry Sdnya.

After his departure the house of the Rostovs looked sadder than ever. The countess became ill from mental anxiety. Sonya was sad, both on account of the separation from Nikolay, and still more on account of the hostile attitude which the countess involuntarily assumed toward her. The count was more than ever worried over the precarious state of affairs, which demanded definite measures. It became necessary to sell the Moscow house and the suburban estate, and for this it became necessary to go to Moscow ; but the health of the countess compelled him to delay the journey from one day to another.

Natasha, who at first had easily and cheerfully borne the absence of her fiancé, now became more agitated and impatient. The thought that her best time, which she would have employed in loving him, was passing uselessly, worried her continuously. His letters generally angered her. It offended her to think that, while she only lived thinking of him, he was living an actual life, seeing new places and new people, which certainly caused him pleasure. The more interesting his letters were, the more they vexed her. Her own letters to him gave her no consolation, and appeared to her as a tedious and false duty. She did not know how to write because she could not see the possibility of giving a correct picture of even one-thousandth part of what she was wont to express by her voice, her smile, and her look. She wrote to him classical, monotonous, dry letters, to which she herself ascribed no significance, and in the rough copy of which the countess corrected her spelling.

The health of the countess did not improve ; but it was impossible to delay the journey to Moscow much longer. It was necessary to get a dowry and to sell the house, and, besides, Prince Andréy was expected to arrive first in Moscow, where during that winter Prince Nikolay Andréevich was living. Natasha was sure that he had already arrived.

The countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sonya and Natasha with him, at the end of January started for Moscow.

PART THE EIGHTH

I.

After the engagement of Prince Andréy to Natdsha, Pierre, without any apparent cause, suddenly felt that it was impossible for him to continue his former life. No matter how firmly he was convinced of the truths which had been revealed to him by his benefactor; no matter how pleasurable had been to him at first the transport caused by the inner work of his self-perfection to which he had abandoned himself with such fervour, the whole charm of his former life suddenly disappeared after the engagement of Andréy to Natdsha and after the death of Ôsip Aleksyéevich, of which he heard at almost the same time. There was only left the skeleton of life : his house with his brilliant wife, who now enjoyed the graces of a very important person, his acquaintance with the whole of St. Petersburg, and his service with its tedious formalities. This former life suddenly appeared to Pierre as an abomination. He stopped keeping his diary, avoided the company of the brothers, began once more to frequent the club, to drink much, and to cultivate the acquaintance of bachelor societies, and began to lead such a life that Countess Hélène Vasilevna found it necessary to reprimand him severely. Pierre felt that she was right and, in order not to compromise his wife, left for Moscow.

The moment he reached his immense Moscow house, with the withered and withering princesses and with the

whole company, in order to go with them, joyous, triumphant shouts went up among the young people. He danced at balls if there was a scarcity of gentlemen. The young women and girls liked him because, without courting them, he was equally amiable with all, especially after supper.

” Il est charmant, il n’a pas de sexe,” they said of him.

Pierre was an ex-gentleman of the chamber, good-naturedly living out his days like hundreds of others in Moscow. How shocked he would have been if, seven years before, upon his return from abroad, some one had told him that he ought to look for nothing and think of nothing, that his rut had been made long ago and was predetermined, and that, no matter how much he might writhe, he would be what all in his position had been ! He would not have believed it. Did he not wish with his whole soul to make a republic of Russia, or himself to be a Napoleon, or a philosopher, or a tactician, a conqueror of Napoleon ? Did he not see the possibility, and did he not have the passionate wish to regenerate the sinful human race and to bring himself to the highest degree of perfection ? Had he not founded schools and hospitals, and had he not freed his peasants ?

But, despite all that, here he was, the rich husband of an unfaithful wife, an ex-gentleman of the chamber, fond of something good to eat and drink, and, unbuttoning himself slightly, of censuring the government, — a member of the English club of Moscow, and a favourite member of Moscow society. He could not for a long time get used to the thought that he was that ex-gentleman of the chamber in Moscow, the type of whom he had so heartily abhorred seven years before.

Now and then he consoled himself with the thought that the life he led was only temporary ; but then he was horrified by the other thought that so many men had entered this life and this club with sound teeth and full comedian, Emperor Francis is trying his best to offer his daughter to him as an illegitimate wife. The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, send up prayers to God in gratitude for having conquered the French on the 14th of June, and the French, through the same Catholic clergy, send up their prayers for having conquered the Spaniards on the 14th of June. My brother Masons swear by their blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbours, and yet fail to pay a rouble toward a collection for the poor, and intrigue Astreus against the Seekers of the Manna, and are concerned about the Scotch carpet and about the charter, the meaning of which even he who wrote it did not know, and which nobody wants. All of us profess the Christian creed of forgiving offences and of love for our neighbour, a creed in consequence of which we have erected ‘ forty forties ‘ of churches in Moscow, and yet yesterday they killed a fugitive by flogging, and the minister of this creed gave the soldier the cross to kiss before the execution.”

Thus Pierre thought, and all this universal, accepted lie, no matter how much he was accustomed to it, surprised him every time, as though it were something entirely new.

” I understand this lie and tangle,” he thought, ” but how am I to tell them all which I understand ? I have tried them, and have found that in the depth of their souls they understand this as well as I do, but that they try not to see it. Consequently it must be right as it is ! But I, what shall I do with myself ? ” thought Pierre.

He possessed the unfortunate characteristic, common to many men, especially Russians, of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, and of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly in order to be able to take any serious part in it. Every field of labour in his eyes was connected with evil and deceit. No matter what he tried to be, or what he wished to undertake, — the evil

and the falsehood repelled him and barred all the ways for his activity. And yet, it was necessary to live, it was necessary to be occupied. It was too terrible to be under the pressure of these unsolvable questions of life, and he abandoned himself to the first distractions that offered themselves, only to forget himself. He frequented all kinds of societies, drank much, bought pictures, and reared buildings, and, above all, he read books.

He read everything winch fell into his hands. When he arrived at home and the lackeys undressed him, he picked up a book and read, and from the reading passed to sleep, and from sleep to idle prattle in drawingrooms and in the club, from the prattle to carousals and women, from a carousal again to talking, reading, and wine. The drinking of wine became for him an ever increasing physical as well as moral necessity. Although the doctors told him that, with his corpulence, wine was dangerous for him, he continued drinking a great deal. He was entirely at his ease only when, not noticing himself how, he had poured into his big mouth several glasses of wine and thus experienced an agreeable warmth in his body, a tenderness toward all his neighbours, and a readiness of mind so as to respond superficially to every thought, without entering into its essence. Only after drinking a bottle or two of wine, he became dimly conscious of the fact that the terrible, tangled knot of life, which had appalled him before, was not so terrible as it had seemed to be. With a din in his head, talking with people, listening to some conversation, or reading a book after dinner or supper, he eternally saw this knot from some one side of it. But, under the influence of wine, he said to himself, ” That is nothing. I will disentangle it, — indeed, I have an explanation ready. Now I have no time, — but later I will consider it all ! ” But this later never came. •

Early in the morning, on an empty stomach, all former questions appeared just as insolvable and terrible, and Pierre hastened to pick up a book, and was ever so glad if some one came to see him.

Pierre now and then recalled the story he had heard of soldiers who, when they are under fire in the trenches and have nothing else to do, try to discover some kind of an occupation, in order the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre, all people appeared as such soldiers, who were trying to save themselves from life : one through ambition, another through cards, through making laws, through women, through playthings, through horses, through the chase, through wine, or through affairs of state. ” There is nothing insignificant, nothing important, — it is all the same. If I can only save myself from it ! ” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that terrible it.”

IL

In the beginning of winter, Prince Nikolây Andréevich Bolkénski and his daughter arrived in Moscow. By his past, by Ids intellect and originality, especially on account of the dampened enthusiasm for the reign of Emperor Alexander, and of that anti-French and patriotic tendency which at that time reigned in Moscow, Prince Nikolay Andréevich at once became the object of especial reverence for the Muscovites, and the centre of the Moscow opposition to the government.

The prince had aged very much during the year. There appeared in him pronounced signs of decrepitude : sudden attacks of sleepiness, the forgetfulness of recent events and the recollection of remote occurrences, and the childish vanity with which he assumed the rôle of the head of the Moscow opposition. At the same time, when the old man came out in his short fur coat and powdered wig, especially in the evening, to tea, and, stirred by somebody’s remarks, began his abrupt stories of the past, and his still more abrupt and sharp judgments of the present, he roused in all his guests an equal sentiment of respectful veneration. To the visitors all this old house, — with its immense pier-glasses, ante-revolutionary furniture, its lackeys in powdered wigs, and the brusque and clever old man himself, who belonged to the previous century, with his meek daughter and pretty Frenchwoman, who worshipped him, — presented an agreeable and majestic spectacle. But the visitors did not think that, outside of the two or three hours during which they saw the hosts, there were twenty-one or more hours in the day, during which a secret internal life was going on in the house.

During this last stay in Moscow, this inner life became very oppressive, for Princess Mdrya. She was here deprived of her best joys, — her conversations with the God’s people and of solitude, which had refreshed her so much in Lÿsyya Gdry — and had none of the advantages and joys of the life in the capital. She did not go into society ; all knew that her father did not let her go without him, and that he himself could not make any calls on account of his illness, and so she was not invited to dinners or evening entertainments. Princess Marya abandoned all hope of ever getting married. She saw the coldness and irritation with which Prince Nikolây Andréevich received and saw off the young men, who occasionally called at his house, and who might be prospective matches. Princess Miirya had no friends : during this sojourn in Moscow she became disappointed in her two nearest friends. Mlle. Bourienne, in whom, before this, she had not been able frankly to confide, now became quite distasteful to her, and she began for certain reasons to keep aloof from her.

Julie, who was in Moscow, and with whom Princess Marya had been corresponding for five years in succession, turned out to be a complete stranger to her, as soon as Princess Mérya again met her personally. Julie, who, after the death of her brothers, had become one of the richest matches of Moscow, was now passing her time in a whirl of worldly pleasures. She was surrounded by young people, who, she thought, had suddenly come to appreciate her superior qualities. She was in that period of an aging society lady when she feels that her last chance for marrying has come, and that now or never her fate is to be decided. Princess Marya with a sad smile thought on Thursdays that she had now no person to write to, because Julie, whose presence gave her no pleasure, was there and came to see her every week. Like an old emigrant who refused to marry the lady at whose house he had passed all his evenings for years, Princess Mérya regretted that Julie was there, thus depriving her of the possibility of writing letters to some one. Princess Marya had no one in Moscow with whom she could talk, no one to confide her sorrows to, and there was much new sorrow she suffered of late.

The time for the return of Prince Andréy and for his wedding was getting near, and yet his request to prepare his father for it had not yet been fulfilled ; on the contrary, the business seemed to be thoroughly spoiled, and the mention of Countess Rostov only excited the old prince, who now seldom was in a good mood. The new sorrow which was added to Princess Marya’s old sorrows consisted in the lessons which she was giving to her six-year-old nephew. In her relations with him, she to her terror discovered her father’s irritability in herself. No matter how often she said to herself that it was not right to become excited when teaching her nephew, she, seating herself with a pointer at the French ABC, wanted in the easiest and quickest manner possible to pour her own knowledge into the boy, who was afraid that his aunt would get angry, and so, at the slightest inattention on the side of the boy, she trembled, hurried, grew excited, raised her voice, occasionally pulled his little hand, and made him stand in the corner. When she so punished him, she herself began to weep over her bad, mean character, and her nephew,‘imitating her sobs, without permission left his comer, walked over to her, pulled her wet hands away from her face, and began to console her.

But the greatest sorrow was caused to the princess by the irritability of her father, which was always directed against his daughter, and which of late had reached the point of cruelty. If he had made her make obeisances all night long, if he beat her and compelled her to carry wood and water, it would never have occurred to her that her condition was a hard one ; but this loving tormentor, the more cruel since he loved her and for this reason tormented himself and her, knew how purposely to offend her and humble her, and also to prove to her that she was always and in everything to blame. Of late there had appeared a new feature in him, which more than anything else tormented Marya, and that was his growing intimacy with Mlle. Bourienne. The joke which had occurred to him in the first moment, when the news of his son’s intention had been received, the thought that, if Prince Andréy was going to marry, he himself would marry the Bourienne woman, had apparently given him pleasure, and he persistently showed his attention to Mlle. Bourienne, in order, so Princess Marya thought, to offend her, and he expressed his love for Mlle. Bourienne, in order to indicate his dissatisfaction with his daughter.

Once, in Moscow, the old prince, in the presence of his daughter (she thought her father had done so on purpose), kissed Aille. Bourienne’s hand and, drawing her toward him, embraced her lovingly. Princess Marya flared up and left the room. A few minutes later Mlle. Bourienne entered Princess Marya’s room, smiling and telling her something funny in her pleasant voice. Princess Marya hurriedly wiped her tears, with determined steps approached Allie. Bourienne, and, without knowing what she was doing, in angry haste and with explosions of her voice began to cry at the Frenchwoman: “It is base, mean, inhuman to make use of a weakness —” She did not finish her sentence. “ Get out of my room ! ” she cried and burst out weeping.

On the following day the prince said nothing to his daughter ; but she noticed that at dinner he ordered the lackey to attend first to Mlle. Bourienne. At the end of the dinner, when the butler, following his old habit, offered a cup of coffee first to Princess Märya, the prince suddenly flew into a rage, threw his crutch at Filipp, and immediately ordered him to be put into the army.

” They pay no attention to me ! I told him twice ! They do not obey me ! She is the first person in this house ; she is my best friend,” he shouted. ” If you permit yourself,” he cried in anger, for the first time turning to Princess Märya, “ as you dared last night, to forget yourself before her, I will show you who is the master in this house. Out of here ! Let me not see you ! Beg her forgiveness ! “

Princess Marya begged the forgiveness of Amaliya Evgénevna Bourienne and of her father, for her own sake and for the sake of butler Filipp, who begged her to take his part.

At such moments there rose in the soul of Princess Marya a feeling akin to the pride of the victim. At such moments her father, whom she censured, might be looking for his glasses, fingering all around them without seeing them, or he might forget that which had just happened, or make a false step with his feeble feet and look around to see whether any one had seen him, or, what was worse still, he might at dinner, when there were no guests to excite him, drop his napkin and fall asleep, lowering his nodding head over his plate.

“ He is old and feeble, and I dare pass judgment upon him ! ” she at such moments thought of herself in disgust.

III.

In the year 1811, there was living in Moscow a fashionable French doctor, a man of immense size, handsome, amiable, as Frenchmen are, and, as was said in Moscow, a physician of uncommon skill, Métivier by name. He was received in the homes of the liighest society, not as a doctor, but as an equal.

Prince Nikolay Andreevich, who made fun of medicine, upon Mlle. Bourienne’s advice, admitted this doctor and became accustomed to him. Métivier came to see the prince twice a week.

On St. Nicholas Day, the nameday of the prince, all of Moscow was at the entrance of his house, but he gave orders not to receive anybody. He invited a few persons to dinner, however, giving the list of them to Princess Mdrya.

Métivier, who arrived in the morning to offer his congratulations, found it proper, in his capacity of physician, de forcer la consigne, as he told Princess Mdrya, and so he went in to see the prince. It so happened that on that nameday the old prince was in one of his very worst moods. He had been walking around the whole morning, finding fault with everybody in the house and pretending that he did not understand what he was told, and that people did not understand him. Princess Marya knew very well this condition of quiet irritation which generally broke loose in a storm of rage, and she was walking about, as though in front of a loaded and cocked gun, ready for the inevitable shot. The morning, previous to the arrival of the doctor, had gone by favourably. Having admitted the doctor, Princess Marya sat down with a book in the drawingroom, near the door, where she could hear everything which was going on in the cabinet.

At first she heard only the voice of Métivier, then her father’s voice, then both spoke together, the door was opened wide, and on the threshold appeared the frightened, handsome figure of Métivier, with his black head of hair, and the figure of the prince, in nightcap and morninggown, and with a face which was distorted by rage and with drooping pupils of his eyes.

” You do not understand ? ” shouted the prince. ” But I do understand ! French spy, Bonaparte’s slave, spy, out of my house, — out, I say ! ” and he slammed the door.

Métivier, shrugging his shoulders, walked over to Mlle. Bourienne, who came running in from the adjoining room, upon hearing the noise.

“ The prince is not quite well, — la bile et le transport au cerveau. Tranquillisez-vous, je repasserai demain,” said Métivier, and, putting his finger to his lips, he hurried away.

Through the door could be heard the steps of slippered feet and the cry : “ Spies, traitors, everywhere traitors ! I have not a moment of rest in my own home ! ”

After Métivier’s departure, the old prince called in his daughter, and the whole force of his fury came down upon her. She was to blame for having admitted the spy. Had he not told her distinctly to make a list of the invited guests, and had he not given strict order not to admit any one else ? Why had that scoundrel been let in ? She was the cause of everything. He could not have a moment of rest with her, and he could not die in peace, he said.

« No, my dear, we shall have to separate, to separate, let me tell you ! I cannot stand it any longer,” he said, leaving the room. And, being afraid lest she should find some consolation, he returned to her, and, trying to assume a quiet look, he added : ” Don’t imagine that I told you this in a moment of anger. No, I am calm, and I have considered the matter well. This will happen, and you had better find a place for yourself ! ” but he did not hold out, and with the fury which can be only in a man who loves he, apparently suffering himself, shook his fists and shouted to her : ” If only some fool would marry her ! ” He slammed the door, called in Mlle. Bourienne, and calmed down in his cabinet.

At two o’clock the six select persons were gathered for the dinner. The guests were the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his nephew, General Chatrdv, an old war comrade of the prince, and, of the younger men, Pierre and Boris Drubetskéy ; they were waiting for him in the drawingroom.

Boris, who had lately arrived in Moscow on a furlough, had wished to be introduced to Prince Nikolày Andréevich, and he knew so well how to gain his favour that the prince made an exception of him among all the unmarried men, whom he did not receive.

The house of the old prince was not what is called ” society ; ” it was a small circle of which little was heard in the city, but to which it was very flattering to be admitted. Boris had perceived this to be so the week before when Rostopchm in his presence told the commanderin-chief, who invited him to dine with him on St. Nicholas Day, that he could not come.

” On that day I shall always go to make my prostrations before the relics of Prince Nikoléy Andréevich.”

” Oh, yes, yes,” replied the commanderin-chief. ” How is he ? “

The small company, which was gathered before dinner in the old-fashioned, high-studded drawingroom, with its old furniture, resembled a solemn gathering of judges sitting in council. All were silent ; if they had to say anything, they spoke in whispers. Prince Nikoläy Andreevich entered, serious and taciturn. Princess Märya looked more timid and quieter than usual. The guests did not like to address her, because they saw that she did not care for their conversation. Count Rostopchin all alone held the thread of the conversation, telling the last local and political news.

Lopukhin and the old general did not take much part in it. Prince Nikoläy Andréevich listened, just as a supreme judge listens to a report which is being made to him, occasionally indicating by a silence or by a short sentence that he was taking under advisement that which was being reported. The tone of the conversation was such that it was evident that nobody approved of the events in the political world. They told of occurrences which apparently confirmed their view that everything was getting worse and worse ; but, in everything which was related and in every judgment passed, it was striking to see the narrator stop himself or get stopped, every time there was danger that the judgment would be a censure on the emperor.

At dinner some one mentioned the last political news, Napoleon’s seizure of the possessions of the Duke of Oldenburg, and the hostile note to Napoleon, which the Russian government had sent out to all the European courts.

” Napoleon treats Europe as a pirate treats a conquered ship,” said Count Rostopchin, repeating the phrase which he had used several times before. ” One only wonders at the long-suffering or the blindness of crowned heads. Now it is the Pope’s turn : Bonaparte is not in the least embarrassed in his desire to depose the head of the Catholic religion, and all keep quiet ! Our emperor was the only one to protest against the seizure of the possessions of the Duke of Oldenburg. And — ” Count Rostopchin grew silent, feeling that he was standing on the border where no further judgment was possible.

“ Other possessions were proposed to the Duke of Oldenburg,” Prince Nikolay Andréevich remarked. ” He transfers dukes, as though I were to take my peasants from Lysyya G6ry to Bogucharovo and to the Ryazan estates.”

“Ze Duc d’Oldenbourg supporte son malheur avec une force de caractère et une résignation admirable,” said Boris, respectfully taking part in the conversation. He made this statement because on his way from St. Petersburg he had had an opportunity of introducing himself to the duke.

Prince Nikolay Andréevich looked at the young man as though he wanted to make some reply to that, but he changed his mind, considering him to be too young for it.

” 1 have read our protest against the Oldenburg affair and I have wondered at the poor redaction of this note,” Count Rostopchin said, in the careless tone of a man who is passing judgment on an affair he is well acquainted with.

Pierre looked with naïve wonderment at Rostopchin, being unable to understand why the poor redaction of the note should bother him.

” What difference does it make how the note is written, count,” he said, ” provided its contents are strong ? ”

“ Mon cher, avec nos 500pOO hommes de troupes il serait facile d’avoir un beau style” said Count Rostopchin.

Pierre now understood why Count Rostopchin was annoyed by the style of the note.

“ There seems to be too large a brood of scribblers nowadays,” said the old prince. “There, in St. Petersburg, they do nothing but write, not only notes, but some kinds of new laws. My Andrey has written a whole volume of laws for Russia. Nowadays they do nothing but write ! ” And he smiled an unnatural smile.

The conversation died down for a moment; the old count attracted everybody’s attention by clearing his throat.

” Have you heard of the last event at the review in St. Petersburg? how the new French ambassador has acted ? “

«What? Yes, I have heard something. He said something awkward in the presence of his Majesty.”

” His Majesty directed his attention to the division of grenadiers and to the ceremonial march,” continued the general, ” and the ambassador, they say, paid no attention to it and allowed himself to make the remark that in France they no longer paid any attention to such foolish things. The emperor deigned to make no reply. At the following review the emperor, they say, did not once address him.”

All were silent. No judgment was possible on this act, which was a personal reference to the emperor.

« He was bold ! ” said the prince. ” Do you know Métivier? I drove him out of the house this morning. He was here, and he was admitted to my room, though I had asked that no one be admitted,” said the prince, looking angrily at his daughter.

He told his whole conversation with the French doctor and gave the reasons why he thought that Métivier was a spy. Although these reasons were very insufficient and not at all clear, nobody made any reply.

With the roast champagne was brought in. The guests rose from their seats to congratulate the old prince. Princess Marya, too, went up to him.

He looked at her with a cold, malicious glance, and offered her his wrinkled, cleanly shaven cheek. The whole expression of his face said that he had not forgotten his morning conversation and that it was only on account of the presence of the guests that he did not mention it again.

When all went to the drawingroom to drink coffee, the old men seated themselves together. Prince Nikolay Andréevich became more enlivened and expressed his view on the impending war.

He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we would look for alliances with the Germans and would busy ourselves with European affairs, into which we were drawn by the peace of Tilsit. We had no business fighting for Austria, nor against Austria. Our whole politics was in the East, and against Bonaparte there was but one thing, and that was an army at our borders and firmness in politics, and then he would never dare to cross the Bussian boundary as he had done in 1807.

“How can we fight against the French, prince ?” said Count Rostopchm. ” Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and gods ? Look at our young people ! Look at our young ladies ! Our gods are the French, our kingdom of heaven is Paris.”

He began to speak louder, so that all might hear him.

” We have French costumes, French ideas, French feelings ! You have kicked out Métivier, because he is a Frenchman and a worthless man, but our young ladies creep before him. Last night I was at an entertainment, where out of five young ladies three were Catholics who with the Pope’s dispensation were embroidering on Sunday. They were sitting almost naked, like the figures on the signs of the public baths — excuse me for saying this. As I look at our young people, prince, I feel like taking the stick of Peter the Great out of the Museum, and in good Russian fashion belabouring their sides, and then, I am sure, all their foolishness would leave them ! ”

All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchm with a smile on his face, and approvingly shook his head.

“ Well, goodbye, your Serenity, and take care of yourself ! ” said Rostopchln, rising with his characteristic rapidity of motion and extending his hand to the prince.

” Goodbye, my dear ! Your words are music, and I like to listen to them ! ” said the old prince, holding Iris hand and offering him his cheek for a kiss. With Rostopchin rose all the others.

IV.

Princess Marya, who had been sitting in the drawingroom and hearing the conversations and censures of the old men, did not understand anything they said ; she had been thinking all the time that all the guests must have noticed the hostile relations of her father toward her. She did not even notice the especial attention paid to her during the dinner by Drubetskdy, who now was for the third time in their house.

Princess Mdrya turned, with a disturbed, interrogative glance at Pierre, who was the last of the guests to leave, and who, with his hat in his hand and with a smile on his face, walked over to her after the prince had left and they were alone in the drawingroom.

” May I stay awhile ? ” he said, letting his heavy body sink into an armchair near Princess Märya.

” Oh, yes ‘ ” she said. ” Did you not notice anything ? ” her glance seemed to say.

Pierre was in an agreeable, postprandial frame of mind. He looked in front of him and smiled softly.

” How long have you been knowing that young man ? ” he said.

“Whom?”

” Drubetskdy.”

” A short time.”

” Well, do you like him ? “

“ Yes, he is a pleasant young man — Why do you ask me ? ” said Princess Màrya, continuing to think of her morning conversation with her father.

“ Because I have observed that a young man generally comes from St. Petersburg to Moscow on a furlough, in order to marry a rich girl.”

” So you have made this observation ? ” said Princess Marya.

” Yes,” continued Pierre, with a smile, ” and this young man manages to be everywhere where there are rich heiresses. I read him like a book. He is now undecided whom to attack, whether it is to be you, or Mlle. Julie Karägin. Il est très assidu auprès d’elle.”

” Does he call on them ? “

“Yes, very often. Do you know the new fashion of courting ? ” Pierre said, with a merry smile, being evidently in that merry mood of good-natured banter, for which he so frequently upbraided himself in his diary.

” No,” said Princess Märya.

” In order to please the young ladies nowadays, il faut être mélancolique. Et il est très mélancolique auprès de Mlle. Kardgin,” said Pierre.

« Vraiment ? ” said Princess Märya, looking into Pierre’s good face and thinking all the time of her sorrow. “ I should not feel so oppressed,” she thought, “if I could make up my mind to confide my feelings to somebody. I should like, above all, to tell everything to Pierre. He is so good and so noble. I should feel easier afterward. He would advise me ! “

“ Would you man-)’ him ? ” asked Pierre.

“ Ah, my God, there are moments, count, when I would marry anybody,” Princess Märya said, unexpectedly to herself, with tears in her eyes. “ Oh, how hard it is to love a relative of yours and to feel,” she continued, in a trembling voice, “ that you can’t do anything for him but cause him grief, and to know that it is impossible for you to change this. All there is left to do is to go away, but whither shall I go?”

” What is it, princess ? What is the matter with you ? “

But the princess burst out weeping before she had finished her words.

“ I do not know what is the matter with me to-day. Don’t listen to me ! Forget what I have told you ! ”

All of Pierre’s merriment had vanished. He asked the princess with concern to tell him everything, to confide her grief to him ; but she only repeated that she wished him to forget what she had said, that she herself did not remember what she had said, and that she had no other sorrow than what he knew of, the sorrow that the marriage of Prince Andréy threatened to bring discord between father and son.

“ Have you heard anything about the Bostdvs ? ” she asked, in order to change the subject. ” I have been told that they will soon be here. I am also expecting Andréy at any time. I wish they would meet here.”

“How does he look upon the matter now?” asked Pierre, meaning the old prince.

The princess shook her head.

“ What is to be done ? Only a few months are left to the end of the year. And it cannot be. I should only like to save my brother the first few minutes. I wish they would come soon. I hope to get more closely acquainted with her. You have known them for a long time,” said Princess Märya, “ so tell me, with your hand on your heart, the whole truth, what kind of a girl she is, and what you tliink of her. But tell me the whole truth, because you know that Andréy is risking a great deal, since he is doing this against his father’s will, and I should like to know — “

An indistinct feeling told Pierre that in this insistence and these repeated requests to tell her the whole truth there was expressed the princess’s malevolence against her future sister-in-law, and that she was anxious for Pierre not to approve of Prince Andréy’s choice; but Pierre told her that which he rather felt than believed.

” I do not know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing, not knowing himself why. ” I positively do not know what kind of a girl she is : I am quite unable to analyze her. She is enticing ; why, I do not know : that is all I can tell you about her.”

Princess Mdrya sighed, and the expression of her face said : ” Yes, I expected this, and was afraid of it.”

” Is she clever ? ” asked Princess Mdrya.

Pierre fell to musing.

” I think not,” he said, ” or, yes, she is. She does not think it worth while to be clever. But no, she is charming, and nothing more.”

Princess Marya again shook her head disapprovingly.

“ Oh, I want so much to love her ! Tell her so, if you see her before I do.”

” I heard that they would be here in a few days,” said Pierre.

Princess Marya informed Pierre of her plan of getting intimately acquainted with her future sister-in-law, as soon as the Rostdvs arrived, and of endeavouring to get the old prince used to her.

V.

Boris did not succeed in finding a rich heiress in St. Petersburg, and so he had come to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow Boris wavered between two of the richest matches, Julie and Princess Mdrya. Though Marya, in spite of her plainness, seemed more attractive to him than Ju he, he could not bring himself to court Princess Märya. During his last visit, on the nameday of the old prince, she answered at haphazard to all his attempts at striking up a conversation with her, and apparently she did not listen to what he said.

Julie, on the contrary, received his attentions cheerfully, though in her own peculiar way. Julie was twentyseven years old. After the death of her brothers she became very rich. She was quite homely now, but she thought that she was not only as pretty as ever, but even more attractive than before. She was sustained in this delusion, in the first place, by her having become such a rich heiress, and, in the second place, because the older she grew, the less dangerous she was to men, the more freely men could cultivate her acquaintance and take advantage of her suppers, her evening entertainments, and the animated company which gathered at her house, without subjecting themselves to any obligations. A man who ten years before would have been afraid to call ever}’ day in a house where there was a seventeen-year-old girl, lest he compromise her and bind himself, now called with impunity every day and treated her not as a marriageable girl, but as a sexless acquaintance.

The house of the Kardgins was during this winter the most agreeable and the most hospitable house in Moscow. In addition to the dinners and suppers by invitation, there gathered ever)’ day at the house of the Karägins a large company, mainly of men, who ate supper at midnight and frequently remained there until three o’clock. There was not a ball, a picnic, a theatre, which Julie missed. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. And yet, in spite of it all, Julie seemed to be disappointed in everything, and told everybody that she did not believe in friendship, nor in love, nor in any pleasures of life, and that she was expecting peace only there. She assumed the tone of a girl who had met with a great disenchantment, of a girl who had lost a beloved man or who had been cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing of the kind had ever happened to her, she was regarded as such, and she herself actually believed that she had suffered very much in life. This melancholy, which did not interfere with her pleasures, did not prevent the young men who called at her house from passing the time pleasantly. Every guest who came to see her paid his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then passed over to worldly conversations, and dances, and intellectual games, and bouts-rimés, which were then in fashion at the Karägins. Only a few young men, among whom was Boris, entered more deeply into her melancholy mood, and with these young men she carried on lengthy conversations about the vanity of all earthly tilings, and to them she opened her albums, which were filled with melancholy pictures, saws, and verses.

Julie was particularly kind to Boris : she regretted his early disenchantment with life, offered him those consolations of friendship which she had at her disposal, having herself suffered so much in life, and opened her album to him. Boris drew two trees in it, and wrote : ” Arbres rustiques, vos sombres rameaux secouent sur moi les ténèbres et la mélancolie.”

In another place he drew a tomb and wrote

” La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille, — Ah ! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asyle.”

Julie said that it was charming.

“ H y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la mélancolie,” she said to Boris, repeating a sentence which she had copied word for word out of a book. “C’est un rayon de lumière dans Vombre, une nuance entre le douleur et le désespoir qui montre la consolation possible.”

To this Boris wrote the following verses :

“Aliment de poison d’une âme trop sensible, Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible, Tendre mélancolie, ah ! viens me consoler, Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, Et mêle une douceur secrète A ces pleurs que je sens couler.”

Julie played for Boris the most melancholy noctumos on the harp. Boris read aloud to her “ Poor Liza,”1 and often interrupted the reading from agitation which strangled him. Whenever they met in grand society, Julie and Boris looked upon each other as the only people in the world, who were otherwise indifferent, but who understood each other.

Anna Mikhaylovna, who frequently called on the Karägins, sought out the company of Julie’s mother and tried to get exact information as to Julie’s dowry. .She found out that two Pénza estates and the Nizhni-Novgorod forests were her dowry. Anna Mikhäylovna looked with submission to the will of Providence and with a sense of humbleness on the refined melancholy which united her son with rich Julie.

1 Sentimental novel by Karamzin.

” Toujours charmante et mélancolique, cette chère, Julie,” she said to the daughter. ” Boris tells me that he finds a rest for his soul in your house. He has been so disappointed in life, and he is so sensitive,” she said to her mother.

” Oh, my friend, how attached I have become to Julie of late ! ” she said to her son. ” I can hardly tell you how I love her ! Who can help loving her ? She is such an angelic creature ! Oh, Boris, Boris ! ” She grew silent for a moment. ” How sorry I am for her mamma,” she continued. ” She showed me the reports and letters from Pénza to-day (they have such an enormous estate), and the poor woman is all alone : they cheat her so much !”

Boris now smiled perceptibly, as he heard his mother talking. He meekly laughed at her simple-minded cunning, but he listened to her, and carefully inquired about her Pénza and Nizhni-Ndvgorod estates.

Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer, and was ready to accept him ; but a certain feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her lack of naturalness, and the feeling of terror at the thought of renouncing the possibility of a real love, held Boris back. The term of his furlough was expiring. He passed whole days at a time and every day in the house of the Karagins, and, discussing the matter with himself, Boris said to himself that he would propose on the next day. But, in the presence of Julie, as he looked at her red face and chin, which were nearly always covered with powder, at her moist eyes, and at the expression of her face, which betrayed a permanent readiness at once to pass from melancholy to an unnatural transport of conjugal happiness, Boris was unable to pronounce the decisive word, although he in his imagination had long been regarding himself as the proprietor of the Pénza and Nizhni-Ndvgorod estates, and had apportioned the use of all income from them. Julie saw Boris’s indecision, and

now and then the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him ; but immediately her feminine selfdeception gave her consolation in the thought that he was bashful from love. Her melancholy, however, began to pass into irritation and, a few days before Boris’s departure, she determined on a definite plan. Just as Boris’s furlough was coming to an end, Anatol Xu ragin appeared in Moscow and, naturally, in the house of the Karagins, and Julie, suddenly abandoning her melancholy, became very attentive to Kurägin and cheerful in his company.

” Mon cher,” Anna Mikhaylovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils à Moscou pour lui faire épouser Julie. I am so fond of Julie, that I should be sorry for her. What do you think of it, my dear ? ” said Anna Mikhaylovna.

The thought of being fooled and losing in vain the whole month of hard, melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the properly classified and cautiously apportioned income from the Pénza estates in the hands of another, especially in the hands of stupid Anatél, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm determination of proposing. Julie met him with a happy and careless look, nonchalantly telling him how nicely she had passed her time at the ball of the previous evening, and asking him when he was going to leave. Notwithstanding the fact that Boris had come with the intention of declaring his love, and that he, therefore, had intended to be tender, he began with irritation to speak of feminine inconstancy : he said that women could easily pass from melancholy to joy, and that their moods depended on the man who was paying them attention. Julie felt offended and said that it was so, that women needed diversion, and that the same thing eternally would tire anybody.

“And so I would advise you — ” Boris began, intending to sting her; but in a flash he was assailed by the offensive thought that he might leave Moscow without

having attained his end, and that he would have lost his labours for nothing (which was never the case with him). He stopped in the middle of his sentence, lowered his eyes, in order not to see her unpleasantly irritated and undecided face, and said : ” I have not come here to quarrel with you. On the contrary — ” He looked at her, to convince himself that he might proceed. All her irritation suddenly vanished, and her restless, imploring eyes were directed upon him in eager expectancy.

” I can always arrange matters in such a way that I will not have to see her often,” thought Boris. ” The work has been begun and it must be finished ! ” He blushed, raised his eyes to her, and said:

“You know my feelings for you !”

There was no need of proceeding : Julie’s face beamed in triumph and contentment ; but she compelled Boris to tell her everything which is said under such circumstances, namely, that he loved her and that he had never loved any woman more than he loved her. She knew that she could demand this of him in return for her Pénza estates and Nîzhni-Névgorod forests, and she received what she demanded.

The engaged pair no longer mentioned the trees that shed darkness and melancholy upon them, but made plans for the future arrangement of a brilliant house at St. Petersburg, and they went out calling, and prepared everything for the brilliant wedding.

VI.

Count Ilyâ Andréevich, with Natasha and Sdnya, arrived in Moscow at the end of January. The countess was still ill and had been unable to go with them, and there was no possibility of waiting for her recovery. Prince Andréy was expected any day in Moscow ; besides, it was necessary to buy the trousseau and to sell the suburban estate, and it was necessary to make use of the presence of the old prince in Moscow, in order to introduce his future daughter-in-law to him. The house of the Rostdvs in Moscow had not been heated for some time, they came only for a short stay, and the countess was not with them, and so Ilyà Andréevich decided to stop at the house of Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimov, who had for a long time offered him her hospitality.

Late in the evening four sleighs of the Kostévs drove into the yard of Märya Dmitrievna’s house, in the street of the Old Mews. Marya Dmitrievna lived there all alone. Her daughter was married and her sons were all out in the army.

She was just as blunt as ever, told everybody bluntly, loudly, and definitely her opinion, and with her whole being seemed to reproach all people for their weaknesses, passions, and preoccupations, the possibility of which she did not recognize. She put on a jacket early in the morning, and at once proceeded to attend to her house duties ; later in the day she drove out on holidays, to mass, and from the church to the prisons and penitentiaries, where she had some business which she never mentioned to anybody ; on week-days she dressed herself and received at home all kinds of petitioners, who came to see her every day, and then she dined ; at dinner, which was abundant and savoury, there were always three or four guests ; after dinner she formed a boston party, and at night she bad somebody read to her the gazettes and new books, while she herself knit stockings. She rarely made an exception in her manner of life, in order to go out calling, and when she did, she went to see only the most distinguished persons in the city.

She had not yet retired, when the Rostovs arrived and the door of the antechamber creaked on its hinges, letting in the Rostdvs and their servants from the cold outside. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles resting way down on her nose, and throwing back her head, was standing in the door of the parlour, and with a stern, angry look surveying the persons entering. She looked as though she were in a rage against the newcomers, and would drive them out in a minute, only at the same time she gave careful orders to her servants how and where to place her guests and their baggage.

” The count’s ? Take them this way !” she said, pointing to the portmanteaus, without greeting anybody. ” Young ladies, this way, to the left ! Well, why are you in such a flutter ? ” she shouted to the maids. ” Get the samovär ready ! — You have filled out and grown prettier,” she said, taking hold of Natdsha’s head-wrapping and drawing her toward herself. Natasha’s cheeks were flushed from the frost. ” Pshaw, you are cold ! Take off your wraps at once ! ” she called out to the count, who wanted to take her hand. ” I am afraid you are all frozen. Let us have rum with the tea ! Sdnya, bonjour!” she said to Sonya, wishing with this French greeting to shade her slightly disdainful and yet kind attitude toward Sonya.

When all had taken off their wraps and had warmed themselves, they went to the teatable, and Marya Dmitrievna kissed one after the other.

” I am heartily glad that you have arrived and that you are stopping at my house,” she said. “ It is high time,” she said, casting a significant look at Natäsha, ” the old man is here, and the son is expected at any time. You must, you must get acquainted with him. Well, we will speak later of it,” she added, casting a glance at Sonya, which showed that she did not wish to discuss the matter in Sdnya’s presence. “Listen now,” she turned to the count, “what do you want? For whom will you send? For Shinshin ? ” she bent down one finger. ” For blubberer Anna Mikhaylovna ? — Two. She is here with her son. Her son is getting married ! Then Bezukhi, I suppose. He is here with his wife. He has run away from her, and she has come for him. He dined with me last Wednesday. Well, and these girls,” she pointed to the young ladies, “ I will take tomorrow to the church of the Holy Virgin of Iver, and then we will go to see Aubert Chalmé. Of course, you will get new tilings for her ! Don’t pattern after me, — nowadays they wear sleeves like this ! The other day the young Princess Irina Vasilevna came to see me ; it was just terrible to see her sleeves which were as big as two barrels. Nowadays there is a new fashion every day. And what business have you yourself ? ” she sternly turned to the count.

“ Everything turned up at the same time,” replied the count. ” I have come to buy her trousseau, and there is also a purchaser for my suburban estate and for the house. If it will not displease you, I will choose the proper time to run to MLrinskoe for a day, and will leave the girls with you then.”

” All right, all right ! No harm will come to them in my house. They are as safe here as in the Guardianship Council. I will take them where it is proper, and I will scold them, and fondle them,” said Marya Dmitrievna, touching with her large hand the cheek of her favourite and godchild, Natasha.

The next morning, Märya Dmitrievna took the girls to the fver church and to Madame Aubert Chalmé, who was so much afraid of Märya Dmitrievna that she always sold her garments at a loss just to get rid of her as quickly as possible. Märya Dmitrievna ordered nearly the whole trousseau. Upon returning home, she sent everybody but Natäsha out of the room, and called her favourite up to her chair.

” Now we will have a chat. I congratulate you on your fiancé. You have caught a fine fellow ! I am glad for your sake ; I have known him ever since he was as high as this.” She pointed to within three feet of the ground. Natasha blushed for joy. ” I love him and all his family. Now listen ! You know that the old prince, Nikoläy, was very much opposed to his son’s proposed marriage. He is a stubborn old man ! Of course, Prince Andréy is not a child and can get along without him, but it is not good to enter a family against its will. Everything must be done peacefully and amicably. You are a clever girl, and you will know what to do. Act cleverly ! That is all, and everything will come out all right.”

Natasha was silent, Märya. Dmitrievna thought, from bashfulness, but in reality it displeased Natasha to see others meddle with her love for Prince Andréy, which to her appeared such a different thing from every human affair that no one, in her opinion, could comprehend it. She loved and knew only Prince Andréy, and he loved her and was to come in a few days and take her. This was all she wanted to know.

“You see, I have known him for a long time, and I love Märya, your sister-in-law. Sisters-in-law are gossips, the proverb says, but she would not offend a fly. She has asked me to introduce you to her. You will go there tomorrow with your father. Be kind to her : you are younger than she is. When your intended comes, you must be acquainted with his sister and his father, and they must love you. Am I right ? Will it not be better this way ? “

“ Yes,” Natäsha replied, reluctantly.

VIL

On the next day, Count Ilyà Andréevich, following Marya Dmitrievna’s advice, went with Natäsha to call on Prince Nikolay Andréevich. The count was not in a happy mood as he started out to make this visit : he felt terribly. Count Ilyà Andréevich had not forgotten his last meeting with him during the levy of the militia, when, in response to his invitation of the prince to dinner, he heard a withering reprimand for not furnishing the proper quota of men.

Natdsha put on her best garment and was, on the contrary, in a very happy frame of mind.

” It is impossible for them not to love me,” she thought. ” Everybody has always loved me. I am prepared to do anything for them that they may wish, and I am prepared to love him, because he is his father, and her, for being his sister, so that they will have to love me ! “

They drove up to an old, gloomy house on the Vzdvfzhenka, and entered the vestibule.

” The Lord be merciful to us ! ” said the count, half in jest, half in earnest ; but Natasha noticed that her father was in a hurry, as he entered the antechamber, and that he asked timidly and softly whether the prince and the princess were at home. After the announcement of their arrival, there was a confusion among the servants. The lackey, who ran to announce them, was stopped in the parlour by another lackey, and they exchanged some words in a whisper. Then a chambermaid ran into the parlour, and she hurriedly said something about the princess. Finally an old, angry-looking lackey came out to announce to the Posté vs that the prince could not receive them, but that the princess asked them to come to see her. The first to meet them was Mlle. Bourienne. She met father and daughter with extreme civility and led them to the princess.

The princess, with an agitated and frightened face, covered with red spots, ran out, stepping heavily, to meet the guests, trying in vain to appear at her ease and affable. Natasha did not please Princess Mdrya from the start. Natäsha appeared to her too much primped up, frivolously merry, and egotistical. Princess Mdrya forgot that even before seeing her future sister-in-law she had been inimically disposed to her on account of her involuntary envy of her beauty, her youth, and her happiness, and on account of her jealousy of her brother’s love. Outside of this invincible feeling of antipathy to her, Princess Marya was at that moment agitated because, upon announcing the arrival of the Rostdvs, the prince had called out that Princess Marya could receive them if she wanted to, but that he did not need them, and that they should not be admitted into his presence. Princess Marya decided to receive them, but was all the time afraid that the prince would come out and make a scene, as he seemed to be very much excited by the visit of the Rostovs.

“So here is the singer whom I have brought to you, princess,” said the count, scuffing and looking restlessly about him, as though afraid that the old prince would come in. ” I am so glad that you will get acquainted with each other — What a pity the prince is not well ! ” and, after saying a few more general phrases, he rose. ” If you will permit me, princess, to leave roy Natäsha for fifteen minutes with you, I will drive down to Dog Square, just a short distance from here, to call on Anna Seménovna, after which I will come back to fetch her.”

Ilyà Andréevich had invented this piece of diplomacy in order to give the future sisters-in-law time to get acquainted with each other (so he informed his daughter afterward) and also in order to escape the possibility of meeting the old prince, of whom he was afraid. This he did not tell his daughter ; but Natäsha understood this fear and restlessness of her father and felt offended. She blushed for her father, grew angry for having blushed, and with a bold, provoking glance, which said that she was not afraid of anybody, looked at the princess. The princess told the count that she was very glad to have Natäsha and asked him to stay as long as possible at Anna Semänovna’s. llyä Andréevich departed.

Mlle. Bourienne, in spite of the restless glances which Princess Marya, -wishing to speak with Natäsha without witnesses, cast at her, did not leave the room, and stuck to a conversation about Moscow entertainments and the theatre. Natäsha was offended by the confusion which had taken place in the antechamber, by the restlessness of her father, and by the unnatural tone of the princess, who, so she thought, was doing her an especial favour in receiving her. Everything displeased her. She did not like Princess Märya. Princess Märya appeared to her homely, pretentious, and dry. Natasha suddenly bristled up morally and involuntarily assumed a nonchalant air which only repelled Princess Marya so much the more. After five minutes of an oppressive, feigned conversation, there were heard the approaching steps of some one walking rapidly in slippers. The face of Princess Märya expressed terror. The door opened and the prince entered in a white nightcap and in a morninggown.

” Ah, lady,” he said, ” lady, countess — Countess Rostov, if I am not mistaken — I ask you to excuse me — I did not know, madam. God knows I did not know that you had honoured us with your visit, — I just came to see my daughter in this costume. I ask you, forgive me, — God knows I did not know,” he repeated, in an unnatural manner, emphasizing the word ” God,” and in such a disagreeable manner that Princess Marya stood with drooping eyes, not daring to look either into the eyes of her father, or into those of Natäsha. Natäsha got up and sat down again and did not know what to do. Mlle. Bourienne was the only one who kept her composure and smiled pleasantly.

” I beg you to excuse me, I beg you to excuse me ! God knows I did not know,” growled the old man. After examining her from head to foot, he left.

Mlle. Bourienne was the first one after this performance to show her composure : she began to speak about the illness of the prince. Natasha and Marya looked at each other in silence, and the longer they kept looking at each other, without saying that which they ought to have said, the more malevolently they thought of each other.

When the count returned, Natasha expressed her joy to the point of impoliteness, and hastened to leave : at that moment she almost hated that old and dry princess for having put her in such an awkward position and for having passed half an hour with her without mentioning the name of Prince Andréy.

“ Certainly, I could not begin speaking of him in the presence of that Frenchwoman !” thought Natäsha. Princess Märya was tormented by a similar consideration. She knew what she ought to have told Natäsha, but she was unable to say it, both because Mlle. Bourienne was in her way and because for some inexplicable reason she found it hard to begin talking about the marriage. When the count had left the room, Märya approached Natäsha with rapid steps, took her hand, and, heaving a deep sigh, said : “Wait! I must — “

Natäsha looked sarcastically at Princess Märya, without knowing herself what her sarcasm was meant for.

“Dear Natalie,” said Princess Märya, “you must know that I am glad that my brother has found his happiness — “

She stopped, feeling that she had told an untruth. Natasha noticed her hesitation and guessed the cause of it.

” I think, princess, that it is not convenient to speak of it now,” said Natasha, with external dignity and coldness, and with tears which she felt rising in her throat.

” What have I said ! What have I done ! ” she thought, the moment she left the room.

They waited that day for a long time for Natäsha to come down to dinner. She was sitting in her room and sobbing and snivelling like a child. Sdnya stood over her and kissed her hair.

” Natasha, what is it about ? ” she said. ” What do you care for them ? It will all pass, Natâsha ! “

” If you only knew how offensive it is ! As though I were — “

” Don’t speak, Natasha ! It is not your fault, so what do you care ? Kiss me,” said Sdnya.

Natasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on her lips, pressed her wet face against her.

” I cannot tell you, — I do not know. Nobody is to blame,” said Natäsha. ” I am to blame. But it is all so painful. Oh, why does he not come ? ”

She went to dinner with her eyes all red. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostdvs, looked as though she did not notice Natasha’s disturbed face, and at table jested in a loud and firm voice with the count and with the other guests.

VIII.

On that evening the Rostovs went to the opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna had provided the tickets.

Natasha did not feel like going, but she could not decline Mdrya Dmitrievna’s kindness, which was intended for her in particular. When she was dressed and came to the parlour, waiting for her father, she looked into the mirror and saw that she was pretty, very pretty, and this saddened her still more, but it was only an amorous sadness.

” 0 Lord, if he were here, I would not act before him with foolish timidity as before, but I would embrace him in a new, simple manner, and press close to him, and would compel him to look at me with those inquisitive, curious eyes, with which he so often looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he laughed then, and his eyes, oh, how I see those eyes ! ” thought Natasha. “ What do I care for his father and sister ? I love only him, him, with those eyes, that face, that smile of his, both manly and childish — No, it is better not to think of him, not to think, to forget, entirely to forget until he comes. I will not endure this long waiting, I will burst out weeping,” and she walked away from the mirror and made an effort over herself to keep from crying. ” How can Sdnya love Nikoldy so evenly, so calmly, and wait so long and so patiently ! ” she thought, looking at Sonya, who, all dressed up, came into the room, with a fan in her hand.

” She is an entirely different girl ; but I cannot do it ! ”

Natasha felt herself at that moment so full of tender • emotion that it was not enough for her to love and to know that she was loved: she wanted now, at once, to embrace the object of her love and speak words of love to him, and hear him utter them, for her heart was full of love. While she was travelling in the carriage, sitting by the side of her father, and pensively looking at the lamplights which flitted past the frozen window, she felt herself even more in love and sadder, and she forgot with whom she was sitting or where she was going. The carriage of the Rostovs fell in with a whole procession of carriages, wheels of which slowly squeaked ou the snow, and Natasha and Sdnya leaped out, lifting their dresses ; the count, supported by lackeys, walked out, and, passing between ladies and gentlemen and sellers of programmes, all three entered the corridor of the pit. The music could already be heard through the closed doors.

” Natalie, vos cheveux ! ” whispered Sénya. An usher politely and rapidly rushed past the ladies and opened the door of the box. The music could now be heard more clearly ; there flashed the illuminated rows of the boxes with the bared ‘shoulders and arms of the ladies and the noisy pit, agleam with uniforms. A lady who was entering the adjoining box cast an envious look at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen, and they were playing an overture. Natrisha adjusted her dress, walked forward with Sénya, and sat down, gazing at the illuminated rows of the boxes on the other side. The long forgotten sensation of having hundreds of eyes directed to her bared arms and neck suddenly gave her both a pleasurable and an unpleasant impression, calling forth a whole corresponding series of recollections, wishes, and agitation.

The two remarkably pretty girls, Na trisha and Sénya, with Count Ilyri Andréevich, who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted universal attention. Besides, all had a dim idea of Natrisha’s engagement to Prince Andréy, and knew that the Rostévs had been living in the country all that time, and all looked with curiosity at the fiancée of one of the best matches in Russia.

Natrisha had grown more beautiful in the country, so all told her; but on that evening she, thanks to her agitation, was especially beautiful. She struck people by the fulness of her life and beauty, which was united with an indifference to her surroundings. Her black eyes gazed at the crowd, looking for nobody, and her thin arm, which was bared above the elbow, and was resting on the velvet parapet, was now compressed and now relaxed, apparently keeping time unconsciously with the overture, and crumpling the programme.

” Look, there is Miss Alénin,” said Sonya, ” with her mother, I think ! ”

“ 0 Lord ! Mikhail Kirfllych has grown so much stouter î ” said the old count.

” Look over there ! Our Anna Mikhriylovna wears a toque ! “

” The Karrigins, Julie, and Boris with them ! You can see a bridal pair at once ! Drubetskoy has proposed to her ! “

” I just heard to-day that you were here,” said Shinshin, entering the box of the Rostovs.

Natasha looked in the direction in which her father was looking, and saw Julie, who, with pearls on her fat, red neck (Natrisha knew that it was covered with powder), was sitting with a happy look by the side of her mother.

Back of them, Boris’s well-groomed, handsome head could be seen leaning, with a smile, its ear down to Julie’s mouth. He looked stealthily at the Rostévs and told his fiancée something, with a smile.

” They are talking about us, — about him and me ! ” thought Natrisha. ” He, no doubt, is appeasing his fiancée’s jealousy of me : they worry in vain ! If they only knew how little I care for any of them I “

Behind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna, wearing a green toque ; her happy, solemn face was expressive of submission to the will of God. In their box there was that atmosphere of an engaged couple, which Natâsha knew and loved so well. She turned aside, and suddenly everything which had been so humiliating in her morning visit flashed through her mind.

“ What right has he not to wish to receive me in his family ? Oh, it is better not to think of this, — not to think of it until his arrival!” she said to herself, and began to survey the familiar and unfamiliar faces in the pit. In front, in the very middle, leaning with his back against the parapet, stood Délokhov, with an immense, towering stack of curly hair, wearing a Persian costume. He stood in sight of the whole theatre, knowing that the attention of all the spectators was directed toward him, and his attitude was as free and easy as though he were standing in the middle of his own room. Near him crowded the most brilliant youth of Moscow, but he apparently excelled them all.

Count Ilya Andréevich, laughing, nudged blushing Sonya, as he pointed to her former adorer.

« Do you recognize him ? ” he asked. “ Where does he come from ? I understand he was lost somewhere ! ”

“ Yes, he was,” replied Shinshin. “He has been in the Caucasus. He ran away from there and is said to have been the minister of some Persian sovereign prince. He there killed Shâkhov’s brother : now all the Moscow young ladies are losing their senses over him. Dolochoff le Persan is all the go. Nothing is now done without Dolokhov : they swear by him, and invite people to see him, as though he were a sterlet,” said Shinshin. ” Dolokhov and Auatél Kurâgiu are driving all our young ladies insane.”

The adjoining box was entered by a tall, beautiful lady with an enormous braid and much bared and very white, full shoulders and neck, on which there was a double row of pearls. She rustled her heavy silk dress and was long in sitting down.

Natasha involuntarily looked at that neck, those shoulders, those pearls, that coiffure, and she admired the beauty of her shoulders and of her pearls. Just as Natâsha was casting a second glance at her, she turned around and, meeting the eyes of Count Ilyâ Andréevich, she nodded and smiled. It was Countess Bezukhi, Pierre’s wife. Hyâ Andréevich, who knew everybody, bent down and passed a few words with her.

” Have you been here long, countess ? ” he said. ” I will come, I will, to kiss your hand. I am here on business, and I have brought my girls with me. They say that Seménova plays inimitably,” said Ilyâ Andréevich. ” Count Peter Kirillovich never forgot us. Is he here ? “

” Yes, he said he would be here,” said Hélène, looking attentively at Natasha.

Count Ilyâ Andréevich again sat down in his seat.

“ She is beautiful ! ” he said in a whisper to Natâsha.

“Wonderfully so!” said Natasha. “Just to fall in love with ! “

Just then the last chords of the overture were heard, and the conductor of the orchestra tapped his baton. The belated gentlemen in the pit went to their seats, and the curtain rose.

The moment the curtain went up, everything in the boxes and in the pit became calm, and all the men, old and young, in uniforms and dress coats, and all the women, with precious stones on their bare bodies, with eager curiosity riveted their attention on the stage. Natâsha, too, directed her eyes upon it.

IX.

On the stage there were smooth planks in the middle ; at the sides stood painted pictures, representing trees; in the background a canvas was drawn over boards. In the middle of the stage sat maidens in red corsages and white skirts. One of them, who was very stout and dressed in a white silk dress, was sitting apart on a low stool, to the back of which was pasted up a green pasteboard. They were singing something. When they had all finished their song, the maiden in white walked over to the prompter’s box, and was accosted by a man in closely fitting silk trousers over stout legs, with feather and poniard, and he began to sing and to wave his arms.

First the man in the closely fitting pantaloons sang by himself, then she sang. Then both were silent, the music played, and the man began to finger the hand of the maiden in the white dress, apparently waiting for the proper beat in order to begin his part with her. They sang together, and all in the theatre began to applaud and to shout, while the man and the woman on the stage, who represented lovers, began, smiling, to wave their hands and to bow.

Coming fresh from the country and being in a serious mood, Natasha found all this savage and incomprehensible. She could not follow the opera, and did not even hear the music : she saw only painted pasteboard and strained men and women who moved, spoke, and sang strangely in the bright illumination ; she knew that all that only represented something, but it was all so false and unnatural that she felt ashamed for them and thought them ridiculous. She looked about her, at the faces of the spectators, trying to find in them the same ridicule and perplexity which she was conscious of ; but all the faces were riveted on what was going on on the stage, and expressed, so Natdsha thought, a feigned delight.

“No doubt that is proper !” thought Natdsha. She looked, by turns, now at the rows of pomaded heads in the pit, and now at the bared women in the boxes, especially at her neighbour, Hélène, who, having taken off all her wraps, was looking, with a calm smile, at the stage, without taking her eyes away from it. She was conscious of the bright light in which the whole hall was bathed, and of the warm air, heated by the throng. Natasha by degrees came into her old condition of intoxication. She did not remember what she was doing, or where she was, or what was going on in front of her. She kept looking and flunking, and the strangest thoughts incoherently and suddenly flashed through her mind. Now she felt like jumping on the parapet and singing the aria which the actress was singing, and now she felt like touching an old man, who was not far from her, with her fan, and now like bending over to Hélène and tickling her.

At one of the moments when everything was quiet on the stage, waiting for the beginning of the aria, the door of a box, on the side where the Rostdvs were, creaked, and there were heard the steps of a belated gentleman.

” Here he is, Xu régin ! ” whispered Shinshm. Countess Bezukhi turned around and smiled to the newcomer. Natdsha looked in the direction of Countess Bezukhi and saw an uncommonly handsome adjutant, who was walking up toward their box with a selfconfident, though polite, look. It was Anatdl Kurdgin, whom she had long ago seen at a St. Petersburg ball He now wore the uniform of an adjutant with one epaulet and shoulder-knot. He walked with a reserved, dashing gait, which would have been ridiculous if he had not been so handsome, and if there had not been on his face such an expression of good-natured contentment and merriment. Though the play was going on, he continued to walk leisurely and evenly over the carpet of the corridor, slightly clattering with his spurs and his sword, and carrying high his perfumed handsome head. He cast a glance at Natasha, then walked over to his sister, placed his hand in its tightly fitting glove on the edge of the box, tossed liis head, and, leaning down to her, inquired something, while pointing to Natasha.

” Mais charmante ! ” he said, evidently about Natasha, as she not so much heard as understood from the motion of his lips. Then he went to the first row in the pit, where he sat down by Ddlokhov’s side, nudging in a friendly and nonchalant manner that very Dolokhov whose acquaintance everybody sought so eagerly. He winked merrily at him and smiled, and pressed his foot against the parapet.

” How the brother and the sister resemble each other ! ” said the count. ” And how handsome both are ! “

Shinshin whispered to the count a story of Kurägin’s intrigue in Moscow, and Natasha listened to it, for no other Ö 9 9

reason than because he had called her “charmante”

The first act was over. All rose in the pit, left their seats, and began to walk around or to pass out.

Boris came into the box of the Rostovs, very naturally accepted the congratulations, and, raising his eyebrows, with an absent-minded smile, transmitted to Natäsha and Sonya his fiancée’s request that they be at her wedding, after which he went away. Natäsha, with a merry and coquettish smile, conversed with him and congratulated on Iris marriage the same Boris with whom she had been in love before. In that condition of intoxication in which she then was, everything seemed simple and natural to her.

Décolleté Hélène was sitting near her, and smiling the same smile to all ; Natäsha smiled in the same way to Boris.

Hélène’s box was filled and surrounded from the side of the pit by the most distinguished and clever men, who all seemed to vie in their desire to show that they were acquainted with her.

Kurägin stood during the whole intermission with Dolokhov at the parapet, looking at the box of the Rostévs. Natäsha Imew that he was speaking of her, and this gave her pleasure. She even turned in such a way that her profile might be seen by him from what she thought to be her most advantageous side. Before the beginning of the second act, there appeared in the pit the figure of Pierre, whom the Rostévs had not yet seen since their arrival. His face was sad, and he was even stouter than when Natäsha had seen him the last time. Without looking at anybody, he passed to the first row. Ana-t<51 went up to him and began to tell him something, looking and pointing to the box of the Rostévs. Pierre, upon seeing Natäsha, became animated and hastened between the rows to walk over to their box. When he reached them, he leaned over and, smiling, spoke for a long time to Natasha. During her conversation with Pierre, she heard a male voice in the box of Countess Bezükhi, and she knew that it was Kurägin’s. She looked around, and their eyes met. He was almost smiling as he looked into her eyes with such an ecstatic, kindly glance that it seemed strange to her to be so close to him, to be looking at him, to be sure that she pleased him, and yet not to be acquainted with him.

In the second act there were pictures representing monuments, and there was a hole in the canvas, which represented the moon, and the shades on the parapet were lifted, and the horns and bass-viols began to play in low tones, and on the right and left men wearing black mantles began to come out. The actors began to wave their hands, in which they held something resembling daggers ; then some other men rushed in and began to carry away the maiden who before had worn a white dress, but now had on a blue garment. They did not carry her away at once, but first sang with her for a long time, then took her out. Behind the stage three strokes against something metallic were heard, and all got down on their knees and began to sing a prayer. All this performance was several times interrupted by ecstatic shouts of the spectators.

During this act Natdsha, every time that she looked down into the pit, saw Anatdl Kurâgin, who had thrown his arm over the back of his chair and was looking at her. It gave her pleasure to see him so captivated by her, and it did not occur to her that there might be anything wrong in it.

When the second act was over, Countess Bezukhi rose, turned to the box of the Rostdvs (her bosom was all bared), with her gloved finger beckoned to the old count to come to her, and, without paying any attention to the other callers in her box, began to speak to him, with a pleasant smile.

” Introduce me to your charming daughters,” she said. “The whole city speaks of them, and I do not know them.”

Natdsha rose and seated herself near the magnificent countess. It gave Natasha so much pleasure to be praised by this brilliant beauty that she blushed from joy.

” I want myself to became a Muscovite,” said Hélène. « Are you not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country ! “

Countess Bezukhi had justly the reputation of an enticing woman. She could say what she did not mean, and she knew more especially how to flatter in a simple and natural manner.

” My dear count, you must permit me to take care of your daughters. Though I am here but for a short time, and so are you, I will try to amuse them. I have heard a great deal about you while I was in St. Petersburg, and wanted to make your acquaintance,” she said to Natasha with her monotonous and beautiful smile. “ I have also heard of you through my page, Drubetskdy. Have you heard that he is getting married ? You have heard it, no doubt, from the friend of my husband, Bolkonski, Prince Andréy Bolkonski,” she said, with a peculiar accent, to hint at her familiarity with Natasha’s relations with him.

She asked Count Rostov to permit one of the young ladies to stay the rest of the performance in her box, so as to give her a chance to get acquainted with her, and so Natasha walked into her box.

In the third act the stage represented a castle, in which there burned many candles and which was adorned by portraits of knights with little beards. In the middle stood apparently the king and the queen. The king waved bis right hand and, evidently being embarrassed, sang badly, after which he sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had originally been in white and then in blue now wore nothing but a shirt, and her hair was all unbraided, as she stood near the throne. She sang some melancholy tune about something, as she turned to the queen ; but the king sternly waved his hand, and from the sides came out men with bare legs and women with bare legs, and they all began to dance together. Then the violins played a merry tune in high notes, one of the maidens with fat bare legs and lean arms, separating from the rest, went behind the scenes, adjusted her corsage, stepped out to the middle, and began to jump, and rapidly to strike one foot against the other. All in the pit clapped their hands and cried ” Bravo ! ” Then one man went into the corner. In the orchestra they played louder, with cymbals and horns, and this man with the bare legs began to jump very high and cut capers with his feet. This man was Duport, who received sixty thousand roubles a year for this art. All in the pit, in the boxes, and in the gallery began to clap their hands and to shout with all their might, and the man stopped and began to smile and to bow on all sides. Then others, men and women, with bare legs, danced ; then one of the kings again shouted something in musical notes, and all began to sing. But suddenly a storm rose ; in the orchestra were heard chromatic gamuts and chords of the diminished seventh, and all ran to drag one of the men behind the scenes, and the curtain fell. Again there was a terrible noise and clatter among the spectators, and all began to shout with ecstatic faces, ” Duport ! Duport ! Duport ! ” NaUsha no longer found this strange. She looked joyfully about her, smiling a pleasant smile.

“ N’est-ce pas qu’il est admirable, Duport ? ” said Hélène, turning to her.

” Oh, oui,” replied Natasha.

X.

During the intermission, a whiff of cold air entered Hélène’s box, and, bending and trying not to knock up against anybody, there entered AnatdL

” Permit me to make you acquainted with my brother,” said Hélène, restlessly transferring her eyes from Natdsha to Anatél.

Natasha turned her beautiful head to the handsome man beyond the bare shoulder, and smiled. Anatél, who was as handsome close by as from a distance, sat down by her side and told her that he had long wished to have the pleasure, ever since the Naryshkin ball at which he had had the unforgettable pleasure of seeing her. Kuràgin was much more clever and simple in the society of women than he was with men. He spoke boldly and simply, and Natasha was strangely and agreeably surprised to see that there was nothing dangerous in this man, of whom so much was told, and that, on the contrary, he had a most naïve, merry, and good-natured smile.

Kurägin asked her about her impression of the show, and told her that at the previous performance Seménova had fallen down during her singing.

” Do you know, countess,” he said, suddenly beginning to treat her like an old acquaintance, ” we are getting up a merry-go-round in costumes ; you ought to take part in it : it will be very jolly. They will all meet at the Karägins. Please come there ! You will ? ” he said.

As he said this, he did not take his smiling eyes away from Natasha’s face, and neck, and bare arms. Natasha was positive that he was charmed by her. This gave her pleasure, but, for some reason, she felt oppressed in his presence. When she did not look at him, she felt that he was looking at her shoulders, and she instinctively caught his glance, in order to make him rather look into her eyes. But, as she looked into his eyes, she felt in terror that between them there was not that barrier of bashfulness which she always felt between herself and all other men. She did not know herself how it happened, but after five minutes she felt herself terribly close to this man. When she turned her head away, she had a kind of fear that he would seize her bare arms from behind and would kiss her on her neck. They spoke of the commonest things, and she felt that she was nearer to him than she had ever been to any other man. Natasha looked back at Hélène and at her father, as though to ask them what it meant ; but Hélène was busy talking to a general and did not reply to her glance, while her father’s glance told her nothing but what it always said, ” You are having a good time, and I am glad of it ! ”

During one of the moments of an awkward silence, during which Anatol with his bulging eyes was looking calmly and stubbornly at her, Natasha, in order to interrupt the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. As she asked this, she blushed. It seemed to her all the time that she was doing something indecent in talking with him. Anatol smiled as though to encourage her.

” At first I did not like it much, because what makes a city agreeable, ce sont les jolies femmes, is it not so ? But now I like it very much,” he said, looking significantly at her.

” Will you go to the merry-go-round, countess ? Do come ! ” he said, and, extending his hand toward her bouquet and lowering his voice, he said, ” Vous serez la plus jolie. Venez, chère comtesse, et comme gage donnez-moi ccttc fleur ! ”

Natasha did not understand what he said, just as he himself did not, but she felt that in the words which she did not comprehend there was an indecent meaning. She did not know what to say, and turned aside, as though she had not heard what he had said. But the moment she turned her face away, she thought that he was close behind her.

” What is he doing now ? Is he embarrassed ? Angry ? Must I correct it?” she asked herself. She could not help looking back. She looked him straight in the eye, and his proximity and self-assurance and the good-natured kindliness of his smile vanquished her. Again she felt with terror that there was no barrier between them.

The curtain rose again. Anatdl, calm and happy, left the box. Natdsha returned to her father, having entirely succumbed to the world in which she was. Everything which was going on before her now appeared quite natural to her ; at the same time all her former thoughts of her fiancé, of Princess Marya, of the country life, did not once enter her head, as though it had all happened long, long ago.

In the fourth act there was some kind of a devil who sang and waved his hand until some boards were removed underneath him and he sank through them. This was all Natdsha saw of the fourth act: something agitated and tormented her, and the cause of this agitation was Kurdgin, whom she instinctively sought out with her eyes. As they were leaving the theatre, Anatél went up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he put Natdsha in, he pressed her arm above the elbow. Natäsha, agitated and blushing, looked back at him. He, gleaming with his eyes and smiling tenderly, was looking at her.

Only after she had come home was Natasha able clearly to reflect on what had taken place, and suddenly, as she thought of Prince Andréy, she became frightened, and while all were gathered at the teatable after the theatre, she uttered a loud sigh and, blushing, rushed out of the room.

” 0 Lord ! I am lost ! ” she said to herself. ” How could I have permitted it?” she thought.

She sat for a long time, covering her red face with her hands, trying to render herself a clear account of what had happened to herself, and she was unable to comprehend what had happened, or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, dim, and terrible to her. There, in that immense, illuminated hall where Duport, wearing a tinsel jacket, had leaped with his bare legs over the wet floor to the sound of the music, and the young women and old men, and décolleté Hélène, with her calm and haughty smile, had in transport shouted ” Bravo ! ” — there, under the shadow of that Hélène, everything had been clear and simple; but now that she was alone it all appeared incomprehensible to her. ” What is it ? What was that terror which I experienced toward him? What is this compunction which I am experiencing now ? ” she thought.

Only to the old countess would Natäsha have been able in bed at night to tell all she thought. Sonya, she knew, with her stern and highly moral nature, would either not understand anything, or would be horrified at her confession. Natdsha endeavoured herself to solve the cause of her torment.

” Am I lost for the love of Prince Andréy, or not ? ” she asked herself, and with a consoling smile she replied to herself : ” How foolish I am to ask this question ! What has happened to me ? Nothing. I have done nothing, have not provoked it. Nobody will know anything about it, and I will never see him again,” she said to herself. ” Consequently it is clear that nothing has happened, that there is no cause for repentance, that Prince Andréy can love such as I am ! Such as I am ! What am I, then ? Ah, my God ! Why is he not here ? “

Natdsha calmed herself for a moment, but soon an instinct told her that, although it was true and although nothing had happened, that all her former purity of love for Prince Andréy had vanished. And she again repeated in her imagination all her conversation with Kuragin, and represented to herself the face, the gestures, and the tender smile of that handsome and bold man, at the moment when he pressed her arm.

XI.

Anatöl Kuragin was living in Moscow because bis father had sent him away from St. Petersburg, where he had been spending more than twenty thousand a year in money, besides making very large debts, which the creditors tried to collect from his father. The father announced to his son that he would pay one-half of his debts for the last time, on condition that he should go to Moscow in the capacity of adjutant to the commanderin-chief, which office he had obtained for him, and would try there, at last, to make a good match. He pointed out to him Princess Mär y a and Julie Karägin.

Anatol accepted the conditions and went to Moscow, where he stopped in Pierre’s house. Pierre at first received him reluctantly, but later he became accustomed to him ; he occasionally went with him to carousals, and under the pretext of a loan gave him money.

Anatdl, as Shinshfn had justly remarked about him, had been driving all the Moscow ladies insane, ever since his arrival, especially because he neglected them and apparently preferred to them gipsies and French actresses, with the chief of which, Mlle. Georges, he was said to be on intimate relations. He did not omit a single carousal at Danilov’s and at the other merrymakers of Moscow, drinking there whole nights at a time and beating all the others in these drinking contests, and went to all the evening entertainments and balls of the high life. There were rumours about several intrigues of his with Moscow ladies, and at the balls he courted several of them. But he did not cultivate the acquaintance of young ladies, especially of rich heiresses, who were nearly all of them homely, especially because Anatöl had been married two years before, which was a fact that none but his most intimate friends knew. Two years before, while his regiment was stationed in Poland, a poor Polish landed proprietor had compelled Anatöl to marry his daughter.

Anatöl very soon abandoned his wife, and, for the money which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, he retained the right to pass for a bachelor.

Anatöl was always satisfied with his situation, with himself, and with others. He was instinctively convinced with his whole being that he could not live otherwise than he was living, and that he would never in all his life do anything bad. He was unable to consider how his acts would affect others, or what might result from this or that act. He was convinced that, as a duck was created in such a way that it must always live in the water, so he had been created by God in such a way as to spend thirty thousand a year and occupy a very high position in society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were also convinced of it and did not refuse him that high position in society, nor the money, which he borrowed from all who crossed his path, without ever troubling himself about paying his debts.

He was not a gambler, at least he never hankered for a winning game. He was not vain. It did not make the least difference to him what people thought of him. Still less could he be accused of ambition. He several times annoyed his father by ruining his career, and made light of all honours. He was not stingy, and never refused anything to those who asked him for a thing. There were two things he was addicted to, and those were merriment and women, and as, according to his view, there was nothing ignoble in these tastes of his, and as he was incapable of reflecting on what happened to others from the gratification of his tastes, he in his soul regarded himself as an irreproachable man, heartily despised rascals and bad people, and with a calm conscience carried his head high.

The carousers, these male Magdalens, have a secret consciousness of their innocence, which is not unlike that maintained by the female Magdalens, and which is based on the same hope of forgiveness. ” She will be forgiven because she has loved so much, and he will be forgiven because he has amused himself so much ! “

Dolokhov, who during that year had again appeared in Moscow after his exile and Persian adventures, and who led the luxurious life of a gambler and a carouser, became very intimate with his old St. Petersburg comrade, Ku ragin, and made use of him for his purposes.

Anatdl sincerely loved Ddlokhov for his intellect and for his daring. Dolokhov, who needed the name, the distinction, and the connections of Anatdl Ku ragin, in order to entice rich young men into his company of gamblers, gave his time to him, without letting him know what he needed him for. Outside of this calculation, for which he needed Anatdl, the very process of directing somebody else’s will was an enjoyment, a habit, and a necessity for Dolokhov.

Natasha had produced a strong impression on Kurâgin. At the supper which followed the theatrical performance, he, with the knowledge of a connoisseur, expatiated before Dolokhov on the qualities of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair, and declared to him his intention of paying her assiduous attention. Anatdl was not able to see or comprehend, as he never did, what would be the result of his act.

” She is fine, my friend, but not for us,” Ddlokhov said to him.

“I will tell my sister to invite her to dinner,” said Anatol. ” Eh ? ”

« You had better wait until she gets married —”

” You know,” said Anatdl, “ j adore les petites filles : and this will soon be lost.”

” You were caught once on a petite fille,” said Dolokhov, who knew of his marriage. ” Look out ! ”

“But I can’t get caught twee on it? Eh?” said Anatol, with a good-natured smile.

XII.

On the day following the theatre the Rostdvs did not go out calling, and nobody called on them. Marya Dmitrievna had some secret conversations with Count Bostdv, so that Natäsha could not hear them. Natäsha divined that they were talking about the old prince, and that they were planning something, and this made her restless and offended her. She expected Prince Andréy at any moment, and on that day sent the janitor twice to the Vzdvfzhenka to find out whether he had arrived. She was now more oppressed than during the first days of her arrival. To her impatience and pining for him there were now added the unpleasant recollection of her meeting with Princess Marya and with the old prince, and that terror and uneasiness, the cause of which she did not know. It seemed to her that he would never come, or that something would happen to her before he came. She could not, as she had been in the habit of doing, think calmly and persistently of him, when she was all alone. The moment she began to think of him, there immediately mingled with this memory the recollection about the old prince, about Princess Marya, about the last performance, and about Kuragin. The question again presented itself to her, whether she was not guilty, and whether her fidelity to Prince Andréy had not been impaired, and again she caught herself recalling, down to their minutest details, every word, every gesture, every shade of the play of features on the face of that man who had been able to rouse in her an incomprehensible and terrible sensation.

To the thinking of the people of the house, Natasha looked more animated than usual, but she was far from being so calm and happy as before.

On Sunday morning Märya Dmitrievna invited her guests to mass in her parish church of the Ascension in the Mogfltsi.

” I do not like these new-fashioned churches,” she said, apparently priding herself on her liberalism. ” God is the same everywhere. We have a fine pope ; he serves beautifully and nobly, and so does the deacon. What holiness is there in having them give concerts in the choir ? I do not like it, — it is not devotion.”

Märya Dmitrievna was fond of the Sundays, and knew how to celebrate them. Her house was always washed and cleaned on Saturday ; the servants and she herself did not work on Sunday, but, dressing themselves in gala attire, all went to the mass. Courses were added to the dinner, and the servants received vodka and a roast goose or pig. But in nothing was the holiday so perceptible as in the broad, stern face of Märya Dmitrievna, who on that day assumed an unchangeable expression of solemnity.

When coffee had been served after mass, in the drawingroom, where the slips had been removed from all the furniture, a lackey announced to Märya Dmitrievna that the carriage was ready, and she, wearing her gala shawl, in which she made visits, rose with a stern look and announced that she was going to Prince Nikoläy Andréevich Bolkénski, to have a talk with him in regard to Natäsha.

After Märya Dmitrievna’s departure, a modiste from Madame Chalmé came to see Natäsha, and Natäsha, closing the door of the room adjoining the drawingroom, and glad to have a diversion, busied herself with trying on the new garments. Just as she had put on a basted, sleeveless bodice, and was turning back her head in order to see how the back fitted, she heard in the drawingroom the animated voices of her father and another, a woman’s voice, which made her blush. It was Hélène’s voice. Natasha had not yet taken off the bodice, when the door was opened, and in came Countess Bezukhi, wearing a dark olive velvet gown, with a high collar, and beaming with a good-natured and kindly smile.

” Ah, ma délicieuse !” she said to blushing Natasha. ” Charmante ! No, my dear count, this is abominable,” she said to Ilyä Andreevich, who had followed her into the room, “ to be in Moscow and not to go out calling. No, I will not desist ! This evening Mlle. Georges is going to declaim in my house, and there will be a few guests, and if you will not bring your beauties, who are more beautiful than Mlle. Georges, I will not know you. My husband is away : he has gone to Tver, or else 1 should send him after you. Be sure to come, by all means, at nine o’clock.”

She nodded to the modiste, whom she knew, and who made a respectful bow, and seated herself on a chair near the mirror, picturesquely scattering the folds of her velvet gown. She never stopped chatting good-naturedly and merrily, going all the time into ecstasies over Natasha’s beauty. She examined her gowns and praised them, and she also spoke highly of her new gown en gaze métallique which she had received from Paris, and advised Natasha to get one like it.

“ However, any gown will be becoming to you, my charming girl,” she said.

A smile of joy never left Natdsha’s face. She felt herself happy, and blossomed out under the praises of this sweet Countess Bezukhi, who before had appeared to her such a sinful and important lady, and who now was so good to her. Natasha felt happy, and was almost in love with such a beautiful and good-natured woman. Hélène, on her side, took sincere delight in Natasha and wanted to give her a good time. Anatdl had asked her to bring Natäsha and him together, and so she had come to see the Kostdvs. She was pleased with the idea of bringing her brother together with Natäsha.

Although she at one time had been annoyed at Natdsha for having alienated Boris from her in St. Petersburg, she did not even think of it now, and with her whole soul, in her own way, wished Natasha good. As she was about to leave, she called her protégée to one side.

” My brother dined with me yesterday ; we almost died with laughter, — for he did not eat anything and kept sighing for you, my charming maid. Il est fou, mais fou amoureux de vous, ma chère.”

Natasha blushed purple, as she heard these words.

” How she blushes, how she blushes, ma délicieuse ! ” said Hélène. “ Come by all means ! Si vous aimez quelqu’un, ma délicieuse, ce n’est pas une raison pour se cloitrer. Si meme vous êtes promise, je suis sure que votre promis aurait désire que vous alliez dans le monde en son absence plutôt que de périr d’ennui.”

” Evidently she knows that I am a fiancée ; evidently she and her husband, Pierre, that just Pierre,” thought Natasha, ” have spoken and laughed of it. Consequently it is all right.” And again, under the influence of Hélène, that which formerly had seemed terrible now appeared simple and natural. ” And she, such a grande dame, such a dear woman, evidently loves me with all her heart — Why should I not amuse myself ? ” thought Natâsha, looking at Hélène with surprised, widely open eyes.

At dinner-time Marya Dmitrievna returned ; she looked serious and taciturn, having evidently been defeated by the old prince. She was still too agitated from the conflict which had taken place to be able calmly to tell what had happened. To the count’s question she replied that everything was well, and that she would tell him the next day about it. Upon hearing of the visit of Countess

Bezukhi and of her having invited Natasha, Marya Dmitrievna said:

” I do not like to have anything to do with Countess Bezukhi, and I advise you to keep away ; but since you have already promised her, go and have a good time,” she added, turning to Natasha.

XIII.

Count Ilyâ Andréevich took his girls to Countess Bezukhi. There were quite a number of people at her soirée, and nearly all were strangers to Natdsha. Count Ilyâ Andréevich noticed with displeasure that all the company consisted of men and women who were known for their dissoluteness. There were there also a few Frenchmen, among them Métivier, who, ever since the arrival of Hélène, had been an intimate of her house. Count Ilyâ Andréevich decided not to sit down playing cards, not to leave his girls, and to go as soon as the declamation of Mlle. Georges was over.

Anatél had apparently been waiting at the door for the Rostévs. Having exchanged greetings with the count, he went up to Natasha and followed her. The moment Natdsha saw him, the same pleasurable sensation of vanity at pleasing him, which she had experienced in the theatre, and of fear on account of the absence of all moral barriers between them, took possession of her.

Hélène received Natasha with open hands, and was loud in the praise of her beauty and toilet. Soon after their arrival, Mlle. Georges left the room in order to change her attire. Chairs were being placed in the drawingroom, and people began to sit down. Anatél moved a chair up for Natâsha and was on the point of sitting down by her side; but the count, who did not take his eyes off her, sat down by her side. Anatél sat down behind her.

Mlle. Georges, with fat, dimpled, bare arms, wearing a red shawl which was thrown over her shoulders, walked out through the aisle left open for her, and stood up in an unnatural pose. There was heard a whisper of transport.

Mlle. Georges sternly and morosely surveyed her audience and began to recite French verses, which treated of the criminal love of a mother for her son. She now raised her voice and now spoke in a whisper, triumphantly raising her head ; occasionally she stopped, with a rale in her throat and rolling her eyes.

” Adorable, divin, délicieux ! ” was heard on all sides.

Natasha looked at fat Mlle. Georges, but did not hear anything, and did not see or comprehend what was going on before her ; she only felt herself completely and irretrievably lost in this strange, senseless world, which was so remote from her former world, in that world where it was impossible to know what was good, what bad, what sensible, and what senseless. Anatdl sat behind her, and she, conscious of his proximity, was waiting for something to happen.

After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded Mlle. Georges to express their delight.

” How beautiful she is ! ” Natasha said to her father, who rose with the rest and was making his way through the throng toward the actress.

” I do not find her so, as I look at you,” said Anatdl, who was following Natasha. He said this at a time when no one else could hear it. ” You are charming — From the moment when I first saw you, I did not quit — “

” Come, come, Natäsha,” said the count, coming back after his daughter. “How beautiful she is!”

Without saying a word, Natasha walked over to her father and looked at him with surprised and interrogative eyes.

After having recited a few pieces, Mlle. Georges left, and Countess Bezukhi asked her guests to the parlour.

The count wanted to leave, but Hélène begged him not to spoil her improvised ball. The Rostdvs remained. Anatdl engaged Natasha for a waltz, and during the dance he, pressing her waist and hand, told her that she was ” ravissante ” and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which she again danced with Kurdgin, Anatdl, being all alone with her, did not say anything, but only looked at her. Natasha was in doubt whether it was not in a dream that he had told her those tilings during the waltz. At the end of the first figure he again pressed her hand. Natasha raised her frightened eyes at him ; but there was such a selfconfident and tender expression in his kindly glance and smile that, looking at him, she was unable to tell him that which she ought to have told him. She lowered her eyes.

” Do not tell me such things, — I am engaged and love another — ” she spoke rapidly. She looked at him.

Anatdl was not embarrassed by what she had told him.

” Don’t tell me about that ! What do I care about it ? ” he said. “ I tell you that I am insanely in love with you. Is it my fault that you are entrancing ? We must begin.”

Natdsha, animated and agitated, looked about her with wide-open, frightened eyes, and looked more cheerful than ever. She comprehended hardly a thing of what was taking place on that evening. They danced an écossaise and a ” grandfather,” and her father asked her to go home, but she begged him to let her stay. Wherever she was, with whomsoever she spoke, she was conscious of his glance upon her. Then she remembered having asked her father’s permission to go to the cloak-room in order to adjust her dress; she remembered that Hélène came out after her, telling her, laughingly, about her brother’s love for her, and that in a small sofaroom she again met Anatdl, when Hélène disappeared, and they were left alone, whereupon Anatdl took her hand and said, in a tender voice:

” I cannot come to see you ; but is it possible I shall never see you again ? I am senselessly in love with you. Shall it never be ? ” and, barring her way, he approached his face to hers.

The glistening, large eyes of that man were so close to hers that she saw nothing but these eyes.

“ Natalie ? ” his voice said, in an interrogative whisper, and somebody pressed her hand, painfully. “Natalie?”

” I understand nothing, — there is nothing for me to say,” her glance said.

Burning lips were pressed upon hers, and at the same moment she felt herself again free, and in the room was heard the noise of steps and of Hélène’s rustling gown. Natasha looked back at Hélène, then, blushing and trembling, gazed at him with a frightened glance, and walked over to the door.

“ Un mot, un seul, au nom de Dieu ! ” said Anatol.

She stopped. She needed so much that word which would explain to her what had happened, and to which she would reply.

“Natalie, un mot, un seul!” he repeated, apparently not knowing what to say, and he kept repeating it until Hélène came up.

Hélène went with Natasha to the drawingroom. The Rostovs left without staying for supper.

Upon returning home, Natasha did not sleep the whole night : she was tormented by the undecided question whom she was loving, Anatol or Prince Andréy. She loved Prince Andréy, — she remembered clearly how much she loved him. But she also loved Anatol, — there was no doubt about that.

” How could it have happened otherwise ? ” she thought. ” If after that I was able, at parting, to reply with a smile to his smile, if I could have admitted all that, then it must be that I have loved him from the start. Consequently he is good, noble, and beautiful, and it was impossible not to love him. What shall I do, since I love him and also love another?” she said to herself, finding no answer to these terrible questions.

XIV.

The morning came with its cares and tribulations. All rose, stirred, began to talk. The modistes came again, and again Märya Dmitrievna came out, and a lackey called to tea. Natdsha, with wide-open eyes, as though wishing to catch every glance which might be directed toward her, looked restlessly at everybody and tried to look as usual.

After breakfast, Marya Dmitrievna (that was her best time), seating herself in her chair, called up Natésha and the old count.

” Well, my friends, I have now considered the whole matter, and here is my advice,” she began. ” Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince Nikolày ; well, I had a talk with him — He took it into his head to shout ; but it is hard to outdo me in shouting ! I gave it to him ! “

« What did he say ? ” asked the count.

“ What did he say ? He was crazy, and did not want to listen. We have tormented the girl long enough,” said Mdrya Dmitrievna. ” It is my advice to settle your affairs here and go back to Oträdnoe — and wait there — ”

” Oh, no ! ” cried Natdsha.

“I say you must go back,” said Marya Dmitrievna, ” and there wait. When your fiancé comes back, there will be trouble ; he will settle matters with the old man by himself, and then he will come to see you.”

Ilyd Andréevich approved of this proposition, seeing at once how reasonable it was. If the old prince should yield, it would be better afterward to come to Moscow or Lÿsyya Géry ; if they were to be married against his will, that would have to happen at Otrâdnoe and nowhere else.

” Quite true,” he said. ” I am sorry that I went to see him and that I have brought her along,” said the old count.

” No, why should you be sorry ? Once here, you could not have done otherwise than pay him your respects. And if he does not want to, it is his affair,” said Mdrya Dmitrievna, looking for something in her reticule. ” Your trousseau is all ready, so why should you stay here any longer ? I will send you such things as are not yet done. Though I hate to part from you, you had better go, and God be with you ! ” Having found in her reticule that which she had been looking for, she handed it to Natasha. It was a letter from Princess Marya. ” Here is a letter for you. How the poor girl suffers ! She is afraid lest you should think that she does not love you.”

” She does not love me,” said Natasha.

“Nonsense! Do not say that!” shouted Marya Dmitrievna.

“ I will not believe a soul ! I know that she does not love me,” Natäsha said, boldly, taking the letter, and in her face there was expressed dry, evil determination, which caused Marya Dmitrievna to look more steadily at her and to frown.

” My dear, don’t talk that way ! ” she said. ” What I say is sure. Write her an answer ! ”

Natasha made no reply and went to her room to read Princess Marya’s letter.

Princess Marya wrote that she was in despair on account of the misunderstanding which they had had. Whatever the sentiments of her father might be, so Princess Marya wrote, she asked Natàsha to believe that she could not help loving the one her brother had chosen, her brother, for whom she was prepared to sacrifice everything.

“ Still,” she wrote, ” do not think that my father is ill-disposed toward you. He is an ailing old man, who has to be excused ; but he is good and magnanimous, and will love the one who will make his son happy.”

Princess Märya proceeded to ask Natdsha to appoint a time when she could see her.

Having read the letter, Natasha sat down at the writing-table in order to write a reply. ” Chère princesse,” she wrote rapidly and mechanically. What else could she write after what had happened the night before ? ” Yes, yes, all that has happened, and now everything is different,” she thought, sitting over the letter which she had commenced. ” Must I refuse him ? Must I ? It is terrible ! ” And, in order not to think these terrible thoughts, she went to Sénya, and began with her to study some designs.

After dinner Natdsha went to her room, and again took up Princess Marya’s letter. “ Is all ended ? ” she thought. ” Has really all happened so quickly, and has it destroyed what has been ? ” She recalled with all her power her former love for Prince Andréy, and, at the same time, felt that she loved Kurdgin. She vividly imagined herself as the wife of Prince Andréy, represented to herself the frequently imagined picture of happiness with him, and, at the same time, heated with excitement, she thought of all the details of her meeting with Anatol of the previous evening.

” Why can it not be side by side ? ” she sometimes thought, in complete obfuscation. “ Only then should I be entirely happy, but now I must choose, and yet I cannot be happy with only one of the two. It is equally impossible for me to tell Prince Andréy what has happened, or to conceal it,” she thought. “With this one nothing has as yet been spoiled. But shall I for ever part from this happiness of love for Prince Andréy, by which I have lived so long ? ”

” Countess,” a maid, entering the room, whispered to her in a mysterious way, “ a man has asked me to give this to you.” The girl handed her a letter. “ Only for Christ’s sake — ” the girl continued to speak, while Natäsha, without thought, mechanically broke the seal and read Anatdl’s love-letter, from which she understood only that it was from him, from a man whom she loved. “ Yes, she loves, for how could otherwise that have happened which actually had happened ? How could a love-letter have been in her hands ? “

Natâsha held with trembling hands this impassioned love-letter which had been composed for Anatdl by D61o-khov, and, reading it, she found in it echoes of that which she thought she herself felt.

” With last night my fate has been decided : I must either be loved by you, or die. I have no other way,” began the letter. Then he wrote that he knew her parents would not let him, Anatél, have her, that there were for it secret reasons which he could reveal to her in person only, and that, if she loved him, she had only to say the word ” Yes ! ” and no human power would ever interfere with their bliss. Love conquers all. He would ravish her and would take her to the end of the universe.

” Yes, yes, I love him ‘ ” thought Natdsha, reading his letter for the twentieth time, and trying to discover some especial, deep meaning in each word.

During that evening Marya Dmitrievna intended to go to the Arkhärovs, and invited the young ladies to go with her. Natasha remained at home, under the pretext of a headache.

XV.

Upon returning home late in the evening, Sdnya entered NaUsha’s room, and, to her astonishment, found her undressed and asleep on the sofa. On the table near her, lay Anatdl’s letter. Sdnya took it up and began to read it.

She read it and looked at sleeping Natasha, trying to find in her face an explanation of what she was reading, but in vain. Her face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clasping her bosom, in order not to strangle, Sdnya, pale and trembling from fear and agitation, sat down in a chair and burst out weeping.

“How is it I did not see anything? How could it have gone so far? Is it possible she no longer loves Prince Andréy ? And how could she have allowed Kurägin to go so far ? He is a cheat and a rascal, so much is certain. What will become of Nicolas, of sweet, noble Nicolas, when he hears of this ? So this is what her agitated, determined, and unnatural face of the other day, and yesterday, and to-day meant ! ” thought S6nya. ” But it is impossible that she should love him ! No doubt she did not know from whom it was when she opened this letter. No doubt she is offended. She cannot do this ! “

Sdnya wiped her tears and went up to Natdsha, again to look into her face.

” Natäsha ! ” she said to her, in a very low voice.

Natdsha awoke and noticed Sdnya.

“ Oh, you have come back ? “

And with the determination and tenderness frequently displayed at moments of waking, she embraced her friend ; but, upon noticing the confusion in Sonya’s face, her own expressed embarrassment and suspicion.

” Sonya, have you read the letter ? ” she asked.

” Yes,” Sonya said, softly.

Natasha smiled a rapturous smile.

” No, Sonya, I cannot conceal it any longer ! ” she said. ” I cannot keep it from you. You know, we love each other ! Sonya, dear, he writes — Sonya — “

Sonya looked into Natasha’s eyes, as though she did not believe her ears.

” And Bolkbnski ? ” she said.

” Oh, Sonya, if you could only know how happy I am!” said Natasha. ” You do not know what love is ! “

” But, Natasha, is that other love all ended ? ”

Natasha looked at Sonya with her large, open eyes, as though she did not understand her question.

” Do you refuse Prince Andréy ? ” asked Sonya.

” Oh, you do not understand a thing. Don’t speak such foolishness ! Listen ! ” Natasha said, with passing annoyance.

” No, I cannot believe it,” repeated Sonya. ” I do not understand it. How could you have loved one man for a whole year, and then suddenly— You have seen him but three times. Natasha, I do not believe you, — you are only jesting. To forget so in three days, and so —”

” Three days ! ” said Natasha. ” It seems to me that I have loved him for one hundred years. It seems to me that I have never before loved a man so much. You cannot comprehend it. Sonya, wait, sit down, here ! “

Natdsha embraced and kissed her.

” I have been told that these things happen, and you have no doubt heard of it, but it is only now that I am experiencing this love. It is quite different from what it was before. The moment I saw him I felt that he was my lord, and I his slave, and that I could not help loving him. What can I do ? What can I do, Sdnya ? ” said Natasha, with a happy and frightened face.

” But just think what you are doing,” said Sbnya. ” I cannot leave it this way. These secret letters— How could you have permitted it ? ” she said, in terror and disgust, which she could not conceal.

” I told you,” answered Natésha, ” that I have no will. Can’t you understand me? I love him !”

” I will not let it come to anything : I will tell about it,” Sdnya cried, while her tears welled.

” For God’s sake, what do you mean ? If you tell it, you are my enemy,” said Natdsha. ” You want my misfortune, — you want us to be separated —”

Upon seeing this fear of Natdsha, Sdnya wept tears of shame and pity for her friend.

” What has there been between you ? ” she asked. ” What did he tell you ? Why does he not call at the house ? ”

Natasha made no reply to these questions.

” For God’s sake, don’t tell anybody ! Don’t torment me ! ” Natasha implored her. ” Remember that no one dare meddle with such matters. I have confided to you — ”

” But why these secrets ? Why does he not call at the house ? ” asked Sonya. “ Why does he not ask for your hand in a straightforward manner ? Prince Andréy has given you full liberty, if it comes to that; but I do not believe it. Natasha, have you thought what his secret causes may be ? ”

Natäsha looked with wondering eyes at Sénya. Apparently the question presented itself to her for the first time, and she did not know what to say to it.

” I do not know what the causes are, — but there must be some causes ! ”

Sonya sighed and shook her head incredulously.

“If there were any causes — ” she began.

But Natäsha, divining her doubts, interrupted her in fright.

” Sdnya, you must not doubt him, you must not ! You understand ? ” she cried.

” Does he love you ? “

“ Does he love me ? ” Natasha repeated the question, with a smile of compassion for the weak comprehension of her friend. ” You have read the letter, and you have seen him ! “

“ But if he is a man without honour ? “

“He? A man without honour? If you only knew him ! ” said Natdsha.

“ If he is an honourable man, he must either announce his intention, or he must stop seeing you ; and if you will not do it, I will : I will tell papa,” Sdnya said, with determination.

” I cannot live without him ! ” cried Natäsha.

“Natasha, I do not understand you. What are you talking about ? Think of your father and of Nicolas.”

“ I do not want to know anybody, — I do not love anybody but him. How dare you say that he is a man without honour? Do you not know that I love him ? ” cried Natâsha. “ Sdnya, go away ! I do not want to quarrel with you. Go away, for God’s sake: you see how I suffer,” angrily cried Natasha, in a voice of reserved irritation and despair.

Sônya burst out weeping and ran out of the room.

Natasha went up to the table and, without thinking a moment, wrote to Princess Marya the answer which she had been unable to sketch the whole morning. In this letter she briefly wrote to Princess Märya that all their misunderstandings were ended, that, making use of the magnanimity of Prince Andréy, who before departing had given her full liberty, she asked her to forget everything and to forgive her if she had done her any wrong, but that she could not be his wife. All this seemed so easy, so simple, and so clear to her at that moment.

On Friday the Rostdvs were to leave for the country, and on Wednesday the count went with the buyer to his suburban estate.

On the day of the count’s departure Sdnya and Natàsha were invited to dinner at the Kardgins, and Märya Dmitrievna took them there. At this dinner Natäsha again met Anatdl, and Sonya noticed that Natasha spoke to him so as not to be heard, and that during the dinner she was more agitated than ever. Upon returning home, Natäsha was the first to begin, the explanation, for which Sdnya had been waiting.

” Now, Sdnya, you have been saying all kinds of foolish things about him,” Natésha began, in the gentle voice in which children speak when they want to be praised. ” We have had an explanation to-day.”

“ Well, what is it ? What did he tell you ? Natasha, how glad I am that you are not angry with me. Tell me the truth, the whole truth ! What did he tell you ? ”

Natäsha fell to musing.

“ Ah, Sdnya, if you knew him as I know him ! He said— He asked me how I had promised Bolkdnski. He was glad that I had it in my power to refuse.”

Sonya heaved a sad sigh.

“ But you have not refused Bolkänski,” she said.

“ Maybe I have ! Maybe all is ended with Bolkdnski. Why do you think so ill of me ? ”

“ I do not think anything ; but I do not understand — ”

“ Wait, Sdnya, you will understand everything. You will see what kind of a man he is. You must not think ill of me, or of him. I do not think ill of anybody : I love everybody, and I pity everybody. But what shall Ido?”

Sonya did not yield to the gentle tone with which Natäsha turned to her. The softer and the more imploring Natasha’s face became, the more severe and the more serious did Sdnya’s look.

“ Natäsha, you asked me not to speak with you, and so I did not say anything; but now you yourself have begun. Natäsha, I do not trust him. Why this mystery ? “

“ Again, again ! ” Natasha interrupted her.

“ Natasha, I am afraid for you.”

“ What is there to be afraid of ? ”

” I am afraid that you will ruin yourself,” Sonya said, with determination, herself frightened at what she said.

Natäsha’s face again expressed anger.

” I will ruin myself ; I will ruin myself as fast as I can. It is none of your business. It is I who will suffer from it, and not you. Leave me ! Leave me ! I hate you ! “

” Natasha ! ” Sdnya exclaimed, in fright.

” I hate you ! I hate you ! You are my enemy for ever.”

Natasha ran out of the room.

Natasha did not speak again with Sonya and avoided her. With the same expression of agitated surprise and culpability, she kept walking from one room to another, taking up now one occupation, and now another, and immediately giving it up.

Though it was hard on Sonya, she followed her companion everywhere, without taking her eyes off her.

On the eve of the day when the count was to have returned, Sonya noticed that Natasha was sitting all morning at the window of the drawingroom, as though waiting for something, and that she made some kind of a sign to a military man who passed by in a carriage, and whom Sonya took to be Anatäl.

Sonya began to watch her friend more carefully, and she noticed that Natäsha was during the dinner and later in the afternoon in a strange, unnatural state (answering questions at haphazard, beginning and not finishing sentences, and laughing at everything).

After tea Sonya saw a timid-looking chambermaid, who was waiting for her at Natäsha’s door. She allowed her to pass by and, listening at the door, she found out that a letter had been taken in.

Suddenly it dawned upon Sonya that Natäsha had some desperate plan for the evening. Sbnya knocked at her door. Natäsha did not let her in.

” She will elope with him ! ” thought Sdnya. ” She is capable of everything. To-day there has been something pitiful and determinate in her face. She wept as she bade uncle goodbye,” Sdnya thought. “Yes, that is it: she will run away with him, — but what shall I do?” Sdnya recalled all the signs which proved conclusively that Natäsha had some terrible purpose in view. ” The count is not here. What shall I do ? Shall I write to Kurägin, asking for an explanation from him ? Shall I write to Pierre, as Prince Andréy asked us to do in case of misfortune ? But, maybe, she has already refused Bolkdnski, as she says she has done.” (Natäsha had on the previous day sent the letter to Princess Märya.) ” Uncle is not at home ! ” It seemed terrible to Sonya to tell to Märya Dmitrievna, who had such implicit faith in Natäsha. “Some way or other,” thought Sonya, standing in the dark corridor, “ now or never has come the time to prove that I remember the benefactions of the family and that I love Nicolas. No, if I have to stay awake three nights, I will not leave this corridor, and by force I will prevent her going, and will not allow disgrace to come on their family,” she thought.

XVI.

Anatol had of late moved to Dolokhov’s quarters. The plan of Natasha’s rape had been thought out and prepared by Ddlokhov several days before, and on the day when Sdnya, listening at Natdsha’s door, had made up her mind that she would watch over her, the plan was to be carried into effect. Natasha had promised to come out at ten o’clock by the back porch, in order to meet Kurägin. Kurägin was to put her in a trdyka which was ready waiting and to take her sixty miles away, to the village of Kamenka, where an unfrocked pope was to marry them. In Kamenka there was waiting for them a wagon, which was to take them out to the Warsaw highway, where a post-chaise was to take them abroad.

Anatdl had a passport, and a travelling permit, and ten thousand roubles in money, which he had procured with Dolokhov’s aid.

Two witnesses, Khvostikov, an ex-scribe of the court, whom Dolokhov employed in his gambling transactions, and Makarin, an ex-hussar, a good-natured and weak man, who had an unlimited love for Kurdgin, were sitting in the first room, drinking tea.

In Dolokhov’s large cabinet, which was adorned from the ceiling to the floor with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, Dolokhov, in travelling coat and boots, was sitting before an open bureau, on which lay an abacus and packages of money. Anatol, in an unbuttoned uniform, was walking from the room where the two witnesses were sitting across the cabinet to a back room, where his French lackey and others were packing the last things for him. Dolokhov counted his money, and made some notes.

” Well,” he said, ” Khvdstikov has to get two thousand.”

“ All right, give him that amount ! ” said Anatdl.

” Makärka ” (thus they nicknamed Makarin) ” will go unselfishly through fire and water for your sake. This is all there is to the account,” said Ddlokhov, showing him the note. ” Is it correct ? ”

” Yes, of course, yes,” said Anatdl, who evidently was not listening to Ddlokhov, and who was looking in front of him with a smile winch never left his face.

Ddlokhov shut the bureau drawer with a slam and turned to Anatol with a sarcastic smile. “ Do you know what I advise you ? Give it up, — there is time yet,” he said.

” Fool ! ” said Anatdl. ” Stop talking nonsense. If you knew — The devil knows what it is ! ”

« Truly, give it up ! ” said Dolokhov. ” I am telling you what is right. What you have undertaken is not a joke.”

” Are you going to tease me again and again ? Go to the devil ! Eh ? ” Anatdl said, frowning. ” Really, I do not feel like listening to your stupid jokes.”

He left the room.

Délokhov smiled disdainfully and condescendingly, when Anatdl had left.

” Wait,” he cried through the door to AnatdL “ I am not jesting. I am telling you what is right. Come here ! “

Anatol again entered the room, and, trying to concentrate his attention, he looked at Dolokhov, apparently submitting to him involuntarily.

” Listen to me : I am talking to you for the last time. Why should I be jesting with you ? Did I interfere with your plans ? Who has arranged everything for you ? Who found you a pope? Who took out a passport? Who procured the money ? I did it all.”

” Well, I am grateful to you for it. Do you think I am not ? “

Anatdl sighed and embraced Dolokhov.

” I have helped you. But still, I must tell you the truth: it is a dangerous business and, if you come to consider it, a stupid business. Grant that you take her away. Do you suppose that will be left unpunished ? It will be found out that you are married already. You will be subject to criminal prosecution.”

” Oh, foolishness, foolishness ! ” Anatdl, frowning, said once more. ” I have explained the whole matter to you. Eh ? ” And, with that peculiar bias for personal ratiocinations, which dull people possess, Anatdl repeated the reflection which he had told Dolokhov a hundred times before. ” I have told you that it is my firm will : if this marriage is void,” he said, bending down one finger, ” then I am not responsible ; and if it is valid, then nobody will know anything abroad. How is this ? Don’t talk to me, don’t talk to me ! ”

” Truly, give it up ! You will only tie your hands — ”

” Go to the devil ! ” said Anatdl. Taking hold of his hair, he left the room; but he returned immediately and sat down with his feet on a chair near Dolokhov. ” The devil knows what this is ! Eh ? See how it beats ! ” He took Dolokhov’s hand and put it to his heart. ” Ah ! quel pied, mon cher ! Quel régard ! Une déesse ! Eh?”

Ddlokhov, smiling coldly and with a sparkle in his beautiful, impudent eyes, looked at him as though he wished to have his fun with him.

” When your money gives out, what then ? “

” What then ? Eh ? ” Anatdl repeated, with sincere perplexity at the thought of the future. ” What then ? I do not know — What is the use of talking such nonsense ? ” He looked at his watch. ” It is time ! “

Anatdl went to the back room.

” How much longer will it take you ? You are dreadfully slow ! ” he shouted to the servants.

Dolokhov put away the money and, calling a servant to give him something to eat and drink before starting on the journey, he went to the room where sat Khvdstikov and Makarin.

Anatdl lay in the cabinet on the sofa, leaning on his arm. He smiled while reflecting on something, and gently whispered something to himself with his handsome mouth.

” Go, eat something ! Take a drink ! ” Ddlokhov shouted to him from the other room.

” I do not want to ! ” replied Anatdl, continuing to smile.

” Go ! Baldga has come.”

Anatdl rose and went to the dining-room. Baldga was a well-known driver of trdykas, who had known Ddlokhov and Anatdl for more than six years, and had driven trdykas for them. More than once, when Anatdl’s regiment was stationed in Tver, he in the evening had started with him from Tver, getting him by daybreak to Moscow, and on the next evening just as expeditiously had taken him back to Tver. More than once had he driven Ddlokhov away from pursuit ; more than once had he taken them out over the city with gipsies and ” little ladies,” as he called them. More than once had he, working for them, crushed people and carriages in Moscow, and always his masters, as he called them, saved him from prosecution. He had killed more than one horse in their service. He had often been beaten by them, and often they had filled him up with champagne and Madeira, which he was fond of, and he knew more than one exploit of theirs which would have sent an ordinary man to Siberia. During their carousals they frequently called Baldga in and made him drink and dance with the gipsies, and more than once a thousand roubles had passed through his hands. In serving them, he twenty times a year risked his life and his hide, and in working for them he had worn out more horses than they had paid him for. But he loved them ; he loved that reckless driving at eighteen versts an hour ; he loved to tip over a cab and crush a passer-by in Moscow and to dart past at full speed through the streets. He loved to hear behind him that savage shout of drunken voices, ” Faster ! Faster!” when it was not possible to go faster than he did ; he loved to give a peasant a painful whack over his back, though even without it he was frightened and more dead than alive in trying to get out of the way. “ They are real gentlemen !” he thought of them.

Anatél and Ddlokhov, too, loved Balâga for his masterly driving, and because he was fond of what they themselves liked. With others Baläga haggled, asking as much as twenty-five roubles for a two hours’ ride, and with others he rarely went himself, but only sent some of his fine fellows. With his ” masters,” as he called them, he always drove himself and never asked anything for his work. But learning from their valets when they had money, he came once every few months, early in the morning, when he was still sober, and, bowing low, he asked them to get him out of trouble. The masters told him to sit down.

“Save me, dear sir Fédor Ivänych,” or “your Serenity,” he would say. “ I am without horses, so let me have as much as you can so I can go to the fair to buy some.”

And Anatél and Dolokhov, being flush, gave him a thousand or two thousand roubles.

Balâga was light-complexioned, with a red face and an especially red, stout neck, a thick-set, snubnosed peasant of about twentyseven years of age, with small, sparkling eyes and a small beard. He wore a thin blue caftan with silk fining, which he wore over a short fur coat.

He made the sign of the cross toward the front corner and walked over to Dolokhov, extending his small tanned hand.

” My respect to Fédor Ivänych ! ” he said, bowing.

” Good evening, friend. Here he is ! ”

” Good evening, your Serenity,” he said to Anatol, who had just entered, extending his hand to him also.

” I tell you, Balaga,” said Anatél, putting his hands on his shoulders, “ do you love me, or not ? Eh ? Do me now a great favour— What horses have you brought with you ? Eh ? ”

” As your messenger has ordered it, — I have brought your savage ones,” said Balaga.

” Listen, Baläga ! Kill your whole troyka, but you must get me there in three hours. Eh ? ”

“ If I kill them, how shall we get there ? ” said Balàga, winking.

” I will smash your mug, if you jest,” Anatél suddenly shouted, rolling his eyes.

” Why should I jest ? ” the driver said, laughing. “ You don’t suppose I will be easy on the horses when I have to serve my masters ! We will drive as fast as the horses can travel ! ”

” Ah ! ” said Anatol. ” Sit down ! ”

“ Why don’t you sit down ? ” said Dolokhov.

” I can stand, Fédor Ivànych.”

” Don’t talk nonsense, and sit down ! Here, drink ! ” said Anatél, who had filled a large glass of Madeira for him.

The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. At first he refused it for politeness’ sake, then he drank it and wiped his lips with a silk handkerchief which lay inside his cap.

” Well, when are we to start, your Serenity ? ”

” At once — ” Anatél looked at his watch. “ This very minute. Remember, Baldga ! Eh ? Will you make it ? ”

“If the start is all right, there is no reason why we can’t get there,” said Balàga. ” I have taken you to Tver in seven hours. Your Serenity probably remembers it ! “

” Do you know, I once was coming from Tver for Ohristmas,” said Anatdl, with a reminiscent smile, turning to Makärin, who was humbly gazing at Kuràgin, ” would you believe it, Makarka, we flew so that I could hardly breathe. We drove into a procession of wagons and leaped over two of them. Eh ? “

” Those were fine horses ! ” Balàga continued the story. ” I then hitched young side horses with the sorrel centre horse,” he addressed Dolokhov, ” and would you believe it, Fédor Ivànych, the beasts ran sixty versts ; I could not hold the reins, my hands were so stiff from the frost. I threw down the lines and asked his Serenity to take them, and myself rolled down into the sleigh. There was no need of driving them : it was really hard to check them. The devils brought us to Moscow in three hours. Only the left horse died.”

XVII.

Anatôl left the room and a few minutes later returned in a fur coat girded with a silver belt, and in a sable cap which was dashingly poised on his head and which was very becoming to his handsome face. He looked at himself in the mirror and, striking the same attitude before Ddlokhov, he took up a glass of wine.

“ Well, Fédya, farewell ! Thank you for everything, — farewell!” said Anatdl. “Well, friends and companions”— he thought for a moment — “of my youth — farewell ! ” he turned to Makärin and the others.

Although all were going to travel with him, Anatdl evidently wanted to make something pathetic and solemn out of his address to his companions. He spoke in a slow, loud voice, and, thrusting forward his chest, kept swinging one of his legs.

“ All of you take your glasses ! You, too, Balàga. Well, companions, friends of my youth, we have caroused, and lived, and caroused. Eh ? When shall we see each other again? I am going abroad. We have passed pleasant times, now farewell, boys ! To your healths ! Hurrah ! ” he said, drinking his glass and smashing it against the ground.

” Farewell,” said Balàga, also emptying his glass and wiping his lips with his handkerchief.

Makärin, with tears in his eyes, embraced Anatdl.

” 0 prince, how it pains me to part with you! ” he muttered.

“ Let us start ! ” cried Anatél.

Balâga was on the point of leaving the room.

“ No, wait ! ” said Anatôl. “ Shut the door ! Sit down ! Like this ! “

The door was shut and all sat down.

“ Now, march, boys ! ” Anatdl said, getting up.

Lackey Joseph handed Anatol his sabretasche and sabre, and all went out into the antechamber.

” Where is the fur coat ? ” said Délokhov. ” Oh, Ignatka ‘ Go to Matréna Matvyéevna, and ask for a fur coat, a sable cloak. I know what is to be done when you elope,” said Dolokhov, winking. ” She will jump out of the house more dead than alive and having nothing over her. The least delay you make, there will be tears and all about papa, and mamma, and ‘ I am frozen ! ‘ and back home again, — but you receive her in a fur coat and carry her to the sleigh.”

The lackey brought a woman’s fox-fur cloak.

” Stupid, I told you a sable cloak ! Oh, Matréshka, a sable cloak ! ” he shouted in such a voice that it could be heard through all the rooms.

A pretty, slender, pale gipsy woman, with sparkling black eyes and curly black hair with a bluish sheen, wearing a red shawl, came running out with a sable cloak on her arm.

“Well, I do not begrudge it,” she said, apparently intimidated by her master and really sorry about her sable cloak.

Délokhov took the cloak, without replying to her, threw it over Matréshka, and wrapped her up in it.

” Like this,” said Délokhov. ” And then like this,” he said, raising the collar about her head so as to leave a small opening in front of her face. “ Then like this, — do you see ? ” and he moved Anatél’s head up to the opening left by the collar, from which could be seen Matréshka’s beaming smile.

” Goodbye, Matréshka,” said Anatol, kissing her. ” My carousals are at an end here ! Give my regards to Stéshka. Goodbye ! Goodbye, Matréshka ! Wish me good luck !”

” May God grant you much happiness,” said Matréshka, in her gipsy brogue.

At the porch stood two tréykas, which were held by two sturdy drivers. Baläga sat down in the front troyka and, raising high his elbows, he began to straighten out the reins. Anatdl and Délokhov entered his sleigh. Makérin, Khvéstikov and a lackey sat down in the other tréyka.

” Are you ready ? ” asked Baläga.

“ Let her go ! ” he shouted, winding the reins around his hands, and the tréyka flew down the Nikitski Boulevard.

” Whoa ! Come now ! Whoa ! ” were heard the shouts of Balaga and the sturdy fellow who was sitting on the box. On the Arbdt Square the troyka caught in a carriage, something crackled, a shout was heard, but the troyka flew down the Arbät.

After driving two blocks down the Podnovfnski Boulevard, Baléga began to check his horses and, turning back, stopped them at the cross street of the Old Mews.

The sturdy fellow leaped down to hold the horses by their bridles, while Anatol and Délokhov walked down the sidewalk. As they reached a gate, Dolokhov whistled. There was a reply, and immediately afterward a maid ran out.

” Go in toward the door, or else you will be seen. She will come out at once,” she said.

Dolokhov remained at the door. Anatol entered the yard after the maid, turned around a corner, and ran up a porch.

Gavrflo, the enormous footman of Märya Dmitrievna, met Anatdl.

” Please come to the lady ! ” the footman said in a bass voice, barring his way.

” To what lady ? And who are you ? ” Anatdl asked, in a breathless whisper.

” If you please, I am told to take you there ! “

” Kurkin, baek ! ” shouted Ddlokhov. ” Treason ! Hack! “

Ddlokhov fought at the gate, where he had stopped, with the janitor, who was trying to lock the gate after him. Dolokhov with his last effort pushed the janitor aside and, grasping the hand of Anatdl, who came running out, pulled him out beyond the gate, and ran back with him to the trdyka.

XVIII.

Mak ya Dmitrievna, finding tearful Sonya in the corridor, made her confess everything. Intercepting Natäsha’s note and reading it, Marya Dmitrievna with the note in her hand went in to see Natasha.

“ Shameless girl ! Disgraceful girl ! ” she said to her. ” I do not want to hear a word ! “

Pushing aside Natäsha, who stood with wondering, but dry eyes, she locked the door, and, ordering the janitor to let in the men, who were to come in the evening, but not to let them out again, and telling the footman to bring these men into her presence, she sat down in the drawingroom to wait for the ravishers.

When Gavrilo came to report to Marya Dmitrievna that the men had run away, she rose with a frown and, folding her hands behind her back, walked up and down in the room and considered what was to be done. At midnight she felt for the key in her pocket and went to Natasha’s room. Sonya was sitting in the corridor and sobbing.

” Mdrya Dmitrievna, let me go in and see her, for God’s sake ! ” she said.

Mäiya Dmitrievna made no reply to her, but opened the door and entered.

« It is bad, it is base — In my house — Disgraceful gir] I — I am only sorry for your father ! ” thought Mdrya Dmitrievna, trying to quench her anger. « However hard it may be, I will make every one keep quiet about it, and I will keep it secret from the count. “

Mdrya Dmitrievna entered the room with determined steps. Natasha was lying on the sofa, with her hands on her head, and did not stir. She was lying in the same position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her.

“ Nice, very nice ! ” said Marya Dmitrievna. ” To appoint a meeting for your lovers in my house ! You need not pretend ! Listen to what I have to say to you ! ” Mdrya Dmitrievna touched her hand. ” Listen to what I have to tell you ! You have disgraced yourself like the lowest kind of a girl. I should know what to do with you, but I am sorry for your father. I will conceal it.”

Natdsha did not change her position, but her whole body began to be convulsed with voiceless sobs, which choked her. Mdrya Dmitrievna looked back at Sdnya and sat down on the sofa near Natasha.

“ It is lucky for him that he has escaped from me ; but I will find him,” she said, in her coarse voice. “ Do you hear what I am saying ? ”

She put her hand under Natdsha’s face, and turned her toward her. Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were surprised when they saw Natdsha’s face. Her eyes sparkled and were dry, her lips were compressed; her cheeks were fallen in.

” Leave — me — what do I care — I will — die — ” she said, tearing herself away from Mdrya Dmitrievna with an expression of anger, and returning to her old position.

” Natasha ! ” said Marya Dmitrievna. ” I wish you nothing but good. Lie as you please, I will not touch you, but listen ! T will not say anything about your guilt. You know that yourself. Tomorrow your father will be back, — what shall I tell him ? “

Again Natdsha’s body was convulsed with sobs.

” What will happen when he finds it out, and your brother, and your fiancé ? ”

” I have no fiancé, — I have refused him,” exclaimed Natdsha.

” It makes no difference,” continued Mdrya Dmitrievna. “ When they find it out, do you suppose they will leave it without consequences ? If your father — I know him too well — calls him out to a duel, it will be nice, will it not ? Eh ? ”

“ Oh, leave me alone ! Why did you interfere ? Why ? Why ? Who asked you to ? ” cried Natdsha, raising herself on the sofa and casting an angry glance at Mdrya Dmitrievna.

” What did you expect ? ” Mdrya Dmitrievna called out again, in excitement. “ You were not locked up in the house, were you ? What prevented his coming to the house ? Why should he carry you away like some gipsy woman ? Do you suppose that, if he had taken you away, he could not have been found ? Your father, or brother, or fiancé would find him. But he is a worthless man and a scoundrel, that is what he is ! “

“He is better than any of you,” exclaimed Natdsha, rising. ” If you had not interfered — All, my God, what is this ? What is it ? Sonya, why do you treat me this way ? Go away ! “

And she burst out into sobs, with that despair with which people lament a sorrow of which they feel themselves to be the cause. Mdrya Dmitrievna began to speak once more ; but Natdsha shouted :

” Go away ! You hate and despise me ! ” and she again threw herself down on the sofa.

Mdrya Dmitrievna continued for some time to admonish Natdsha and to impress on her that all this must be concealed from the count, and that nobody would find out anything, if only Natdsha would promise to forget everything and to look as though nothing had happened. Natdsha made no reply. She did not even sob again, but she shook with a chill. Mdrya Dmitrievna fixed the pillow for her, covered her with two coverlets, and herself went to bring her linden tea, but Natdsha paid no attention to her.

” Let her sleep ‘ ” said Màrya Dmitrievna, as she left the room, thinking that she was asleep. But Natâsha was not asleep : she gazed with wide-open, arrested eyes out of her pale face into the distance. That night Natdsha did not sleep, nor weep, nor speak with Sonya, who got up several times and went to see her.

On the following morning, at breakfast, Count Ilyä Andréevich returned from the suburban estate. He was very happy : the matter had been settled with the purchaser, and nothing now kept him in Moscow, so he could go back to the countess, for whom he was getting homesick. Märya Dmitrievna met him and informed him that Natasha had become quite ill the day before, that a doctor had been sent for, and that now she was much better. Natasha did not leave her room on that morning. With compressed, cracked lips and dry, arrested eyes she sat at the window, looking restlessly at the passers-by in the street, and casting hurried glances at those who entered the room. She was apparently waiting for some news from him, or expecting him to come to see her or write her a letter.

When the count entered her room, she turned restlessly around at the sound of masculine steps, and her face assumed the old cold and even evil expression. She did not even get up to meet him.

” What is the matter -with you, my angel ? Are you ill ? ” asked the count.

Natdsha was silent.

” Yes, I am ill,” she replied.

To the uneasy questioning of the count why she looked so downcast and whether something had happened to her fiancé, she assured him that there was nothing the matter, and asked him not to worry. Marya Dmitrievna confirmed Natàsha’s assurances to him that nothing had happened. The count, judging from the feigned illness, the disturbed condition of his daughter, the confused faces of Sdnya and Mdrya Dmitrievna, saw plainly that something must have taken place during his absence. But it shocked him so much to think that anything disgraceful should have happened to his favourite daughter, and he was so very fond of his cheerful calm that he avoided any further questions and tried to persuade himself that nothing had taken place, and he worried only because her indisposition delayed the departure to the country.

XIX.

Ever since the arrival of his wife in Moscow, Pierre had been getting ready to leave, just so as not to be with her. Soon after the arrival of the Rostévs, the impression which Natdsha produced on him urged him to hasten the execution of his plan. He went to Tver to see Osip Aleksyéevich’s widow, who had long ago promised to give him her husband’s papers.

When Pierre returned to Moscow, he was handed a letter from Marya Dmitrievna, who called him to her house on an important matter which concerned Andréy Bolkdnski and his fiancée. Pierre had been avoiding Natàsha. It seemed to him that he experienced a feeling for her which was stronger than what a married man should have toward the fiancée of his friend. And yet some kind of fate kept bringing them together.

” What has happened ? What do they want of me ? ” he thought, as he dressed himself, in order to call on Marya Dmitrievna. ” If Prince Andréy would only come at once and marry her ! ” thought Pierre, on his way to Marya Dmitrievna.

On the Tver Boulevard somebody called him.

” Pierre ! How long have you been back ?” a familiar voice exclaimed. Pierre raised his head. In a sleigh drawn by a span of two gray trotters, winch sent the snow flying against the dashboard, there flashed by Anatdl with his constant companion, Makärin. Anatdl was sitting straight, in the classical pose of army dandies, the lower part of his head being wrapped in a beaver collar, and his head itself slightly inclined. His face was ruddy and fresh, his hat with the white panache was poised toward one side, displaying his curled and pomaded hair, which was bespattered with tiny snowflakes.

” Truly he is a real sage ! ” thought Pierre. ” He does not see a thing beyond the present moment of pleasure, nothing troubles him, and so he is always happy, satisfied, and calm. “What would I not give to be like him!” Pierre thought, with envy.

In the antechamber of Madame Akhrasimov the lackey, taking off Pierre’s fur coat, said that Mdrya Dmitrievna asked him to come to her sleeping-room.

Upon opening the door of the parlour Pierre saw Natdsha, who was sitting at the window with a pale, thin, and angry face. She looked back at him, frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold reserve.

” What has happened ? ” Pierre asked, as he entered Märya Dmitrievna’s sleeping-room.

“Fine things,” replied Marya Dmitrievna. “I have lived fifty-eight years in this world, without seeing a disgrace to equal this.” And, making Pierre promise that he would keep to himself everything he was going to hear, Marya Dmitrievna informed him that Natäsha had refused her fiancé without the knowledge of her parents, and that the cause of this refusal was Anatol Kurdgin, into whose society she had been thrown by Pierre’s wife, and with whom she had intended to elope during the absence of her father, in order to get clandestinely married to him.

Pierre raised his shoulders and opened wide his mouth, listening to what Mérya Dmitrievna was telling him, and not believing his ears. For the fiancée of Prince Andréy, who was so loved by him, for that sweet Natäsha Rostov, to exchange Bolkénski for that fool of an Anatdl, who was already married (Pierre knew the secret of his marriage), and so to fall in love with him as to be ready to run away with him ! Pierre could not understand it, and could not form a correct idea of it.

The gentle impression produced on him by Natâsha, whom he had known since childhood, could not unite in his soul with the new concept of her baseness, stupidity, and cruelty. He recalled his wife. ” They are all alike,” he said to himself, thinking that he was not the only one whose sad lot it was to be united to a base woman. Still, he was heartily sorry for Prince Andréy, sorry for his injured pride. And the more he felt sorry for his friend, the more he thought with contempt, and even disgust, of this Natasha, who had just crossed the room with such an expression of cold disdain. He did not know that Natasha’s soul was filled with despair, shame, humiliation, and that it was not her fault if her face expressed calm dignity and severity.

” To get married ! ” Pierre exclaimed, in response to Mdrya Dmitrievna’s words. ” He could not marry her, he is married already.”

” It is getting worse and worse ! ” said Mârya Dmitrievna. “ A fine lad ! What a scoundrel ! And she is waiting for him, — has been waiting for him these two days. You must tell her so, then she will, at least, stop waiting.”

Having learned of Pierre the details of Amatol’s marriage, and having eased her anger by cursing him, Mdrya Dmitrievna informed him why she had sent for him : Märya Dmitrievna was afraid that the count or Bolkdnski who might arrive any moment, would, upon learning of the matter, which she was trying to conceal, challenge Kurägin to a duel, and so she asked him to order his brother-in-law in her name to leave Moscow, and never to show himself to her. Pierre promised that he would carry out her wish, only now comprehending the danger which was threatening the old count and Nikolay and Prince Andréy. Having briefly and clearly given him her instructions, she allowed him to pass to the drawingroom.

” Remember, the count knows nothing ! ” she said to him. “ And I will go and tell her that she has nothing to wait for. Stay to dinner if you want to,” Mdrya Dmitrievna called out to Pierre.

Pierre met the old count. He was confused and disturbed. Natäsha had told him that morning that she had refused Bolkdnski.

” There is trouble, mon cher,” he said to Pierre. ” There is trouble with these girls, if their mothers are not with them : I am so sorry I came. I will be frank with you. She has refused her fiancé, without asking anybody’s advice. I cannot say I was very happy about the forthcoming marriage. It is true, he is a good man, but there would be no happiness against his father’s will, and Natdsha will not be left without a husband. But still, it has been going on so long, and why should she have done it without her parents’ knowledge ? Now she is ill, and God knows what the matter is ! There is trouble, count, there is trouble with daughters when the mother is not around — ”

Pierre saw that the count was very much distracted, and so he tried to change the subject, but the count continually returned to his woe.

Sénya entered the room, with a disturbed expression on her face.

“ Natasha is not very well ; she is in her room and would like to see you. Mdrya Dmitrievna is with her and she, too, begs you to come.”

” Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkénski’s : no doubt she wants to send some message to him,” said the count. ” 0 Lord, O Lord ! How good everything has been ! ” Clutching the sparse locks of his gray hair, the count left the room.

Mdrya Dmitrievna had informed Natäsha that Anatdl was married. Natasha would not believe her and demanded a confirmation of this statement from Pierre. Sonya told this to Pierre as she was leading him through the corridor to Natäsha’s room.

Natäsha sat pale and stern by Marya Dmitrievna’s side, meeting Pierre at the very door with a feverishly glistening and interrogative glance. She did not smile, nor nod, but only looked stubbornly at him, and her glance seemed to ask whether he was her friend, or just such an enemy as the rest, so far as Anatdl was concerned. Pierre in himself did not exist for her.

“ He knows it all,” said Marya Dmitrievna, pointing to Pierre and turning to Natésha. ” He will tell you whether I am telling you the truth.”

Just as a wounded and baited animal looks at the approaching dogs and the hunters, so Natdsha looked now at one, and now at another.

“Natdsha Ilinichna,” began Pierre, lowering his eyes and experiencing a feeling of pity for her and of disgust for the operation which he was to undertake, — ” it ought to make no difference to you whether it is true, or not, because — ”

” So it is not true that he is married ! ”

” It is true.”

” He has been married, and long ? ” she asked. ” Your word of honour ? “

Pierre gave her his word of honour.

” Is he still here ? ” she asked, rapidly.

” Yes. I have just seen him.”

She had apparently no strength to proceed, and made signs with her hands to be left alone.

Pierre did not remain to dinner, but immediately left the room and went away. He drove through the city to find Anatdl Kurägin, at the thought of whom his whole blood rushed to his heart, and be experienced a difficulty in drawing breath. He was not on the hills, nor at the gipsies, nor at Comoneno’s. Pierre drove to the club. In the club everything was going on in the usual manner: the guests who had come to dine were sitting in groups and telling each other the city news. They exchanged greetings with Pierre. A lackey, who saluted him, knowing his habit, informed him that a place was reserved for him in the small dining-room, that Prince N–-N–-was in the library, and T–-T–-had

not yet arrived. One of Pierre’s acquaintances asked, after having mentioned the condition of the weather, whether he had heard of the rape of Natasha Rostov by Kurdgin, of which everybody in the city was speaking, and whether it was true. Pierre, laughing, said that it was bosh, because he had just called on the Rostdvs. He asked all whether they had seen Anatdl. One told him that he had not yet been in the club, while another informed him that he was to dine there. Pierre felt strangely as he looked at this indifferent crowd of people, who did not know what was going on in his soul. He walked up and down in the parlour, waited for all to assemble, and, without waiting for Anatdl’s arrival, and without dining, went home.

Anatdl, whom he had been looking for, on that day dined with Dolokhov, where he consulted him on what was to be done in order to mend the spoilt business. It seemed to him necessary to meet Natasha. In the evening he went to his sister, in order to discuss with her the means for arranging this meeting. When Pierre, having in vain searched for him throughout Moscow, returned home, the valet informed him that Count Anatél Vasîlich was with the countess. The drawingroom of the countess was filled with guests.

Without greeting his wife, whom he had not seen since his arrival (she was more repulsive than ever to him), Pierre entered the drawingroom and, upon seeing Anatél, walked over to him.

“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess, going up to him. ” You do not know in what predicament our Anatél is ! ” She stopped when she saw in his drooping head, in his glistening eyes, and in his determined gait that terrible expression of rage and strength, which she was familiar with and which she had encountered herself after the duel with Dolokhov.

“Wherever you are, there is debauchery and evil,” Pierre said to his wife. ” Anatél, come, I have to talk to you ! ” he said to him, in French.

Anatol looked at his sister and got up submissively, ready to follow Pierre.

Pierre took hold of his arm, jerked him toward him, and left the room.

“Si vous vous permettez dans mon salon” Hélène said, in a whisper ; but Pierre left the room, without making any reply.

Anatol followed him with his usual dashing swagger, but there was unrest in his face.

Upon reaching his cabinet, Pierre shut the door, and turned to Anatol, without looking at him.

” Did you promise Countess Bostév that you would marry her, and did you wish to carry her off ? “

” My dear,” Anatél replied in French (in which the whole conversation was carried on), “I do not consider myself under obligations to answer to questions put to me in such a tone.”

Pierre’s face, which had been pale before, was now disfigured by rage. He grabbed Anatol by the collar of his uniform with his large hand and began to shake him from side to side until Anatél’s face assumed quite an expression of fright.

” When I say that I must speak with you — ” repeated Pierre.

“ But this is stupid. Eh ? ” said Anatol, fingering the button of his collar which had been pulled out with the cloth.

“ You are a worthless man and a scoundrel, and I do not know what it is that keeps me from smashing your head with this,” said Pierre, expressing himself so elaborately because he was speaking in French. He picked up a heavy paper-weight, raised it threateningly, and put it down hurriedly.

” Did you promise to marry her ? ”

” I — I — I did not mean to. Beally, I never promised her, because — ”

Pierre interrupted him.

” Have you her letters ? Have you her letters ? ” Pierre repeated, moving up toward him.

Anatél looked at him, and immediately put his hand in his pocket and took out his pocketbook.

Pierre took the letter handed to him and, pushing aside a table which was in his way, threw himself down on a sofa.

“ Je ne serai pas violent, ne craignez rien” said Pierre, in response to Anatol’s frightened gesture. ” The letters are one thing,” said Pierre, as though repeating a lesson to himself. “The second thing is,” he continued, after a moment’s silence, rising again and beginning to walk around, ” that you must leave Moscow tomorrow.”

” How can I ? “

” The third thing,” he continued, without listening to him, ” you must never mention a word of what has been between you and the countess. I know that I cannot keep you from doing this, but if there is a spark of conscience in you — ” Pierre crossed the room several times in silence.

Anatdl sat at the table, frowning and biting his lips.

“ You are unable to comprehend that outside your pleasure there is the happiness and peace of others, and that you are ruining a whole life because you want to amuse yourself. Amuse yourself with women who resemble my wife, — with these you are in your element, and they know what it is you want. They are armed against you by the same experience of debauchery ; but to promise a girl to marry her — to deceive, steal— Can’t you understand that that is as base as striking an old man or a child ? “

Pierre grew silent and looked at Anatdl, not with an angry, but with a questioning glance.

” I do not know that. Eh ? ” said Anatol, getting bolder in proportion as Pierre mastered his anger. ” I do not know it, and do not want to know it,” he said, without looking at Pierre, and with a slight quivering of his lower jaw, “ but you have told me terrible words : ‘ base ‘ and such like, which I comme un homme d’honneur will not allow any one to use.”

Pierre looked at him in surprise, unable to comprehend what it was he wanted.

“Though it was not in the presence of witnesses,” continued Anat<51, “yet I cannot — ”

” Well, you want satisfaction ? ” Pierre said, sarcastically.

“At least, you can take back your words. Eh? If you wish me to carry out your wish. Eh ? ”

“I take them back, I take them back,” said Pierre, “ and I ask you to excuse me.” Pierre looked involuntarily at the button of Anatol’s uniform which was pulled off.

“ I will give you money if you need it for the journey.”

Anatol smiled.

The timid and base smile, an expression familiar to

Pierre from his wife, completely upset him.

“ Oh, base, heartless race ! ” he said, leaving the room.

On the next day Anatdl left the city for St. Petersburg.

XXI.

Pierre went to Mdrya Dmitrievna to inform her of the execution of her desire, — of the expulsion of Kurdgin from Moscow. The whole house was in terror and agitation. Natasha was very ill ; the very night that she had been informed of Anatéî’s marriage, she had poisoned herself with arsenic, which she had somehow procured. After having swallowed a little of it, she became so frightened that she woke up Sdnya, to whom she told what she had done. The proper measures were taken at once, and now she was out of danger ; but she was still so feeble that it was not possible to take her to the country, and the countess was sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count and tearful Sonya, but was unable to see Natasha.

On that day Pierre dined in the club, where he heard on all sides conversations about the attempted rape of Natdsha, which he stubbornly denied, assuring every one that all there was to it was that his brother-in-law had proposed to her and had received a refusal. It seemed to Pierre that it was his duty to conceal the matter and to rehabilitate Natasha’s character.

He was waiting in terror for the return of Prince Andréy, and he went every day to the old prince to find out whether he had arrived.

Prince Nikoldy Andréevich had learned through Mlle. Bourienne all the rumours which were current in the city, and had read the note to Princess Mdrya in which Natasha refused her fiancé. He seemed to be more cheerful than ever, and with great impatience waited for the return of his son.

A few days after the departure of Anatdl, Pierre received a note from Prince Andréy announcing his arrival and asking Pierre to call on him.

Prince Andréy, soon after his arrival in Moscow, received from his father Natasha’s note to Princess Marya, in which she refused her fiancé (Mlle. Bourienne had abstracted it from Princess Mdrya, and had handed it to the old prince), and heard from his father an elaborated account of Natdsha’s rape.

Prince Andréy had arrived in the evening. Pierre called on him the following morning. Pierre had expected to find Prince Andréy in the same condition in which Natdsha was, and so was surprised when, upon entering the drawingroom, he heard in the cabinet Prince Andréy’s loud voice, telling with animation about some St. Petersburg intrigue. The old prince and somebody else’s voice now and then interrupted him. Princess Marya came out to meet Pierre. She sighed, indicating with her eyes the door where Prince Andréy was, apparently wishing to express her compassion for his sorrow; but Pierre could see by Princess Marya’s face that she was glad of what had happened, and of the way her brother had received the news of his fiancée’s treason.

“He said that he had expected it,” she said. ” I know that his pride will not permit him to express his sentiments ; still, he has borne it better, much better, than I had expected. Apparently it had to be — “

“ But is it really all ended ? ” asked Pierre.

Princess Mdrya looked at him in surprise. She could not see how one could ask such a question. Pierre went to the cabinet. Prince Andréy, very much changed and obviously looking more mature, but with a new transverse wrinkle between his eyebrows, wearing a civilian’s clothes, was standing opposite his father and Prince Meshchérski, excitedly discussing something and making energetic gestures. They were talking about Speränski, the news of whose sudden deportation and supposed treason had just reached Moscow.

” Now all those whoa month ago were in raptures over him judge and condemn him,” said Prince Andréy, ” and so do all those who are unable to comprehend him. It is very easy to condemn a man who is in disgrace, and to throw on his shoulders everybody’s faults ; but I will say that if anything good has been done in the present reign, it was done by him alone — ” He stopped, when he saw Pierre. His face twitched and immediately assumed an evil expression. ” Posterity will do him justice,” he finished, and immediately turned to Pierre.

” How are you ? You are getting fatter all the time,” he said, with animation, but the new wrinkle cut a deep furrow on his brow. “ Yes, I am well,” he, smiling, replied to Pierre’s question.

It was evident to Pierre that his smile meant : “I am well, but who cares for my health ? ” Having said a few words to Pierre about the terrible road from the Polish border on, and about how he had met people in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and about M. Desalles, whom he had brought with him from abroad as his son’s tutor, Prince Andréy again returned with fervour to the conversation about Speränski, which had been continued between the two old men.

” If there were anything treasonable, and if there were any proofs of his secret relations with Napoleon, they would have been proclaimed,” he said, speaking rapidly and excitedly. ” I personally have never loved Speränski, but I love justice.”

Pierre recognized in his friend the familiar necessity of becoming agitated and of disputing a matter which was foreign to him merely in order to drown his oppressive thoughts.

After Prince Meshchérski had left, Prince Andréy took Pierre’s arm and invited him to his room, which had been prepared for him. A bed stood in the room, and portmanteaus and boxes lay open. Prince Andréy went up to one of them and took out a small casket. From the casket he took a small bundle wrapped up in paper. He did everything in silence and with rapid motions. He rose and cleared his throat. His face looked morose, and his lips were compressed.

” Forgive me for troubling you — ”

Pierre understood that Prince Andréy wanted to speak of Natäsha, and his broad face expressed compassion and sympathy. This expression of Pierre’s face irritated Prince Andréy ; he continued in a determined, sonorous, but disagreeable voice :

” I, have received a refusal from Countess Rostov, and rumours have reached me of the suit, or something of the kind, of your brother-in-law. Is it true ? ”

” Both true and untrue,” began Pierre ; but Prince Andréy interrupted him.

” Here are her letters and her portrait,” he said.

He took the bundle from the table and handed it to Pierre.

” She is very ill,” said Pierre.

“So she is still here?” said Prince Andréy. “And Prince Kurägin ? ” he quickly asked.

” He has left long ago. She came near dying — ”

“ I am very sorry for her illness,” said Prince Andréy. He smiled coldly, malignantly, disagreeably, like his father.

“But it seems Prince Kurägin has not conferred his hand on Countess Rostév ? ” said Prince Andréy. He snorted several times.

“ He could not marry her because he is already married,” said Pierre.

Prince Andréy smiled a disagreeable smile, again reminding one of his father.

“ And where is he now, your brother-in-law ? ” he said.

“He has gone to St. Peter— However, I am not

sure,” said Pierre.

“ Well, it makes no difference,” said Prince Andréy. ” Tell Countess Rostov that she has been and still is quite free, and that I wish her much happiness.”

Pierre took the bundle of papers into his hands. Prince Andréy, as though recalling whether he had to say anything more, or as though waiting for Pierre to say something, looked at him fixedly.

“ Listen ! Do you remember our discussion in St. Petersburg ? ” said Pierre. ” Do you remember — ”

” I do,” Prince Andréy replied, hurriedly. ” I said that one must forgive a fallen woman, but I did not say that I could. I cannot.”

“ Is there any comparison ? ” said Pierre.

Prince Andréy interrupted him. He cried, in a piercing voice :

” Yes, again to ask for her hand, to be magnanimous, and such like ? Yes, that is very noble, but I am not capable of going sur les Irisées de monsieur. If you want to be my friend, never speak to me again about this — about the whole matter. Well, goodbye. So you -will transmit — ”

Pierre left and went to the old prince and to Princess Marya.

The old man seemed to be more animated than ever. Princess Marya was the same as ever, but, back of her sympathy for her brother, Pierre saw her joy because of the rupture. Looking at them, Pierre understood what contempt they had had for the Rostovs, and he saw that it was not even possible to mention the name of the one who had dared to exchange Prince Andréy for anybody else.

At dinner the conversation turned on the war, the approach of which seemed to be inevitable. Prince Andréy talked without intermission, disputing now with his father, and now with Desail es, the Swiss tutor, and looked more animated than ever. The moral cause of this animation Pierre knew only too well.

XXII.

On that evening Pierre went to see the Rostdvs in order to carry out his orders. Natasha was in bed ; the count was at the club, and Pierre, having turned over the letters to Sonya, went to see Mdrya Dmitrievna, who was interested to find out how Prince Andréy had received the news. Ten minutes later Sdnya entered the room.

“Natasha wants to see Count Pierre Kirillovich at once,” she said.

” Well, how can we take you there ? The room is not at all tidied,” said Marya Dmitrievna.

“ No, she is dressed and is waiting in the drawingroom,” said Sonya.

Marya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders.

” When will the countess be here ? She has worn me out. Beware of telling her everything,” she turned to Pierre. “ I have not the courage to scold her, — for I am so sorry for her ! ”

Natàsha, emaciated, pale, and stem (not at all abashed, as Pierre had expected to find her), was standing in the middle of the drawingroom. When Pierre appeared at the door, she hesitated, apparently undecided whether she had better walk over to him or wait for him where she was.

Pierre hastened to come up to her. He thought that she would give him her hand, as usual, but she approached him and stopped, breathing heavily and allowing her arms to hang down lifelessly, precisely in the attitude in which she used to walk out to the middle of the room, but with a different expression on her face.

” Pierre Kirillovich,” she began to speak rapidly, “ Prince Bolkdnski was your friend, — he is your friend,” she corrected herself (it seemed to her that everything had been and was no longer). ” He told me then to turn to you — ”

Pierre snivelled, looking at her. He had been rebuking her, and had tried to despise her; but now he grew so sorry for her that there was no place for rebuke in his heart.

“ He is here now, so tell him — to — forgive me.”

She stopped and began to breathe more frequently, but she did not weep.

” Yes — I will tell him,” said Pierre, ” but — ” He did not know what to say.

Natdsha was apparently frightened at the idea which Pierre might have.

” No, I know that all is ended,” she said, hurriedly. “No, that can never be. I am only tormented by the wrong that I have done him. Tell him only that I ask him to forgive, to forgive, to forgive me for everything — ” She shook with her whole body and sat down on a chair.

An unfamiliar feeling of pity filled Pierre’s soul to the brim.

“ I will tell him. I will tell him once more,” said Pierre. ” But — I would like to know — ”

” What ? ” Natäsha’s glance asked.

” I would like to know whether you have loved — ” Pierre did not know how to name Anatdl, and he blushed at the idea. ” Have you loved that bad man ? ”

” Don’t call him bad,” said Natäsha. ” I know nothing — nothing — ” She again burst out into tears.

And a still greater sensation of pity, tenderness, and love took possession of Pierre. He could feel his tears coursing under his spectacles, and he hoped that they would not be noticed.

” Let us not speak of it again, my friend,” said Pierre.

This mild, gentle, heartfelt voice sounded so strange to Natdsha.

” Let us not speak of it, my friend ! I will tell him everything ; but I will ask you for one thing : regard me as your friend, and if you need assistance or advice, or simply if you feel like opening your heart to any one, — not now, but when everything is clear in your soul, — remember me ! ” He took her hand and kissed it. ” I will be happy if I am able — ” Pierre became embarrassed.

“ Do not speak to me this way : I do not deserve it ! ” cried Natasha. She wanted to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand. He knew that he had to tell her something ; but after he had said it, he himself marvelled at his words.

” Stop, stop ! All your life is ahead of you,” he said to her.

“ For me ? No ! For me all is lost,” she said, in shame and self-humiliation.

“ All is lost ? ” he repeated. ” If I were somebody else, a most handsome, clever, and good man in the world, and free, I would on my knees ask for your hand and love.”

Natésha for the first time after many days wept tears of gratitude and contrition. She looked at Pierre and left the room.

Pierre, too, ran out soon after her into the antechamber, repressing his tears of contrition and happiness, which choked him, and, without finding his way into the sleeves, put on his fur coat, and seated himself in the sleigh.

” Whither shall I go?” asked the coachman.

” Whither ? ” Pierre asked himself. ” Whither can I go now ? Shall I go to the club, or out calling ? ” All people seemed so pitiable, so poor in comparison with that feeling of contrition and love, which he was experiencing, in comparison with that last tender, grateful glance, which she had cast upon him through her tears.

” Home,” said Pierre, throwing his bear-fur coat wide open over his broad, joy-breathing breast, in spite of the ten degrees below zero.

It was cold and clear. Over the dirty, halfdark streets, over the black roofs, stood the dark, starry heaven. Pierre, who only looked at the heaven, did not feel the offensive baseness of everything terrestrial in comparison with the height upon which his soul was. Upon reaching the Arbdt Square, the enormous expanse of the starry, dark heaven was revealed to Pierre’s eyes. Almost in the middle of this heaven, above the Prechistenski Boulevard, there stood, surrounded and besprinkled on all sides by stars, but di Hering from all by its nearness to the earth, by its white light, and its long, upturned tail, the enormous comet of the year 1812, the very comet which, so it was said, portended all kinds of horrors and the end of the world. But in Pierre this bright star with its long, translucent tail did not evoke any feelings of terror. On the contrary, Pierre, with eyes wet with tears, looked at this bright star, which, having crossed immeasurable space in a parabolic curve and with incredible rapidity, seemed suddenly, like an arrow piercing the earth, to have adhered to this one chosen spot on the black heaven, and to have stopped, energetically raising its tail, illuminating and scintillating with its white light among the other numberless twinkling stars. It seemed to Pierre that this star fully corresponded to what there was in his contrite and refreshened soul, which was blossoming for a new life.

PART THE NINTH

I.

Toward the end of the year 1811 the Powers of Western Europe began a more active armament and concentration of their forces, and in 1812 these forces, consisting of millions of people (including those who transported and fed the army), moved from the West to the East, toward the boundaries of Russia, where, since the same year 1811, the Russian forces had been concentrating. On the 12th of June the forces of Western Europe crossed the boundaries of Russia, and the war began, that is, there took place an event which was contrary to human reason and to all human nature. Millions of people committed against each other an endless number of evil acts, deceits, treasons, thefts, forgery and the putting into circulation of spurious assignats, assaults, incendiarism, and murders, such as the chronicles of all the courts of the world will not record in ages, and yet such as at that time were not looked upon as crimes by the people who committed them.

What was it that had caused this extraordinary event ? What were its causes ? The historians say, with naïve conviction, that the causes of this event were the insult

offered to the Duke ok Oldenburg, the non-observance ok the continental system, Napoleon’s ambition, Alexander’s firmness, the mistakes of the diplomats, etc.

Consequently, it would have sufficed for Metternich, Rumyäntsev, or Talleyrand, between the appearance of the emperors at court and the receptions, to have made an effort and written a clever note, or for Napoleon to have written to Alexander, ” Monsieur mon frère, je consens à rendre le duché au Duc d’Oldenbourg,” and there would have been no war.

Naturally, the matter so appeared to the contemporaries. Naturally, it seemed to Napoleon that the cause of the war lay in the intrigues of England (as he expressed himself on the island of St. Helena). Naturally, it seemed to the members of the English Parliament that Napoleon’s ambition was the cause of the war ; to the Duke of Oldenburg that the cause of war lay in the insult to which he had been subjected ; to the merchants, that the cause of war lay in the continental system which was ruining Europe; to the old soldiers and generals, that the chief cause was to give them employment; to the legitimists of that time, that it was necessary to reestablish les bons principes ; and to the diplomatists of that time, that everything was due to the fact that Russia’s alliance with Austria in the year 1809 had not been kept sufficiently secret from Napoleon, and that the memorandum No. 178 had been awkwardly composed. Naturally, these causes and an endless, inexhaustible number of other causes, which number depends on the endless variety of standpoints, presented themselves to the contemporaries ; but to us, the descendants, who contemplate the grandeur of the event in all its volume, and who try to comprehend its simple and terrible meaning, these causes appear insufficient. It is incomprehensible to us that millions of Christians should have’killed each other because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, the diplomacy of England insidious, and the Duke of Oldenburg insulted. It is impossible to comprehend what connection these circumstances could have had with the fact of murder and violence itself ; why, because the duke had been insulted, thousands of people from the other end of Europe should have killed and ruined the people of the Governments of Smolénsk and Moscow, and should have been killed by them.

To us, the descendants, the non-historians, who are not carried away by the mere process of investigation, and who therefore contemplate the event with undimmed, healthy reason, the causes seem to be numberless. The more we devote ourselves to the investigation of the causes, the more of them are revealed to us, and all of them, taken singly, or a whole series of causes, appear to us equally just in themselves, and equally false on account of their insignificance in comparison with the grandeur of the event, and equally false on account of the impossibility of their having produced the event, without the participation of all other coincident causes. Napoleon’s refusal to take his army across the Vistula and to restore the dukedom of Oldenburg appears to us as no more a cause than the desire or reluctance of any French corporal to enlist for a second term, for, if he had refused to enter the service, and a second, third, and thousandth corporal and soldier had acted likewise, there would have been so many men less in Napoleon’s army, and there could have been no war.

If Napoleon had not been offended by the request to retreat beyond the Vistula and had not pommanded his troops to advance, there would have been no war; but, at the same time, if all the sergeants had been unwilling to reenlist, there could have been no war. Similarly there could have been no war, if there had been no English intrigues, and no Prince of Oldenburg, and no feeling of offence on the part of Alexander, and no autocratic power in Russia, and no French Revolution with the resulting dictatorship and empire, and all that which led up to the French Revolution, and so forth. Nothing could have happened in the absence of one of these causes. Consequently, all these causes, a billion causes, coincided in order to produce that which happened. Consequently, too, nothing was the exclusive cause of the event, and the event had to take place, because it had to. It was necessary for millions of people to renounce their human feelings and reason, and to march from the West to the East in order to kill their like, just as several centuries before throngs had come from the East to the West killing their like.

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words it seemed to depend whether the event was to take place or not, were as little arbitrary as the action of any soldier who went into the campaign by lot or by recruitment. It could not have been otherwise because, in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (of those people on whom the event seemed to have depended) should be fulfilled, there was needed the coincidence of an endless number of circumstances, without one of which the event could not have occurred. It was necessary for millions of people, in the hands of whom was the real power, for the soldiers who fired, and who transported the provisions and the guns, to agree to do the will of a few weak individuals, and to be brought to do tins by an endless number of complicated, complex causes.

Fatalism in history is necessary for the explanation of unreasonable events, that is, of such as we do not comprehend the reason. The more reasonably we attempt to explain these phenomena in history, the more unreasonable and unintelligible they become to us.

Every man lives for himself, enjoys liberty of action in striving after his personal ainls, and feels in his whole being that he may, or may not, do such and such an act at will ; but the moment he has done it, this action, committed at a given moment of time, becomes irretrievable and the property of history, in which it has not a free, but a preordained, meaning.

There are two sides in the life of each man : Iris personal life, which is free in proportion as its interests are in the abstract, and his elemental, beehive life, where a man unavoidably executes certain prescribed laws.

Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious weapon for the working out of historical, universal ends. An accomplished deed is irretrievable, and its action, coinciding in time with millions of actions of other men, assumes an historic importance. The higher a man stands in the social scale, the more numerous his relations are with other men, the greater is the power which he exercises over other men, and the more manifest is the preordination and inevitableness of his deed.

” The hearts of kings are in the hands of God.”

A king is a slave of history.

History, that is, the unconscious, general, beehive life of humanity, makes use of every minute of the lives of kings for itself, as a weapon for its own ends.

Though now, in the year 1812, it seemed to Napoleon that it more than ever depended upon him whether he would ” verser ” or ” ne pas verser le sang de ses peuples ” (as Alexander had written to him in his last letter), he never before had been so subjected to the inevitable laws which compelled him, though in respect to himself he thought he was acting at will, to do for the common course of events, for history, that which had to happen.

The men of the West moved toward the East to kill and be killed ; and, by the law of coincident causes, thousands of petty causes adapted themselves and coincided with this incident for the purpose of the movement and of the war: such were the dissatisfaction with the non-observance of the continental system ; and the Duke of Oldenburg ; and the movement of the armies into Prussia, undertaken, as Napoleon thought, simply in order to obtain armed peace ; and the love and bias of the French emperor for war, which coincided with the mood of his nation ; and the enthusiasm for the magnificence of the preparation ; and the expenses incurred for this preparation ; and the necessity of gaining such advantages as would recoup these expenses ; and the intoxicating honours which he had received in Dresden ; and the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of the contemporaries, had been introduced with the sincere desire to obtain peace and which only wounded the self-love of both parties ; and a million millions of other causes, which adapted themselves and coincided with the event about to happen.

When an apple is ripe and falls, — what is it that makes it fall ? Is it because it gravitates toward the earth, because the stem has dried up, because the sun withers it, because it is too heavy, because the wind knocks it down, because the boy who is standing underneath it wants to eat it ?

Nothing is the cause of it. All is only the coincidence of conditions under which every vital, organic, elemental event takes place. The botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue is decomposing, and so forth, is as much right as the little boy who, standing under the tree, will say that it fell because he wanted to eat it and because he had prayed for it. He who will say that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and that he perished because Alexander had wished for his destruction, will be as right or as wrong as he who will say that an undermined mountain weighing a million puds was made to crumble by the stroke of the last labourer’s sledge-hammer. In historical events, so called great men are the tags which label them, and have as little to do with the events themselves, as real tags have to do with the substance which they label.

Every action of theirs, which seems to them dependent on their own free will, is, in the historical sense, not free, but stands in relation to the whole course of history and has been predetermined from eternity.

II.

On the 29th of May, Napoleon left Dresden, where he had passed three weeks, surrounded by a court of princes, dukes, kings, and even one emperor. Before his departure, Napoleon showed his favour to the princes, kings, and the emperor, who had deserved it, scolded the kings and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented to the Queen of Austria his personal pearls and diamonds, that is, such as he had taken away from other kings, and, tenderly embracing Empress Maria Theresa, as his historian says, left her disconsolate at this parting, which she, Maria Theresa, who regarded herself as his wife, although another wife was living in Paris, seemed to be unable to endure.

Although the diplomatists were still firmly convinced of the possibility of peace and zealously worked for it, although Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Emperor Alexander, calling him ” Monsieur mon frère ” and assuring him sincerely that he did not wish any war, and that he would always love and respect him, — he departed for the army and gave at each station new orders, the purpose of which was to hasten the movement of the army from the West to the East. He travelled in a roadcarriage drawn by six horses, surrounded by pages, adjutants, and a convoy, on the highway toward Posen, Thorn, Dantzic, and Königsberg. In each of these cities thousands of people met him with trepidation and with enthusiasm.

The army was moving from the West to the East, and relays of six-spans carried him, too, thither. On the 10th of June he caught up with the army and stayed overnight in the forest of Wilkowiski, in quarters especially prepared for him in the estate of a Polish count.

On the next day, Napoleon, outdistancing the army, reached the Nyéman in a small carriage. He dressed himself in a Polish uniform and drove out to the bank of the river to examine the place of fording.

Upon seeing on the other side “les Cosaques” and the expanse of the steppes, in the midst of which was ” Moscou, la ville sainte,’’ the capital of the empire which resembled the Scythian empire whither Alexander of Macedon had gone, Napoleon suddenly ordered an advance, contrary to all strategic and diplomatic considerations, and, on the following day, his troops began to cross the Nyéman.

On the 12th, early in the morning, he left the tent which on that day had been pitched on the steep left bank of the Nyéman, and looked through the spy-glass at the streams of his troops issuing from the forest of Wilkowiski, and pouring over three bridges thrown across the river. The troops knew of the presence of the emperor, sought for him with their eyes, and when they discovered on the hill, in front of the tent, the figure in the long coat and the hat, which distinguished him from his suite, they threw up their hats and shouted, ” Vive VEmpereur ! ” and one after the other, without cessation, kept pouring forth from the immense wood which had concealed them heretofore, and, scattering, crossed to the other side over the three bridges.

” On fera du chemin cette fois-ci. Oh ! quand il s’en mêle lui-même, ça chauffe — Nom de Dieu — Le voilà ! — Vive VEmpereur ! — Les voilà donc, les steppes de l’Asie ! Vilain pays tout de même. Au revoir, Beauché, je te reserve le plus beau palais de Moscou. Au revoir, bonne chance — L’as tu vu, VEmpereur ? Vive VEmpereur ! — preur ! Si on me fait gouverneur aux Indes, Gérard, je te fais ministre du Cachemire, c’est arrête. Vive VEmpereur ! Vive ! Vive ! Vive ! Les gredins de cosaques, comme ils filent. Vive VEmpereur ! Le voilà ! Le vois-tu ? Je l’ai vu fois comme je te vois. Le petit caporal. Je l’ai vu donner la croix à l’un des vieux — Vive l’Empereur ! ” were heard the voices of old and young men, of all kinds of characters and positions in society. On all the faces of these people there was one common expression of joy at the beginning of the long expected campaign, and of enthusiasm and loyalty to the man in the gray coat, who was standing on the hill.

On the 13th of June, Napoleon was given a small, thoroughbred Arabian horse, and he mounted it and galloped up to one of the bridges, continually deafened by the shouts of transport, which he apparently bore only because it was impossible to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by shouting ; still, these cries, which accompanied him everywhere, vexed him and distracted his attention from the military cares that had taken possession of him ever since he had joined the army. He rode across one of the bridges which swayed on boats, turned sharply to the left, and galloped away in the direction of Kdvno, preceded by the chasseurs of the Guard, who, trembling with happiness and carried away by enthusiasm, cleared the road for him through the troops which were riding in front of him. Upon reaching the broad river Vistula, he stopped near a Polish regiment of uhlans, which was stationed on its bank.

” Vivat ! ” the Poles cried just as enthusiastically, breaking ranks and crushing each other in their desire to see him. Napoleon examined the river, dismounted from his horse, and sat down on a log which lay on the shore.

At a speechless sign of his, he was given a spy-glass, which he placed on the back of a happy page, who had run up to him, and through which he began to survey the opposite side. Then he was absorbed in the study of a map which had been spread between logs. Without raising his head, he said something, and two of his adjutants galloped up to the Polish uhlans.

« What ? What did he say ? ” were heard the questions in the ranks of the Polish uhlans, as one of the adjutants rode up to them.

The order was given to find a ford and cross the river. The Polish colonel of uhlans, a handsome old man, blushing and mixing up his words from excitement, asked the adjutant whether he would be permitted to swim with his uhlans across the river, without looking for a ford. With apparent fear lest he should be refused, like a boy who asks permission to get on a horse, he begged to be permitted to swim across in the presence of the emperor. The adjutant said that, no doubt, the emperor would not be dissatisfied with this superfluous zeal.

The moment the adjutant had said this, the old mustachioed officer with a happy face and sparkling eyes raised his sword, shouted ” Vivat ! ” gave the command to his uhlans to follow him, put spurs to the horse, and galloped up to the river. He gave an angry kick to the startled horse and splashed into the water, heading toward the deep current. Hundreds of uhlans galloped after him. In the middle of the stream and in the current the water was cold. The uhlans fell from their horses and clung to each other. Some of the horses were drowned, and so were some men ; the others tried to swim by holding on to the saddle or to the mane. They tried to swim straight ahead of them and, although there was a ford not more than half a verst away, were proud of swimming and drowning in the sight of the man who was sitting on a log and not even watching them. When the adjutant, upon returning, chose an appropriate moment in which to direct the emperor’s attention to the loyalty of the Poles to his person, the little man in the gray coat rose and, calling up Berthier, began to walk up and down along the shore, giving him orders, and now and then looking with dissatisfaction at the drowning uhlans, who diverted his attention.

It was not a new conviction for him that his presence in all the ends of the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy, both startled people and threw them into a madness of self-forgetfulness. He ordered up his horse and rode back to his camp.

About forty uhlans were drowned in the river, despite the assistance sent them by boat. The majority retreated to the shore from which they had started. The colonel and a few men swam the river and with difficulty climbed on the other shore. But the moment they got out, with the water streaming from their clothes, they shouted ” Vivat ! ” looking in ecstasy at the place where Napoleon had stood, but where he was no longer, and feeling themselves happy at that moment.

In the evening Napoleon, between two orders, — the one about furnishing immediately the counterfeit Russian assignats, to be taken into Russia, and the other, about shooting a Saxon, upon whose person had been found a letter containing information in regard to the movements of the French army, — made a third order, which was that the Polish colonel who had uselessly rushed into the river should be added to the Legion of Honour, of which Napoleon himself was the head.

Quos vult perdere, dement at.

III.

The Russian emperor had in the meantime been living in Vflna for more than a month, passing his time in reviews and manoeuvres. Nothing was ready for the war, which all were expecting, and for which the emperor had left St. Petersburg to prepare himself. There was no general plan of action. The hesitation about which plan of all those which were proposed should be accepted had only increased during the month that the emperor had been at the headquarters. There was a separate commanderin-chief to each of the three armies, but there was no common head to all the armies, and the emperor did not assume that appellation.

The longer the emperor lived in Vflna the less zealously were preparations made for the war, for the emperor had become tired waiting so long. All the efforts of the men who surrounded the emperor seem to have been directed toward making the emperor pass the time pleasantly, so that he might forget the impending war.

After many balls and fêtes given by the Polish magnates, the courtiers, and the emperor himself, it occurred in June to one of the adjutants-general of the emperor to give the Tsar a ball in the name of his adjutants-general. This idea was cheerfully received by all. The emperor expressed his consent. The adjutants-general collected money by subscription. The lady who more than anybody else might be agreeable to the emperor was invited to be the hostess of the ball. Count Bénigsen, a landed proprietor of the Government of Vflna, offered his suburban mansion for the celebration, and on the 13th of June there were to be a ball, a dinner, boating, and fireworks in Zäkret, Count Bénigsen’s suburban estate.

On the very day when the order was given by Napoleon to cross the Nyéinan, and the van of his army, driving away the Cossacks, crossed the Russian boundary, Alexander was passing his evening at Bénigsen’s summer residence, attending the ball given by his adjutants-general.

It was a jolly and brilliant fête ; connoisseurs said that there had rarely been gathered so many beauties in one spot. Countess Bezukhi, who had followed the emperor from St. Petersburg to Vflna, among a number of other Russian ladies, was at the ball, where she, with her heavy, so-called Russian beauty, overshadowed the refined Polish ladies. She was observed, and the emperor honoured her with a dance.

Boris Drubetskdy, en garçon, as he said, having left his wife in Moscow, was also at this ball, and, though not an adjutantgeneral, took an active interest in it by subscribing a large sum toward it. Boris was now a rich man, who had gone very far in the service, who no longer looked for any protection, and who stood on the same footing as the highest of his contemporaries. He met Hélène in Vilna, after a long lapse of time, and bad forgotten the past ; but as Hélène enjoyed the favour of a very important person, and Boris had but lately married, they again met as good, old friends.

At midnight they were still dancing. Hélène, who had no worthy gentleman to dance with, herself proposed a mazurka to Boris. They were sitting as the third pair. Boris, coolly surveying the shining, nude shoulders of Hélène, as they protruded from a dark, gold-embroidered gauze dress, was telling her about old acquaintances and, at the same time, imperceptibly to himself and to others, never stopped for a minute observing the emperor, who was in the same hall. The emperor was not dancing ; he stood in the door and stopped now one, and now another, addressing to them those kindly words which he alone knew how to choose.

In the beginning of the mazurka Boris noticed that AdjutantGeneral Balashév, one of the persons most intimate with the emperor, had walked over to him and had stationed himself near him in an uncourtly manner, while he was speaking to a Polish lady. Having finished his conversation with the lady, the emperor looked interrogatively at him and, apparently considering that Balashév could have acted thus only under the stress of important causes, slightly nodded to the lady and turned to Balashév. The moment Balashév began to speak, the emperor’s face expressed surprise.

He took Balashév’s arm and crossed the hall, unconsciously to himself clearing a broad passage of about twenty feet on both sides of him through the mass of people who were hastening to get out of his way. Boris noticed Arakchéev’s agitated face, when the emperor started to walk with Balashév. Arakchéev, looking superciliously at the emperor and snivelling with his red nose, moved out from the throng, as though waiting for the emperor to address him. Boris comprehended that Arakchéev was jealous of Balashév and was dissatisfied because an important piece of news was reaching the emperor through another source than him.

But the emperor and Balashév, without noticing Arakchéev, passed through the outer door into the illuminated garden. Arakchéev followed them within twenty steps, holding down his sword and looking angrily about him.

In the figure in which he had to choose a lady, Boris whispered to Hélène that he wanted to take the Countess Potdcki, who, he thought, had gone out on the balcony. Gliding along on the parquetry, he ran out of the rear door leading into the garden, where he stopped, when he noticed the emperor walking with Balashév up to the terrace. They were moving in the direction of the door. Boris fluttered, as though he were too late to get out of the way, and respectfully pressed himself against the doorpost and bent his head.

The emperor, with the agitation of a man who has received a personal insult, was finishing the following words :

” To enter into Russia without declaring war ! I will make peace only when there is not a single armed man left on my soil.”

It appeared to Boris that it gave the emperor pleasure to enunciate these words : he was satisfied with the form in which his thought was clad, but dissatisfied with having been overheard by Boris.

“ Let nobody know it ! ” the emperor added, with a frown.

Boris saw that this referred to him, and so he shut his eyes and slightly inclined his head. The emperor again entered the hall and passed nearly another half-hour at the ball.

Boris was the first to learn about the passage of the Nyéman by the French troops. Thanks to this, he had an opportunity of showing certain important personages that many things which were hidden from them were known to him, and thus he rose higher in the opinion of these persons.

The sudden news of the passage of the Nyéman by the French was the more sudden since it came after a month of fruitless waiting, and at the ball. The emperor had, in the first moment after the receipt of this news and under the influence of agitation and a feeling of insult, found that phrase which later became famous, and which pleased him and fully expressed his sentiment. After his return from the ball, the emperor sent for his secretary, Shishkdv, whom he commanded to write an order to the armies and a rescript to the fieldmarshal, Prince Saltykdv, in which he asked to have included the words that he would not make peace so long as one armed Frenchman was left on Russian soil.

On the next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon :

” Monsieur mon Frère : — I learned yesterday that, despite the loyalty with which I have observed my obligations toward your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian boundary, and only now have I received from St. Petersburg a note, in which Count Lauriston informs me, in reference to tins aggression, that your Majesty has regarded yourself as being in a state of war with me ever since Prince Kuräkin asked for his passports. The motives on which the Duke of Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him could never have made me suppose that this incident would serve as a pretext for aggression. In fact, this ambassador had never had my authorization, as he himself declared ; the moment I was informed of his action, I showed him my disapproval by commanding him to stay at his post. If your Majesty is not inclined to shed the blood of our peoples on account of a misunderstanding of such a kind, and if your Majesty consents to withdraw the troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has happened as though it had not taken place, and an agreement between us will be possible. Contrariwise, your Majesty, I shall be forced to ward off an attack which has not been provoked by anything on my part. It still depends on your Majesty to save humanity the calamities of a new war.

” I am, etc. (Signed) Alexander.”

IV.

At two o’clock of the night of the 13th of June, the emperor sent for Balashév, and, having read the letter to him, ordered him to take it in person to the French emperor. In dismissing Balashév, the emperor again repeated to him the words that he would not make peace so long as one armed enemy was left on Russian soil, and ordered him to transmit these words to Napoleon. He had not included these words in his letter to Napoleon, because he felt, with his sense of tact, that they were out of place at a moment when the last attempt at pacification was being made ; but he insisted that Balashév should personally transmit them to Napoleon.

Balashév left on the night of June 13th, being accompanied by a bugler and by two Cossacks. At daybreak he reached the village of Rykdnty, on this side of the Nyéman, where stood the French outposts. He was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.

A French underofficer of hussars, in a crimson uniform and a shaggy cap, shouted to Balashév to stop. Balashév did not stop at once, but continued to ride at a pace down the road.

The underofficer, frowning and uttering a curse, moved his horse up to Balashév, put his hand to his sabre, and angrily asked the Russian general whether he was deaf and did not hear what he was asked. Balashév gave him bis name. The underofficer sent a soldier to the officer.

Paying no more attention to Balashév, the underofficer began to speak with his companions about army matters. He did not again cast a glance at the Russian general.

It appeared exceedingly strange to Balashév, after his proximity to the highest power, after the conversation which he had held three hours before with the emperor, and after having become accustomed to honours in the service, to see here, on Russian soil, this hostile and, more especially, this disrespectful, relation of brutal force toward himself.

The sun had just begun to come out from the clouds ; the air was fresh and dewy. The herd was just being driven along the village road. In the fields, the skylarks, chirping, spirted up, one after another, like bubbles rising in the water.

A French colonel of hussars, who had apparently just risen, rode out of the village on a handsome, well-fed gray horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officers, the soldiers, and their horses gave an impression of sufficiency and foppishness.

It was that first part of the campaign, when the troops were still in good trim, such as is displayed at reviews and in peaceful occupations, with but a shade of gala militarism in their attire, and with the moral shade of that merriment and enterprise which always go with the beginning of a campaign.

The French colonel with difficulty restrained his yawns, but was polite and evidently understood the whole significance of Balashév. He led him past his soldiers and beyond the cordon, and informed him that his wish to be brought before the emperor would, no doubt, be fulfilled at once, since the emperor’s quarters, so far as he knew, were not far off.

They crossed the village of Rykdnty past the hussar pickets, sentries, and soldiers, who saluted their colonel and with curiosity examined the Russian uniform, and came out on the other side of the village. According to the colonel’s statement, the chief of the division was within two kilometres, and he would take him to his destination.

The sun had already risen and shone brightly on the lurid verdure.

Just as they had ridden past a tavern on the summit of a hill, they noticed advancing toward them a small throng of riders, at the head of whom, on a black horse with its caparison gleaming in the sun, rode a tall man in a feathered hat, with his hair falling in locks down to his shoulders, and wearing a red mantle ; his long legs were stretched forward, in the manner of French riders. This man galloped up toward Balashév, his feathers, precious stones, and gold lace glistening and waving in the bright June sun.

Balashév was already within two horses’ lengths from the rider in bracelets, panache, necklace, and gold, who was racing toward him with a solemn and theatrical expression on his face, when Julner, the French colonel, whispered respectfully : ” Le roi de Naples ! “

It was, indeed, Murat, now called the King of Naples. Though it was quite incomprehensible why he should be that, he was nevertheless called so, and he himself was convinced of it, and so he looked much more triumphant and important than ever. He was so firmly convinced that he was the King of Naples, that when on the eve of leaving Naples, during his walk with his wife through the streets, a few Italians cried, ” Viva il re ! ” he with a sad smile turned to his wife and said, ” Les malheureux, ils ne savent pas que je les quitte demain ! ”

Still, though he was quite sure that he was the King of Naples and that he had compassion for the sorrow of his subjects, whom he was about to desert, he, — after being ordered to enter active service again, and, especially, after his meeting with Napoleon at Dantzic, when his august brother-in-law told him, ” Je vous ai fait roi pour régner à ma manière, mais pas à la vôtre” — cheerfully took up the business which was familiar to him, and, like a well-fed, but not fattened horse which, feeling itself in the harness, becomes frisky between the shafts, he accoutred himself in the loudest and most expensive manner possible and, happy and contented, galloped off on the road to Poland, not knowing himself whither he was going, or for what purpose.

When he saw the Russian general, he in right royal, solemn fashion, threw back Ids head, with the curls dangling down to his shoulders, and looked questioningly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed his Majesty of the meaning of Balashév, whose name he found it difficult to pronounce.

” De Bal-macheve ! ” said the king, by his determination overcoming the difficulty which had presented itself to the colonel ” Charmé de faire votre connaissance, général ! ” he added with a gesture of royal favour.

The moment the king began to speak loud and rapidly, all his royal dignity suddenly left him, and, without knowing it himself, he passed over to a tone of good-natured familiarity. He placed his hand on the withers of Balashév’s horse.

” Et bien, général, tout est à la guerre, à ce qiCil paraît,” he said, as though regretting the circumstance which was beyond his control.

” Sire,” replied Balashév, ” Vcmpercur mon maître ne désire point la guerre, et comme votre Majesté le voit,” Balashév continued, with inevitable affectation multiplying the use of the title ” Votre Majesté,” as though addressing a person for whom this title was still a novelty.

Murat’s face beamed with stupid contentment as he listened to ” Monsieur de Balachoff.” But ” royauté oblige”: he felt the necessity of conferring with Alexander’s messenger on matters of state, as a king and ally. He dismounted from his horse and, taking Balashév’s arm, walked away a few steps from the suite, which waited for him respectfully, and began to walk up and down with him, trying to assume as significant an aspect as possible. He mentioned the fact that Emperor Napoleon had been insulted by the demand that he remove his troops from Prussia, especially when this demand became known to all and when the dignity of France suffered from it. Balashév said that there was nothing offensive in the demand, because —

Murat interrupted him :

” So you do not regard Emperor Alexander as the instigator ? ” he suddenly said, with a good-natured, stupid smile.

Balashév told him why it was he considered Napoleon to have taken the initiative.

“Eh, mon cher général” Murat again interrupted him, “je désire de tout mon cœur que les empereurs s’arrangent entre eux, et que la guerre commencée malgré moi se termine le plus tôt possible.”

He spoke in the tone of servants who wish to remain good friends, in spite of the quarrel of their masters. He passed over to inquiries about the grand duke and his health, and recalled the time which he had passed so pleasantly with him at Naples. Then, as though suddenly remembering his royal dignity, Murat solemnly straightened himself up, took up the attitude in which he had stood at the coronation, and, shaking his right hand, he said :

” Je ne vous retiens plus, général. Je souhaite le succès de votre mission” and, with a flutter of his red embroidered mantle and of his plumes, and with a sparkle of his precious stones, he walked over to his suite, which was waiting respectfully for him.

Balashév rode on, hoping, from what Murat had said, to be presented at once to Napoleon himself. But, instead of meeting Napoleon, the sentry of Davout’s corps of infantry again detained him at the next village, as he had been detained at the cordon, and an adjutant of the commander of the corps, who was called out, took him to the village to Marshal Davout.

V.

Davout was the Arakchéev of Emperor Napoleon,— not Arakchéev the coward, but the precise, cruel man, who does not know how to express his loyalty otherwise than by means of cruelty.

In the mechanism of the state organism these people are as necessary as are wolves in the organism of Nature, and they are always present, always make their appearance and maintain themselves, however inconsistent their presence and their proximity to the head of the state may seem. Only this necessity can explain how the uneducated, cruel Arakchéev, who personally pulled out the moustaches of the grenadiers, who on account of weak nerves was unable to bear any danger, and who lacked all courtly graces, could have held his place by the side of the knightly, noble, and gentle Alexander.

Balashév found Marshal Davout in the barn of a peasant farm, sitting on a keg and busy writing (he was auditing some accounts). An adjutant was standing near him. It was possible to find better quarters, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely place themselves under the gloomiest conditions of life, in order to have the right to be gloomy. For the same reason they are always hurriedly and stubbornly busy. “What time have I to think of the bright side of human life when, as -you see, I am sitting on a keg in a dirty barn, busy at work ? ” the expression of his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of these men consist in opposing their gloomy, persistent activity to any animation in life, whenever they come across it. Davout afforded himself this pleasure, when Balashév was brought in to him. He buried himself still more in his work, when the Russian general entered, and, glancing above his spectacles at Balashév’s face, which was animated under the influence of the beautiful morning and of his conversation with Murat, he did not rise, nor even stir, but only frowned more than usual and smiled a malignant smile.

Upon noticing on Balashév’s face the disagreeable impression produced by this reception, Davout raised his head and coldly asked him what he wanted.

Assuming that he was given such a reception only because Davout did not know that he was an adjutantgeneral of Emperor Alexander and his representative before Napoleon, Balashév hastened to. mention his standing and purpose. Contrary to his expectations, Davout, after having listened to Balashév, became even more stern and rude.

” Where is your packet ? ” he said. ” Donnez-le moi, je l’enverrai à l’empereur.”

Balashév said that his orders were to hand the packet in person to the emperor.

“ The commands of your emperor are carried out in your army, and here,” said Davout, “you have to do what you are ordered to do.”

And, as though to make the Russian general feel more sensitively his dependence on brutal force, Davout sent an adjutant for the officer of the day.

Balashév took out the packet, which contained the emperor’s letter, and placed it upon the table (this table was formed by a door, on which the hinges were still left, placed across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the address.

” It is your privilege to show me or not to show me respect,” said Balashév, “ but permit me to tell you that I have the honour of bearing the name of adjutantgeneral to his Majesty — ”

Davout looked at him in silence, and the agitation and embarrassment which were expressed in Balashév’s face apparently afforded him pleasure.

« You will receive your due,” he said. Putting the envelope into his pocket, he left the barn.

A minute later Monsieur de Castries, the marshal’s adjutant, entered and took Balashév to quarters set aside for him.

Balashév dined that day in the bam with the marshal, on the same board, which was thrown over the barrels.

On the next day, Davout left early in the morning, and, inviting Balashév to come to see him, he told him that he begged him to remain, to move with the baggagetrain, whenever the-order for an advance was given, and not to converse with any one but Monsieur de Castries.

After a four days’ solitude, tedium, and consciousness of submission and insignificance, which were the more noticeable after that milieu of power, in which he had been moving ; after several marches with the baggage of the marshal and the Drench troops which occupied the whole region, Balashév was brought to Vilna, which now was in the hands of the French, passing through the same toll-gate through which he had left four days before.

On the next day the imperial chamberlain, Monsieur du Turenne, came to see Balashév and informed him of the emperor’s wish to honour him with an audience.

Four days before there had been stationed sentries of the Preobrazhénski regiment in front of the house to which Balashév was now taken ; now there stood there two French grenadiers in blue uniforms, open at the breast, and in shaggy hats, a detachment of hussars and uhlans, a brilliant suite of adjutants, pages, and generals, waiting for the appearance of Napoleon near his mount, which was standing at the porch, and his Mameluke Bustan. Napoleon received Balashév in the same house in Vilna from which Alexander had despatched him.

VI.

Though Balashév was used to the solemnity of the court, he was startled by the luxury and magnificence of Napoleon’s surroundings.

Count Turenne led him to a large waiting-room, where were waiting many generals, gentlemen of the chamber, and Polish magnates, many of whom Balashév had seen at the court of the Russian emperor. Duroc said that Emperor Napoleon would receive the Russian general before starting out on his promenade.

After a few moments of waiting, the chamberlain of the day came out into the large waiting-room and, bowing politely, invited Balashév to follow him.

Balashév entered a small waiting-room, from which one door led to a cabinet, from which the Russian emperor had dispatched him. Balashév stood about two minutes, waiting to be called in. Behind the door could be heard hurried steps. Both halves of the door opened, all grew silent, and in the cabinet were heard firm, determined steps, those of Napoleon : he had just finished his toilet for the horseback ride. He wore a blue uniform, which was open over a white waistcoat that came down to his rotund abdomen, white elk-leather pantaloons that fitted tightly on the fat thighs of his short legs, and a pair of jack-boots. His short hair had evidently just been combed, but one strand fell down the middle of his broad forehead. His white, puffy neck stood out sharply from the black collar of his uniform ; there was an odour of eau de Cologne about him. On Ins youthful, plump face with its protruding chin there was an expression of a gracious, majestic greeting, worthy of an emperor.

He came out with a rapid quiver of his body at every step he took and throwing his head slightly back. His whole stout, short figure, with the broad, fat shoulders and involuntarily protruding abdomen and chest, gave him that distinguished and reserved aspect which is seen in people of about forty years of age, who live in ease. Besides it was apparent that on that day he was in the best mood possible.

He nodded, in response to Balashév’s low, respectful bow, and, walking over to him, began to speak at once, like a man who valued every minute of his time and who did not condescend to prepare his speeches, but who was convinced that he would always speak well and would say what was proper.

” Good morning, general ! ” he said. ” I have received Emperor Alexander’s letter which you have brought for me, and am very glad to see you.”

He looked at Balashév with his large eyes, and immediately glanced past him. Evidently he was not in the least interested in Balashév. Apparently only what was going on in his soul interested him. Everything which was beyond it had no meaning for him, because everything in the world, he thought, depended only on Iris will.

” I have not wished and do not wish for war,” he said, ” but I have been driven to it. Even now ” (he emphasized the word), ” I am ready to accept all explanations which you may give me.”

He began clearly and briefly to expound the reasons for his dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging from the moderate and friendly tone With which the French emperor spoke, Balashév was firmly convinced that he wished for peace and intended to enter into negotiations.

“Sire! L’Empereur, mon maître,” Balashév began the speech which he had prepared long ago, as soon as Napoleon finished and looked at him interrogatively ; but the look of the emperor’s eyes, directed at him, confused him. ” You are confused, — regain your composure !” Napoleon seemed to say, with a barely perceptible smile examining Balashév’s uniform and sword. Balashév regained his composure and began to speak. He said that Emperor Alexander did not consider Kuräkin’s request that he be given his passports as a sufficient cause for war, that Kurakin had acted on his own responsibility, without the consent of the Tsar, that Emperor Alexander did not wish for war, and that there were no relations with England.

” Not yet,” Napoleon interposed, and, as though fearing to submit to his feeling, he frowned and slightly nodded his head, to let Balashév know that he might continue.

Having said everything which was contained in his orders, Balashév added that Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter upon any negotiations unless — Here Balashév became embarrassed : he recalled the words which Emperor Alexander had not included in the letter, but which he had commanded to be put into the rescript to Saltykdv, and which he, Balashév, was to transmit to Napoleon. Balashév remembered the words, ” So long as one armed enemy was left on Russian soil,” but some complex feeling kept him from uttering them. He was unable to say the words, though he wished to do so. He hesitated and said, ” Unless the French troops retreated beyond the Nyéman.”

Napoleon noticed Balashév’s embarrassment, as he was uttering the last words : his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver in even motion. Without stirring from the spot, he began to speak in a louder and faster voice. Balashév, who during the ensuing words of Napoleon frequently cast down his eyes, could not help observing the twitching of the calf of Napoleon’s left leg, which became more pronounced every time he raised his voice.

” I wish for peace not less than Emperor Alexander,” he began. ” Have I not been doing everything in my power for the last eighteen months in order to obtain it ? I have for eighteen months been waiting for explanations. But, what is expected of me, in order to begin the negotiations ? ” he said, frowning and making an energetic, interrogative gesture with his plump, white little hand.

“The retreat of the troops beyond the Nyéman, emperor,” said Balashév.

” Beyond the Nyéman ? ” repeated Napoleon. “ So now you want me to retreat beyond the Nyéman, — only beyond the Nyéman ? ” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at Balashév.

Balashév respectfully inclined his head.

Four months before, Napoleon had been asked to retreat from Pomerania ; now he was asked to retreat beyond the Nyéman. Napoleon rapidly turned around and began to pace up and down in the room.

” You say that I am asked to recross the Nyéman before negotiations are to begin ; but two months ago I was asked in the same manner to retreat beyond the Oder and Vistula, and yet you are ready to enter upon negotiations.”

He silently crossed the room from one corner to another, and then again stopped opposite Balashév. Balashév noticed that his left leg trembled faster than ever, and that Iris face seemed to be petrified in its stern expression. Napoleon was conscious of the twitching of his left calf. ” La vibration de mon mollet gauche est un grand signe chez moi” he used to say afterward.

” Propositions such as the one about clearing the Oder or Vistula may be made to the Prince of Baden, but not to me,” Napoleon almost shouted, unexpectedly to himself. “If you were to give me St. Petersburg and Moscow, I would not receive these conditions. You say that I began the war ! But who was the first to come to his army ? Emperor Alexander and not I. You propose negotiations to me after I have spent millions and while you are in alliance with England. Now that your condition is unfavourable, you propose negotiations to me ! What is the aim of your alliance with England ? What has it given you ? ” he spoke hurriedly, now apparently no longer addressing his words to him in order to show the advantages of peace negotiations and to discuss their possibility, but only in order to prove his righteousness and power, and the unrighteousness and blunders of Alexander.

The introduction to his speech was made evidently for the purpose of proving the advantage of his situation and yet of showing that he was willing to hear about negotiations. But once launched out, he was unable to control his speech.

The whole purpose of his remarks now apparently was to extol himself and offend Alexander, that is, to do that which in the beginning of the interview he had been least of all inclined to do.

“ They say that you have made peace with the Turks.” Balashév replied with an affirmative inclination of his head.

“ The peace is made — ” he began. But Napoleon did not allow him to go on. He evidently had to speak himself, and he continued to speak with that eloquence and incontinence of irritation, to which spoilt people are prone.

“ Yes, I know, you have concluded a peace with the Turks, without having received Moldavia and Wallachia. I should have given these provinces to your Tsar, just as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he continued, “ I promised to give Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and I should have given them to him, but now he will not have those beautiful provinces. There was, however, nothing in the way of adding them to his empire, and in one reign he would have expanded Russia from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mouth of the Danube. Catherine the Great could not have done more,” said Napoleon, becoming ever more excited, walking across the room, and repeating to Balashév almost the same words which he had employed to Alexander iu Tilsit. ” Tout cela il l’aurait du à mon amitié. Ah ! quel beau règne, quel beau règne ! ” he repeated several times. He stopped, drew his gold snuffbox out of his pocket, and with his nose took a pinch from it.

” Quel beau règne aurait pu être celui de VEmpereur Alexandre ! “

He looked compassionately at Balashév, and the moment Balashév intended to say something, he hastened to interrupt him :

” What could he have desired and looked for, which he could not find in my friendship ? ” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as though in perplexity. ” He found it best to surround himself with my enemies, and with whom ? ” continued Napoleon. “ With Stein, Armfeldt, Bénigsen, Wintzingerode. Stein is a traitor who has been driven out of his country ; Armfeldt is a débauché and intriguer ; Wintzingerode — a fugitive French subject; Bénigsen is a little more military than the rest, but still incapable; he was unable to do anything in 1807, and ought to awaken terrible recollections in Emperor Alexander. If they were capable soldiers, they could be made use of,” continued Napoleon, hardly ably to utter his words as fast as the new combinations arose in his imagination, to prove his justice or power, which to his mind was one and the same thing, ” but that is not the case : they are unfit for war and for peace ! Barclay is said to be a better general than they are, but I cannot affirm this, if I am to judge from his first movements. And what are they doing, all those courtiers ? Pfuel proposes, Armfeldt discusses, Bénigsen examines, and Barclay, who is called to act, does not know what to do, and time passes without any results. Bagration is the only soldier. He is stupid, but he has experience, a sure eye, and determination. What rôle does your young emperor play in this monstrous group ? They are compromising him and throwing all the responsibility on his shoulders. Un souverain ne doit être a l’armée que quand il est général,” he said, apparently throwing down the gauntlet to the emperor. Napoleon knew how much Emperor Alexander wanted to be a general.

” The campaign began a week ago, and you did not know how to defend Vflna. You are cut in two and driven out of the Polish provinces. Your army murmurs.”

” On the contrary, your Majesty,” said Balashév, who had difficulty in remembering all he heard, and in following these fireworks of words, ” the army burns with the desire — “

” I know everything,” Napoleon interrupted him, ” I know everything, and I know the number of your battalions as well as I know my own. You have less than two hundred thousand soldiers, while I have three times as many : I give you my word of honour,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honour could have no significance, ” I give you ma parole d’honneur que j’ai cinq cent trente mille hommes de ce côté de la Vistule. The Turks are of no avail to you : they are good for nothing, and this they have proved by making peace with you. The Swedes, — it is their destiny to be ruled by insane kings. Their king was insane ; they changed him and took another— Bernadotte, who immediately went insane, for only a Swede who is insane can conclude an alliance with Russia.”

Napoleon smiled a malicious smile and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.

Balashév had an answer to every sentence uttered by Napoleon and was anxious to make a reply ; he kept making the gesture of a man wishing to say something, but Napoleon kept interrupting him. To the statement that the Swedes were insane, Balashév wanted to say that Sweden was an island, if Russia was with her ; but Napoleon shouted again, in order to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritation, when a man has to keep talking all the time, in order to prove to himself the justice of his case. Balashév began to feel uneasy: as an ambassador, he was afraid lest he should lose his dignity, and yet he felt the necessity of replying to Napoleon ; as a man, he felt morally compressed before that forgetfulness which comes from causeless anger, and in which Napoleon obviously was. He knew that the words now uttered by Napoleon had no meaning, and that he himself would feel ashamed of them as soon as he regained his senses. Balashév stood with downcast eyes, looking at Napoleon’s fat legs in motion, and trying to avoid his glance.

” What do I care for your allies ? ” said Napoleon. ” My allies are the Poles : there are eighty thousand of them, and they fight like lions. There will be two hundred thousand of them.”

And, apparently excited by having spoken a manifest untruth and by the fact that Balashév remained standing silently before him in the same pose, submitting to fate, he abruptly turned back, walked over to Balashév’s very face, and, making energetic, rapid gestures with his white hands, almost shouted :

“Remember that if you turn Prussia against me, remember, I will wipe it off from the map of Europe,” he said, with a pale face which was distorted by anger, and with an energetic gesture striking one of his small hands with the other. ” Yes, I will throw you beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will make for you that barrier which Europe was criminal and blind to have permitted to be destroyed. Yes, this is what will happen to you ! This is what you have gained by parting from me,” he said, silently pacing up and down in the room, and shrugging his fat shoulders. He put the snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, again took it out, several times carried it up to his nose, and stopped opposite Balashév. He grew silent, looked sarcastically straight into Balashév’s eyes, and said, in a soft voice : ” Et cependant quel beau règne aurait pu avoir votre maître ! ”

Balashév, feeling the necessity of retorting to him, said that from Russia’s standpoint matters did not appear in such a gloomy light. Napoleon was silent, continuing to look sarcastically at him and evidently not listening to him. Balashév said that in Russia the best was expected of the war. Napoleon shook his head condescendingly, as though to say, “ I know, your duty tells you so, but you yourself do not believe it, — you are convinced by me.”

At the end of Balashév’s speech, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, put it to his nose, and, to give a signal, twice struck the floor with his foot. The door opened ; a chamberlain, bending in a respectful attitude, handed the emperor a hat and a pair of gloves ; another handed him a handkerchief. Napoleon, without looking at them, turned to Balashév:

” Assure Emperor Alexander in my name,” he said, taking his hat, “ that I am as devoted to him as ever : I know him well and I very highly value his high qualities. Je ne vous retiens plus, général ; vous recevrez ma lettre à l’empereur.”

Napoleon rapidly moved up to the door. All those who were in the waiting-room rushed forward and downstairs.

VIL

After what Napoleon had said, after those outbursts of anger, and after the last words uttered in a dry tone, “je ne vous retiens plus, général ; vous recevrez ma lettre Balashév was convinced that Napoleon would not want to see him again, and would even try not to see him, the offended ambassador and, above all, the witness to his indecorous rage. But, to his surprise, he received through Duroc an invitation to the emperor’s table on that day.

At the dinner were Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier.

Napoleon met Balashév with a merry and kindly countenance. He did not show the least sign of embarrassment or self-rebuke for his morning’s outburst ; on the contrary, he tried to put Balashév at his ease. It was apparent that in Napoleon’s conviction there had long ago ceased to exist the possibility of error on his part and that in his conception everything he did was good, not because it coincided with the idea of what was good or bad, but because he was doing it.

The emperor was very jolly after his ride through Vilna, during which throngs of people had met and accompanied him with enthusiasm. In all the windows of the streets through which he rode there hung rugs, flags, and his monograms, and Polish ladies received him with the waving of their handkerchiefs.

At dinner he placed Balashév by his side. He treated him not only kindly, but as though he regarded Balashév as one of his courtiers, among the men who sympathized with his plans and who were to rejoice in his successes. Among other things he spoke of Moscow, asking Balashév about the Russian capital, not only as a curious traveller asks about a new place which he intends to visit, but also with the conviction that Balashév, as a Russian, would be flattered by his curiosity.

” How many inhabitants are there in Moscow, and how many houses ? Is it true that Moscou is called Moswu la sainte ? How many churches are there in Moscou ? ” he asked.

To the reply that there were more than two hundred churches, he said :

” Why such a mass of churches ? “

” The Russians are very pious,” replied Balashév.

” But a large quantity of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the backwardness of a nation,” said Napoleon, looking at Caulaincourt for appreciation of his judgment.

Balashév begged respectfully to differ from the French emperor.

” Each country has its customs,” he said.

” But nowhere else in Europe are such things to be found,” said Napoleon.

” I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” said Balashév, ” outside of Russia, there is Spain, where there are as many churches and monasteries.”

This response of Balashév, which hinted at the late defeat of the French in Spain, was highly appreciated at the court of Emperor Alexander, when Balashév told it there, but here, at Napoleon’s dinner, it was not appreciated at all, and passed by unnoticed.

It was evident, from the indifferent and perplexed looks of the marshals, that they were not sure wherein lay the sarcasm to which the intonation of Balashév’s voice seemed to point. ” If there was any, we did not understand it, or there was nothing clever about it,” said the expressions of the marshals’ faces. His reply was so little appreciated, that Napoleon positively did not notice it, but proceeded to ask Balashév through what cities the straight road to Moscow went. Balashév, who was cautious during the whole time of the dinner, answered that comme tout chemin mène à Rome, tout chemin mène à Moscou, so there were many roads, and that, among these many roads, there was one which led to Poltava, which Charles XII. had chosen. As he said this, Balashév’s face was suddenly flushed with joy at the success of his reply. He had not finished saying the last words, when Caulaincourt started to speak of the inconveniences of the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and of his reminiscences of St. Petersburg.

After dinner they passed for the coffee into Napoleon’s cabinet, which four days before had been the cabinet of Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat down, stirring the coffee in a Sèvres cup, and indicated to Balashév a chair near him.

There is in man a certain postprandial mood, which more than all sensible reasons causes him to be satisfied with himself and to regard everybody as his friend. Napoleon was in that mood. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by men who adored him. He was convinced that even Balashév, after having partaken of his dinner, was his friend and admirer. Napoleon turned to him with an agreeable and slightly sarcastic smile.

” This is the same room, I am told, in which Emperor Alexander lived. It is strange, general, is it not ? ” he said, apparently without the slightest doubt that this remark must be agreeable to his interlocutor, since it proved his, Napoleon’s, superiority over Alexander.

Balashév could make no reply to this and silently bent his head.

“ Yes, in this room Wintzingerode and Stein had their consultations four days ago,” Napoleon proceeded, with the same sarcastic, self-satisfied smile. ” What I cannot understand,” he said, “is that Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with all my personal enemies. I do not — understand it. Did it not occur to him that I might do likewise ? ” he turned questioningly to Balashév. Apparently this recollection again pushed him into the track of his morning’s irritation, which was still fresh in him.

” And he ought to know that I will do so,” said Napoleon, rising and pushing the cup away with his hand. “ I will drive all his Wiirtemberg, Baden, Weimar relatives out of Germany — yes, I will. Let him prepare an asylum for them in Russia ! ”

Balashév inclined his head, showing by his look that he would have preferred to take his leave, and that he was listening only because he could not help listening to what was being said. Napoleon took no notice of this expression ; he addressed Balashév, not as the ambassador of His enemy, but as a man who was now quite devoted to him, and who must take pleasure in hearing his former master reviled.

” Why did Emperor Alexander take the command of the Russian troops ? Why ? War is my business, but his is to rule, and not to command an army. Why did he take such a responsibility upon himself ? ”

Napoleon again took the snuffbox, silently crossed the room several times, then suddenly walked over to Balashév and with a slight smile, confidently, rapidly, and simply raised his hand to the face of the Russian general of forty years of age, as though he were doing not only an important piece of business, but something agreeable to Balashév, and taking hold of his ear, gave it a light jerk, while smiling with his Ups only.

Avoir l’oreille tiré par Vempereur was regarded as the greatest honour and favour at the court of France.

” Eh bien, vous ne dites rien, admirateur et courtisan de rEmpereur Alexandre,” he said, as though it was too

funny to be the ” courtisan et admirateur ” of some one other than Napoleon’s in his own presence. “Are the horses ready for the general?” he added, with a slight inclination of his head in response to Balashév’s bow.

” Give him mine, — he has to travel a long distance — ”

The letter which Balashév took back was the last which passed from Napoleon to Alexander. All the details of the conversation were transmitted to the Russian emperor, and the war began.

VIII.

After his meeting with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Audrey went back to St. Petersburg to attend to business, as he told his relatives, but in reality to meet there Prince Anatdl Kurdgin, whom he regarded it as necessary to meet. Upon his arrival he learned that Kurdgin was no longer in St. Petersburg. Pierre informed his brother-in-law that Prince Andréy was coming to see him. Anatdl Kurdgin immediately received an appointment from the minister of war and left for the Moldavian army. At the same time, Prince Andréy met in St. Petersburg Kutuzov, his old general, who had always been favourably inclined toward him, and Kutuzov proposed to him to go to the Moldavian army, of which the old general was appointed fieldmarshal. Prince Andrey was attached to the staff of the headquarters and left for Turkey.

Prince Andréy thought it improper to write to Kurdgin and to challenge him. Unless he had some new cause for a duel, he regarded a challenge sent by him as compromising Countess Rostdv, and so he was anxious to meet Kurdgin in person, so as to get a chance of finding such a new cause. But be was just as unsuccessful in finding Kurdgin in the Turkish army, for Kurdgin went back to Russia the moment Prince Andréy reached Turkey.

Prince Andréy found life easier in the new country and under new conditions. After his fiancée’s treason, which affected him the more forcibly the more carefully he tried to conceal the effect from all, the conditions of life under

which he had been happy were burdensome to him, and still more oppressive were to him that freedom and independence which he had valued so much before. He not only did not think his old thoughts, which had come to him for the first time as he had been looking at the sky while lying on the field of Austerlitz, which he had liked to develop with Pierre, and which had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo, and later in Switzerland and Rome ; but he was even afraid to recall those ideas which revealed to him bright, endless horizons. He was now interested only in the nearest, practical affairs, which were not connected with his former life, and of which he availed himself the more eagerly, the more concealed the former affairs were from him. It was as though that immeasurable receding vault of heaven, which formerly had stood above him, had suddenly changed into a low, definite, oppressive vault, on which everything was clear, and nothing eternal and mysterious.

Of the several activities open to him, the military service was the simplest and most familiar. In his capacity as general of the day on Kutuzov’s staff, he worked persistently and zealously, surprising Kutuzov by his readiness to work and by his accuracy. When he did not find Kurégin in Turkey, he did not consider it necessary to gallop back to Russia for him ; at the same time he knew that, no matter how much time should pass, no matter what contempt he felt for him, in spite of all the arguments which he adduced to himself to prove that it was not worth while for him to lower himself by a personal conflict with Kurägin, he knew that, upon meeting him, he should be unable to keep from challenging him, just as a hungry man cannot keep from throwing himself upon food. This consciousness that the offence was not yet avenged, that his venom had not yet been exhausted, but was lying in his heart, poisoned that artificial calm of his, which he was trying to find in Turkey in the shape of an assiduously busy and somewhat ambitious and vain activity.

In the year 1812, when the news of a war with Napoleon reached Bucharest, where Kutuzov had been for two months, passing his days and nights with his Wallachian woman, Prince Andréy asked the commanderin-chief to be transferred to the army of the West. Kutuzov, who was getting tired of Bolkonski and his activity, which served as a rebuke to indolence, readily permitted him to go, giving him orders for Barclay de Tolly.

Before going to the army, which in May was camping at the Drissa, Prince Audrey visited Lÿsyya Gory, which was on his road, being within three versts of the Smolensk highway. In the last three years of Prince Andréy’s life there had been so many transformations and he had thought, felt, and seen so much (having travelled both in the West and the East), that he was suddenly strangely affected, at his arrival at Lÿsyya Gory, by the stream of life which, down to the minutest details, had remained the same it had always been. He drove through the avenue and the stone gate of the Lÿsyya Gory mansion as though he were entering an enchanted castle where all was asleep. Within there was the same austerity, the same cleanliness, the same quiet, the same furniture, the same walls, the same sounds, the same odour, and the same timid faces, only grown a little old. Princess Marya was the same timid, plain, aging old maid, who was passing the best years of her life uselessly and joylessly, in terror and eternal moral sufferings. Mlle. Bourienne was the same self-satisfied, coquettish girl, who was merrily making use of every moment of her life and was filled with the most joyous hopes. Prince Andréy thought she had become more self-satisfied. Tutor Desalles, whom he had brought with him from Switzerland, wore a coat of a Russian cut and spoke a Russian brogue with the servants, but otherwise was the same narrowminded, cultured, virtuous, pedantic educator. The old prince had changed physically in that he had lost a tooth at the side of his mouth ; morally he was the same as ever, except that he looked with greater rage and incredulity upon that which was actually taking place in the world. Little Nikoldy was the only one who had grown and changed ; he was ruddy and had a head of curly black hair, and, not knowing it himself, every time when he laughed and made merry, raised the upper lip of his pretty mouth in precisely the same manner that the deceased little princess used to raise hers. He was the only one who did not comply with the law of unchangeability in this enchanted, sleeping palace. Yet, though outwardly everything remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had changed since Prince Andréy had seen them last. The household was divided into two camps, foreign and hostile to each other, which only now, on his account, met and changed their customary manner of life. To the one belonged the old prince, Mlle. Bourienne, and the architect ; to the other, Princess Marya, Desalles, Nikoldy, and all the nurses.

During his stay at L/syya G6ry, all the people of the house dined together, but all felt awkward, and Prince Andréy saw that he was a guest for whom an exception was made, and that he embarrassed all by his presence. At the dinner of the first day, Prince Andréy, who instinctively felt that to be the case, was silent, and the old prince, who observed the unnaturalness of his condition, himself grew silent and immediately after dinner went to his room. When Prince Andréy went to him in the evening and, trying to cheer him up, began to tell him about the campaign of the young Count Kdmenski, the old prince suddenly changed the subject and spoke of Princess Märya, censuring her for her superstition and for her hostility to Mlle. Bourienne, who, according to his words, was the only one who was sincerely devoted to him.

ine uiu pixx.—

was to blame for it ; that she purposely –––

tormented him ; that she was ruining the young Prince Nikolay with indulgence and foolish talk. He knew full well that he was tormenting his daughter and that she had a hard life with him ; but he also knew that he could not help tormenting her and that she deserved it. ” Why does Prince Andréy, who sees this, say nothing to me about his sister ? ” thought the old prince. ” Does he think that I am a brute or an old fool, and that I have without cause separated myself from my daughter and cultivated the acquaintance of the Frenchwoman ? He does not understand it, and so I must explain it to him, and he shall listen to me,” thought the old man. And so he began to give the reasons why he could not endure his daughter’s senseless character.

“ Since you ask me,” said Prince Andréy, without looking at his father (this was the first time in his life that he had censured his father), ” I had no intention of telling you, but since you ask me, I will tell you frankly my opinion about the whole matter. If there are misunderstandings and discord between you and Märya, I can in no way accuse her, — I know how she loves and respects you. Since you ask me,” continued Prince Andréy, becoming irritated, for of late he had always been prone to irritation, ” I can only tell you that, if there are any misunderstandings, the cause of them is that miserable woman who ought not to be the companion of my sister.”

The old man at first looked at his son with an arrested glance, and smiling revealed the new lacuna between his teeth, to which Prince Andréy was not able to get used.

” What companion, my dear ? Eh ? You have already had a talk with her ! Eh ? ”

” Father, I did not wish to be a judge,” Prince Andréy said, in a bilious and harsh voice, ” but you have provoked me, and I have told you and will always tell you that

Princess Marya is not to blame, but that the Frenchwoman is — “

“ Ah, you have passed judgment, you have ! ” the old man said, in a soft voice and, as Prince Andréy thought, with some embarrassment, but then he suddenly leaped up and shouted : ” Out ! Out with you ! Let me not see your face again ! “

Prince Andréy wanted to go at once, but Princess Marya begged him to stay overnight. The rest of that day Prince Andréy did not see his father, who did not come out and who admitted no one but Mlle. Bourienne and Tikhon, and kept asking whether his son had gone yet. On the next day, before his departure, Prince Andréy went to the apartments of his son. The sturdy little fellow, whose hair was as curly as his mother’s, sat down on his knees. Prince Andréy began to tell him the fairy-tale about Bluebeard, but, before finishing it, he fell to musing. He was not thinking of the pretty boy whom he was holding upon his knees, but of himself. To his terror, he was unable to discover any repentance in himself for having irritated his father, or any regret because now for the first time in his life he was about to leave him after a quarrel. Worse than all was the thought that he was unable to discover his former tenderness toward his son, which he had hoped to rouse in himself by fondling him and taking him on his knee.

“ Well, go on,” said his son.

Prince Andréy, without answering him, put him down from his knees, and left the room. The moment Prince Andréy left his every-day occupations and entered into the old conditions of life, in which he had been when he was happy, the tedium of life took possession of him with its former strength, and he hastened away from these recollections and tried as soon as possible to find some work to do.

« So you are positively going away, André ? ” his sister asked him.

” Thank God I can leave,” said Prince Andréy. “ I am very sorry that you can’t.”

« Why do you say this ? ” asked Princess Marya. ” Why do you say this just as you are about to leave for that terrible war, and when he is so old ? Mlle. Bourienne says that he has been asking about you — “

The moment she began to say this, her lips quivered and tears began to drop. Prince Andréy turned away from her and walked up and down in the room.

” 0 Lord, 0 Lord ! ” he said. “ Just to think what and who, what insignificant little thing, may be the cause of men’s misfortune ! ” he said, with a malice which frightened Princess Mdrya.

She understood that, speaking of people whom he called “ insignificant little thing,” he meant not only Mlle. Bourienne, who was causing his misfortune, but also that man who had ruined his happiness.

” André, there is one thing which 1 beg and implore of you,” she said, touching his elbow and looking at him with eyes shining through tears. ” I understand you ” (Princess Mdrya lowered her eyes). ” Do not think that people have caused your grief. People are His tools.” She looked a little above Prince Andréy’s head, with the confident, habitual glance with which one looks at the customary place of a portrait. ” Grief is sent by Him, and not by men. Men are His tools, and they are not to blame. If anybody seems to be blameworthy, forget and forgive. We have no right to punish. You will understand the happiness of forgiveness.”

” If I were a woman, I would do so, Marie. It is a woman’s virtue. But a man must not and cannot forget and forgive,” he said, and, although he had not been thinking of Kurdgin, all the unavenged fury suddenly rose in his heart. ” If Princess Mdrya is trying to persuade me that I should forgive, it means that I ought to have punished long ago,” he thought. And, without saying any-tiling else to Princess Marya, he began to think of that joyful, evil moment when he should meet Xu ragin, who, he knew, was in the army.

Princess Mdrya implored her brother to wait another day and told him that she was sure that his father would be unhappy if Andréy left without having made up with him ; but Prince Andréy replied that he, no doubt, would soon return from the army, that he would certainly write to his father, and that the longer he remained, the more the discord would grow.

” Adieu, André. Rappelez-vous que les malheurs viennent de Dieu, et que les hommes ne sont jamais coupables,” were the last words which he heard from his sister, as he parted from her.

” No doubt it must be ! ” thought Prince Andréy, as he drove out of the avenue of Lÿsyya Gory mansion. ” She, a pitiful, innocent creature, is left to be devoured by the doting old man. The old man feels that he is wrong, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing and enjoying life, in which he will be like the rest, — the deceiver or the deceived. lam going to the army, — why I do not know myself, and I wish to meet the man whom I despise, in order to give him a chance to kill me and laugh at me ! ” The same conditions of life had existed before, but formerly everything was connected, and now it all fell to pieces. Nothing but senseless phenomena, without any connection, passed one after the other through Prince Andréy’s mind.

IX.

PRINCE Andréy arrived at the headquarters of the army at the end of June. The troops of the first army, with which the emperor was, were stationed in the fortified camp at the Orissa; the troops of the second army were retreating, trying to unite with the first army, from which, it was said, they were cut off by large French forces. Everybody was dissatisfied with the general course of military affairs in the Russian army; however, nobody believed that there was even danger of an incursion into the Russian Governments, nobody surmised that the war would be carried farther than the western Polish provinces.

Prince Andréy found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he was attached, on the shore of the Orissa. As there was not one large village or town in the neighbourhood of the camp, the whole immense mass of generals and courtiers, who were with the army, were stationed in a radius of ten versts, in the best houses of the hamlets, on either side of the river. Barclay de Tolly was within four versts of the emperor. He received Bolkdnski coldly and dryly, and told him in his German brogue that he would report to the emperor for his definite appointment, but that in the meantime he asked him to be on his staff.

Anatél Kurdgin, whom Prince Andréy had hoped to find in the army, was not there : he was in St. Petersburg, and tins news was agreeable to Bolkonski. The interest of the centre of the impending great war held the attention of Prince Andréy, and he was glad to be relieved for a time from the irritation which the thought of Xu ragin produced upon him.

During the first four days, when he was not yet commanded to any place, Prince Andréy rode around the whole fortified camp, trying, by means of his knowledge and through conversations with experts, to form a definite idea about it ; but the question whether the camp was advantageous or not remained unanswered by Prince Andréy. He had had enough military experience to arrive at the conviction that in matters of war the best laid plans were of no value (he had found that out in the Austerlitz campaign), that everything depended on how the sudden and unforeseen actions of the enemy were dealt with, and that all depended on how and by whom the matter was handled. In order to make the latter question clear to himself, Prince Andréy, making use of his position and acquaintanceship, tried to get at the facts as to how the army was managed and at the character of the persons and parties that took part in it, and arrived at the following conception about the state of affairs.

While the emperor was still at Vilna, the army was divided into three : the first army was under the command of Barclay de Tolly, the second under that of Bagratidn, and the third under Tormasov. The emperor was with the first army, but not in the capacity of commanderin-chief. In the order it did not say that the emperor would be commanding, but only that he would be with the army. Besides, with the emperor in person was not the staff of the commanderin-chief, but the staff of the imperial headquarters. With him were the chief of the imperial staff, Quartermaster-General Prince Volkdnski, generals, aids-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners, but not the staff of the army. In addition to these, there were with him men without any definite duties, such as Arakchéev, the ex-minister of war, Count Bénigsen, the oldest general in rank, Grand Duke Tsesarévich Konstantin Pävlovich, Count Rumyantsev, the chancellor, Stein, the ex-minister of Prussia, Armfeldt, the Swedish general, Pfuel, the chief author of the plan of the campaign, Paulucci, the adjutantgeneral, a Sardinian emigrant, Wolzogen, and many others. Although these persons had no military posts in the army, they had an influence upon it by dint of their positions, and frequently a chief of a corps, and even the commanderin-chief did not know in what capacity Bénigsen, or the grand duke, or Arakchéev, or Prince Volkdnski, asked or advised this or that, and whether a given order in the form of advice originated in such a person or in the emperor, and whether it was necessary to obey it, or not. But that was only an external arrangement ; the essential meaning of the presence of the emperor and of all these persons from the standpoint of the court (in the presence of the emperor all became courtiers) was clear to all. It was this : the emperor did not assume the appellation of commanderin-chief, but took charge of all the armies, while all the people who surrounded him were his assistants. Arakchéev was the trusty executor and guardian of order and body-guard of the emperor; Bénigsen was a landed proprietor of the Government of Vilna, who apparently was doing the honours of the country, but in reality he was a good general, useful in the council and ready at any time to take the place of Barclay de Tolly. The grand duke was there because it pleased him to be there. Ex-minister Stein was there because he was useful in the council, and because Emperor Alexander highly valued his personal qualities. •

Armfeldt, the hateful enemy of Napoleon, was a selfconfident general, and this always had an influence on Alexander. Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in his speeches. The ad jutants - general were there because they were everywhere where the Tsar was, and, above all, Pfuel was there because he had composed the plan of the war against Napoleon, and, because having gained Alexander’s confidence in the correctness of his judgment, he managed the whole war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who transmitted Pfuel’s ideas in a more accessible form than Pfuel himself gave them in, — an abrupt man, selfconfident to the point of contempt, and a cabinet theorist.

In addition to the above-mentioned persons, Russians and strangers (especially strangers, who, with a boldness which is characteristic of people acting in a strange milieu, each day proposed new, unexpected ideas), there were also a large number of men of secondary importance, who were with the army because their chiefs were there.

Among the many ideas and voices current in this immense, restless, brilliant, and proud world, Prince Andréy saw the following more clearly defined subdivisions of tendencies and parties.

The first party consisted of Pfuel and his followers, thé theorists of the war, who believed in the existence of a science of war, and that in this science there were invariable laws of oblique movements, of flanking, and so forth. Pfuel and his followers demanded a retreat into the interior of the country, according to exact laws prescribed by the assumed theory of war, and in every deflection from this theory they saw only barbarism, ignorance, or evil-mindedness. To this party belonged the German princes, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode and others, chiefly Germans.

The second party was diametrically opposed to the first. As is always the case, to one extreme were opposed the representatives of another. The men of this party were those who demanded the advance into Poland from Vilna, and a full freedom of action, unhampered by any plans. Not only were the representatives of this party in favour of bold actions, but they also represented strict nationalism, which made them only more one-sided in their disputes. The party consisted of the Russians, Bagratidn, rising Ermdlov, and others. During this time there was current the famous joke of Ermdlov, who was said to have begged the emperor to promote him to the rank of German. The men of this party recalled Suvorov, and said that it was necessary not to think, not to puncture a map, but to fight, to strike the enemy, not to let them get into Russia, and not to allow the army to lose courage.

To the third party, in which the Tsar had most confidence, belonged the courtiers who acted as trimmers between the two parties. These men, among whom also was Arakchéev, were not military people, and they thought and said what is generally said by men who have no convictions, but wish to appear as though they had them. They maintained that no doubt the war, especially with such a genius as Bonaparte (he was again called Bonaparte), demanded profound considerations and deep scientific knowledge, and that Pfuel was a brilliant man in this respect ; but that, at the same time, it should not be forgotten that theorists were frequently one-sided, and that, therefore, they could not be fully trusted, that attention ought to be paid to what Pfuel’s antagonists were saying and to what practical people, who were experienced in military affairs, were saying, and that the mean of all ought to be taken. The men of this party maintained that the camp at the Drissa should be kept, but that the movements of all the other armies be changed. They thought that it was better so, although neither the one nor the other end was attained by it.

The fourth tendency was the one of which the most prominent representative was the grand duke, the heir apparent, who could not forget his disenchantment at Austerlitz, where he had ridden out in front of the Guard in helmet and collet, hoping in a dashing manner to crush the French, and, accidentally getting into the first line, had with difficulty saved himself from the general confusion. The men of this party had in their judgments both the quality and the defect of sincerity. They were afraid of Napoleon, saw strength in him and weakness in themselves, and frankly confessed their fears. They said : “ Nothing but grief, shame, and ruin will come of all this ! We have abandoned Vflna and Vitebsk, and we shall also abandon the Orissa. The only sensible thing that there is left for us to do, is to conclude a peace, and that, too, as quickly as possible, before we are driven out of St. Petersburg ! “

This view, which was widespread in the higher spheres of the army, had its support in St. Petersburg and in Chancellor Rumydntsev, who was for peace for other state reasons.

The fifth were the partisans of Barclay de Tolly, not only as a man, but also as minister of war and commanderin-chief. They said : ” Whatever he be ” (they always began thus), ” he is an honest, active man, and there is no better man than he. Give him real power, for the war cannot be successful without a uniform command, and he will show what he can do, as he has in Finland. If our army is well organized and strong and has retreated to the Orissa, without having suffered any defeat, we owe this to Barclay de Tolly. If now Barclay is to be supplanted by Bénigsen, all will be ruined, because Bénigsen showed his incapacity in the year 1807.”

The sixth, the adherents of Bénigsen, on the contrary, said that, in spite of all, there was no one who was more active and more experienced than Bénigsen, and that, twist as you may, you will have to come back to him. ” Let them now make blunders,” and the men of this party proved that our retreat to the Orissa was a most disgraceful defeat and a continuous series of blunders, ” the more such blunders they make, the better, — at least they will soon come to understand that it is not possible to proceed in this manner,” they said. ” What is needed is not a Barclay, or some such man, but one of Bénigsen’s type, who had already shown himself in 1807, to whom Napoleon had done justice, and to whom the power would readily be conceded, in short, no other than Bénigsen.”

The seventh consisted of persons who are generally to be found about a young emperor and of whom there was an especially large number about Emperor Alexander, generals and aids-de-camp, who were passionately devoted to the Tsar, worshipping him sincerely and disinterestedly, not as the emperor, but as a man, just as Bostév had worshipped him in 1805, and who saw in him, not only all human virtues, but also all human qualities. Though these persons admired the modesty of the emperor, who had refused the command of the armies, they censured his excessive modesty, and wished and insisted that the emperor should abandon his excessive diffidence and should openly announce that he stationed himself at the bead of the army, that he should form the staff headquarters of the commanderin-chief, and, taking counsel, where necessary, with experienced theorists and practical men, should himself lead his troops, which would be thus brought to the highest degree of exaltation !

The eighth was the largest group of men, which by its enormous numbers stood to the others in the relation of ninety-nine to one, and consisted of men who wanted neither peace nor war, nor offensive movements, nor a defensive camp at the Orissa, nor anywhere else, nor Barclay, nor the emperor, nor Pfuel, nor Bénigsen ; they cared only for one essential thing, — to obtain as many personal advantages and pleasures as possible. In that turbid water of conflicting and tangled intrigues, which swarmed at the headquarters of the emperor, one could succeed in many things, which at any other time would have been impossible. One, not wishing to lose the comfortable position which he was occupying, to-day agreed with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and on the next day affirmed that he had no opinion on a certain subject, only that he might avoid responsibility and please the emperor. Another, wishing to gain some advantage, directed the emperor’s attention to himself, loudly proclaiming that which the emperor had hinted on the previous day, disputing and shouting in the council, striking his breast, and challenging his opponents to a duel, by which he gave satisfactory proof that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third, in the interval between two councils and in the absence of his enemies, simply begged for some stipend in recognition of his faithful service, knowing full well that there was no time to refuse his request. A fourth kept accidentally getting into the emperor’s way and appearing overwhelmed by work. A fifth, to obtain a long desired invitation to the emperor’s dinner, furiously defended or attacked a newly expressed opinion, and for this purpose adduced more or less strong and just proofs.

All the men of this party caught roubles, crosses, and ranks, and in this hunt followed only the direction of the weather-vane of the imperial favour. The moment they noticed that the weather-vane had turned to one side, all this drone population of the army began to blow in the same direction, so that it became difficult for the emperor to turn it around. Amidst the indefiniteness of the situation and the imminent and serious danger, which gave to everything a peculiarly agitated character, amidst this whirl of intrigues, self-love, conflicts, varied views and feelings, amidst the heterogeneity of nations composing this class, the eighth, the largest of all parties, which was occupied with its personal interests, made the course of the whole matter more complicated and more confused. No matter what question arose, the swarm of these drones, without having finished their trumpeting on the previous theme, flew over to the new, and with their buzzing drowned and more and more confused the voices of those who were discussing matters sincerely.

Just as Prince Andréy reached the army, there arose out of these parties another, the ninth, which was beginning to make itself heard. It was the party of old, sensible, statesmanlike men who, without sharing any of the conflicting views, knew how to look in the abstract at everything which was taking place at the staff of the headquarters, and to consider means for coming out of this indefiniteness, indecision, entanglement, and weakness.

The men of this party said and believed that everything bad was mainly due to the presence of the emperor with his military court, and that the indefinite, conventional, and wavering frailness of relations, which was convenient at court, but harmful to the army, had been transferred there ; that the emperor ought to rule, but not direct the troops; that the only issue from this situation was the departure of the emperor with his court; that the presence of the emperor paralyzed the action of fifty thousand soldiers who were necessary to secure his personal safety ; that the worst independent commanderin-chief would be better than the best, who was embarrassed by the presence and power of the emperor.

While Prince Andréy was living unattached at the Drfssa camp, Shishkov, the secretary of state, who was one of the representatives of this party, wrote the emperor a letter, which Balashév and Arakchéev agreed to sign. Having been granted permission by the Tsar to discuss the general course of the war, he respectfully proposed to the emperor that he leave the army, under the pretext that he was needed in the capital, in order to animate its population to the war.

To stir the people and to invite them to defend the country, to cause the outburst of enthusiasm (such as had been produced in Moscow by the presence of the

Tsar), which was to become the chief cause of Russia’s triumph, was a duty which was left to the emperor and which he accepted as his excuse for departing from the army.

X.

This letter had not yet been handed to the Tsar, when Barclay at dinner informed Bolkdnski that the emperor wished to see him, in order to ask him some questions about Turkey, and that Prince Andréy was to appear at Bénigsen’s quarters at six o’clock in the evening.

On that same day news was received at the Tsar’s headquarters about a new movement of Napoleon, which might be perilous to the army, — news which later proved to be unfounded. On the same morning, Colonel Michaud examined with the emperor the fortifications at the Orissa, proving to him that this fortified camp, which had been constructed by Pfuel and which until then had been regarded as the chef-d’œuvre of tactical science and which was to ruin Napoleon, — that this camp was a piece of stupidity and would be the ruin of the Russian army.

Prince Andréy arrived at the quarters of General Bénigsen, who was occupying a small house of a landed proprietor on the very bank of the river. Neither Bénigsen nor the emperor was there ; but Chemyshév, the Tsar’s aid-de-camp, received Bolkdnski and informed him that the emperor had gone out, for the second time that day, with General Bénigsen and Marquis Paulucci, in order to examine the fortifications of the Orissa camp, about the utility of which they were beginning to have serious doubts.

Chemyshév was sitting with a French novel at a window of the first room. This room had, no doubt, once been a parlour ; in it still stood an organ, over which were

thrown some rugs, and in one corner of it was the folding bed of Bénigsen’s adjutant. The adjutant was there. He was apparently tired out from the effects of a banquet or of work, was sitting on the folded bedclothes, and dozing. Two doors led out of the parlour : one opened into that which once had been a drawingroom, while the other, on the right, led to the cabinet. Through the first door could be heard voices of men speaking in German and now and then in French. There, in tjie former drawingroom, were gathered, at the emperor’s request, not a council of war (the Tsar was fond of indefiniteness), but a few persons whose opinion, in the impending trouble, he wished to know. It was not a council of war, but, as it were, a council of men chosen to explain certain questions personally to the emperor. To this informal council had been invited the Swedish General Armfeldt, AdjutantGeneral Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, whom Napoleon had called a fugitive French subject, Michaud, Toll, Count Stein, who was not at all a military man, and, finally, Pfuel himself, who, as Prince Andréy had heard, was ” le cheville ouvrière ” of the whole affair. Prince Andréy had a good chance to study him because Pfuel arrived soon after him, and, having talked a minute with Chemyshév, passed to the drawingroom.

At first sight, Pfuel, in his badly made uniform of a Russian general, which sat loosely on him as though he were in disguise, appeared familiar to Prince Andréy, though he had never seen him. There was in him something of Weyrother, and Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German theoretical generals, whom Prince Andréy had seen in the year 1805 ; but he was more typical than they. He had never before seen such a German theorist, who united in his person all that was in those other Germans.

Pfuel was not tall, and was very lean, but broad-boned, of a coarse, sound, bodily structure, with a broad pelvis and bony shoulders. His face was very wrinkled and had deep-set eyes. His hair had apparently been hastily combed in front, over the temples, with a brush, but in the back it naïvely towered in tufts. Upon entering, he looked restlessly and angrily about him, as though he were afraid for everything in the large room where he was. Holding his sword, he, with an awkward motion, turned to Chemyshév, asking him in German where the emperor was. Evidently he wanted to pass through the rooms as quickly as possible, to get done with the bowing and greeting, and to sit down to work over the map, where he felt himself in his place. He hurriedly shook his head in response to Chernyshév’s words and smiled sarcastically, as he listened to his words about the emperor’s examining the fortifications which he, Pfuel, had constructed according to his theory. He muttered something in a bass, abrupt voice, such as selfconfident Germans speak in ; it was something like, “Dummkopf” or “Zu Grunde die ganze Geschichte ” or ” ‘S wird was Gescheites draus werden..” Prince Andréy did not make out what he said, and wanted to pass by him, but Chemyshév introduced Prince Andréy to Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andréy was just back from Turkey where the war had been ended so successfully. Pfuel barely looked up, not so much at Prince Andréy, as past him, and said, laughing : ” Da muss ein schöner taktishcer Krieg gewesen sein ! ” Laughing a contemptuous laugh, he walked into the room whence the voices were heard.

It was evident that Pfuel, who was always ready to become ironically irritated, was now particularly excited because they had taken the liberty of examining the camp without him, and of censuring him. Prince Andréy, thanks to his Austerlitz recollections, from this one short meeting with Pfuel formed a clear conception of the man’s character. Pfuel was hopelessly, unchangeably, to the point of martyrdom, self-conscious, one of those men who are found only among the Germans, for the reason that only the Germans are self-conscious on the basis of an abstract idea, of science, that is, of a supposed knowledge of the complete truth. A Frenchman is self-conscious because he reveres his mind and his body, which he regards as invincibly enchanting both to men and women. An Englishman is self-conscious on the ground of his being a citizen of the best regulated government in the world, and because, as an Englishman, he always knows what has to be done, and that all which he, as an Englishman, is doing, is good. An Italian is self-conscious because he is agitated and easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-conscious for the very reason that he does not know anything and does not wish to know anything, and because he does not believe that it is possible to know anything. A German is selfconfident in a worse, firmer, and more disgusting manner than the rest, because he imagines that he knows the truth, — the science, which he has himself invented, but which to him is the absolute truth. Such apparently was Pfuel. lie had a science, — the theory of oblique movement, which he had deduced from the wars of Frederick the Great, and every tiring which he found in modern military history appeared to him as insipidity, barbarism, a monstrous conflict, in which so many mistakes were made on both sides that these wars could not be called wars : they did not fit in with the theory, and could not serve as subjects of science.

In the year 1806, Pfuel had been one of the authors of the plan of the war which ended with Jena and Auerstädt; but in the result of it he did not see the least proof of the irregularity of his theory. On the contrary, the departures from his theory, according to his idea, were the only cause of the whole failure, and he said, with his characteristic merry irony, ” Ich sagte ja, dass die ganze Geschichte zum Teufel gehen werde ! ” Pfuel was one of those theorists who so love their theory that they forget its aim, — its application to practice ; out of love for the theory he despised all practice, and did not want to hear a word about it. He really took delight in a failure, because such a failure, due to departures in practice from the theory, only proved to him the justice of his theory.

He had said a few words to Prince Andréy and Chernyshev about the impending war, with the expression of a man who knows in advance that everything will be bad, and who is not even dissatisfied with it. The uncombed tufts of hair which towered on the back of his head and the hastily brushed locks proved this most eloquently.

He passed to the other room, from which came immediately the grumbling bass sounds of his voice.

XL

Prince Andréy was still following Pfuel with his eyes, when Count Bénigsen hastily entered the room and, merely nodding to Bolkénski and without stopping, walked into the cabinet, where he gave his adjutant some orders. The Tsar was coming after him, and Bénigsen had hastened ahead in order to prepare a few things and be ready to receive the emperor. Chernyshév and Prince Andrey went out on the porch. The emperor looked tired as he dismounted from his horse. Marquis Paulucci was speaking to him. The emperor, bending his head to the left, was listening with a dissatisfied look to Paulucci, who was speaking with great animation. The Tsar moved forward, evidently wishing to end the conversation ; but the Italian, red with excitement and forgetting all propriety, followed him and kept saying :

” Quant à celui qui a conseillé ce camp, le camp de Drissa,” said Paulucci, just as the emperor ascended the steps and, noticing Prince Andréy, began to gaze at the unfamiliar face.

” Quant à celui, Sire” continued Paulucci, in a tone of despair, as though unable to contain himself any longer, ” qui a conseillé le camp de Drissa, je ne vois pas d’autre alternative que la maison jaune ou le gibet.”

Without waiting to hear all the Italian had to say, the emperor, who had in the meantime recognized Bolkénski, graciously turned to him :

” I am very glad to see you. Go where they are all gathered, and wait for me ! “

The emperor went to the cabinet. He was followed by Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkénski and Baron Stein, and the door was closed after him. Prince Andréy, taking advantage of the permission granted him by the Tsar, went with Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, to the drawingroom, where the council was meeting.

Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkénski occupied a position which might be called that of chief of the emperor’s staff. He came out of the cabinet and, taking some maps to the drawingroom and spreading them out there, put the questions to which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen assembled ; in the night there had been received the news (which later proved false) that the French were advancing in order to surround the Drissa camp.

The first one to speak was General Armfeldt, who, to escape the impending difficulty, suddenly proposed an entirely new, inexplicable position, to one side of the St. Petersburg and Moscow roads, where, in his opinion, the army should unite and wait for the enemy. This plan could not be explained on any other ground than by his desire to show that he, too, had an opinion. It was evident that it had been made long before by Armfeldt, and that he was now expounding it not so much for the purpose of answering the questions which had been put, with which the plan had nothing to do, as for the purpose of using the opportunity for expressing his view. It was one of a million propositions which could have been made with just as much reason, without having the least idea what character the war would assume. A few opposed his view, others defended it. The young Colonel Toll disputed the opinion of the Swedish general more excitedly than the rest and, during the discussion, took a well-filled manuscript out of his side pocket, and asked permission to read it. In this elaborate exposition, Toll proposed another plan, which was diametrically opposed to Armfeldt’s and Pfuel’s plans of the campaign. Paulucci, retorting to Toll, proposed a plan of a forward movement and attack, which alone, so he said, could take us out of uncertainty and out of the trap, as he called the Drissa camp, in which we then were.

Pfuel and his interpreter Wolzogen, who acted as a kind of a bridge in his relations with the court, were silent during the discussion. Pfuel only snorted disdainfully and turned his face away to show that he would never lower himself so far as to reply to all the nonsense which he was hearing. But when Prince Volkonski, who guided the discussion, invited him to express his opinion, he only said :

” Why ask me ? General Armfeldt has proposed a superb position with an open rear, or you have the attack von diesem italienischen Herrn. Sehr schön. Or a retreat. Aïich gut. Why ask me, then ? You know everything better than I do.”

But when Volkonski, frowning, said that he was asking for his opinion in the name of the emperor, Pfuel rose and suddenly said, with animation :

” They have spoiled everything and mixed everything up, and wanted to know everything better than I do, and now they come to me to ask me how to mend matters. There is nothing to mend. All that is necessary is to execute orders precisely on the lines indicated by me,” he said, knocking the table with his bony fingers. ” Where is the difficulty ? Nonsense, Kinderspiel ! “

He went up to a map and began to speak rapidly, pointing with his lean finger on the map, and proving that no accident could change the usefulness of the Drissa camp, that everything had been foreseen, and that, if the enemy really meant to surround the camp, they would certainly be destroyed.

Paulucci, who did not understand German, began to put questions to him in French. Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly, and began to translate his words, with difficulty following Pfuel, who spoke hurriedly as he explained that everything, everything, not only everything which had happened, but which might happen, everything had been provided for in his plan, and that, if there were any difficulties, the fault was that his orders had not been carried out with precision. He kept smiling ironically, and proved, and finally ceased proving, with a contemptuous look, just as a mathematician gives up verifying by different methods the once proved correctness of a problem. Wolzogen was his representative, expounding Ins ideas in French and now and then saying to Pfuel : ” Nicht wahr, Exccllcnz ? ” Pfuel, like a man who gets excited in a battle and strikes his own people, kept shouting angrily at his own Wolzogen :

” Nun ja, was soll denn da noch expliziert werden ? “

Paulucci and Michaud together attacked Wolzogen in French. Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained things to Prince Volkdnski in Russian. Prince Andréy listened silently and made his observations.

Of all these persons, the most sympathetic to Prince Andréy was the irascible, determined, and senselessly selfconfident Pfuel. He was apparently the only one of all the persons present who did not wish anything for himself and who had no personal enmities, but only wished for one thing, — the materialization of his plan, based on a theory which had been deduced by years of labour. He was ridiculous and disagreeable with his irony, but, at the same time, he inspired one with involuntary respect on account of his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides, in the speeches of all those who spoke, except in Pfuel’s speech, there was one common feature, which had not been in the military council of the year 1805 : it was an ill-disguised, panic terror before Napoleon’s genius, which was betrayed in every expression. Everything was regarded as possible to Napoleon ; he was expected from all sides, and with his terrible name they annihilated each other’s suppositions. Pfuel seemed to be the only one who regarded Napoleon as just such a barbarian as all the opponents of his theory.

But, in addition to the feeling of respect, Pfuel inspired Prince Andréy also with a feeling of pity. To judge from the tone in which the courtiers addressed him, and from what Paulucci had allowed himself to say to the emperor, but, above all, from a certain despair perceptible in Pfuel’s own expressions, it was evident that the others knew, and he himself felt, that his fall was near at hand. And so, in spite of his selfconfidence and German grumbling and irony, he was pitiable, with his well-brushed hair over his forehead and his towering tufts in the back of his head. Though he, apparently, concealed this under the guise of irritation and contempt, he was in despair, because the only chance which he had to verify his theory on a grand scale, and to prove to the whole world its correctness, was slipping away from him.

The discussions lasted for a long time, and the longer they lasted, the more excited the men became, having recourse to shouting and to personalities, and the less it became possible to come to any general conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andréy, listening to this Babel of tongues and to these propositions, plans, réfutais, and shouts, only wondered what it was they were talking about. The ideas, which had assailed him long ago, during his military activity, that there was no such a thing as a military science, and that there could be none, and that, consequently, there could not be what is called a military genius, now appeared to him as manifest truth.

« What theory and science can there be in a matter, the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot be defined, and in which the acting forces of the war are still less definable ? Nobody has known or can know, in what position our army and that of the enemy will be in a day, and nobody can tell what the strength of tins or that detachment may be. At times, when there is no coward in front, who will shout, ‘ We are cut off ! ‘ and will run; but when there is, instead, a bold, cheerful fellow, who will shout, ‘ Hurrah ! ‘ a detachment of five thousand will be worth another of thirty thousand, as was the case at Schöngraben ; while at other times fifty thousand soldiers will run away from eight thousand, as was the case at Austerlitz. How can there be a science in a matter, in which, as in every’ practical matter, nothing can be determined, and everything depends on an endless number of conditions, the significance of which is determined at a minute, winch will arrive no one knows when ? Armfeldt says that our army is cut off, and Paulucci maintains that we have placed the French army between two fires ; Michaud says that the defect of the Drfssa camp is due to the fact that the river is in the rear, and Pfuel says that that is its strength. Toll proposes one plan, and Armfeldt proposes another; and all are good, and all are bad, and the advantages of any proposition will become manifest only at the moment when the event takes place. Why do all say that there is a military genius ? Is the man who knows how to order in time to have the hardtack supplied, and to send tins one to the right and that one to the left, a genius, merely because military men are clad in splendour and vested with power, and the masses of the scoundrels flatter power and improperly attach to it the qualities of genius ? On the contrary, the best generals whom I have known are either stupid or absent-minded men. The best of them is Bagratidn, — Napoleon himself has regarded him as such. And Bonaparte himself ? I remember the self-satisfied and blunt expression of his face on the field of Austerlitz. A good general not only needs no genius, or any other special qualities, but, on the contrary, he needs an absence of all the highest and best human qualities, — love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic and inquisitive doubt. He must be narrow and firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise his patience will give way), and then only will he be a brave general. God forfend that he should be human, and love and pity any one, and think of what is right or wrong ! Naturally the theory of genius was invented for such men in ancient times, because they are a power. The success of a military affair does not depend on them, but on the man who in the ranks calls out, ‘ We are lost ! ‘ or, ‘ Hurrah ! ‘ It is only in the ranks that one can serve with the conviction that one is useful ! “

Thus thought Prince Andréy, as he listened to the discussion, and he was roused from Ins reflections only when Paulucci called him, and all began to depart.

On the following day, at the review, the emperor asked Prince Andréy where he wished to serve, and Prince Andréy was for ever lost to the court, since he did not ask to be left near the person of the emperor, but begged permission to serve in the army.

XII.

Before the beginning of the campaign, Piostdv had received a letter from his parents, in which he was briefly informed of Natdsha’s illness and of the rupture with Prince Andréy (it was explained to him on the ground of Natdsha’s refusal), and he was again asked to take his dismissal and return home. Upon receiving this letter, Nikoläy did not even make an attempt at getting a furlough or dismissal, but only wrote to his parents that he was sorry for Natasha’s illness and rupture with her fiancé, and that he would do everything in his power to fulfil their wish. To S6nya he wrote separately:

” Adored Friend of my Soul : — Nothing but honour could keep me from returning to the country ; but now, before the beginning of the campaign, I should consider myself disgraced, not only in the eyes of my comrades, but even in my own opinion, if I preferred my happiness to my duty and love of country. This is our last separation ! Believe me, as soon as the war is over, if I am alive and still loved by you, I shall throw up every tiling and fly to you, in order to press you for ever to my flaming breast.”

Indeed, it was only the opening of the campaign which detained Rostév and kept him from returning, as he had promised, and marrying Sonya. The autumn at Otradnoe, with its chase, and the winter, with the Christmas holidays and with Sénya’s love, opened to him a perspective of quiet country squire pleasures and calm, which he had not known before, and which now enticed him. ” An excellent wife, children, a good pack of hounds, ten or twelve leashes of swift greyhounds, neighbours, duties connected with the elections ! ” he thought. But now the campaign was on, and he had to remain in the regiment. And as this was a matter of necessity, Nikoldy Rostov, by his natural disposition, was satisfied with the life which he was leading in the army, and knew how to make this life agreeable for liimself.

After his return from his furlough, Nikolay had been received with joy by his comrades, and then he was sent for remounts. He brought with him from Little-Russia some very fine horses, which gave him pleasure and earned him praises from his superiors. During his absence he was promoted to the rank of captain, and when the regiment was placed on a war footing, with an increased complement, he again received his old squadron.

The campaign began. The regiment was moved into Poland ; double pay was now given ; there arrived new officers, new men, new horses ; and, above all, there was abroad that joyful animation which always exists in the beginning of a war. Rostov, conscious of his advantageous position in the army, abandoned himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of the military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to give them up.

The troops retreated from Vilna for various complex, political, and tactical reasons, and reasons of state. Every step of the retreat was accompanied by a complicated game of interests, ratiocinations, and passions at the head staff. But for the hussars of the Pavlogrddski regiment, all this retrogressive campaign, at the best season of the year, with sufficient supplies, was a very simple and agreeable matter. It was only at headquarters that they despaired, were restless, and intrigued ; but in the army itself they did not ask whither they were going, or for what purpose. If they did feel sorry to retreat, it was because they hated to leave a comfortable room, or a pretty Polish lass. If it did occur to this or that man that affairs were in a bad shape, such a one, as was proper for a military man, tried to be jolly and not to think of the general course of events, but only to busy himself about his immediate affairs.

At first they had been pleasantly located near Vilna, where they became acquainted with the Polish landed proprietors, and waited for and went through reviews for the emperor and other superior commanders. Then came the order to retreat to Sventsydny and to destroy the provisions which they could not carry with them. Sventsydny was memorable to the hussars because it was a ” drunken camp,” as the whole army had called the halt there, and because in Sventsydny there were many complaints against the army because, having received orders to levy provision, they took away horses, carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostov remembered Sventsydny because, on the first day after entering the little town, he changed his sergeant-major and could not get along with the extremely drunken soldiers of the squadron, who without his knowledge had carried off five kegs of old beer. From Sventsydny they retreated more and more, to the Drissa, and from the Drissa they again retreated, toward the Russian border.

On July 13th the Pavlogrddski regiment was for the first time in a serious engagement. On the previous night there had been a severe storm with rain and hail. The summer of 1812 was, altogether, remarkable for its storms. Two squadrons of the Pavlogrddski regiment were bivouacked in the middle of a field of rye, which had been standing in full ear, but now was completely tramped out by the cattle and the horses. The rain came down in sheets. Rostdv and a young officer, Ilin, who was under his protection, were sitting in a tent which had been pitched in a hurry. An officer of their regiment, with a long moustache, which was continued from his cheeks, on his way back from the staff and caught in the rain, went in to see Rostov.

” Count, I am just coming back from the staff. Have you heard of Raévski’s exploit? ” And the officer proceeded to tell the details of the battle at Laltanovka, of which he had heard at the staff.

Rostov shrugged his shoulders, as the water was running down his neck, and smoked a pipe. He listened inattentively, and now and then looked at the young officer, Ilin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a boy of sixteen years, who had but lately entered the regiment, was now to Nikolay what Nikolây himself had been to Denisov seven years before. Ilin tried to imitate Rostdv in every tiling, and loved him as only women love.

The officer with the double moustache, Zdrzhinski, told them in pompous language that the dam at Saltdnovka was the Thermopylæ of the Russians, because on that dam General Raévski had done an act worthy of antiquity. Zdrzhinski told them bow Raévski had taken his two sons out on the dam, while a terrible fire was poured on them, and how he went with them to the attack. Rostov listened to the story, and not only said nothing to confirm Zdrzhinski in his enthusiasm, but, on the contrary, had the aspect of a man who is ashamed of what he is being told, though he does not intend to make any reply. Rostév knew, from personal experience, after his campaigns at Austerlitz and in the year 1807, that people always be when they tell of military events, just as he himself used to prevaricate ; in the second place, he was experienced enough to know that things did not take place in battles as we imagine them, or could tell about them. For this reason he did not like Zdrzhinski’s story, just as he did not like Zdrzhinski himself, who, with his moustache extending to his cheeks, was in the habit of bending low over the face of the person to whom he was talking, and was crowding him in his tent. Rostov looked at him in silence.

” In the first place, there must have been such a tangle and disorder on the dam which was being attacked that, if Raévski really took out his sons, this could not have had any effect on any more than ten of the nearest men,” thought Rostév, ” while the others could not even have seen with whom Raévski was walking over the dam. And even those who saw them could not have been very much inspired, because what could they care for the tender feelings of a father, when their own hides were in danger ? Then again, whether the dam of Salténovka was taken or not, it could have no effect upon the fate of the country, as was the case with Thermopylae Consequently, what sense was there in bringing such a sacrifice ? Then again, what have one’s own children to do in the war ? I myself not only would not think of taking Pétya out, but would even try to place Ilin, this good boy, who is a stranger to me, somewhere in a protected place,” Rostév continued to think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski.

He did not utter his thoughts, experience having taught him the futility of it. He knew that this story had had the effect of glorifying our arms, and so it was necessary to look as though one did not doubt the story. And so he did.

” Really, I can’t stand it any longer,” said Ilin, who had noticed that Rostov did not like Zdrzhinski’s conversation, ” my stockings and shirt are wet, and the water is running on my seat. I will go and look for a dry place. It seems the rain has let up.”

Ilin went out, and Zdrzhinski departed.

Five minutes later Ihn, splashing through the mud, ran up to the tent.

” Hurrah! Rostov, let us go quick! I have found it!

About two hundred steps from here there is a tavern, and our officers are there already. We shall at least get dry, and Mdrya Genrikhovna is there.”

Märya Genrikhovna was the wife of the doctor of the regiment. She was a pretty young German woman, whom the doctor had married in Poland. The doctor, either because he had no means, or because during the first of his married life he did not wish to be separated from his young wife, took her along with the regiment of hussars, and his jealousy had become the common subject of jokes among the officers of hussars.

Rostov threw a cloak over him, called Lavrushka, telling him to take his things along, and went with Ilin, now tottering in the mud, now splashing in the puddles, through the darkness of the night, which was occasionally broken by distant lightning. The rain was letting up.

” Rostov, where are you ? “

“ Here. What a flash of lightning ! ” he answered.

XIII.

In the tavern, in front of which stood the doctor’s cart, there were already five officers. Mdrya Genrikhovna, a plump blond German woman, in dressing-sack and nightcap, was sitting in the front corner on a broad bench. Her husband, the doctor, was sleeping back of her. Rostdv and Ilin entered the room and were received with merry acclamations and loud laughter.

” Oho ! You are having a jolly time ! ” Rostdv said, laughing.

“ And why are you so gloomy ? “

« They look fine ! Lee how the water is running off them ! Don’t get our drawingroom wet ! “

“ Don’t soil Märya Genrikhovna’s garments ! ” said some one else.

Rostdv and Ilin hastened to find a corner where, without offending Mdrya Genrikhovna’s modesty, they might take off their wet clothes. They went behind a partition ; but the small storeroom was completely filled by three officers who, with a candle placed on an empty box, were playing cards, and were unwilling to yield their places on any conditions. Marya Genrikhovna for a time let them have her skirt, which was used as a curtain, and behind it Rostdv and Ilin, with the help of Lavrushka, who had brought the baggage, took off their wet, and put on dry, clothes.

A fire was made in the dilapidated stove. A board was found, which was firmly placed on two saddles ; this was covered with a piece of cloth, then a small samovdr, a lunch-basket, and half a bottle of rum were brought out, and Mdrya Genrikhovna was asked to be the hostess. All crowded around her. One offered her a clean handkerchief with which to wipe her charming little hands ; another placed his Hungarian coat under her feet, in order to keep them from getting damp ; a third hung his overcoat over the window, so as to keep out the draught; while a fourth kept the flies away from her husband’s face, that he might not wake up.

“ Leave him alone,” said Mdrya Genrikhovna, smiling timidly and with an expression of happiness, ” he will sleep well anyway after a wakeful night.”

” I cannot help it, Mdrya Genrikhovna,” replied the officer, ” I must do the doctor a service. Maybe he will be merciful with me when he has to cut off a hand or foot of mine.”

There were only three glasses in all ; the water was so dirty that it was impossible to decide whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovdr held only six glasses ; but it was so much the more pleasant to receive one’s glass in turn, by seniority, from the plump hands of Marya Genrikhovna, with her short, not scrupulously clean, nails. All the officers on that evening really seemed to be in love with her. Even the officers who were playing cards behind the partition soon gave up the game and came out to the samovar, falling in with the universal mood of paying court to Mdrya Genrikhovna. Seeing herself surrounded by such brilliant and polite young men, she beamed with happiness, no matter how much she tried to conceal it, and no matter how much she apparently felt embarrassed at every motion of her husband who was sleeping behind her.

There was but one spoon. There was plenty of sugar, but as no one stirred it well, it was decided that she should stir the sugar for each in succession. Having received his glass, Rostov added some rum to it and asked Marya Genrikhovna to stir it for him.

” But you have no sugar,” she said, smiling all the time, as though everything which she said and which the others said were exceedingly funny and had another meaning, too.

” I do not care so much for the sugar as that you should stir it with your little hand.”

Marya Genrikhovna agreed to do so, and started to look for the spoon, which somebody else had taken away.

” You stir it with your little finger, Marya Genrikhovna,” said Rostov, “it will be so much the more agreeable.”

” It is hot ! ” said Mdrya Genrikhovna, blushing from pleasurable excitement.

Ilin took a bucket with water, and, dropping some rum into it, came to Marya Genrikhovna and asked her to stir that with her little finger.

“This is my cup,” he said. “Just put in your little finger and I will drink it all.”

When the samovar was emptied, Rostov took a pack of cards and proposed playing ” kings ” with Marya Genrikhovna. A lot was cast to see who should play with Mdrya Genrikhovna. According to Rostov’s proposition, it was the rule of the game that the ” king ” should kiss her hand, and that he who should be the booby should prepare a samovdr for the doctor, when he awoke.

“ Well, and if Marya Genrikhovna is the king ? ” asked Ilin.

” She is a queen as it is, and her commands are law.”

The game had just begun, when back of Marya Genrikhovna suddenly rose the dishevelled head of the doctor. He had not been sleeping for some time, and had been, listening to what was being said, and apparently found nothing jolly, funny, or entertaining in anything that was being done or said. His face was sad and gloomy. He did not greet the officers, but only scratched himself and asked permission to go out, as his way was barred. The moment he had left, all the officers burst into loud guffaws, and Marya Genrikhovna blushed till the tears came, and thus, to the thinking of the officers, became more attractive than before. After returning from the outside, the doctor informed his wife, who no longer had such a happy smile, and was looking at him in fright, waiting for her sentence, that the rain had passed and that it was necessary to go to the cart to sleep, or else everything would be carried off.

” But I will send an orderly there, or even two of them,” said Rostdv. ” Don’t say that, doctor ! “

” I will myself stand sentinel! ” said Ilin.

” No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two nights,” said the doctor. He sat down gloomily by the side of his wife, waiting for the end of the game.

Looking at the sullen face of the doctor, as he kept glancing awry at his wife, the officers felt merrier still, and many of them were unable to keep from laughing, for which they endeavoured to discover some proper reasons. When the doctor went out with his wife and placed her in the cart, the officers lay down in the tavern and covered themselves with their wet overcoats ; but it was a long time before they fell asleep, for they were recalling the doctor’s fright and his wife’s merriment, or some one ran out on the porch to find out what was going on in the cart. Rostov several times wrapped up his head and wanted to fall asleep ; but again somebody’s remark distracted him, again they started a conversation, and again there was heard groundless, merry, childish laughter.

XIV.

At three o’clock nobody was asleep yet, when a sergeant-major came with an order to move to the town of Ostrdvna.

Talking and laughing as merrily as before, the officers began to get ready hurriedly ; again the samovér was prepared with dirty water. But Rostov did not wait for the tea, and went at once to his squadron. Day was breaking ; the rain had stopped, the clouds were dispersing. It was damp and cold, and especially so in wet clothes. Leaving the tavern, Rostov and Ilin peered in the twilight into the leather-covered cart which looked shining from the rain, and out of the boot of which towered the doctor’s feet, while in the middle could be seen his wife’s cap resting on a pillow, and could be heard the even breathing of sleep.

” Really, she is very charming ! ” Rostov said to Ilin, who came out with him.

” A superb woman ! ” Ilin replied, with the seriousness of a boy of sixteen years.

Half an hour later the squadron was drawn up on the road. The command was given, and the soldiers made the sign of the cross and began to mount. Rostdv rode out in front and commanded, ” March ! ” and the hussars, forming in rows of four, with a splash of their horses’ feet on the wet road, with the clanking of sabres, and with quiet conversations, moved along the birch-lined highway, behind the infantry and battery, which preceded them.

The tattered lilac clouds, crimsoning in the east, were rapidly driven by the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. One could clearly see the curly grass, which always grows on the country roads, and which was still wet from the rain of the previous day ; the pendent boughs of the birches, themselves wet, swayed in the wind and cast bright drops sidewise on the ground. The faces of the soldiers could be told more and more distinctly. Rostov was riding -with Ilin, who did not leave him, on one side of the road, between two rows of birches.

Rostov took the liberty of riding during the campaign, not an army, but a Cossack horse. Being a connoisseur in horseflesh, he had succeeded in providing himself with a spirited, cream-coloured Don horse, on which he could outride anybody. It was a joy to Rostov to ride this horse. He was thinking of his mount, of the morning, and of the doctor’s wife, but not once of the impending danger.

Formerly Rostov used to be afraid every time when he went into action ; now he did not experience the least feeling of terror. Not because he had become accustomed to the fire (one never gets used to danger) was he without fear, but because he had learned to control his soul before the danger. He had accustomed himself, when going into action, to think of everything, except of what would seem to be most interesting of all, — of the impending danger. No matter how much he had tried, and had rebuked himself for his cowardice, he had been unable, during the first of his service, to overcome it; but as years went on, control became natural to him. He was now riding with Ilin between the rows of birches, now and then tearing off leaves from the branches, which fell into his hands, and now touching the horse’s flanks with his feet, and now again, without turning back, handing his unfinished pipe to the hussar behind him, which he did with a calm and careless look, as though he were out promenading. He felt sorry for Ilin, as he looked at his disturbed face and heard him talk incessantly ; he knew from experience that vexatious condition of expectancy of terror and death, in which the ensign was, and he knew that nothing but time would help him.

The sun had just appeared on a clean strip behind a cloud, when the wind died down, as though it did not dare to spoil that superb summer morning after a storm ; drops were still falling, but only obliquely, — and all grew silent. The sun emerged entirely, showed itself at the horizon, and disappeared in a narrow, long cloud which was standing above it. A few minutes later it appeared brighter still at the upper edge of the cloud, tearing asunder its edges. Everything began to shine and glisten. And simultaneously with this light, as though seconding it, there resounded discharges of guns far to the front.

Rostdv had not yet had time to make out and determine how far away these shots were, when an adjutant of Count Osterman-Tolstdy came galloping along with the order to advance at a quick trot along the road.

The squadron moved past the infantry and the battery, which also was hurrying forward, descended a hill, and, passing a deserted village, again ascended an incline. The horses were beginning to become lathered, and the men were heated.

“ Halt ! Align yourselves ! ” was heard the command of the chief of the division in front. ” Left shoulder forward, forward, march ! ” were the commands given in the van. And the hussars passed down the line of the troops to the left flank of the position, and stationed themselves behind our uhlans, who were in the first line. On the right our infantry stood in a dense column : those were the reserves ; above them, on the hill, our guns, outlined in the clear, clear air against the horizon, could distinctly be seen in the bright, oblique illumination of the morning. In front, the enemy’s columns and guns were visible beyond a ravine. Our cordon could be heard in the ravine ; it had already entered into action and was merrily exchanging a crackling fire with the enemy.

Rostov felt as happy under these long unaccustomed sounds as though they were the most cheerful music. ” Trap-ta-ta-tap ! ” several shots clicked now all together, and now one after another in rapid succession. Again all was silent, and again it sounded as though detonating balls were cracking every time some one walked over them.

The hussars stood for about an hour in one place. Then began a cannonade. Count Osterman with his suite rode down the rear of the squadron ; he stopped to speak with the commander of the regiment, and rode away in the direction of the cannons on the hill.

Immediately after the departure of Osterman, one could hear the command given to the uhlans to form a column for the attack. The infantry in front of them doubled their platoons, so as to let the cavalry pass through. The uhlans moved, swaying the pennons of their lances, and at a quick trot raced downhill against the French cavalry, which had appeared at the foot of the hill, on the left.

The moment the uhlans had descended the hill, the hussars were ordered to move up to the summit, to protect the battery. Just as the hussars were taking up the position of the uhlans, bullets came from the direction of the cordon, whining and whistling, but not striking any one.

This long unfamiliar sound had an even more cheerful and stirring effect upon Rostov than the former sounds of the reports. He straightened himself up, surveyed the field of battle which was opened to him from the hill, and with his whole soul took part in the movement of the uhlans. They flew at close range against the French dragoons ; something became entangled in the smoke, and five minutes later the uhlans rushed back, not to the place where they had been standing before, but more to the left. Between the orange-coloured uhlans on chestnut horses and behind them could be seen a large throng of French dragoons in blue, mounted on gray horses.

XV.

Rostov, with the sharp eyes of a hunter, was one of the first to observe these blue French dragoons who were in pursuit of our uhlans. Nearer, nearer the uhlans moved in disorganized bands, with the French dragoons behind them. He could see these men, who had appeared so small at the foot of the hill, overtaking one another, and waving their hands or their sabres.

Rostdv looked at that which was going on in front of him, as though it were a chase. He felt instinctively that if he now struck with his hussars against the French dragoons, they would not stand their ground ; but, if he was to strike them, he must do it that very minute, or else it would be too late. He looked around him. The captain, who was standing near him, himself did not take his eyes off the cavalry below him.

“ Andréy Sevastyänych,” said Rostov, ” we can crush them — “

“ It would be a nice thing,” said the captain, « indeed — “

Rostov did not listen any longer ; he spurred his horse, leaped in front of his squadron, and, before he had time to give the proper command, the whole squadron, which felt precisely the same as he, moved after him. Rostdv did not know himself how or why he did it. He simply did it, as he had done things at the chase, without thinking or reflecting. He saw that the dragoons were near, that they were galloping, and were disbanded ; he knew that they would not stand their ground ; he knew that there was but one minute, which would never return, if it was allowed to slip by. The bullets whined and whistled so stirringly all about him, and his horse was so anxious to rush forward, that he could not endure it any longer. He touched his mount, gave a command, and at the same moment, while he heard behind him the tramp of his deploying squadron, went at full trot downhill against the dragoons. Just before getting to the foot of the hill, the gait of the horses changed to a gallop, which became faster and faster, as they approached their ulilans and the French dragoons, who were in pursuit. The dragoons were near by. Those in front began to turn around the moment they espied the hussars ; those behind checked their horses. With the feeling which he had experienced in trying to cut off the wolf’s escape, Rostdv, sending forward his Don horse at fullest speed, galloped to cut off the retreat of the disorganized ranks of the French dragoons. One uhlan stopped ; a soldier on foot fell down to the ground in order not to be crushed ; a riderless horse got mixed among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were galloping back. Rostdv selected one of them, on a gray horse, and raced after him. On the way he ran up against a bush; his good horse carried him over it, and, adjusting himself in the saddle, he saw that in a few moments he would overtake the enemy whom he had chosen as his prey. This Frenchman, apparently an officer, to judge from his uniform, was bending down over his gray horse and urging it on with his sabre. A moment later, Rostov’s horse struck its breast against the crupper of the officer’s horse, almost knocking it down, and the same moment Rostdv, not knowing why, raised his sabre and struck with it against the Frenchman.

No sooner had he done it than all his animation left him. The officer fell down, not so much from the blow of the sabre, which only lightly cut his arm above the elbow, as from the jarring of the horse and from fright. Rostdv checked his horse and looked for his enemy, in order to see whom he had vanquished. The French officer of dragoons was leaping with one foot on the ground, the other having caught in the stirrup. He blinked in terror, as though expecting any second another blow ; he frowned with an expression of horror, looking up at Rostov. His face, which was pale and bespattered with mud, was of a light complexion and looked youthful; there was a dimple on his chin, his eyes were of a light blue colour ; altogether he had not the appearance of an enemy on the held of battle, but looked like any common mortal. Even before Rostdv had made up his mind what he would do with him, the officer called out, ” Je me rends ! ” He tried hard to disengage his foot from the stirrup, and did not take his frightened blue eyes off Rostdv. Hussars rode up, freed his foot, and put him in the saddle. The hussars were on all sides busy with the dragoons : one was wounded, but, with his face covered with gore, he did not give up his horse ; another was embracing a hussar, as he was sitting on the crupper of his mount ; a third, supported by a hussar, was climbing on his horse. In front ran the French infantry, shooting as it ran. The hussars galloped back with their prisoners. Rostdv went back with them, experiencing a certain disagreeable sensation which oppressed him. Something indistinct and complex, which he was entirely unable to explain to himself, overcame him with the capture of that officer, and with the blow which he had given him.

Count Osterman-Tolstdy met the returning hussars. He called up Rostov, thanked him, and told him that he would inform the emperor of his heroic act, and would ask for the cross of St. George for him. When Rostov was called up to Count Osterman, he, recalling that the attack had been begun without having received an order, was fully convinced that the chief wanted to see him to punish him for his arbitrary act. Therefore Osterman’s flattering words and the promise of a reward ought to have been so much the more agreeable to Rostov; but, instead, the same unpleasant, indistinct feeling caused him moral nausea.

” What is it that torments me so ? ” he asked himself, as he rode away from the general. ” Ilin ? No, he is not wounded. Have I disgraced myself in any way ? No, it is not that ! “

It was something else that was tormenting him,— something like remorse. ” Yes, yes, it is that French officer with the dimple. I remember how my arm was arrested as I raised it to strike.”

Rostdv saw the captives who were being taken away, and he galloped after them in order to see his Frenchman with the dimple in the chin. He looked strange as he sat in his odd uniform, on a stud-horse of a hussar, and kept glancing restlessly about him. His wound on his arm was insignificant. He smiled a feigned smile at Rostov, and waved his arm, as a greeting. Rostdv felt as awkward and as ashamed as before.

Rostdv was all the time thinking of his brilliant exploit, which, to his surprise, had earned him the cross of St. George and had even given him a reputation for bravery, and he was unable to understand it all.

“ So they are afraid even more than we ! ” he thought. ” So this is all there is to heroism ! Did I do it for my country’s sake ? And how is it the fault of that man, with his dimple and his blue eyes ? How frightened he was ! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill him ? My hand trembled, — and I get the cross of St. George. I comprehend nothing, nothing ! ”

Rut while Nikoläy was ruminating on these questions, without arriving at any clear account of what it was that vexed him so, the wheel of fortune in the service, as often happens, was turned in his favour. After the engagement at Ostrdvna he was promoted : he received a battalion of hussars, and whenever there was any need of a brave officer, he was sent out on a mission.

XVI.

Having received the news about Natäsha’s illness, the countess, who was not entirely recovered and was still weak, came with Pétya and the whole household to Moscow, and the family transferred itself from Märya Dmitrievna’s to their own house, and settled down completely in Moscow.

Natäsha’s illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her relatives, the thought of what was the cause of her illness, her act and her rupture with her fiancé, passed into the background. She was so ill that it was impossible to think of how much she was to blame for all that had happened, so long as she did not eat, nor sleep, and visibly grew thinner, and coughed, and, as the physicians hinted, was in a precarious state. All they could think of was how to help her. The doctors kept coming to see Natasha singly and in numbers, for consultations, speaking French, and German, and Latin, and censuring each other, and prescribing a great variety of medicines for every possible disease ; but not to one of them did the simple thought occur that they could not know the disease from which Natasha suffered, just as not a single disease which living man is heir to can be known, because each living man has his peculiarities, and always has his especial, new, complicated disease, which is unknown to medicine, — not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so forth, which are recorded in medicine, but a disease which consists of one of the numberless combinations of these ailing organs. This simple thought could not have occurred to the physicians (just as the thought cannot occur to the sorcerer that he is unable to produce a charm), because it was their business to cure, because they received pay for it, and because they had wasted the best years of their lives on it. But, above all, this thought could not have occurred to the doctors because they saw that they were unquestionably useful, and so they were in the case of the whole Rostov family. They were useful, not because they made the patient swallow a quantity of mostly harmful substances (this harm was not very perceptible because the harmful substances were administered in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, inevitable (for the same reason that there have always been and always will be imaginary healers, sorcerers, homoeopaths, and allopaths), because they satisfied the moral want of the patient and of the people who loved the patient. They satisfied that eternal human need of a hope of finding alleviation, the need of sympathy and activity, which a man experiences during the time of suffering. They satisfied that eternal human need which may be observed in a child in its primitive form,— the need of rubbing the spot which has been hurt. When a child is hurt he immediately runs for the hand of his mother or nurse, to have the sore spot kissed and rubbed, and he feels better the moment that is done. The child will not believe that those who are stronger and wiser than he have no means for allaying his pain. The hope of getting relief and the expression of sympathy while his mother rubs his sore spot give him consolation. The doctors were useful to Natasha in that they kissed and rubbed her sore spot, assuring her that it would all pass soon, if the coachman drove to the apothecary’s in the Arbdt and got there a rouble and seventy kopeks’ worth of pills and powders in a pretty little box, and if these powders were taken by the patient in boiled water at intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.

What would Sdnya, the count, and the countess have done, if they had only looked on without doing anything, if there were not these pills to be taken at stated times, and the drinking of warm concoctions, and the chicken cutlets, and all the details of life, which were prescribed by the physician, and the strict observance of which formed the occupation and consolation of all those who surrounded her?

How would the count have borne the illness of his beloved daughter, if he had not known that Natàsha’s illness cost him one thousand roubles, and that he would not grudge another thousand, if he could only be useful to her ; if he had not known that, if she did not get better, he would not grudge several thousands more, and would take her abroad for consultations ; if he had not had the chance to tell all the details of how Métivier and Feller did not undersand her case, and Fries did understand it, and Mudrov determined what her illness was even better ? What would the countess have done, if she had not been able now and then to quarrel with Natasha for not observing exactly all the prescriptions of the doctor ?

” You will never get well,” she would say, forgetting her sorrow in her vexation, ” if you do not obey the doctor and do not take the medicine on time ! It is no trivial matter when you may get pneumonia,” the countess would say, and would find some measure of consolation in the utterance of this word, which was unintelligible not only to herself, but also to others.

What would Sdnya have done, if she had not had the joyful consciousness that in the beginning of Natasha’s illness she had passed three nights without undressing, only to be ready at the proper time to carry out the doctor’s injunctions, and that even later she did not sleep nights, in order not to miss the hours when it was necessary to give her the harmless pills from the gilt box ?

Even Natäsha herself, who kept saying that no medicine would cure her, and that it was all nonsense, saw with pleasure what sacrifices were made for her in order that she might take the medicine at the proper time. And it even gave her pleasure to be able to neglect to carry out the prescriptions, and thus to show that she did not believe in the cure, and did not value her life.

The doctor came to see her every day. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and, without paying any attention to her dejected face, joked with her. But when he went into the other room, the countess hurriedly followed him, and he, assuming a serious look and pensively shaking his head, told her that, although there was some danger, he hoped to avert it through the action of the latest medicine, that he had to wait and see, that the illness was more of a moral nature, but —

The countess, trying to conceal her act from herself and from the doctor, always pushed a gold coin into his hand, and every time returned to the patient with a feeling of relief.

The symptoms of Natasha’s illness were that she ate and slept little, coughed much, and never became animated. The doctors said that the patient could not be left -without medical assistance, and so she was kept in a close room in the city. During the summer of 1812 the Rostdvs did not go to the country.

In spite of the great quantity of pills, drops, and powders, consumed by her out of bottles and boxes, of which Madame Schoss, who was very fond of such things, made a large collection ; in spite of missing the usual sojourn in the country, youth finally conquered : Natasha’s grief began to be covered by a layer of the impressions of the life which she had lived through, and no longer lay on her heart with such a tormenting pain ; it began to be the past, and Natdsha improved physically.

XVII.

Natasha was calmer, but not merrier. She not only avoided all external conditions of joy, balls, promenades, concerts, the theatre, but she not even once laughed in such a way that the tears could not be heard through her laugh. She could not sing. The moment she began to laugh or tried, while by herself, to sing, tears choked her : tears of repentance, tears caused by the recollection of that irretrievable, pure time, tears of vexation, because she had so uselessly wasted her young life, which might have been so happy. Laughter and singing seemed to her as a kind of a profanation of her hero. Of coquetry she did not even think, and so she did not have to restrain herself in this respect. She said and felt that during that time all men were to her nothing more than the buffoon, Nastasya Ivänovna. An internal guard interdicted every joy for her ; nor were any of the former interests of life left in her from that careless condition of her girlhood, which had been so full of hopes. She thought more frequently and with an ever increasing pang of the autumn months, of the chase, of the uncle, and of the Christmas holidays which she had passed with Nikoldy at Otradnoe. What would she not have given to bring back even one day of that time ! But that was for ever gone. Her presentiment, which she then had, that the condition of freedom and openness to all joy would never return again, had not deceived her. Still, it was necessary to live.

It gave her pleasure to think that she was not better, as she had once thought, but worse, indeed, much worse, than all, all who lived in the world. That was not all. She knew it, and asked herself : ” What will come later ? ” But there was nothing. There was no joy of life, and life was passing. Natäsha apparently was trying only not to be a burden to any one, and not to trouble a soul, but she did not want anything for herself. She kept aloof from all her home people, and felt at ease only with Petya. She liked to be with him rather than with anybody else, and now and then, when left alone with him, she would laugh. She hardly ever went out of the house, and of all the visitors cared to see only Pierre.

It was impossible for any one to be more gentle, more careful, and at the same time more serious, than Count Bezukhi was in Iris treatment of her. Natäsha instinctively felt the gentleness of his treatment, and so experienced great pleasure in his company. But she was not even grateful to him for his gentleness. Nothing good on the part of Pierre seemed to her to be an effort. It appeared to her that it was so natural for Pierre to be good that there was no special desert in his goodness. Now and then Natasha noticed Pierre’s embarrassment and awkwardness in her presence, especially whenever he wanted to cause her some pleasure, or when he was afraid that something in the conversation might turn her mind to oppressive memories. She noticed that, and ascribed it to his general goodness and timidity, which according to her idea must be the same in others that it was in her. After those accidental words, that, if he were free, he would on his knees ask for her hand and love, uttered by him at the moment of her great agitation, Pierre had never again mentioned his feelings to Natäsha; and it was evident to her that the words, which at that time had been so consoling to her, had been said in the same spirit in which one says meaningless words to a weeping child, in order to console it. Not because Pierre was a married man, but because Natäsha was conscious of the existence between him and herself of a powerful moral barrier, such as she had felt the absence of in case of Kurâgin, it never occurred to her that out of her relations to Pierre could ever come any love on her and, still less, on his part, or even that kind of tender, conscious, poetic friendship between man and woman, of which she knew several examples.

At the end of St. Peter’s fast, Agraféna Ivanovna Byé-lov, an Otradnoe neighbour of the Rostdvs, arrived in Moscow in order to make a pilgrimage to the Moscow saints. She proposed that Natäsha prepare herself for the holy sacrament, and Natäsha fell in with the idea joyfully. In spite of the doctor’s express prohibition of her going out in the morning, Natäsha insisted that she would attend the divine services, and that, too, not in the fashion in which this was generally done by the Rostovs, when three masses were celebrated at their house, but in the way in which Agraféna Ivanovna prepared herself for the sacrament, that is, by not omitting a single vesper, mass, and matin for the period of one week.

The countess was glad to see this devotion on the part of Natäsha ; in her heart, after the unsuccessful cure by the physicians, she hoped that prayers would help Natäsha more than medicine, and so, though she was afraid, and concealed the matter from the doctor, she consented to Natasha’s ■wish, and entrusted her to Madame Byélov’s care. Agraféna Ivänovna came at three o’clock in the night to wake Natasha up, but she generally found her already awake. She was afraid she might miss the matin. Hurriedly washing herself and in all humility putting on her worst garment and oldest mantilla, and shuddering from the freshness of the air, Natasha went out into the deserted streets, which were brightly illuminated by the dawn.

Following Agraféna Ivanovna’s advice, Natasha did not prepare herself in her own parish church, but in another church, in which, so pious Agraféna Ivanovna said, there was a priest of a very austere and exalted life. In the church there were never more than a few persons. Natasha and Madame Byélov took up their usual places in front of an image of the Holy Virgin, which was attached to the back wall of the left choir. Natäsha was overcome by a new feeling of humility before something great and intangible, whenever, at this unusual hour of the morning, she looked at the swarthy face of the Holy Virgin, which was lighted up by the candles in front of it, and by the morning light as it fell through the window, and listened to the sounds of the service, which she tried to understand and follow. If she understood them, her personal feelings with their peculiar shades were added to her prayer ; if she did not understand them, it gave her even more pleasure to think that the desire to comprehend everything was pride, that it was impossible to comprehend everything, and that it was necessary only to believe and to abandon herself to God, who in these moments, so she felt, was governing her soul. She made the sign of the cross, bowed low, and whenever she did not understand, she, horrified at her own baseness, only begged God to forgive her everything, everything, and to show her His mercy. The prayers to which she abandoned herself most were prayers of repentance. As she returned home at an early hour of the day, when she came across only masons going to work, and janitors sweeping the street, and when all at home were still asleep, Natäsha experienced a novel feeling that it was possible for her to mend her vices, and that a new, pure life and happiness were possible for her.

For the period of a whole week, during which she led this life, this feeling kept growing with every day. The happiness of communing, or communicating, as Agraféna Ivänovna said, playing on the word, appeared so great to her that she thought that she should not live as long as that blissful Sunday.

The happy day finally arrived, and when Natasha, on that memorable Sunday, returned from communion, dressed in a white muslin dress, she for the first time after many months felt herself calm and untroubled about the life which awaited her.

The doctor, who came to see her on that day, examined her and ordered that the last powders, which he had prescribed two weeks before, be continued.

« By all means give them to her in the morning and evening,” he said, apparently good-naturedly satisfied with his success. ” Only, please, be accurate. Don’t worry, countess,” the doctor said, jestingly, with agility catching the gold coin in the palm of his hand, ” she will soon sing and make merry again. The last medicine has done her a great deal of good. She looks much fresher.”

The countess looked at her nails and spit out, and returned to the drawingroom with a happy face.

XVIII.

In the beginning of July more and more disquieting rumours about the course of the war began to spread in Moscow ; there was talk about the emperor’s appeal to the nation, and about his return to Moscow from the army. As up to the 11th of July the manifesto and appeal had not been received, exaggerated rumours were being circulated about them and about the condition of Russia. It was said that the emperor was coming because the army was in danger, that Smolensk had been surrendered, that Napoleon had a million soldiers, and that only a miracle could save Russia.

On July 11th, which was a Saturday, the manifesto was received, but was not yet printed ; Pierre, who was at the house of the Rostdvs, promised to come to dinner on the following day and bring with him the manifesto and the appeal, which he would get from Count Rostopchfn.

On that Sunday the Rostdvs, as usual, went to mass in the house church of the Razumdvski mansion. It was a hot July day. At ten o’clock, as the Rostovs left the carriage in front of the church, there was already, in the hot air, in the shouts of the peddlers, in the bright-coloured summer dresses of the crowd, in the dusty leaves of the trees in the boulevard, in the sounds of the music and the white pantaloons of a battalion passing by for sentinel duty, in the rumble of the pavement, and in the lurid splendour of the hot sun, that languor, that satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the present, which is

generally sharply felt on a bright, hot day in the city. In the Razumovski church were gathered all the notabilities of Moscow, all the acquaintances of the Rostovs (in that year many wealthy families remained in the city, as though waiting for something to happen). Passing with her mother behind a liveried lackey, who was pushing aside the crowd, Natdsha heard the voice of a young man, who was saying in too loud a whisper :

” That is Countess Rostov, the one I told you about.”

“ How thin she has grown ! But she is still pretty ! “

She heard, or, at least, she thought she heard, mentioned the names of Kurägin and of Bolkonski. However, she always thought so. It always seemed to her that every one who looked at her thought of nothing but what had happened to her. Suffering as she did, and with trepidation, as always when in a crowd, Natasha walked in her lilac silk dress, with black laces, as only women can walk, the more composed and majestic the more pain and shame there was in her heart. She knew that she was pretty, and she was not mistaken in this, but this did not give her pleasure now, as it had done formerly. On the contrary, it tormented her more than anything else had done of late, especially on that bright, warm summer day in the city. ” Another Sunday, another week,” she said to herself, recalling that she had been there the Sunday before, ” and still that same life without life, and the same conditions, under which it was so easy to live before. I am pretty, and young, and I know that I am now good ; I used to be bad, but now I am good, I know it,” she thought, ” and yet my best years pass away uselessly.” She stood near her mother, and nodded to acquaintances near by. From habit she surveyed the toilets of the ladies, censured the carriage of a lady who was standing a short distance away, and her improper manner of making the sign of the cross over a short space on her breast ; then she thought with vexation that other people passed judgment on her, and that she herself was censuring others, and, as she heard the sounds of the divine service, she suddenly was frightened at her own baseness, and felt that her previous purity had again been lost.

A neat, distinguished-looking old man officiated with that meek solemnity which acts so majestically and so soothingly on the souls of suppliants. The holy gates were closed, a curtain was slowly drawn across, and a mysterious, soft voice said something from behind it. Tears, which she could not explain to herself, rose in Natdsha’s throat, and she was agitated by a joyous, languorous feeling.

” Teach me what to do, what to make of my life, how to mend myself for ever, for ever ! ” she thought.

The deacon walked out on the ambo. Spreading his thumb wide, he drew his long hair out from underneath his surplice and, placing the cross on his breast, began to pray in a loud and solemn manner :

” Let us all pray to the Lord! “

” All together, without distinction of condition, without hatred, but united in brotherly love, — let us pray ! ” thought Natdsha.

” For the world above and for the salvation of our souls ! “

” For the world of the angels and of the souls of all disembodied beings, who live above us,” Natdsha prayed.

As they were praying for the army, she thought of her brother and of Denisov. As they prayed for those who were voyaging and journeying on land, she recalled Prince Andréy, and prayed for him, and she prayed that God might forgive her the evil which she had done him. As they prayed for those who love us, she prayed for her home folk, for her father, for her mother, for Sdnya, now for the first time realizing her guilt, and for the first time appreciating all the strength of her love for them. As they prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and of those who hated her, that she might pray for them. She counted among her enemies the creditors and all those who had any business with her father, and every time she thought of those who hate us, she thought of Anatdl, who had done her such a wrong, and, though he was not really one who hated, it gave her pleasure to pray for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did she feel strong enough clearly and calmly to think of Prince Andrdy and of Anatol, as of men, in relation to whom her feelings were annihilated when compared with her sentiment of awe and terror before God. As they prayed for the imperial family and for the Synod, she made unusually low obeisances and devout signs of the cross, saying to herself that, although she did not understand, she could not doubt, and so loved the governing Synod, and prayed for it.

The responsory being over, the deacon crossed the stole over his breast and said :

“We will offer ourselves and our lives to Christ our God ! “

” We will offer ourselves to God,” Natdsha repeated in her soul. “ 0 God, I abandon myself to Thy will ! ” she thought. ” I want nothing, I wish for nothing. Instruct me what to do, how to use Thy will ! And take me, oh, take me ! ” Natdsha said, with contrition in her heart, without making the sign of the cross, dropping her slender arms, and waiting, as it were, for an invisible power to take her and deliver her from herself, her compassions, wishes, reproaches, and vices.

The countess several times during the service looked at the devout face of her daughter, with her sparkling eyes, and prayed to God that He might assist her.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service out of the regular order, which Natasha knew well, the sexton brought out a footstool, the same on which the prayers of genuflection were read on Whitsunday, and placed it in front of the holy gates. The priest came out in his lilac velvet skull-cap, adjusted his hair, and with an effort knelt down. All did the same and looked at each other in perplexity. It was a prayer which had just been received from the Synod, a prayer about the salvation of Russia from the hostile invasion :

” 0 Lord God of hosts, God of our salvation ! ” the priest began, in that clear, unpretentious, meek voice, in which only the readers of the Church-Slavic liturgy know how to read, and which has such a powerful influence on a Russian heart.

” 0 Lord God of hosts, God of our salvation ! Look down to-day upon Thine humble people and graciously hear us, and spare us, and have mercy upon us. Behold, a foe, who disturbeth Thine earth and wisheth to lay waste Thine universe, hath arisen against us. Behold, men of lawlessness have assembled to destroy Thy heritage, to raze Thy honoured Jerusalem, Thy beloved Russia ; to defile Thy temples, dig up Thine altars, and vilify Thy Holiness. How long, 0 Lord, how long, shall the sinners glory ? How long shall the transgressor have the power ?

“ 0 Lord ! give ear to our prayers to Thee : fortify with Thy strength the most pious and most autocratic great Tsar, our Emperor Alexander Pävlovich. Remember his truth and his meekness, and repay him according to his mercy with which he preserveth us, Thy beloved Israel. Bless his counsels, his ways, and his acts. Fortify his kingdom with Thine almighty right hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou gavest it to Moses over Amalek, to Gideon over Midian, and to David over Goliath. Preserve his warriors, place the brass bow in the hands of those arming in Thy name, and gird them with strength for the war. Take up the weapon and the shield, and arise to our aid, that those who plot evil against us may be put to shame and disgrace, that they may be before the face of Thy faithful soldiery like the dust before the face of the wind, and that Thy strong angel may insult them and drive them before him ; that the nets may come of which they know not, and their ambush which they have concealed may hold them ; that they may fall before the feet of Thy slaves and be trampled upon by our warriors. 0 Lord ! It is not impossible for Thee to save in great and in small things ; Thou art God, let none prevail against Thee !

” God of our fathers ! Remember Thy beneficence and mercy which are from eternity ; turn us not away from before Thy face, nor abhor us for our unworthiness, but, on account of Thy great mercy and the multitude of Thy kindnesses, overlook our transgressions and sins. Build up a pure heart within us, and renovate the righteous spirit within us; strengthen us all with faith in Thee; fortify us with hope, animate us with sincere love for one another, arm us with concord for the righteous defence of the heritage which Thou hast given to us and to our fathers, lest the rod of the unrighteous fall on the lot of the sanctified.

« O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we trust, do not shame us in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a good token that those who hate us may see us and our Orthodox faith, and be put to shame, and perish ; and let all the lands see that Thy name is the Lord, and we are Thy people. Show us, 0 Lord, Thy mercy to-day, and give us Thy salvation ; make the hearts of Thy slaves rejoice on account of Thy mercy ; strike down our enemies, and quickly crush them under the feet of Thy faithful ones. For Thou art the protection, the help, and the victory of those who trust in Thee, and we extol Thee, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, now and for evermore. Amen.”

In that condition of mental unreserve, in which Natasha now was, the prayer affected her powerfully. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over Amalek, and of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about the destruction of “ Thy Jerusalem,” and prayed to God with that tenderness and contrition with which her heart was filled ; but she did not exactly comprehend what it was she asked God for in this prayer. She took part with her whole heart in the prayer for the right spirit, the fortifying of the heart with faith and hope, and the animating them with love. But she could not pray for the crushing of the enemies under foot, since a few minutes before she had wished to have as many as possible of them, in order to pray for them. At the same time she could not doubt the correctness of the prayer read with the genuflexion. She experienced in her soul an awesome and timorous fear before the punishment meted out to people for their sins, and for her own sins in particular, and prayed to God to forgive them all and her, too, and to give to them all and to her calm and happiness in life. And she thought that God heard her prayer.

XIX.

After the night when Pierre, leaving the Rostdvs and recalling Natasha’s grateful glance, looked at the comet, which was standing in the sky, and felt that something new had been revealed to him, the question which had constantly been tormenting him about the vanity and senselessness of everything terrestrial no longer presented itself to him. The terrible question, why ? wherefore ? which formerly arose in the middle of every occupation of his, now gave way not to another question, and not to an answer to the older question, but to her image. Whether he heard petty conversations or himself carried them on, whether he read or heard of the baseness and senselessness of men, he no longer became terrified ; he did not ask himself why people worried so, since everything was so short-lived and so uncertain, but he recalled her in the shape in which he had seen her the last time, and all his doubts disappeared, not because she answered all the questions that presented themselves to him, but because her image immediately transferred him to another, brighter sphere of mental activities where there could be no righteous men and no sinners, to the sphere of beauty and of love, for which it was worth while to live. No matter what abomination of life presented itself to him, he said to himself :

” Let N–-N–-rob the country and the Tsar, and

let the country and the Tsar shower honours upon him, so long as she smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come, and I love her, and no one will ever discover this ! ” And his heart was calm and clear.

Pierre continued to frequent society as before, and to eat as much, and to lead the same indolent life of diversions, because, outside the hours which he passed at the house of the Rostdvs, the rest of his time had to be passed in some way, and the habits and acquaintances which he had acquired in Moscow drew him invincibly toward that life which had taken possession of him. But of late, as the rumours from the theatre of war became ever more alarming and Natdsha’s health began to improve, and she no longer roused in him the former feeling of solicitous pity, an inexplicable unrest began to take possession of him more and more powerfully. He felt that the condition in which he was could not last much longer, and that a catastrophe was imminent which would change his whole life, and he impatiently looked everywhere for the symptoms of that approaching catastrophe.

One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy in regard to Napoleon, as deduced from the Apocalypse of St. John.

In the Apocalypse, chapter xiii., verse 18, it is said: “ Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast : for it is the number of a man ; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.”

And in the same chapter, verse 5 : ” And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.”

The French letters, written out with the same numerical values as in Hebrew, in which the first ten letters represent the units, and the rest the tens, will have the following significance -.

a b c

d 6

f

1

H

3

4

5

6

7

h

i

k

1

m

n

0

1

9

10

20

30

40

50

p

<1

r

s

t

u

V

GO

70

80

90

100

no

120

w

X

y

z

130

140

150

IGO

By writing out the value of the letters in ” EEmpereur Napoléon” we get the sum of these numbers equal to 666, and consequently Napoleon was the beast predicted in the Apocalypse. Again, writing out the numerical value, according to this alphabet, of ” quarante-deux,” that is, of the limit set to the beast in speaking great and blasphemous things, the sum of these numbers was again equal to 666, from which it followed that the limit of Napoleon’s power was to be in the year 1812, when the French emperor would be forty-two years old. This prediction startled Pierre very much, and he frequently asked himself what would set bounds to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and he tried to find an answer to this question which interested him so much, by applying the same calculations to certain words. Ifierre wrote the answer to this question : ” L’Empereur Alexandre,” and “la nation Russe.” The sum of the figures turned out to be either larger or smaller than 666. Once, while working on these calculations, he wrote down his name ” Comte Pierre Bcsouhojfbut the sum did not come out right. He changed the orthography, wrote r instead of s, added ” de” and the article “le ” but still did not get the right answer. Then it occurred to him that if his name was to contain an answer to the question, it certainly must give also his nationality. He wrote ” Le Russe Besuhof,” and, counting up the figures, received the sum 671. There was only five too much ; five stood for e, the same e that was omitted in “L’Empereur.” By throwing off, though irregularly, the c, Pierre got the desired answer, “ L’Russe Besuhof,” which was equal to 666. This discovery agitated him. In what way he was connected with the great event which was foretold in the Apocalypse, he did not know, but he did not for a moment doubt this connection. His love for Countess Rostdv, the antichrist, Napoleon’s invasion, the comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoleon, and L’Russe Besuhof, — all that was to mature, burst forth, and take him out of that enchanted, insignificant world of Moscow habits, which, he felt, held him captive, and to lead him on to a great deed and to great happiness.

On the eve of the Sunday on which that prayer was uttered, Pierre had promised the Rostovs that he would bring them from Count Rostopchm, with whom he was well acquainted, both the appeal to Russia and the last news from the army. On Sunday morning Pierre called on Count Rostopchm, and found there a courier who had just arrived from the army. The courier was one of the Moscow dancers at balls, whom he knew well.

” Can’t you for the Lord’s sake do me a favour ? ” said the courier. ” I have a box full of letters addressed to various parents.”

Among these letters there was one from Nikoldy Rostov to his father. Pierre took the letter with him. Count Rostopchm, too, gave him the emperor’s appeal to Moscow, which had just been printed, the last orders of the day for the army, and his own latest broadside. Looking over the orders of the day, Pierre found in one of them, among the news of the wounded, the killed, and the rewarded, the name of Nikolay Rostov, who was given the cross of St. George of the fourth degree for bravery shown in the Ostrdvna engagement, and in the same order, the appointment of Prince Andrdy Bolkdnski as commander of a regiment of chasseurs. Though he did not wish to remind the R-stdvs of Bolkonski, he could not restrain his desire to give them pleasure by letting them know of their son’s promotion, and so he kept the appeal, the broadside, and several orders, in order to take them in person to the Rostdvs at dinner, and sent to their house one printed order and the letter.

His conversation with Count Rostopchin, the count’s tone of worry and haste, his meeting with the courier who carelessly told how badly matters stood in the army, the rumours of the discovery of spies in Moscow, and of a paper circulated in the city, in which it was said that Napoleon promised to be in both capitals by fall, the talk about the arrival of the emperor on the next day, — all this incited in Pierre, with a new force, that feeling of agitation and expectancy which had not left him since the appearance of the comet, and especially since the beginning of the war.

It had long ago occurred to Pierre that he ought to enter military service, and he would have carried out his intention if he had not been prevented, in the first place, by his affiliations with the Masonic society, to which he was bound by an oath, and which preached eternal peace and the abolition of war, and, in the second place, if he had not felt ashamed to take such a step, as he looked at the large number of the Muscovites who had donned the military uniform and preached patriotism. But the chief reason why he did not carry out his intention of going into the army lay in the indistinct idea that he was “Z’Russe Bcsuhof,” who had the value of the beast’s number of 666, that his part in the great work, of laying bounds to the power of the beast who spoke great and blasphemous tilings, had been predestined from eternity, and that, therefore, he should not undertake anything, but ought to wait for what was to happen.

XX.

Several acquaintances were dining with the Rostdvs, as was always the case on Sundays.

Pierre arrived early in order to find them alone. Pierre had become so stout during this year that he would have been monstrous, if he had not been of a tall stature, large-limbed, and strong, so as to appear to bear his obesity well. He puffed and mumbled something to himself as he ascended the staircase. The coachman did not ask him whether he would wait. He knew that when the count was with the Rostdvs, be would stay there until midnight. The lackeys cheerfully rushed forward to take off his overcoat, and to relieve him of his cane and hat. Following his club custom, Pierre always left his cane and hat in the antechamber.

The first person he saw at the house of the Rostovs was Natdsha. Even before he saw her he had heard her voice, as he took off his overcoat in the antechamber. She was singing a solfeggio in the parlour. He knew that she had not sung since her illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and pleased him. He softly opened the door and saw Natdsha in her lilac dress, in which she had been to mass, walking up and down in the room, and singing. She was walking backwards toward him, as he opened the door, but when she abruptly turned around and noticed his fat, startled face, she blushed and rapidly went up to him.

” I want to try to sing again,” she said. “ Anyway, it is an occupation,” she added, as though to excuse herself.

” That is very nice.”

“ How glad lam that you have come ! I am so happy to-day ! ” she said, with that old animation of hers, which Pierre had not seen for a long time. ” You know Nicolas has received the cross of St. George. I am so proud of him.”

” I know it. I sent you the order of the day. Well, I will not bother you,” he added, wishing to pass into the drawingroom.

Natasha stopped him.

” Count, is it wrong for me to sing ? ” she said, blushing, but without lowering her eyes, and looking interrogatively at Pierre.

” No. Why ? On the contrary — Why do you ask me?”

” I do not know myself,” Natdsha answered, rapidly, ” but I should not like to do anything which might displease you. I trust you in every tiling. You do not know how important you are to me, and how much you have done for me ! ” She spoke rapidly, and did not notice that Pierre blushed at these words of hers. “ I saw in the same order that he, Bolkénski” (she pronounced the name in a whisper), ” is in Russia and with the army. What do you think,” she hurried to say, evidently being afraid that her strength would fail her, ” will he ever forgive me ? Will he have no evil feeling against me ? What do you think about it ? What do you think ? “

“ I think — ” said Pierre. ” He has nothing to forgive — If I were in his place — ” By an association of ideas, Pierre was at once transferred in his imagination to the time when, consoling her, he had told her that if he were another man, the best man in the world and free, he would ask for her hand on his knees, and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession of him and the same words were again on his lips. But she did not give him the chance to say them.

” Yes, you, you,” she said, enthusiastically pronouncing the word ” you,” ” you are another thing. I do not know a better and more magnanimous man than you, and there cannot be any. If it had not been for you then, and even now, I do not know what would have become of me, because — ” Tears rushed to her eyes ; she turned around, raised her music to her eyes, started singing, and began once more to walk up and down in the room.

Just then Pétya came running in from the drawingroom. Pétya was now a handsome, ruddy, fifteenyear-old boy, with thick, red lips, and resembled Natdsha. He was preparing himself for the university, but of late he and his friend Obolénski had secretly decided to join the hussars.

Pétya ran up to his namesake to speak with him about the matter. He asked him to find out whether he would be accepted as a hussar. Pierre kept walking in the drawingroom, without hearing what Pétya was telling him. Pétya pulled his sleeve, in order to arrest his attention.

” Well, how do matters stand with me, Pierre Kinllych ? Do tell me, for the Lord’s sake ! You are my only hope,” said Pétya.

” Oh, your case ! About the hussars ? I will tell you all about it. I will, to-day ! “

” Well, mon cher, well, did you get the manifesto ? ” asked the old count. ” The little countess went to mass to the Razumévski chapel, where she heard a new prayer. She says it was very nice.”

“I have it,” said Pierre. “The emperor will be here tomorrow — There is to be an extraordinary session of the nobility, and a levy of ten in the thousand. And let me congratulate you.”

” Yes, yes, thank God. Well, and what is the news from the army ? ”

“ Our army has again retreated. They say they are now at Smolensk,” replied Pierre.

” 0 Lord, 0 Lord ! ” said the count. “ Where is the manifesto ? “

” The appeal ? Oh, yes ! “

Pierre began to look in his pockets for the papers, but could not find them. He was still feeling in his pockets, when the countess entered, and he kissed her hand. He kept looking restlessly around, evidently waiting for Natasha, who was no longer singing, but had not yet come to the drawingroom.

” Ma parole, je ne sais plus où je l’ai fourré” he said.

” He is continually losing things,” said the countess.

Natdsha entered. Her face looked gentle and agitated, as she sat down, silently glancing at Pierre. The moment she came in, Pierre’s countenance, heretofore gloomy, brightened up, and he kept looking at her, all the time rummaging through his pockets for the papers.

“ Really, I will drive home — I forgot and left them there. Truly — “

” You will be too late for dinner.”

“ Oh, and the coachman has left.”

But Sonya, who had gone to the antechamber to look for the papers, found them in his hat, where he had carefully stuck them behind the lining. Pierre wanted to read.

” No, after dinner,” said the old count, who evidently foresaw great pleasure in that reading.

At dinner, where they drank the health of the new knight of St. George, Shinshin told the city news about the illness of an old Georgian princess, about Métivier having disappeared from Moscow, and about a German whom some people had brought to Rostopchin, saying that he was a champignon1 (Count Rostopchin himself told the story), and whom Count Rostopchin set at liberty, telling the people that he was not a champignon, but a common toadstool of a German.

x The Russian word for “ spy ” is shpion, which the common people mispronounced as “champignon.”

“ They catch them, they do,” said the count. ” I have been telling the countess to speak French as little as possible. This is not the time for it.”

” Have you heard ? ” said Shinshin. ” Prince Golitsyn has taken a Russian teacher, to learn Russian, — il com-mcncc à devenir dangereux de parler français dans les rues.”

“ Well, Count Pierre Kirillych, when the militia has to go, you, too, will have to mount a horse,” the old count said, turning to Pierre.

Pierre was taciturn and pensive during the whole dinner. At these words he glanced at the count, as though he did not understand what he had said.

“ Yes, yes, to the war,” he said, ” no ! What kind of a soldier should I make ? But how strange, how very strange it all is ! I do not understand it myself. Really, I am so far removed from military tastes ; still, nowadays nobody can be responsible for liimself.”

After dinner the count calmly seated himself in an armchair, and with a serious countenance asked Sdnya, who had the reputation of being a good reader, to read :

” To Moscow our first-crowned capital :

“ The enemy has with great forces crossed the boundaries of Russia. He is marching to destroy our beloved country,” Sdnya read distinctly, in her thin voice. The count, closing his eyes, listened, now and then heaving an abrupt sigh.

Natdsha sat up erect, casting inquisitive and direct glances now at her father, and now at Pierre. Pierre was conscious of her look, and tried not to turn back. The countess disapprovingly and angrily shook her head at every solemn utterance of the manifesto. In all these words she saw only a confirmation of her belief that the perils to winch her son was subjected were far from being over. Shinshin, puckering his mouth into a sarcastic smile, was evidently preparing himself to make fun of anything that might present itself for ridicule, — of Sdnya’s reading, of the utterances of the count, and even of the appeal, if no better excuse offered itself.

Having read about the dangers that threatened Russia, and of the hopes which the emperor placed on Moscow, and especially on the famous nobility, Sdnya, with a quivering voice, which was mainly due to the attention with which she was listened to, read the following words :

“ We will not fail to appear ourselves amidst our people in tliis capital and in other places of our realm, for the purpose of consultation and for the guidance of all our forces, both those that now are barring the progress of the enemy, and those which may be put in the field for the purpose of defeating him, wherever he may appear, — that the ruin which he thinks of bringing down upon us may come upon his head, and that Europe, freed from slavery, may glorify the name of Russia ! “

” That is so ! ” exclaimed the count, opening his moist eyes, and, several times interrupting his snivelling, as though a bottle of strong salts were held to his nose, he said : ” Let the emperor say the word, and we will all sacrifice all we have, without saying anything.”

Shinshm had not yet had a chance to utter his jest in regard to the count’s patriotism, which he had in store, when Natasha jumped up from her seat and ran to her father.

“ How lovely papa is ! ” she exclaimed, kissing him. She again looked at Pierre with that unconscious coquetry which had returned to her with her animation.

” What a patriotic woman ! ” said Shinshin.

“ Not at all a patriot, but simply — ” Natdsha replied, as though offended. ” Everything is funny to you, but it is not at all a joke — “

“A joke!” repeated the count. “Let him say one word, and we will all go— We are no Germans — “

« And did you notice,” said Pierre, “ that it says, ‘ for consultation ‘ ? ”

” Well, I do not care what it is for — “

Just then Petya, to whom nobody had paid any attention, walked over to his father and said to him, in a faltering, now coarse, now thin voice, while his face was all flushed :

” Now, papa, I must say it right out, and, mamma, you will have to listen to it, — I will tell you right out that I want you to let me go into the army, because I cannot — that is all — “

The countess raised her eyes toward the ceiling in terror, wrung her hands, and angrily turned to her husband :

” He has had his say ! ” she said.

But the count at once regained his composure.

” Well, well,” he said. ” What a soldier ! Stop your nonsense ! You have to study yet ! “

” It is not nonsense, papa ! Fédya Obolenski is younger than I, and he, too, is going ; the worst of it is I cannot study now, when — ” Pétya stopped, blushed so that he began to perspire, but still continued, ” when the country is in danger.”

« Stop, stop your nonsense ! “

« But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything.”

« Pétya, I tell you, keep quiet ! ” the count shouted, looking at his wife, who was pale and cast an arrested glance at her son.

« But I tell you — Pierre Kirillych himself will tell you — ”

<< I tell you it is nonsense ! The milk has not yet dried on your lips, and you want to go into the army ! I tell you, stop it ! ” and the count took up the papers, evidently for the purpose of reading them again in his cabinet before taking a rest, and left the room.

” Pierre Kirillych, come, let us have a smoke — “

Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha’s uncommonly bright and animated eyes, which kept turning toward him with an expression of more than kindness, had brought him into this state.

” No, 1 think I will drive home — “

” Home ? Why, you intended to stay all evening — You do not come very often, anyway. And this girl of mine,” the count said, good-naturedly, pointing to Natdsha, ” is happy only when you are around — ”

” I forgot — I must go home by all means — Business — ” Pierre said, hurriedly.

” Goodbye, then,” said the count, as he left the room.

” Why do you go away ? Why are you so disturbed ? Why ? ” Natasha asked Pierre, looking provokingly at him.

” Because I love you ! ” he wanted to say ; but he did not say it, and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.

” Because it is better for me not to come too often — Because — no, simply I am busy — “

“ Why ? Do tell me,” Natasha began, with determination, and then suddenly stopped.

They looked at each other in fright and embarrassment. He tried to smile, but could not : his smile expressed suffering, and he silently kissed her hand, and went out.

Pierre made up his mind never again to call on the Rostovs.

XXL

Having received a definite refusal, Petya went to his room, where he locked himself up and wept bitterly. They all acted as though they did not notice anything when he came to tea with tearful eyes, and was sullen and gloomy.

On the following day the emperor arrived. Several of the servants of the Rostévs begged to be permitted to go and see the Tsar. On that morning Pétya was very long in dressing, combing, and fixing his collar in the fashion of a grown-up person. He frowned in front of the mirror, made all kinds of gestures, shrugged his shoulders, and finally put on his cap, and, without saying a word to any one, left by the back porch, trying to remain unnoticed. He had decided to go straight to the place where the emperor was and to tell some gentleman of the chamber (Pétya thought that the emperor was always surrounded by gentlemen of the chamber) that he, Count Rostov, in spite of his youth, wished to serve his country, that youth could not be an impediment to loyalty, and that he was ready— As he was preparing to go, he thought up a mass of beautiful words, which he was going to tell the gentleman of the chamber.

Pétya counted on the success of his being presented to the emperor because he was still a child (Pétya was sure they would all wonder at his extreme youth), and yet he endeavoured by the arrangement of his collar, by his coiffure, and by his slow and measured walk, to represent an older man. But the farther he walked, the more his attention was diverted by the masses of people surging near the Kremlin, the more he forgot to preserve the reserve and dignity which are characteristic of older men. When he reached the Kremlin, he began to exert himself not to be crushed, and so he put his arms out akimbo, in a threatening attitude. But at the Trinity Gate, people, who evidently did not know with what patriotic purpose he was going to the Kremlin, so pressed him against the wall that he had to submit and stop, while carriages, reverberating under the vaults of the gates, passed through. Near Pétya stood an old woman and a lackey, two merchants, and an ex-soldier. After having remained a few minutes at the gate, Pétya, without waiting for all carriages to pass, wanted to move on, and began to work his elbows energetically ; but the woman who was standing opposite 1dm, and against whom he first directed his elbows, angrily called out to him :

” Don’t push that way, young man ! Don’t you see that all are standing still ? What is the sense in pushing ? “

“Anybody can push,” said the lackey, and, beginning himself to use his elbows freely, he jammed Pétya into an ill-smelling corner of the gate.

Pétya wiped off with Ids hands the perspiration wldch covered his whole face, and fixed his wilted collar, which he had so carefully arranged at home, to make it appear like a grown-up man’s collar.

Pétya felt that he did not look presentable, and was afraid that, if he appeared before the gentlemen of the chamber, he would not be admitted to the presence of the emperor ; but there was no chance of adjusting himself or of getting out from the crowd. One of the generals who passed by was an acquaintance of the Rostévs. Pétya wanted to invoke his aid, but thought that it would be unmanly. When all the carriages had passed, the throng rushed forward and carried Pétya along through the square, which was all filled with people. Not only the square itself, but even the declivities and roofs were crowded with people. As soon as Pétya found himself in the square, he heard distinctly the sounds of the bells and of the joyous shouts of the people which filled the Kremlin.

For awhile Pétya could stand comfortably in the square, but suddenly all the heads were bared, and everybody rushed forward. Pétya was so jammed in that he could not breathe, and every one cried out, “ Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! ” Pétya got up on tiptoe, pushed his neighbours, and pinched them, but could see nothing but people all around him.

On all the faces there was an expression of transport. A merchant woman, who was standing near Pétya, was sobbing, and her tears coursed down her cheeks.

“ Father, angel, dear one ! ” she kept saying, while wiping off her tears with her fingers.

” Hurrah ! ” they shouted on all sides.

For about a minute the crowd stood in one spot, and then it again rushed forward.

Pétya, forgetting himself, set his teeth, and, rolling his eyes like a beast of prey, darted ahead, making his way with his elbows, and shouting, “Hurrah!” as though he were ready to kill himself and everybody else at that moment; but on all sides just such beastly faces were darting ahead, with the same shouts of ” Hurrah !”

“ So this is what the emperor is ! ” thought Pétya. “No, I cannot hand him a petition myself, — it would be too bold ! ” And yet, he made the same desperate efforts to get to the front. Between the backs of those who were in front of him he could make out an empty space down which was laid a red cloth carpet ; but just then the crowd swayed back (the policemen in front were pushing back those who had advanced too close to the procession ; the emperor was on his way from the palace to the church of the Assumption), and Pétya suddenly got such a blow in his ribs, and was so jammed in, that his eyes grew dim and he lost consciousness. When he came to, a clerical .person, in a faded blue cassock, who had a tuft of grayish hair behind, apparently a sexton, supported him with one hand under the pit of his arm, and with the other protected him against the surging crowd.

” You have crushed a young gentleman ! ” said the sexton. ” Can’t you look out ? Easy, — he is crushed, I say ! “

The emperor passed on to the cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd again quieted down, and the sexton took the pale and scarcely breathing Pétya out to the tsar-cannon. A few persons expressed their sympathy for Pétya, and suddenly the whole crowd turned to him, and now there was a crush about his person. Those who stood nearest attended to him by unbuttoning his coat, placed him on an elevation of the gun, and rebuked those who might be responsible for the crushing of Pétya.

” It would not take much to kill a man that way. Shame! Murder! Just see, the dear fellow is just as white as a sheet,” several voices were heard saying.

Pétya soon recovered consciousness, the colour returned to his face, the pain passed away, and to pay for his passing discomfort he had gained a place on the gun, from which he hoped to see the emperor, who was to return. Pétya no longer thought of handing in his petition. He would be quite happy if he only had a chance to see him !

During the double divine service in the cathedral of the Assumption, — on the occasion of the emperor’s arrival and as a thanksgiving prayer for the peace concluded with the Turks, — the crowd began to scatter a little; there appeared the shouting hucksters of kvas, cakes, and poppy, of which Pétya was especially fond, and ordinary conversations were heard. A merchant woman showed her torn shawl, informing her neighbour how expensive it had been ; another said that nowadays all silk materials were excessively dear. The sexton, Pétya’s saviour, was talking to an official, telling him who was officiating on that day with his Eminence. The sexton several times repeated the words “plenary ministration,” which Pétya did not understand. Two young burghers were jesting with manorial servant girls who were munching nuts. All these conversations, especially the jokes with the manorial girls, which always had been so attractive to Pétya in his childhood, now failed to interest him ; he was sitting on his elevation on the cannon, agitated at the thought of the emperor and of his love for him. The coincidence of the feeling of pain and terror, when he had been crushed, with the sensation of transport, only increased his consciousness of the importance of this moment.

Suddenly reports of cannon were heard on the bank of the river (they were celebrating the conclusion of the peace with the Turks), and the crowd darted toward the river, to see them fire off the guns. Pétya, too, wanted to run there, but the sexton, having taken the young gentleman under his care, did not let him. The reports could still be heard, when out of the cathedral of the Assumption came running officers, generals, and gentlemen of the chamber ; then others came out less hurriedly ; hats were again taken off, and those who had run to see the cannon came running back. Finally four more men in uniforms and sashes came out of the door of the cathedral. “ Hurrah, hurrah ! ” the crowd shouted again.

“ Which is it ? Which ? ” Pétya kept asking, in a tearful voice, but nobody made any reply to him ; they were all too much carried away, and Pétya, selecting one of the four persons, whom he could not well make out through the tears of joy that stood in his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on him, though it was not the emperor, shouted “Hurrah!” in a preternatural voice, and decided that, cost what it might, he would become a soldier on the morrow*

The crowd rau after the emperor, accompanied him as far as the palace, and began to disperse. It was late, and Pétya had had nothing to eat, and his perspiration was coursing down in streams ; but he did not go home. He remained with the diminished, but still considerable, throng in front of the palace, during the emperor’s dinner, looking in at the windows, waiting for something, and envying both the dignitaries who drove up to the porch, to be present at the dinner, and the lackeys of the chamber, who were serving at the table and who flashed by the windows.

At dinner Valuev, having looked out of a window, said to the emperor :

“ The people still hope to see your Majesty.”

The dinner was over ; the emperor, finishing a biscuit, rose and went out on the balcony. The masses, with Pétya among them, darted toward the balcony. “ Angel ! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!” cried the people and Pétya, and again the women and a few of the weaker men, among them Pétya, wept with joy. A fairly large piece of the biscuit, which the emperor was holding in his hand, broke off and fell on the parapet of the balcony, and from the parapet on the ground. A coachman, in a sleeveless coat, who was standing near by, made for the piece of biscuit and caught it. Several men of the throng rushed up to the coachman. Noticing this, the emperor ordered a plateful of biscuits, which he began to throw down from the balcony. Pétya’s eyes were bloodshot; the danger of being crushed only helped to excite him, and he darted for a biscuit. He did not know why he did it, but he felt that he had to receive a biscuit from the hand of the emperor, and that he must not be vanquished. He rushed forward and knocked down an old woman, who was trying to catch a biscuit. The old woman did not consider herself vanquished, even though she was lying prostrate on the ground, for she kept putting out her hands to catch a biscuit, though in vain. Pétya knocked her hand aside with his knee, caught a biscuit, and, as though fearing lest he should be too late, again shouted, ” Hurrah !” in a hoarse voice.

The emperor went away, and after that the greater part of the people began to disperse.

« I said that we ought to wait, and you see it turned out as I said,” several people were heard saying on all sides.

Although Pétya was very happy, he felt sad as he walked home, seeing that all the enjoyment of that day was past. From the Kremlin Pétya went not home, but to his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen years old, and who also wanted to enter the army. Upon returning home, he declared with firmness and determination that if they did not let him, he would run away. On the following day, Count Ilyà Andréevich, though not entirely surrendering, drove out to see whether he could not get some safe place for Pétya.

XXII.

Three days after this event, in the morning of July 15th, an endless number of carriages stood in front of the Slobddski palace.

The halls were full. In the first were the gentry in uniforms ; in the second, the merchants with decorations, with their long beards, and wearing blue caftans. In the hall of the meeting of the gentry there was a din and motion. At a large table, beneath the portrait of the emperor, the more distinguished notables were sitting on chairs with high backs, but the majority of the gentry walked up and down in the hall.

All the men of the gentry, those whom Pierre had been seeing every day, either in the club, or in their houses, wore their uniforms, of the days of Catherine, or Paul, or the new ones of the reign of Alexander, or the usual ones of the nobility, and this general character of the uniforms lent a strange and fantastic aspect to the old and young, to strangers and to acquaintances. Most striking were the blear-eyed, toothless, bald-headed, sallow, and obese, or wrinkled, lean old men. They generally remained sitting and kept quiet; if they walked about and talked, they sought out the company of some one younger than themselves. Just as on the countenances of the crowd which Pétya had seen in the square, so on these countenances there was a striking feature of contrasts : of the general expectancy of something solemn, and of the habitual yesterday’s expectancy of a boston party, of chef Petrushka, of the health of Zinaida Dmitrievna, etc.

Pierre, who since early morning had been laced in an awkward, tightly fitting uniform of the gentry, was also in the halls. He was agitated: the unusual gathering not only of the gentry, but also of the merchant class, — les états généraux, — called forth in him a whole series of his long neglected ideas about the Contrat social and the French Revolution, which had made a deep impress on his soul. The words which he especially noticed in the appeal, that the emperor was coming to the capital for ” consultation ” with his people, confirmed him in his view. Assuming that something important in this direction was now approaching, something for which he had been waiting so long, he kept walking about, and looking and listening to the conversations, but he nowhere found an expression of the ideas which interested him.

The emperor’s manifesto was read, producing great enthusiasm, and then all, talking, began to disperse. In addition to the usual interests, Pierre heard them discuss where the marshals were to stand during the appearance of the emperor when a ball was to be given to the Tsar, whether they were to arrange themselves by counties, or by Governments, etc. ; but the moment the question of the war was up, for which in reality the nobility had been collected, the talk became undecided and undetermined. All preferred to listen rather than talk themselves.

One man of middle age, a manly, handsome fellow, in the uniform of an ex-sailor, was talking in one of the halls, and there was a crowd around him. Count Ilya Andreevich, who, in his Voevdd caftan of the days of Catherine, was pacing up and down through the crowd, with a pleasant smile on his countenance for all the people he knew, walked over to the same group and began to listen, as usual, with his agreeable smile, and with approving nods of his head to the speaker. The ex-sailor spoke very boldly (this could be seen from the expressions of the faces of his audience, and from the fact that those whom Pierre knew as very submissive and meek persons walked away disapprovingly, or contradicted, him). Pierre pushed his way to the middle of the circle, to hear the speaker; he convinced himself that the sailor was really a liberal, but in an entirely different sense from what Pierre had expected. He spoke with that peculiarly sonorous, singsong baritone, with that charming guttural pronunciation of his r’s and that clipping of his consonants, with which a nobleman calls for his tea or pipe. His voice betrayed that he was addicted to the pleasures of the table and to giving commands.

” What if the Smolénsk people have offered the militia to the emperor ? Are the Smolénskans a law to us ? If the distinguished nobility of the Government of Moscow find it necessary to express their loyalty to the emperor, they will find the proper means for doing so. Have we forgotten the militia of the year 1807 ? The only men who profited by it were the carousers and thieves — “

Count Ilyd Andréevich, smiling sweetly, nodded his head approvingly.

“Well, have our militiamen been of any use to our country ? No, not at all ! They have only ruined our estates. Recruitment would be better — else they will return to you neither as soldiers, nor as peasants, and there will be nothing but debauch. The gentry do not spare their lives, — we will go ourselves one and all. We will take our recruits along, and, let the emperor just give us a call, we will all die for him,” added the orator, becoming excited.

Ilyä Andréevich swallowed from pleasure and nudged Pierre, but Pierre wanted to speak himself. He moved forward, feeling himself inspired, not knowing himself by what, nor what he was going to say. He had just opened his mouth to speak, when a toothless senator with an intelligent and angry face, who was standing near the speaker, interrupted Pierre. He spoke softly, but audibly, betraying the habit of carrying on discussions and putting questions :

” I suppose, dear sir,” the senator said, lisping with his toothless mouth, ” that we have not been called here to discuss what is more advantageous for the country at the present moment, whether it is the levy of the militia or of recruits. We have been called to respond to the appeal which our emperor has honoured us with, and we will leave it to the higher power to decide what is more advantageous, the levy of the militia or of the recruits.”

Pierre suddenly discovered an issue for his animation. He was infuriated against the senator, who was introducing that order and that narrowness of conception into the affairs of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and stopped him. He did not know what he was going to say, but he began excitedly, now and then bursting into French, and expressing himself in scholastic Russian :

“Pardon me, your Excellency,” he began (Pierre was well acquainted with the senator, but he deemed it proper to address him now in an official manner), ” though I do not agree with Mr. — ” (Pierre hesitated. He wanted to say, “ Mon très honorable préopinant, with Mr. — que je n’ai pas l’honneur de connaître ” ), ” I assume that in addition to expressing their sympathy and enthusiasm, the nobility are called in order to discuss the measures we can take to assist our country. I assume,” he spoke with enthusiasm, ” that the emperor would be dissatisfied if he saw in us nothing but proprietors of peasants, whom we give up to him as — chair à canon, which we are making of ourselves, and if he did not find in us cou-cou-counsel.”

Many left the circle, as they noticed the senator’s disdainful smile, and perceived that Pierre was speaking without restraint; Ilyd Andréevich was the only one who was satisfied with Pierre’s speech, just as he had been satisfied with the sailor’s and the senator’s speeches, — in general, with the last speech he had heard.

” I assume that, before deliberating on this question,” continued Pierre, ” we ought to ask the emperor, we ought most respectfully to ask his Majesty, to communicate to us how large our present army is, in what condition our troops are, and then — ”

But Pierre did not have a chance to finish his words, when he was attacked on three sides. The most violent attack was made on him by Ins old acquaintance, the boston player Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin, who had always been friendly to him. He now wore his uniform, and, probably for that reason, Pierre saw a different man before him. Stepdn Stepanovich called out to Pierre, with the malicious expression of an old man, in his face :

” In the first place I will inform you that we have no right to ask the emperor for it, and, secondly, if the Russian gentry had such a right, the Tsar could make no reply to us. The troops are moving in accordance with the movements of the enemy, — the troops are growing less or more numerous — ”

Another voice, belonging to a man of medium stature, of about forty years of age, whom in former days Pierre bad seen with the gipsies, and whom he knew as a poor card-player, and who now, himself transformed in his uniform, moved up to Pierre, interrupted Apraksin.

“This is not the proper time for deliberations,” this nobleman cried, ” but for actions : there is a war in Russia. Our enemy is advancing to crush Russia, to profane the tombs of our forefathers, to carry off our women and children.” The nobleman struck his breast with his fist. ” We will all of us rise, we will go, one and all, for the Tsar, our father ! ” he shouted, rolling his bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd. “ We are Russians, and will not spare our blood in the defence of our faith, our throne, and our country. We must leave all drivelling talk aside, if we are sons of our fatherland. We will show Europe how Russia rises to defend Russia,” shouted the nobleman.

Pierre wanted to retort, but was unable to say a word. He felt that the sound of his words, independently of the thought which they contained, was less audible than the sound of the words of the animated nobleman.

Ilyd Andreevich was nodding approvingly in the rear of the crowd ; a few men, at the end of the speech, turned sidewise to the orator and said :

” That’s what ! That’s right ! “

Pierre wanted to say that he was not disinclined to sacrifice money, peasants, or himself, but that it was first necessary to know how matters stood in order to mend them; but he could not speak. Many voices shouted and spoke at the same time, so that Ilyà Andréevich did not have time to nod to all. The group increased and broke up, again came together, and moved, with a din of voices, into the larger hall, up to a large table. Pierre had no chance to say anything: he was rudely interrupted and pushed aside, and men turned away from him as from a common enemy. This was not due to their dissatisfaction with the meaning of his speech, — they forgot it after the great number of speeches which had followed, — but for the animation of the crowd it was necessary to have a palpable object of love and a palpable object of hatred. Pierre had become the latter. Many orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all spoke in the same tone. Many of them expressed themselves well and with originality.

The editor of the Russian Messenger, Glinka, who was recognized (“ Author ! Author ! ” voices in the crowd exclaimed), said that hell ought to be fought with hell, and that he had seen a child smiling at the flash of lightning and at peals of thunder, but that we would not be that child.

” Yes, yes, at the peals of thunder ! ” approving voices spoke in the last rows.

The crowd walked up to the large table, where, in uniforms and sashes, sat grayhaired, bald-headed, septuagenarian dignitaries, nearly all of whom Pierre had seen at home with their buffoons, or in the clubs at the game of boston. The crowd walked over to the table, still continuing its din. One after another, and occasionally two at a time, the orators spoke, pushed against the backs of the chairs by the pressing crowd. Those who stood behind noticed what the orator had omitted to say, and hastened to supply the want. Others, in this heat and crowd, rummaged through their heads, trying to find some ideas, which they hastened to express. The old dignitaries, Pierre’s acquaintances, were sitting and looking now at one, and now at another, and the expression of the majority of them said only that they felt hot. Pierre, however, was agitated, and the universal feeling of readiness for any sacrifice, which was expressed not so much in the meaning of the words as in the sounds and in the expressions of the faces, was also communicated to him. He did not renounce his ideas, but felt guilty and wanted to justify himself.

“All I said was that it would be more advantageous for us to make sacrifices when we know what the need is,” he exclaimed, trying to shout louder than the others.

One of the old men, who was nearest to him, looked around, but was immediately attracted by a shout at the other end of the table.

” Yes, Moscow will be surrendered ! She will be our Saviour ! ” some one was crying.

” He is the foe of humanity ! ” shouted another. ” Permit me to speak — Gentlemen, you are crushing me ! — ”

XXIII.

Just then Count Rostopchin, with his protruding chin and quick eyes, wearing the uniform of a general, with the sash across the shoulder, entered with rapid steps, while the gentry moved aside to make a path for him.

“ The emperor will be here soon,” said Rostopchin. ” I am just coming from him. It seems to me that there is no time for deliberations, considering the condition we are in. The emperor has deigned to call us and the merchants,” said Prince Rostopchin. “Millions will be poured forth from there” (he pointed to the hall of the merchants), ” and it is our business to provide the militia and not to spare ourselves — This is the least we can do ! “

The deliberations began among the dignitaries who were seated at the table. The whole deliberation was more than quiet. It even seemed sad, when, after all the former noise, there were heard the voices saying, ” I agree to it ! ” or, for a change, “ I am of the same opinion ! ” and so forth.

The secretary was ordered to record the decree of the Moscow nobility, which was that the Muscovites, like the inhabitants of Smolénsk, offered ten men in the thousand and their complete equipment. The presiding dignitaries arose, as though relieved of a burden, rattled with their chairs, and went through the hall, limbering up their legs, linking arms, and talking with each other.

“ The emperor, the emperor ! ” they suddenly cried through the halls, and the whole crowd rushed toward the entrance.

The emperor walked into the hall along a broad walk, between two walls of noblemen. There was an expression of respectful and frightened curiosity on all the faces. Pierre stood quite a distance away, and could not hear well the speech of the emperor. From what he caught, he understood that the emperor was speaking of the danger in which the country was, and of the hopes which he placed in the gentry of Moscow. The emperor was followed by another voice winch informed him of the decree just passed by the gentry.

” Gentlemen ! ” the emperor said, with a quivering voice ; the crowd stirred a little, and again grew quiet, and Pierre heard distinctly the humane, agreeable, and touched voice of the emperor, saying :

” I have never had any doubts as to the zeal of the Russian gentry. But on this day it has surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the country. Gentlemen, we will act, — time is most precious — “

The emperor grew silent ; the assemblage began to crowd around him, and from all sides could be heard enthusiastic exclamations.

” Yes, most precious of all — are the words of the Tsar,” sobbing, said Ilya Andréevich, who was standing in the rear. He had not heard anything, but understood it all in his own manner.

From the hall of the gentry the emperor passed to the hall of the merchants. He remained there about ten minutes. Pierre, among others, saw the emperor emerge from the hall of the merchants, with tears of emotion in his eyes. It was learned later that the emperor had just begun his speech to the merchants, when the tears gushed from his eyes, and he finished in a trembling voice. When Pierre saw the emperor, he was coming out, accompanied by two merchants. One of them, a stout liquor monopolist, was familiar to Pierre ; the other, the mayor, had a thin, sallow face with a narrow beard. Both were weeping.

Tears were in the eyes of the thin-faced man, but the monopolist cried like a child and kept saying:

” Take our lives and our property, your Majesty ! “

Pierre at that moment felt nothing but the desire to show that nothing was too much for him and that he was prepared to sacrifice everything. His speech with its constitutional bias appeared to him as a reproach ; he was trying to find an opportunity to wipe it out. When he heard that Count Mamdnov furnished a whole regiment, Bezukhi immediately announced to Rostopchln that be would give one thousand men and would furnish their maintenance.

Old Rostdv was not able to tell his wife what had happened without tears, and at once consented to Pétya’s request, and himself went away to have him enlisted.

On the following day the emperor departed. The gentry who had been at the assembly took off their uniforms, again took up their customary places in the houses and clubs, and, with groans, gave orders to their superintendents about the militia, and wondered at what they had done.

PART THE TENTH

I.

Napoleon began his war with Russia because he could not help coming to Dresden, getting his head turned by honours, putting on a Polish uniform, submitting to the active influence of a June morning, and giving way to an outburst of anger in the presence of Kurakin and later of Balashév.

Alexander declined all negotiations because he felt himself personally insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried in the best way possible to manage his army, in order to do his duty and earn the glory of a great general. Rostov galloped to attack the French because he could not repress a desire to gallop over a level plain. Even thus, by dint of their personal qualities, habits, conditions, and purposes, acted all the innumerable participants in the war. They feared, were vain, rejoiced, censured, deliberated, assuming that they knew what they were doing, and that they were acting in their own behalves, whereas they all were the involuntary tools of history, and produced certain results, which were puzzling to them, but are intelligible to us. Such is the invariable fate of all the actors in practical affairs, and they are the less free, the higher they stand in the human hierarchy.

Now the actors of the year 1812 have long ago left their places, their personal interests have disappeared without leaving a trace, and only the historical results of that time are before us.

But let us suppose that the men of Europe were compelled, under the guidance of Napoleon, to penetrate into the interior of Russia and perish there. Then all the self-contradictory, senseless, cruel activity of the participants in this war becomes intelligible to us.

Providence compelled all these men, who were striving after their personal aims, to cooperate in the accomplishment of one grand result, of which not one man (neither Napoleon nor Alexander, nor, much less, any other participant in this war) had the least idea.

Now it is clear to us what in the year 1812 was the cause of the destruction of the French army. No one will dispute that the cause of the destruction of the French troops of Napoleon was, on the one hand, their having at a late time entered, without preparation, on a winter campaign in the interior of Russia, and, on the other, the character which the war assumed from the burning of the Russian towns and from the hatred of the enemy which was instilled in the Russian nation. But at that time no one foresaw, what now is so evident, that only in this manner could have perished an army of 800,000 men, the best in the world, and led by the best of generals, in its conflict with the Russian army, which had only half its strength, and which was inexperienced and led by inexperienced generals ; not only did no one foresee it, but all the efforts on the side of the Russians were continually directed toward avoiding the very things which alone could save Russia, and, on the side of the French, in spite of their experience and the so-called genius of Napoleon, every effort was made to stretch out as far as Moscow before the end of summer, that is, to do the precise thing that was to ruin them.

In the historical works on the year 1812, the French authors like to speak of the fact that Napoleon felt the danger of stretching his lines, that he was trying to give battle, and that the marshals advised him to stop in Smolénsk, and they adduce similar arguments to prove that even then the danger of the campaign was fully appreciated ; and the Russian authors like to speak still more of the fact that in the beginning of the campaign there existed a plan of a Scythian war, to consist of enticing Napoleon into the interior of Russia, and some ascribe this plan to Pfuel, some to a Frenchman, or to Toll, or to Emperor Alexander himself, pointing to notes, projects, and letters in which there are, indeed, hints at this manner of action. But all these hints of foresight are now brought forward, both on the side of the French and on the side of the Russians, because the events have justified them. If the event had not taken place, these hints would have been forgotten, like thousands and millions of contrary hints and suppositions, which then were current, but have proved incorrect, and so have been forgotten. For the issue of any event there are always so many suppositions that, no matter how it may end, there will always be found people who will say, ” I told you then that it would end so,” forgetting entirely that in the endless mass of suppositions made there were some that were diametrically opposed.

The suppositions about Napoleon’s consciousness of the danger of extending his fines, and, on the side of the Russians, of drawing the enemy into the interior of Russia, evidently belong to this order, and only by a long stretch of the imagination can the historians ascribe such considerations to Napoleon and such plans to the Russian military leaders. All the facts absolutely contradict such assumptions. Not only had there been during the whole war no desire on the part of the Russians to entice the French into the depth of Russia, but everything had been done to arrest them from the moment they had entered the country, and not only had Napoleon not been afraid of extending his lines, but he was even rejoiced, as at a triumph, at every step of his in advance, and, quite differently from his other campaigns, he was loth to give battle.

In the beginning of the campaign our troops are separated, and the only purpose which we have is to unite them, though there is no advantage in the union of the armies, if it is necessary to retreat and entice the enemy into the interior. The emperor is with the army in order to stir the soldiers to defend every foot of Russian soil, and not to retreat. An enormous camp at the Drfssa is constructed according to Pfuel’s plans, and there is no idea of retreating any farther. The emperor rebukes the commanders-in-chief for every step backward. Not the conflagration of Moscow, nor even the admission of the enemy into Smolénsk, presents itself to the emperor’s imagination, and when the armies are united the Tsar is provoked because Smolénsk is captured, and because no general engagement has taken place before its walls.

Thus thinks the emperor, but the Russian military leaders and all the Russians are provoked even more at the thought that our armies are retreating into the interior of the country.

Having cut the armies in two, Napoleon moves into the interior and several times loses the chance of giving battle. In the month of August he is at Smolénsk and thinks only of advancing, although, as we now see, this advance is evidently ruinous to him.

The facts show plainly that neither did Napoleon foresee the perils in his advance to Moscow, nor did Alexander and the military leaders of Russia at that time think of enticing Napoleon, but of the contrary. The advance of Napoleon into the interior of the country did not take place by any plan (no one believed in the possibility of one), but was due to a most complicated play of intrigues, purposes, and desires in the participants in the war, who did not divine what had to be, nor what was the only salvation of Russia. Everything takes place by accident. The armies are separated in the beginning of the campaign. We try to unite them with the evident purpose of giving battle and retarding the advance of the enemy, but in this tendency toward union, while avoiding battles with the superior forces of the enemy, and involuntarily moving away at an oblique angle, we lead the French up to Smolénsk. But it is not enough to say that we recede at an oblique angle because the French are moving between the two armies, — this angle becomes sharper still, and we recede farther, because Barclay de Tolly, an unpopular German, is hateful to Bagratidn, who is to be under his command, and Bagratidn, commanding the second army, tries as long as possible to keep away from a union with Barclay, merely to avoid being under his command. Bagratidn is a long time in bringing about the union (though this is the main purpose of all the persons in command) because he thinks that on this march he endangers his army, and that it is most advantageous for him to retreat to the left and south, harassing the enemy from the flank and rear, and complementing his army in the Ukraine. Yet, this seems an excuse invented by him merely because he does not wish to submit to the German Barclay, who is his junior, and whom he hates.

The emperor is with the army in order to stir it, but his presence and his ignorance of what to begin, and the enormous quantity of counsellors and plans paralyze the energy of action in the first army, and the army retreats.

It is intended to stop in the Dnssa camp ; but suddenly Paulucci, who has an eye on the position of commanderin-chief, affects Alexander by his energy, and Pfuel’s whole plan is abandoned, and the whole matter is entrusted to Barclay. But since Barclay does not inspire confidence, his power is limited. The armies are broken up, there is no concentration of command, Barclay is not popular ; but, from this tangle, this decentralization, and the unpopularity of the German commanderin-chief, there flows, on the one hand, indecision and avoidance of battles (which could not have been avoided if the armies had been united, and another than Barclay the commanderin-chief), and, on the other hand, an ever increasing irritation against the Germans, and the awakening of the patriotic spirit.

Finally the emperor leaves the army, and as the only plausible pretext is chosen the idea that his departure is necessary in order to stir the populations of the capitals to the national war. And thus this journey of the emperor to Moscow increases the strength of the Russian army threefold.

The emperor leaves the army in order not to embarrass the central power of the commanderin-chief, and hopes that more decisive measures will be taken ; but the condition of the chief command is only growing weaker and more entangled. Bénigsen, the grand duke, and a swarm of adjutants-general remain with the army in order to watch the actions of the commanderin-chief, and to rouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling himself still less free under all these ” eyes of the emperor,” becomes more cautious about decisive actions, and avoids battles.

Barclay is for caution. The Tsesarévich hints at treason and demands a general battle. Lubomirski, Bronnicki, Wlocki, and the like so fan this rumour that Barclay, under the pretext of forwarding certain documents to the emperor, sends these Polish adjutants-general away to St. Petersburg and enters into an open struggle with Bénigsen and the grand duke.

In Smolénsk the armies at last unite, in spite of Bagratién’s wish.

Bagration drives up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay. Barclay puts on his sash, comes out to meet him, and reports to Bagratidn, who is a senior in rank. Bagration, in a struggle of magnanimity, in spite of his seniority, submits to Barclay ; but, in so submitting, agrees with him still less. By the emperor’s command, Bagration reports to him in person. He writes to Arakchéev : “ It is the will of my sovereign, but I cannot get along with the minister (Barclay). For the Lord’s sake, send me somewhere to command a regiment, for I cannot stay here ; the whole headquarters are filled with Germans, so that a Russian cannot exist, and there is no sense in it. I thought that I really was serving the emperor and my country, but it turns out that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want it.”

A swarm of Bronnickis, Wintzingerodes, and the like poison the relations of the commanders-in-chief still more, and there is still less union. They are getting ready to attack the French at Smolénsk. A general is sent to examine the position. This general, who hates Barclay, rides to his friend, the commander of a corps, and, staying there the whole day, returns to Barclay and thoroughly discusses the field of battle, which he has not seen.

While there are discussions and intrigues about the future field of battle, while we are looking for the French, and blundering about their position, the French stumble on Nevyerdvski’s division and march up to the very walls of Smolénsk.

It is necessary to accept the unexpected battle at Smolénsk, in order to save our communications. The battle is given. Thousands on either side are killed.

Smolénsk is abandoned, despite the will of the emperor and of the whole nation. But Smolénsk is burnt by the inhabitants themselves, who are deceived by their governor, and the ruined inhabitants, showing an example to other inhabitants, go to Moscow, thinking only of their losses, and fanning the hatred for the enemy. Napoleon advances, we retreat, and that is accomplished which is to vanquish Napoleon.

IL

On the day following the departure of his son, Prince Nikolay Andréevich called Princess Märya to him.

“Well, are you satisfied now ?” he said to her. “You have made me and my son quarrel ! You are satisfied ! That is all you wanted ! Are you satisfied ? It pains me. I am old and feeble, and this is what you wanted. Rejoice, rejoice ! ”

After that, Princess Marya did not see her father for a week. He was ill and did not leave his cabinet. To her surprise, Princess Marya noticed that during this time he did not admit Mlle. Pou rien ne, either. Tikhon was the only one who attended him.

A week later the prince came out and again began his former life, busying himself most diligently with the buildings and gardens, and giving up all his former relations with Mlle. Bourienne. His look and his cold tone when he was with Princess Mdrya seemed to say to her : ” You see ! You have lied against me to Prince Andréy, telling him about my relations with this Frenchwoman, and you have caused us to quarrel ; but you see that I need neither you nor the Frenchwoman.”

One-half of the day Princess Mdrya passed with little Nikolay, watching his lessons, herself giving him lessons in Russian and music, and speaking with Desalles; the other part of the day she passed with books, with her old nurse, and with the God’s people, who occasionally came to see her by the back porch.

Of the war Princess Mdrya thought just as women always think of war. She was anxious on account of her brother who was there, and was terrified at the incomprehensible cruelty of men, which caused them to kill each other ; but she did not understand the significance of the war, which to her seemed in no way to differ from previous wars. She did not understand the meaning of this war, although Desalles, her constant companion, who was passionately interested in its course, tried to expound to her his views on the matter, and although the God’s people, who visited her, in their own way spoke with terror of the coming of the antichrist, and although Julie, now Princess Drubetskdy, who had again entered into correspondence with her, kept writing her patriotic letters from Moscow.

“ I am writing you in Russian, my dear friend,” wrote Julie, ” because I hate all the French, as well as their language, which I cannot bear to hear spoken — We, in Moscow, are transported with enthusiasm for our adored emperor.

” My poor husband endures hunger and fatigue in Jewish taverns, but the news which I receive makes me still more enthusiastic.

” You have, no doubt, heard of the heroic deed of Raévski, who embraced his two sons and said : ‘ I will die with them, but we will not waver ! ‘ And indeed, although the enemy was twice as strong as we, we did not waver.

” We pass the time as best we can ; but war-times are war-times. Princess Alina and Sophie are sitting with me for days at a time, and we, unfortunate widows of living husbands, carry on beautiful conversations while making lint ; but we miss you — ” and so forth.

Princess Marya did not understand the whole significance of this war, more especially because the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize it, and laughed at dinner at Desalles, who spoke of it. The prince’s tone was so calm and convincing that Princess Marya believed him without any further reflection.

During the whole month of July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated. He started a new garden and a new structure for the manorial servants. What worried Princess Märya was that he did not sleep much and that he had given up his habit of sleeping in the cabinet, and every day changed his resting-place. Now he ordered his camp-bed to be placed in the gallery, and now he remained on the sofa or in the easy-chair in the drawingroom, where he dozed off without undressing himself, while, not Mlle. Bourienne, but the boy Petrusha, read to him ; sometimes again he slept in the dining-room.

On the 1st of August a second letter was received fron; Prince Andréy. In his first letter, which had been received soon after his departure, Prince Andréy humbly asked his father’s pardon for what he had allowed himself to say to him, and begged to be received in his favour again. The old prince answered him in a kind letter, and soon afterward cooled off toward the Frenchwoman. Prince Andréy’s second letter, written near Vitebsk, after the French had occupied it, consisted of a short description of the whole campaign, with a plan, drawn in the letter, and of his reflections on the future course of the campaign. Prince Andréy represented to him the disadvantages of being in the neighbourhood of the theatre of war, on the very line of the advance of the army, and advised him to leave for Moscow.

On that day the old prince recalled Prince Andréy’s letter, when, at dinner, Desalles mentioned that there was a rumour that the French had already entered Vitebsk.

“Have heard from Prince Andréy to-day,” he said to Princess Marya. ” Have you read the letter ? “

“No, mon père” the princess replied, terrified. She could not have read a letter which she did not even know of.

” He writes about this war,” said the prince, with that habitual, contemptuous smile with which he always spoke of the war.

” It must be very interesting ! ” said Desalles. “ The prince is in a position to know — “

” Oh, how interesting ! ” said Mlle. Bourienne.

” Go and bring it to me,” the old prince turned to Mlle. Bourienne. ” You know, on the small table under the paper-weight.”

Mlle. Bourienne leaped up, ready to execute the order.

“ Oh, no ! ” he cried, frowning. “ You go, Mikhail Ivdnych ! “

Mikhaïl Ivanych rose and went to the cabinet. But the moment he had gone out, the old prince, looking restlessly about him, threw down his napkin and went away himself.

” They do not know a thing, — they will get everything mixed up.”

While he was walking out, Princess Mär y a, Desalles, Mlle. Bourienne, and even Nikolay looked at one another in silence. The old prince returned at a rapid pace, accompanied by Mikhail Ivdnych, holding the letter and the plan, which he did not give to any one to read, but kept by his side.

As he passed into the drawingroom, he handed the letter to Princess Marya and, spreading before him the plan of a new building and fixing his eyes upon it, ordered her to read aloud. Having read the letter, Princess Mdrya looked interrogatively at her father. He looked at the plan, apparently lost in thought.

” What do you think of it, prince ? ” Desalles took the liberty of addressing a question to him.

“ I ? I ?” the prince said, as though awakened disagreeably, and without taking his eyes off the plan of the building.

“It is very possible that the theatre of war will be transferred near us — ”

” Ha, ha, ha ! The theatre of war ! ” said the prince. « I have told you that the theatre of war is Poland, and the enemy will not penetrate farther than the Nyéman.”

Desalles looked in surprise at the prince, who was speaking of the Nyéman, when the enemy was already at the Dnieper ; but Princess Marya, who had forgotten the geographical position of the Nyéman, thought that what her father was saying was true.

” During the thaw of the snows they will drown in the swamps of Poland. They are so blind they do not see it,” said the prince, apparently thinking of the campaign of 1807, which to him seemed to have happened but recently. ” If Bénigsen had entered Prussia earlier, the affair would have taken a different turn —”

” But, prince,” Desalles said, timidly, ” the letter mentions Vitebsk — “

” Ah, the letter ? Yes — ” the prince said, with a dissatisfied look. ” Yes — yes — ” His face suddenly assumed a gloomy aspect. He was silent for a moment. “Yes, he writes that the French have been beaten, — at what river ? “

Desalles lowered his eyes.

“ The prince does not write anything about it,” he said, softly.

” Does he not ? I did not invent it myself.”

All were silent for a long time.

” Yes — yes — Well, Mikhail Ivänych,” he suddenly said, raising his head and pointing to the plan of the building, ” tell me how you are going to change it — “

Mikhail Ivanych went up to the plan, and the prince, having spoken with him about the plan of the new structure, cast an angry glance at Princess Mdrya and Desalles, and went away to his cabinet.

Princess Marya saw Desalles’s embarrassed and surprised glance, which was directed at her father, and noticed his silence, and was startled when she noticed that her father had forgotten and left his son’s letter on the table in the drawingroom ; but she was afraid to speak and ask Desalles about the cause of his embarrassment and silence, or even to think of it.

In the evening Mikhail Ivdnych, having been sent by the prince, came to Princess Marya for Prince Andréy’s letter which he had forgotten and left in the drawingroom. Though it was unpleasant for her to do so, she allowed herself to ask Mikhail Ivanych what her father was doing.

” The prince is worrying,” Mikhail Ivanych said, with a respectful, though sarcastic, smile, which made Princess Märya grow pale. ” The prince is very much worried about the new structure. He has read a little, and now,” lowering his voice, said Mikhail Ivdnych, “ he is at the bureau, — no doubt busy with the will.”

Of late it had become one of the prince’s favourite occupations to busy himself with his papers, which were to be left after his death, and which he called his will.

“Is he sending Alpatych to Smolénsk?” asked Princess Märya.

« Certainly. He has been waiting for awhile.”

III.

When Mikhail Ivanych returned to the cabinet with the letter, the prince in spectacles, with shade over his eyes and over the candles, was sitting at an open bureau, holding papers in his extended hand and, in a somewhat solemn attitude, reading the papers (” remarks ” he called them), which after his death were to be transmitted to the emperor.

As Mikhail Ivänych entered, the prince’s eyes were filled with reminiscent tears caused by the memory of the time when he had written what he now was reading. He took the letter out of the hands of Mikhail Ivänych, put it in his pocket, straightened out his papers, and called up Alpätych, who had been waiting for some time.

On a small sheet of paper was written what he wanted in Smolénsk, and, walking up and down in the room, past Alpätych, who was waiting at the door, he began to give orders.

” First, letter paper, do you hear, eight quires, like this sample, gilt-edged — by all means like this sample ; sealing-wax— according to Mikhail Ivänych’s note.”

He took a few steps through the room and looked into a memorandum-book.

“ Then hand the governor in person the letter about the legal document.”

Then there were needed door-bolts for the new structure, of the precise pattern which the prince had invented. Then Alpätych was to order a leather box in which to put away his will.

More than two hours passed in giving him these orders. The prince still kept him. He sat down, fell to musing, and, closing his eyes, dozed off. Alpätych stirred.

” Go, go ! If I need you, I will send for you.”

Alpätych went out. The prince again went up to the bureau ; he looked into it, touched his papers with his hand, again locked it, and sat down at the table to write the governor a letter. It was late when he got up, after sealing his letter. He wanted to sleep, but he knew that he should not fall asleep, and that the worst kind of thoughts would come to him in bed. He called Tikhon, and walked from one room to another, in order to tell him where to make the bed for him for the night. He went around, looking into every corner.

He did not find it nice anywhere, but he felt worst of all on the sofa in the cabinet. This sofa was terrible to him, probably on account of the oppressive thoughts which he had thought when lying upon it. It was not good anywhere, but least objectionable was the corner in the sofaroom, back of the piano : he had never slept there.

Tikhon and a lackey brought the bed and began to make it.

” Not that way, not that way ! ” exclaimed the prince, himself moving the bed a trifle, and then back again.

“Well, I have finished all my work, and I can rest now,” thought the prince, allowing Tikhon to undress him.

Angrily frowning from the effort which it was necessary to make in order to take off his caftan and pantaloons, the prince undressed himself, fell heavily on his bed, and seemed to be reflecting, as he looked contemptuously at his sallow, dried up legs. He was not deep in thought, but only hesitated before the necessary labour of lifting his legs and rolling over in his bed. ” Oh, if these labours would only be ended soon, and you would dismiss me ! ” he thought. Pressing his lips together, he for the twenty thousandth time made this effort and lay down. But he had barely taken up his position, when suddenly the whole bed swayed evenly up and down, as though it were breathing heavily and pushing him. This happened to him every night. He opened his eyes, which he had halfshut.

“No rest, accursed ones ! ” he growled at some one. “ Yes, yes, there was something important, something very important, which I have saved for the night in bed. The bolts ? No, I told him about them. No, something that was in the drawingroom. Princess Marya talked some nonsense, Desalles, the fool, said something. There was something in my pocket, — Ido not remember what.”

” Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner ? “

“ About Prince Mikhail.”

“ Keep quiet, keep quiet.” The prince struck the table with his fist. “Yes, I know, Prince Andréy’s letter. Princess Marya read it. Desalles said something about Vitebsk. I will read it now.”

He told Tikhon to get the letter out of his pocket, and to move up to the bed a little table with the lemonade and a twisted wax candle. He put on his glasses and began to read. Only now, in the quiet of the night, by the feeble light underneath a green shade, did he, after reading the letter, for a moment understand its meaning.

“TheFrench are in Vitebsk! In four days’ marches they may be in Smolénsk ; maybe they are already there. Tikhon ! “

Tikhon leaped up.

“ No, I do not want you, no ! ” he shouted.

He concealed the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And he saw before him the Danube, a bright noonday, rushes, a Russian camp, and he himself a young general, without a single wrinkle on his face, a wideawake, merry, ruddyfaced man, walking into Potemkin’s variegated tent. A burning feeling of envy toward the favourite, as strong as it was then, agitated him. He recalled all the words winch had been said then, during the first meeting with Potémkin. And he saw before him a plump, sallow-faced, undersized, stout woman, the empress, and recalled her smiles and words, as she kindly received him for the first time, and then her face on the catafalque, and that conflict with Zubov, which took place at the coflin, in respect to his privilege to walk up to her hand.

“ Ah, if I only could return at once to that time, and if all that is now could end soon, at once, so that I may be left in peace ! ”

IV.

Lys Y ya Gôry, the property of Prince Nikolây Andréevich Bolkdnski, was within sixty versts of Smolensk, and back of it, within three versts of the Moscow highway.

On that same evening, while the prince was giving his commands to Alpâtych, Desalles asked Princess Marya for an interview, at which he informed her that, since the prince was not quite well and took no measures for his safety, while from the letter of Prince Andréy it was evident that the stay at Lÿsyya Gory was not without danger, he respectfully advised her to send by Alpâtych a letter to the chief of the Government in Smolensk, begging him to inform her of the state of affairs and of the degree of danger to which Lÿsyya G dry was subjected. Desalles wrote the letter for Princess Mârya, and she signed it and gave it to Alpâtych with the order to take it to the governor and, in case of danger, to return as fast as possible.

Having received all the orders, Alpâtych, accompanied by the people of the house, and wearing a white down cap (a present of the prince’s) and carrying a cane like the prince’s, went out to seat himself in the leather roadcarriage, which was drawn by three well-fed bays.

The large bell was tied up and the small jingling bells covered with paper. The prince permitted no one at Lÿsyya Gory to travel with a bell. But Alpâtych was fond of bells on a distant journey. Alpätych’s courtiers, the village scribe, the office clerk, the cook, the scullion, two old women, the Cossack lad, the coachmen, and various manorial servants saw him off.

His daughter placed chintz down pillows behind his back and under him. His old sister-in-law secretly put in a little bundle. One of the coachmen helped him in.

” Oh, the gatherings of women ! The women, the women ! ” Alpâtych spoke hurriedly and puffingly, like the prince, and seated himself in the carriage. Having given his last orders about the work to the village scribe, in which he no longer imitated the prince, Alpâtych took off his hat from his bald head and three times made the sign of the cross.

“ If there is anything, turn back, Yâkov Alpâtych ! For Christ’s sake, think of us!” his wife exclaimed, referring to the rumours of the war and of the enemy.

” Women, women, women’s gatherings ! ” Alpâtych mumbled, as he rode off. He kept looking at the fields, covered with the yellowing rye, or with stout green oats, or still black and about to be ploughed up again. Alpâtych looked with pleasure at the remarkable crop of that year’s summer grain, watched the strips of rye, which were being mowed in spots, and was making his calculations about the sowing and the harvest, and trying to think whether some command of the prince had not been forgotten.

Having fed the horses twice on the way, Alpâtych, on the evening of August 4th, arrived in the city.

On the highway Alpâtych met and came abreast with baggagetrains and troops. As he approached Smolensk, he heard distant shots, but these sounds did not startle him.

What did surprise him was that, as he came near to Smolensk, he saw a beautiful field of oats, which some soldiers were cutting down apparently to feed to the horses, and that a camp was pitched in this field : this circumstance startled Alpâtych, but he soon forgot it, thinking of his own affairs.

All the interests of Alpdtych’s life had for more than thirty years been limited to the will of the prince, and he never emerged from that circle. Everything which did not have anything to do with the execution of the prince’s orders, not only did not interest him, but did not even exist for him.

Upon arriving in Smolensk, on the evening of the 4th of August, Alpdtych stopped on the other side of the Dnieper, in the suburb of Gâcha, in the tavern of Ferapdntov, with whom he had been stopping for thirty years. Ferapdntov had thirty years before, with the aid of Alpdtych, bought a grove from the prince, after which he had turned merchant, and now he was possessed of a house, a tavern and a flour shop in the capital of the Government. Ferapdntov was a fat, swarthy, red-faced peasant of forty years of age, with thick lips, a thick, unshapely nose, similar bumps over his black, scowling eyebrows, and a fat belly.

Ferapdntov, in a waistcoat and chintz shirt, was standing at his shop, which opened on the street. Upon seeing Alpdtych, he walked over to him.

” You are welcome, Yakov Alpdtych. People are leaving the city, and you are coming in,” said the tavern-keeper.

” Why do they leave it ? ” asked Alpdtych.

” I say the people are stupid. They are afraid of the French.”

” Women’s talk, women’s talk,” said Alpdtych.

” That’s what I say, Yakov Alpdtych. I say that there is an order not to let them in, and that’s right. The peasants ask three roubles for a team, — they are forgetting the cross ! ”

Ydkov Alpdtych did not listen attentively. He ordered the samovar and hay for the horses, and, having had his fill of tea, lay down to sleep.

All night long the troops moved down the street and past the tavern. On the next morning Alpdtych put on a waistcoat, which he donned only when he was in town, and attended to his business. The sun began to shine brightly in the morning, and at eight o’clock it was already hot : a fine day for the harvest, thought Alpdtych. Ever since early in the morning reports of guns could be heard beyond the city.

At eight o’clock the fusilade was followed by the reports of large guns. There were many people in the street, hurrying somewhere, and many soldiers ; but just as usual, cabmen drove their horses, and merchants stood near their shops, and divine service was held in the churches. Alpdtych went to the shops, the Government offices, the post-office, and to the governor. In the offices, the post-office, the shops, all spoke of the army and the enemy, who was already attacking the city ; people asked each other what to do, and all tried to allay each other’s fears.

Near the house of the governor, Alpdtych found a very large throng of people and Cossacks, and a travelling carriage belonging to the governor. On the porch, Ydkov Alpdtych met two noblemen, one of whom he knew. His acquaintance, a former chief of rural police, was saying in excitement :

” This is no joke. It is all right so long as a man is alone. One poor head is bad enough, but there are thirteen in my family, and all the property — They have brought us to the verge of ruin. What kind of authorities are these ? The robbers ought to be hanged — ”

” You had better stop talking,” said the other.

” What do I care ? Let him hear it ! We are not dogs,” said the ex-chief. As he looked around, he noticed Alpdtych.

” Ah, Ydkov Alpdtych, what are you doing here ?”

” By order of his Serenity, on my way to the governor,” replied Alpdtych, proudly raising his head and putting his hand in the bosom of his coat, which he did every time he mentioned the prince. ” His Serenity has ordered me to find out about the state of affairs,” he said.

” Go and find out,” exclaimed the proprietor. ” They have carried matters so far that you can’t even get a team, nothing ! Do you hear it ? ” he said, pointing in the direction from which the cannonade proceeded.

“ They have brought us to the verge of ruin — robbers ! ” he said again, walking down from the porch.

Alpätych shook his head and ascended the staircase. In the waiting-room were merchants, women, and officials, who silently glanced at each other. The door of the cabinet opened, and all rose from their seats and moved forward. Au official came running out. He said sometliing to a merchant, called after him a fat official with a cross on his neck, and again disappeared through the door, evidently avoiding all the glances and questions that were directed toward him. Alpätych moved forward, and at the next appearance of the official he put one hand in his buttoned coat and, turning to the official, handed him two letters.

“ To Baron Asch from General-in-chief Prince Bolkdnski,” he proclaimed in such a solemn and significant manner that the official turned to him and took his letters. A few minutes later the governor received Alpätych, to whom he said hastily :

” Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing, and that I acted according to orders from the sovereign, — you see — “

He handed Alpätych a paper.

” However, since the prince is not well, my advice is for him to go to Moscow. I am going there myself. Inform him — “

But the governor did not finish his sentence. A dust-covered and perspiring officer rushed through the door and began to say something in French. The governor’s face expressed terror.

” Go,” he said, nodding to Alpätych, and turning at once with questions to the officer.

Eager, frightened, helpless glances were directed upon Alpätych, when he left the governor’s cabinet. Listening now involuntarily to the near cannonade, which was growing stronger all the time, Alpätych hurried back to the tavern. The paper which the governor had given to Alpätych, read as follows :

” I assure you that so far Smolensk is not endangered in the least, nor is it likely that it will be. I on one side, and Prince Bagratidn on the other, are marching to unite at Smolensk, which union will take place on the 22d, and both the armies will, with their united forces, protect their countrymen of the Government in your charge, until by their efforts the enemy of our fatherland shall be cast back, or until in their brave ranks the last soldier shall fall. You see from this that you are fully entitled to allay the fears of the inhabitants of Smolensk, because he who is defended by two such brave armies may be sure of their victory.” (Order of Barclay de Tolly to the civil governor of Smolensk, Baron Asch, in 1812.)

The people were restlessly scurrying through the streets.

Wagons loaded to the top with domestic utensils, chairs, and safes kept driving out through the gates and down the streets. Near the house next to Ferapdntov’s stood some vehicles, and women, taking leave, were howling and lamenting. A cur, barking, was circling around the horses that were hitched up.

Alpätych entered the yard with more rapid steps than usual ; he went at once to the carriage-shed where stood his horses and his vehicle. The coachman was asleep; he woke him up, told him to hitch up, and went into the vestibule. In the landlord’s room could be heard the weeping of children, the heartrending sobs of a woman, and Ferapdntov’s cross, hoarse shouting. The cook was fluttering about in the vestibule like a frightened chicken at the moment when Alpätych entered.

” He has killed her ; he has killed the landlady ! He has struck her and walloped her so ! “

” What for ? ” asked Alpätych.

“ She begged him to let her go. Naturally, she is a woman ! ‘ Take me away/ says she, * and do not ruin me and my children ! The people/ says she, ‘ have all left, — why should we not ? ‘ And then he began to strike her. Oh, he beat her so, and he walloped her so ! “

Alpätych seemed to nod approvingly at these words, and, not wishing to know anything more, he went to the room opposite the landlord’s, where his purchases were.

” Scoundrel, murderer,” just then shouted a lean, pale woman, with a child in her arms, and with her kerchief tom from her head, as she darted out of the door and ran downstairs into the yard.

Ferapdntov came out after her, and, seeing Alpätych, he adjusted his waistcoat and hair, opened his mouth with a yawn, and went into the room with Alpatych.

” Are you going to leave now ? ” he asked.

Alpätych did not answer his question, nor look at the landlord ; he rummaged through his purchases and asked the landlord how much he owed him for his stay.

“ I’ll see ! Well, have you been at the governor’s ? ” asked Ferapdntov. ” What decision did you get ? ”

Alpätych replied that the governor had told him nothing positive.

“ How can we in our business move away ? ” said Ferapdntov. ” They ask seven roubles a team as far as Doro-gobfizh, and I say that they have forgotten the cross ! Selivänov had luck last Thursday : he sold his flour to the army at nine roubles a bag. Well, will you drink some tea ? ” he added.

While the horses were being hitched up, Alpätych and Ferapdntov drank tea and talked about the price of grain, about the crops, and about the favourable weather for the harvest.

” It is quieting down, though,” said Ferapdntov, having drunk three cups of tea, and getting up. “No doubt, our side has beaten. I told you they would not let them in. They must be in force. The other day they said that Matvyéy Ivänych Platov drove something like eighteen thousand of them into the river Märina, and they were all drowned in one day.”

Alpätych picked up his purchases, handed them to the coachman, who had come in, and paid Ids bill to the landlord. In the gate were heard the sounds of wheels, hoofs, and bells, as the roadcarriage drove away.

It was long past midday ; half the street was in the shade, the other half was brightly illuminated by the sun. Alpätych looked through the window and went up to the door. Suddenly there was heard the strange sound of a distant whistle and blow, and immediately afterward there resounded the incessant din of a cannonade, which made the window-panes rattle.

Alpatych went out into the street. Two men were running toward the bridge. On all sides could be heard the whistling and striking of balls, and the bursting of grenades, which fell into the city. But these sounds were almost inaudible and did not attract the attention of the inhabitants in comparison with the sounds of the cannonade, which were heard outside the city. It was the bombardment which, at five o’clock, Napoleon had ordered opened up on the city from 130 pieces of ordnance. At first the people did not understand the meaning of this bombardment.

The sounds of the falling grenades and balls at first only roused curiosity. Ferapdntov’s wife, who had not stopped whining near the shed, grew silent, and, with her babe in her arms, went out to the gate, silently looking at the people and listening to the sounds.

The cook and the shop clerk came out to the gate. All tried with cheerful curiosity to catch a glimpse of the projectiles which were borne over their heads. Several people, speaking excitedly, came around the corner.

” What power it has ! ” said one. ” It has smashed the roof and the ceiling into small fragments.”

“ It has ploughed up the ground, like a pig,” said another.

“It just came with terrible force, and it frightened us!”

“It was lucky for you that you jumped away, or it would have smashed you.”

The people surrounded these men. They stopped and told how balls had struck a house close to them. In the meantime, other projectiles — balls, with a rapid, gloomy, whistling sound, and grenades, with a pleasing hum — kept flying above the heads of the people ; but not one projectile fell near by ; they were all carried past them. Alpatych was seating himself in his vehicle. The landlord stood in the gate.

” What is there that you have not seen ? ” he shouted to the cook, who, with her sleeves rolled up and in a red skirt, was swaying her bare elbows, as she was walking to the corner to hear what was being told there.

” How marvellous ! ” she kept saying. But, upon hearing the landlord’s voice, she turned back, pulling down her tucked up skirt.

Again something whistled, this time very close by, like a bird flying down ; a fire flashed in the street, there was an explosion, and the street was shrouded in smoke.

“ Wench, what are you doing there ? ” exclaimed the landlord, running up toward the cook.

Just then women began to whine pitifully on all sides, a child started weeping in fright, and the people silently crowded with frightened faces around the cook. Loudest of all were heard the groans and lamentations of the cook.

” I will show you how to run into yards ! “

Alpdtych ran into the house and, calling the coachman, ordered him to drive out. Ferapontov’s whole family and all the servants followed after Alpdtych and the coachman. When they saw the smoke, and even the fires of the burning buildings, now clearly discernible in the dark, the women, who had been silent, broke out into laments. As though seconding them, there were heard just such laments at the other end of the street. Alpdtych and the coachman with trembling hands arranged the tangled reins and traces under the penthouse.

As Alpatych drove out of the gate, he saw some ten soldiers in Ferapdntov’s open shop, filling their bags and knapsacks with wheat flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapdntov returned from the street to his shop. When he saw the soldiers, he wanted to shout something, but suddenly stopped and, clasping his hair, burst out into groaning laughter.

” Pull it out, boys ! Don’t let the devils have it,” he shouted, himself taking hold of the bags and throwing them out into the street.

Several soldiers became frightened and ran away, while others continued to fill their bags. Upon seeing Alpatych, Ferapdntov turned to him.

“ Russia’s fate is decided ! ” he cried. ” Alpatych, it is decided! I will myself set fire to everything. It is decided.’’ Ferapontov ran into the yard.

Soldiers kept passing through the street and blocking it, so that Alpatych had to wait. Ferapontov’s wife with the children was also sitting in a cart waiting for a chance to move.

It was night now. There were stars in the sky, and occasionally the smoke-shrouded young moon could be seen. On the slope toward the Dnieper, the vehicles of Alpdtych and of Ferapdntov’s wife, which had been moving slowly amidst a mass of soldiers and other carriages, were compelled to stop. Not far from the crossway, where the wagons had stopped, a house and shops were burning in a side street. The fire was burning low. The flame now died down and was lost in the black smoke, and now suddenly flamed up luridly, with wonderful clearness illuminating the people who were crowding at the crossway. Near the burning buildings there moved black figures of men, and, through the incessant crackle of the fire, could be heard conversation and shouts. Alpdtych climbed down from his carriage, seeing that it would be quite awhile before his vehicle could advance, and turned into the side street to look at the fire. The soldiers kept surging to and fro past the burning buildings, and Alpdtych saw two soldiers, and with them a man in a frieze overcoat, who were dragging burning logs across the street, into a neighbouring yard ; others were carrying bundles of hay.

Alpdtych walked over to a large crowd of people, who were standing in front of a tall granary which was burning with a bright flame. The walls were all on fire ; the wall in the rear had fallen in, the shingle roof was broken, the beams were aflame. The crowd was evidently waiting to see the roof cave in. Alpatych, too, was waiting for that moment.

” Alpdtych ! ” the old man suddenly heard somebody’s familiar voice.

” 0 Lord, your Serenity ! ” replied Alpatych, who immediately recognized the voice of the young prince.

Prince Andréy, in an overcoat, sitting on a black horse, was among the crowd. He looked at Alpdtych.

” What are you doing here ? ” he asked.

“Your — your Serenity,” Alpdtych muttered, and burst out into tears. “Your — your — are we lost? Your father — ”

” How did you get here ? ” Prince Andréy asked him again.

At that moment a flame burst up and lighted up the pale and emaciated face of Alpätych’s young master. Alpätych told him how he had been sent there, and bow he had great difficulty in getting away.

“Your Serenity, are we lost?” he asked again.

Prince Andréy made no reply, but took out a memorandum-book, and, bending his knee upward, began to write with a pencil on a sheet torn out from it. He wrote to his sister :

” Smolensk is being surrendered. Lÿsyya Gory will be occupied in a week. Go at once to Moscow. Answer me the moment you leave, by sending a courier to me in Usvydzh.”

Having written this, he handed it to Alpätych and gave him verbal instructions how to manage the departure of the prince, the princess, and the son with his tutor, and how and where he was to be informed at once of what was taking place. He had not finished giving these orders, when a mounted chief of the staff, accompanied by his suite, galloped up toward him.

” You are a colonel ? ” the chief of the staff cried, with a German accent, in a voice which was familiar to Prince Andréy.

” Houses are being set on fire in your presence, and you do nothing. What does that mean ? You will be responsible,” shouted Berg, who now was assistant chief of staff of the assistant chief of staff of the chief of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, — a very agreeable and distinguished place, as Berg said.

Prince Andréy looked at him and, without answering him, kept talking to Alpätych :

“Tell them that I am waiting for an answer by the 10th, and if by that time I do not get news that they have left, I shall be compelled to throw up everything and go to Lÿsyya Géry.”

“ Prince, I am saying this,” said Berg, when he recognized Prince Andréy, “because I have to carry out orders, because I always execute promptly— Please, excuse me,” Berg began to justify himself.

Something crackled in the fire. The fire died down for a moment; black columns of smoke burst forth from underneath the roof. Something crashed terribly in the fire, and something immense came down with a great noise.

” Urrruru ! ” roared the crowd, in keeping with the crashing ceiling of the granary, from which proceeded the odour of burnt grain. The flame burst forth and illuminated the animated and weary faces of the people who were standing near the fire.

The man in the frieze overcoat raised his hands and called out :

” It is fine, boys ! See her go up ! Boys, it is fine ! ”

“ That is the proprietor himself,” some one said.

“ Well, then,” said Prince Andréy, turning to Alpätych, “ transmit everything that I have told you,” and, without replying a word to Berg, who stood near him in silence, he touched his horse and rode off into the side street.

V.

The army continued to retreat from Smolensk. The enemy followed in its tracks. On the 10th of August the regiment commanded by Prince Andréy passed along the highway, past the avenue that led to Lysyya Gory. The weather had been hot and dry for the last three weeks. Fleecy clouds had been scudding every day across the sky, occasionally shrouding the sun ; but toward evening it cleared up again, and the sun went down in a brownish red mist. Nothing refreshed the earth but a heavy dew each night. The grain on the stalk was burnt and fell out. The swamps were dried up. The cattle bellowed from hunger, being unable to find food on the sunburnt meadows. Only at night and in the forests was there any freshness, and then only as long as there was any dew. But on the road, on the highway, over which the troops marched, there was no coolness even at night, and even in the forests. The dew could not be noticed on the sandy dust of the road, which was turned up to the depth of more than half a foot. The moment day broke, the troops began to move. The baggagetrain and the artillery proceeded noiselessly up to the hub, and the infantry up to the ankle, in the soft, strangling, hot dust, which had not cooled off through the night. One part of this sand dust was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while another rose in the air and stood in a cloud above the army, getting into the eyes, the hair, the ears, the nostrils, and, above all, into the lungs of the men and the animals that were moving along this road. The higher the sun rose, the higher rose the cloud of dust, and through this fine, hot dust it was possible to look at the unclouded sun with the naked eye. The sun appeared as a large purple disk. There was no wind, and people choked in this motionless atmosphere. They marched with their noses and mouths tied up in handkerchiefs. Upon arriving in a village, they all rushed to the wells. There were fights for the water, and the wells were emptied to the mud.

Prince Andrey commanded a regiment, and the management of the regiment, the well-being of his men, the necessity of receiving and giving commands interested him. The conflagration of Smolensk and its abandonment were an epoch for Prince Andrey. A new feeling of fury against the enemy made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the business of his regiment ; he was solicitous about his soldiers and officers, and kind to them. In the regiment he was called ” our prince,” and the men were proud of him and loved him. But he was good and gentle only with the men of the regiment, with Timokhin and the like, with entirely new men in unfamiliar surroundings, with men who could not know or understand his past. The moment he came in contact with some of his former associates, on the staff, he immediately bristled up : he became malicious, sarcastic, and disdainful. Everything that connected him with his memories of the past repelled him, and all he tried to do in his relations with that former world was not to be unjust and to do his duty.

It is true, everything presented itself to Prince Andréy in a dark, gloomy light, especially after the abandonment of Smolénsk (w’hich according to his conception could and should have been defended) on August 6th, and when his feeble father had to flee to Moscow and leave his favourite Lÿsyya Géry, which he had built up and settled, a prey to .the enemy ; but, despite all this, Prince Andréy, thanks to his regiment, could think of something different, of a subject which was quite independent from general questions,— of his regiment. On August 10th the column, in which was his regiment, came in a line with Lysyya Gory. Prince Andréy had two days before received the news that his father, his son, and his sister had left for Moscow. Although Prince Andréy had nothing to do at Lÿsyya Gory, he, with his customary desire to open up his wound, decided to ride down to Lÿsyya Gory.

He ordered a horse saddled, and from the halting-place rode to his paternal village, where he had been born, and where he had passed his childhood. As he rode by the pond, where dozens of women, talking, used to strike the clothes with beetles and rinse them in the water, Prince Andréy noticed that there was nobody near the pond, and that the small ferry was half submerged in the water and swimming sidewise in the middle of the pond. Prince Andréy rode up to the lodge. There was no one at the stone gate, and the door was open. The paths in the garden were already overgrown, and the calves and horses were walking through the English park. Prince Andréy rode up to the hothouse. The windows were broken, and a few of the trees in the vats were turned down, while others were all dried up. He called gardener Taras, — no one replied. Riding around the show-glasses of the hothouse, he saw that the carved fence was all broken, and the plums were all taken down and the branches with them. An old peasant (Prince Andréy had seen him at the gate in his childhood) was sitting on a green bench and weaving a bast shoe.

He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andréy as he rode up. He was sitting on the bench on which the old prince used to be fond of sitting, and near him the bast was hanging on the branches of a broken and withered magnolia.

Prince Andréy rode up to the house. Several lindens in the old garden were cut down, and a piebald mare with her colt was walking about the rose-bushes, in front of the house. The windows of the house were all closed by shutters. One window in the lower story was open. A manorial boy, upon noticing Prince Andréy, ran into the house ; Alpdtych had sent his family away, and was the only one who was left in Lysyya Gdry ; he was sitting at home and reading the ” Lives of the Saints.” Upon hearing of the arrival of Prince Andréy, he, with his spectacles on his nose, came out of the house, buttoning his coat, and hurriedly walked over to the prince. He burst out weeping, without saying a word, and kissed Prince Andréy’s knee.

Then he fortified himself and began to report on the state of affairs. Everything valuable and expensive had been taken to Boguchärovo. The grain, about one hundred chétverts,1 had also been taken away ; the grass and the spring grain which had promised an unusual harvest, Alpdtych said, had been mowed down green by the troops. The peasants were ruined ; some of them had gone to Bogucharovo, while a few remained.

Without waiting to hear the end of the report, Prince Andréy asked :

” When did my father and sister leave ? ” meaning when did they leave for Moscow. Alpätych, thinking that he was asked when they had left for Boguchärovo, said that they went on the 7th, and again started to detail farm matters, and asked for orders.

“ Do you command me to deliver the oats to the troops in return for a receipt ? We have about six thousand chétverts left,” said Alpdtych.

” What shall I answer him ? ” thought Prince Andréy, looking at the bald head of the old man, glistening in the sun, and reading in the expression of his face the consciousness of how unseasonable his questions were, and

1A chétvert is equal to about six bushels.

that he was asking the questions merely to drown his own grief.

” Yes,” he said.

” If you have noticed the disorder in the garden,” said Alpatych, “ I must say that it was impossible to avoid it : three regiments passed and stayed here overnight, most of them dragoons. I took down the rank and name of the commander, so as to enter a complaint.”

” What are you going to do ? Shall you remain here, when the enemy occupies it ? ” Prince Andréy asked him.

Alpatych turned his face toward Prince Andréy and looked at him. Suddenly he raised his hands with a solemn motion.

« He is my protector, — His will be done ! ” he said.

A number of peasants and manorial servants were walking over the meadow, approaching Prince Andréy with bared heads.

“ Well, goodbye ! ” said Prince Andréy, bending down to Alpatych. ” Leave this place ! Take along what you can, and tell the people to go to the Ryazan or Moscow suburban estate.”

Alpatych pressed close to his side and began to sob.

Prince Andréy pushed him gently aside and, touching his horse, rode at a gallop down the avenue.

In the park, the old man was still sitting as listlessly as before, like a fly on the face of the beloved dead, and tapping on the last of the bast shoe. Two girls, with plums in their laps, picked from the trees of the hothouse, rushed out from there and ran into Prince Andréy. Upon noticing the young master, the elder girl, with an expression of terror in her face, caught hold of the hand of her younger companion, and concealed herself with her behind a birch-tree, without getting time to pick up the scattered green plums.

Prince Andréy hurriedly turned away from them, fearing lest they might have noticed that he had seen them. He felt sorry for this pretty, frightened little girl. He was afraid to look at her, and yet he was anxious to. A new, joyful, soothing sensation took possession of him, as he, looking at these girls, understood the existence of other, quite unfamiliar, and just as legitimate human interests as were those which occupied him. These girls were apparently bent on carrying oft’ and eating up these green plums, and all they wished was not to be caught, and Prince Andréy sympathized with them and wished them only success. He could not keep from looking at them once more. When they considered themselves out of danger, they leaped out from their ambush, and, squeaking with their thin voices and holding up their skirts, were running merrily and rapidly over the grass of the meadow with their sunburnt, bare little feet.

Prince Andréy was a little refreshed from having ridden away from the region of the dust of the highway, on which the troops were moving. But, not far from Lÿsyya Géry he again struck the road and caught up with his regiment at its halting-place near the dam of a small pond. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The sun, a red dust-covered disk, mercilessly burnt his back through his black coat. The dust stood just as motionless over the dinning, babbling, resting troops. There was no breeze. As Prince Andréy rode over the dam, the odour of ooze and of the freshness of the pond was wafted to him. He felt like leaping into the water, no matter how dirty it was. He looked at the pond, from which were borne shouts and laughter. The small, turbid, scum-covered pond had risen considerably, flooding the dam, for it was full of the white, naked, swarming bodies of the soldiers, with their brick-red hands, faces, and necks. All this naked, white human flesh, laughing and shouting, was swarming in this dirty pool, like crucians crowded in a pail. There was merriment in this swarming, and therefore it was particularly sad.

One young, blond soldier, — Prince Andréy knew him, — of the third company, with a leather band under his calf, stepped back and made the sign of the cross, preparatory to plunging into the water ; another, a swarthy, perpetually dishevelled underofficer, standing up to his waist in the water and jerking his muscular frame, was snorting with pleasure, as he was throwing water over his head with his hands, that were black up to his wrists. One could hear the sounds of dousing, splashing, and whooping.

On the banks, on the dam, in the pond, — everywhere was there the white, sound, muscular flesh. Officer Timdkhin, with the little red nose, was drying himself with a towel on the dam. He felt embarrassed, as he saw the prince, but nevertheless had the courage to address him :

” It is fine, your Serenity ! You ought to try it ! “

” It is dirty,” said Prince Andréy, frowning.

” We will clean it up for you.”

And Timokhin, still undressed, ran to clean it up.

” The prince wants to take a dip.”

” What prince ? Our prince ? ” said several voices, and then they all raised such a commotion that Prince Andréy had some difficulty in calming them down. He gave as an excuse that he would take a douche in the barn.

” Flesh, bodies, chair à canon ! ” he thought, looking at his own naked body. He shivered, not from the cold, but from an incomprehensible disgust and terror at the sight of this enormous quantity of bodies plashing in the dirty pool.

On August 7th Prince Bagratidn wrote as follows from his halting-place at Mikhaylovka, on the Smolénsk road :

“Dear Sir, Count Aleksyéy Andreevich:’’ — (He was writing to Arakchéev, but he knew that his letter would be read by the emperor, and so he considered every word, as far as he was able to do so.)

« I think the minister has already reported on the abandonment of Smolénsk to the enemy. It is painful and sad, and the whole army is in despair, because a most important place has been uselessly abandoned. I, on my side, begged him personally, in the most persuasive manner, and finally I wrote to him, but nothing could convince him. I swear to you on my honour that Napoleon was as much in a bag as ever, and he might have lost half his army, instead of taking Smolénsk. Our troops have been fighting more desperately than ever. With fifteen thousand 1 held in check more than thirty-five thousand, and vanquished them ; but he would not wait even fourteen hours. This is a disgrace and a blot on our army ; and he liimself, it seems to me, ought not to live. If he reports that the loss was great, — it is an untruth ; maybe there were four thousand, not more, but hardly so many ; and if there were ten thousand, what of it ? it is war. But the enemy has lost an immense number.

” What would it have cost him to stay two days longer? They certainly would have marched away themselves, for they had no water for their men or horses. He promised me he would not retreat, and suddenly he sent me his order, which was that he was going to leave in the night. It is impossible to carry on war in such a way, and we can thus soon bring the enemy to Moscow.

” It is rumoured that you are thinking of peace. God forfend that we should make peace ! After all the sacrifices and after such insane retreats to make peace ! You will rouse all Russia against you, and each of us will regard it as a disgrace to wear a uniform. If it has gone so far, it is necessary to fight so long as Russia can, and while the men can stand up.

” One man, and not two, ought to command. Your minister may be a good man in the ministry ; but he is not merely a poor, but a miserable general, and the fate of our country has been entrusted to his hands — I am really losing my mind from vexation ; forgive me for writing so boldly. It is evident that he who advises the emperor to conclude a peace, and to turn over the command of the army to the minister, does not love the emperor and wishes the ruin of all of us. And so I am writing the truth to you : levy the militia, for the minister in the most masterly manner is bringing a guest after him to the capital. Aid-de-camp Wolzogen is under great suspicion in the army. They say that he serves Napoleon more than us, and that he advises the minister in everything. I am not only polite to him, but even obey him as though I were a corporal, though I am older than he. This is painful ; still, as I love my benefactor and Tsar, I obey. But it is a pity for the emperor that he entrusts the glorious army to such men. Consider that in our retreat we have lost more than fifteen thousand men in the hospitals and through fatigue. But if we had advanced against the enemy that would not have happened. Tell me, for the Lord’s sake, what will our Russia, our mother, say, seeing that we are so frightened, and that we are delivering our good and zealous country into the hands of rascals, and inspiring every subject with hatred and humiliation ? Why are we such cowards, and of whom are we afraid ? It is not my fault that the minister is undecided, a coward, senseless, dilatory, and has all the bad qualities. The whole army weeps dreadfully, and curses him unto death.”

VI.

Among the endless subdivisions, of which the phenomena of life are capable, there is one possible into such in which the contents prevail, and into such in which the form prevails. Among the latter, in contradistinction to the life of the village, the province, the provincial capital, even Moscow, may be classed the life of St. Petersburg, especially of its salons. This life is unchangeable. Since 1805, we had been concluding peace with Bonaparte, and quarrelling with him, we had been making constitutions and working them out, but the salons of Anna Pâvlovna and of Hélène were the same that the first had been seven years, and the other five years before. At Anna Pavlovna’s they spoke with the same perplexity of the successes of Bonaparte, and saw in his successes, as well as in the submission of the European sovereigns to him, a malicious plot, the only aim of which was to cause unpleasantness and unrest to that court circle, of which Anna Pavlovna was a representative. Just so at the salon of Hélène, whom Rumyantsev himself honoured with his visits, and whom he regarded as a remarkably clever woman, they talked with enthusiasm in 1812, as they had in 1808, about the great nation and the great man, and looked with pity upon the rupture with France, which, in the opinion of the people congregating in Hélène’s salon, would certainly end in a peace.

Of late, after the emperor’s return from the army, a little stir had been produced in these opposite salons, and certain demonstrations took place in them against each other, but their tendencies remained the same. In the circle of Anna Pavlovna were accepted only such of the French as were uncompromising legitimists, and the patriotic idea found its expression in the statements that it was not right to frequent the French theatre, and that the maintenance of the troupe cost as much as the maintenance of a whole corps. They followed the military events eagerly, and spread such rumours as were most advantageous to our army. In the French circle of Hélène, of Rumydntsev, they denied the rumours about the cruelty of the enemy and of the war, and discussed all Napoleon’s attempts to conclude a peace. In tins coterie they rebuked those who advised hurried preparations for transferring to Kazän the court and the schools for girls that were under the auspices of the empress dowager. In general, the whole matter of the war was presented in Hélène’s salon as empty demonstrations, which would soon end in peace, and there prevailed the opinion of Bilibin, who now at St. Petersburg was an intimate of Hélène’s house (every clever man had to be there), and who asserted that not the powder, but those who had invented it, would decide the affair. In this circle they discussed ironically and cleverly, though very cautiously, the Muscovite enthusiasm, the news of which reached St. Petersburg at the same time as the emperor.

In Anna Pavlovna’s circle, on the contrary, they went into ecstasies over this enthusiasm, and spoke of it as Plutarch spoke of the ancients. Prince Vasili, who still occupied the same important offices, formed the link between these two coteries. He called on ” Ma bonne amie” Anna Pdvlovna, and ” dans le salon diplomatique de ma fille” and frequently, on account of his constant migrations from the one camp to the other, became mixed up, and said at Hélène’s what he ought to have said at Anna Pavlovna’s and vice versa.

Soon after the emperor’s arrival, Prince Vasili began to elaborate on the war, sharply censuring Barclay de Tolly, and being undecided who ought to be appointed as command er-in-chief. One of the guests, known under the name of ” un homme de beaucoup de mérite,” said that on that day he had seen Kutuzov, who had been appointed chief of the St. Petersburg militia to preside at the treasury during the enlistment of the soldiers, and he took the liberty of cautiously expressing his assumption that Kutuzov would be the very man who would satisfy all the demands.

Anna Pavlovna smiled a sad smile and remarked that Kutuzov never did anything but cause the emperor annoyances.

” I talked and talked in the meeting of the nobility,” Prince Vasili interrupted her, ” but they paid no attention to me. I told them that his selection as chief of militia would not please the emperor. They paid no attention to me. It is nothing but a mania,” he continued. ” And before whom ? We do this simply because we want to ape the stupid transports of Moscow,” said Prince Vasili, getting for a moment mixed up, and forgetting that at Hélène’s it was necessary to make light of the Muscovite enthusiasm, while at Anna Pavlovna’s it was proper to admire it. But he at once corrected himself. “ Is it right for Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, to preside at the treasury ? Et il en restera pour sa peine ! Is it possible to appoint as commanderin-chief a man who cannot mount a horse, who falls asleep at the council, a man of the very worst of habits ? He has shown himself in a fine light at Bucharest ! I leave out of consideration his qualities as a general, but how can one at such a moment appoint a decrepit, yes, a blind man, neither more nor less ? A fine general a blind man will be ! He does not see a thing. He is so blind you may play blind man’s buff with him ! “

No one made any reply to this.

On June 24th this was quite true ; but on July 29th Kutuzov was made a prince. His princely dignity could have meant that they wished to be rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasili’s judgment continued to be correct, though he did not hasten now to express his views. But on August 8th a committee, composed of FieldMarshal General Saltykov, Arakchéev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubéy, met to deliberate on the affairs of the war. The committee decided that the failures were due to the multiplicity of commands, and, although the persons composing the committee knew that Kutuzov was in disfavour with the emperor, they, after a short consultation, proposed to appoint Kutuzov as commanderin-chief of the armies and of all the territory occupied by the troops.

On August 9th Prince Vasili again met ” l’homme de beaucoup de mérite ” at Anna Pavlovna’s. ” L’homme de beaucoup de mérite” was very attentive to Anna Pävlovna, being desirous of an appointment as curator of a school for girls. Prince Vasili entered the room with the expression of a lucky victor, of a man who has obtained the ends of his wishes.

” Eh bien, vous savez le grande nouvelle. Le Prince Koutouzoff est maréchal. All the dissensions are ended. I am so happy, so glad ! Enfin voilà un homme’,’ he said, significantly, and casting a stem glance at all those who were present in the drawingroom.

” L’homme de beaucoup de mérite’,’ in spite of his desire to get the place, could not keep from reminding Prince Vasili of his former judgment. (This was not polite to Prince Vasili in Anna Pavlovna’s drawingroom, and to Anna Pdvlovna, who herself had received the news with joy ; still, he could not restrain himself.)

” Mais on dit qu’il est aveugle, mon prince ? ” he said, reminding Prince Vasili of his own words.

” Allez donc, il y voit assez,” Prince Vasili said, in his deep and rapid voice, with a clearing of his throat, with which he decided all diiiicult questions. ” Allez, il y voit assez,” he repeated. ” What gives me especial pleasure,” he continued, ” is that the emperor has given him full power over all the armies, over the whole country, — a power which no commanderin-chief before him has had. He is another autocrat,” he concluded, with a victorious smile.

” God grant it, God grant it ! ” said Anna Pavlovna.

“ L’homme de beaucoup de mérite,” still a novice in court society, wished to flatter Anna Pdvlovna by reconciling her former opinion and this present statement, and so he said :

“ They say that the emperor gave this power to Kutuzov reluctantly. On dit qu’il a rougit comme une demoiselle à laquelle on lirait Jocondc, en lui disant : ‘ Le souverain et la patrie vous décernent cet honneur.’ “

” Peut-être que le cœur n’était pas de la partie,” said Anna Pdvlovna.

” Oh, no, no,” Prince Vasili warmly took his part. Now he would not yield Kutuzov to any one. According to his opinion, Kutuzov was not only good, but he was admired by everybody. ” No, that cannot be, because the emperor has known how to value him before,” he said.

” God grant only that Kutuzov,” said Anna Pavlovna, ” may take the real power, and allow nobody to put sticks in the wheels, des bâtons dans les voices.”

Prince Vasili at once saw who was meant by ” nobody.” He said in a whisper :

“ 1 know for sure that Kutuzov has made it a peremptory condition that the heir-apparent shall not be with the army. Vous savez ce qu’il a dit à VEmpereur ? ” And Prince Vasili repeated the words which Kutuzov was said to have used to the emperor, ” I cannot punish him when he does wrong, nor reward him when he does right.” — ” Oh, he is a very clever man, that Prince Kutuzov, je le connais de longue date.”

” They even say,” said ” l’homme de beaucoup de mérite,” who had not yet acquired the tact of a courtier, ” that his Serenity has made it an absolute condition that the emperor himself should not be with the army.”

The moment he said this, Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna in a twinkle turned away from him and looked sadly at each other, with a sigh at his naïveté.

VII.

While this was going on in St. Petersburg, the French had already passed through Smolénsk and were getting nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon’s historian, Thiers, like all the other historians, says in defence of his hero that Napoleon was involuntarily attracted to Moscow. He is right, as are all those historians who seek for an explanation of historical events in the will of one man ; he is as right as are the Russian historians who assert that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the Russian generals. In addition to the law of retrospect, which presents the past as a preparation for a given fact, we have here at work mutuality, which mixes up the whole affair. A good player, who has lost at chess, is sincerely convinced that his loss is. due to his blunder, and he looks for that blunder in the beginning of his game, forgetting that in every move of his, during the course of the whole game, there were just such mistakes and that not one of his moves has been faultless. The mistake, to which his attention is drawn, is noticeable to him only because his antagonist has profited by it. How much more complicated is the game of war, which takes place under certain conditions of time, where it is not a question of guiding lifeless machines by the will of one person, but where everything flows from an endless number of conflicts among various arbitrary wills !

After Smolénsk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh, at the Vydzma, then at Tsdrevo-Zaymfshche ;

but, by an endless number of circumstances, the Russians were unable to accept it before Borodino within 112 versts of Moscow.

At the Vyazma Napoleon gave his orders to move directly upon Moscow. ” Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacrée des peuples d’Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables églises en formes de pagodes chinoises,” this Moscou gave no rest to Napoleon’s imagination. On the march from the Vyazma to Tsärevo-Zaynnshche, Napoleon rode on horseback on his cream-coloured, bob-tailed trotter, accompanied by the Guard, the pages, and the adjutants. The chief of the staff, Berthier, was left behind in order to put questions to a Russian captive taken by the cavalry. Accompanied by Lelorme d’ldeville, the interpreter, he galloped and caught up with Napoleon and with a cheerful face stopped his horse.

” Eh bien ? ” said Napoleon.

” Un cosaque de Platov says that Platov’s corps is uniting with the large army and that Kutuzov has been appointed commanderin-chief. Très intelligent et bavardy

Napoleon smiled and ordered that this Cossack be given a horse and brought into his presence. He wished himself to talk with him. A few adjutants galloped away, and an hour later, Denisov’s servant, who had been turned over to Rostov, Lavrushka, in his orderly’s blouse, astride on a French cavalry saddle, with a roguish, drunken, and merry face, rode up to Napoleon. Napoleon ordered him to ride by his side, and began to ask him :

” Are you a Cossack ? ”

” A Cossack, your Honour.”

” The Cossack, ignorant of the company in which he was, for Napoleon’s simplicity had nothing about it which might reveal the presence of a sovereign to an Oriental imagination, conversed with the greatest familiarity on the affairs of the present war,” says Thiers, in relating this incident. In reality, Lavrushka, who on the day before had been intoxicated and had left his master without a dinner, had been flogged and sent to a village for chickens, but had given himself up to marauding, and was taken prisoner by the French. Lavrushka was one of those coarse, impudent lackeys, who have had all kinds of experiences, who regard it as their duty to do everything basely and slyly, who are ready to do any kind of service to their master, and who cunningly divine their master’s bad thoughts, especially their vanity and pettiness.

Having fallen into the company of Napoleon, whose personality he knew well and recognized at once, Lavrushka was not in the least embarrassed, and only tried to do a good turn to his new masters.

He knew full well that it was Napoleon himself, and Napoleon’s presence could not embarrass him any more than that of Rostdv, or of the sergeant-major with the rods, because he had nothing of which either the sergeant-major or Napoleon could deprive him.

He told Napoleon everything that was being talked about among the orderlies. Much of it was true. But when Napoleon asked him what the Russians thought, whether they would vanquish Bonaparte, or not, Lavrushka halfshut his eyes and became pensive.

He saw some cunning in this question, just as people of Lavrushka’s type always see cunning in everything, and so he frowned and grew silent.

” It is like this : if there is to be a battle,” he said, thoughtfully, ” and soon, — you will win. That’s right. But if three days pass, or more, then it means that the battle will be delayed.”

This was translated to Napoleon as follows :

” Si la bataille est donnée avant trois jours, les Français la gagnerait, mais que si elle serait donnée plus tard, Dieu

sait ce qui en arriverait,” Lelorme d’Ideville translated with a smile.

Napoleon did not smile, though he was apparently in the best frame of mind, and had these words repeated to him.

Lavrushka noticed this, and, to make him merry, pretended not to know who he was.

” We know that you have Bonaparte, — he has beaten eveiybody in the world, but with us it will be a different matter,” he said, himself not knowing why or how the boastful patriotism had found its way into his words. The translator interpreted these words to Napoleon without the ending, and Bonaparte smiled. ” Le jeune cosaque fit sourire son puissant interlocuteur,” says Thiers. After riding a few steps in silence, Napoleon turned to Berthier and told him that he wanted to see what effect would be produced ” sur cct enfant du Don ” by the news that the man with whom this “enfant du Don” was talking was the emperor himself, the same emperor who had written his immortal, victorious name on the pyramids.

This information was transmitted.

Lavrushka (seeing that this was done in order to startle him, and that Napoleon thought that he would get frightened), in order to please his new masters, immediately pretended to be surprised and stunned, and let his eyes bulge out, and looked as though he were being taken to be flogged.

” Napoleon’s interpreter had barely finished,” says Thiers, ” when the Cossack, seized by blank amazement, did not speak another word, and marched with his eyes riveted on this conqueror, whose name had penetrated to him across the steppes of the Orient. All his loquacity suddenly disappeared, to make place for a sentiment of naïve and taciturn admiration. Having rewarded him, Napoleon set him free, like a bird which is returned to its native fields.”

Napoleon rode on, dreaming of that Moscou, which so occupied his imagination, while « the bird returned to its native field ” galloped back to the outposts, preparing in advance a story to tell his people of everything that had not happened. But what had really taken place he did not wish to tell, for the reason that it did not seem to him worthy of being told. He rode out to the Cossacks, asked them where the regiment was, which was part of Platov’s detachment, and toward evening found his master, Nikolay Rostov, who was stationed at Yänkovo, and who was on the point of mounting his horse, in order to take a pleasure ride with Ilin to the neighbouring villages. He gave Lavrushka another horse and took him along with him.

VIII.

Princess Marya was in Moscow and out of danger,— so Prince Andréy thought.

After Alpdtych had returned from Smolénsk, the old prince suddenly seemed to regain his senses. He ordered the militia called from the villages, armed them, and wrote the commanderin-chief a letter, in which he informed him of his firm intention of remaining at Lÿsyya G6ry to the last extremity and of defending himself, leaving it to his consideration whether measures should be taken or not to defend Lÿsyya G6ry, where one of the oldest Piussian generals would be taken prisoner or killed. He also informed his household that he would stay at Lÿsyya G6ry.

While remaining himself, the prince gave orders to have the princess and Desalles, with the young prince, sent to Boguchdrovo, and thence to Moscow. Princess Märya, frightened by the feverish, sleepless activity of her father, which took the place of his former negligence, did not have the heart to leave him alone, and for the first time in her life permitted herself not to obey him. She refused to depart, and so a terrible storm of the prince’s fury descended on her head. He brought up against her everything in which he was unjust to her. In his attempt to accuse her, he told her that she had worn him out, that she had caused the discord between him and his son, that she had base suspicions of him, that she regarded it as the problem of her life to poison his existence, and he sent her out of his cabinet, saying that it did not make any difference to him whether she would leave or not. He told her that he did not want to know of her existence, and warned her never to show herself before his eyes.

Princess Mdrya was delighted because, in spite of her fears, he did not send her away by force, but only commanded her not to show herself before his eyes. She knew that it proved that in the secrecy of his heart he was glad that she did not leave, but was going to stay at home.

On the day after the departure of Nikoldy, the old prince in the morning dressed himself in his full uniform and got himself ready to be driven to the commanderin-chief. The carriage was already waiting. Princess Märya saw him leave the house in his uniform and all his decorations, and go into the garden to review the armed peasants and manorial servants. Princess Märya was sitting at the window, listening to his voice, which was heard from the garden. Suddenly several people with frightened faces came running out of the avenue.

Princess Märya rushed out on the porch, and down the flower path to the avenue. A large mass of the militia and the manorials was moving toward her, and in the middle of this throng several men were holding up and dragging along the old man in his uniform and decorations. Princess Märya ran up to them, and, in the play of light which fell in small circles through the shade of the linden avenue, she could not account to herself for the change which had taken place in his countenance. What she did see was that the former stern and determined expression of his face had given way to one of timidity and submissiveness. Upon seeing his daughter, he moved his impotent lips and uttered a râle. It was impossible to understand what it was he wanted. He was raised on the men’s arms and carried to his cabinet, where he was placed on the sofa of which he had of late been so afraid.

The doctor, who was called, bled him that same night, and announced that the prince had a stroke of paralysis in his left side. It became more and more dangerous to remain in Lysyya Gory, and on the day following the stroke the prince was taken to Bogucharovo. The doctor went with him. When they arrived at Bogucharovo, Desalles and the young prince had already left for Moscow.

The old man, disabled by the paralysis, getting neither better nor worse, remained for three weeks in the same state, in the new house which Prince Andrey had built at Bogucharovo. He was out of his mind; he looked like a disfigured corpse. He kept muttering something, with a jerking motion of his brows and lips, and it was not possible to make out whether he comprehended what surrounded him, or not. One thing was sure, namely, that he suffered, and that he felt the necessity of saying something. But what it was, nobody could tell : whether it was some caprice of the infirm and halfdemented man, whether it referred to the general course of affairs, or whether it had anything to do with family matters.

The doctor said that the restlessness which he showed was of no consequence, that it had only a physical significance ; but Princess Marya thought (and the fact that her presence always increased his restlessness only confirmed her in her supposition) that he wished to tell her something.

He was evidently suffering, both physically and morally. There was no hope for his recovery. It was impossible to have him taken elsewhere. And what if he should die on his way ? ” Would not the end, absolutely the end, be best ? ” Princess Marya sometimes thought. She watched him day and night, almost without sleeping, and, though it is terrible to say so, she frequently watched him not with the desire of discovering symptoms of improvement, but with the wish of discovering symptoms of the approaching end.

However strange it was for the princess to confess to herself this feeling, it was nevertheless in her. But what was more terrible still for Princess Mdrya was that since her father’s illness (if not earlier, when, expecting something to happen, she had made up her mind to stay with him) there had awakened in her all her dormant and forgotten personal wishes and hopes. That which had not occurred to her for years, — thoughts of a free life without the fear of her father, even thoughts of the possibility of love and domestic happiness, constantly hovered in her imagination like the temptations of the devil. Though she warded them off, she was continually assailed by the questions of how she would now, after this, arrange her life. These were the temptations of the devil, and she knew it. She knew that prayers were the only weapon against him, and she tried to pray. She stood in the attitude of prayer, looked at the images, pronounced the words of prayer, but was not able to pray. She felt that she was now moving in another world of a difficult and free activity of life, winch was quite different from that moral world, in which she had been enclosed before, and in which prayers had been her best consolation. She could not pray or weep, and was oppressed by the cares of life.

It grew dangerous to remain longer at Bogucharovo. On all sides rumours were abroad about the approaching French, and in one village, within fifteen versts of Boguchdrovo, an estate had been pillaged by French marauders.

The doctor insisted that the prince ought to be taken away; the marshal of the nobility sent an official to Princess Mdrya, to persuade her to leave as soon as possible ; the chief of the rural police arrived at Boguchdrovo and gave her the same advice, saying that the French were within forty versts, that French proclamations were being distributed in the villages, and that if the princess did not leave with her father by the 15th, he would not be responsible for anything.

On the 15th the princess decided to leave. The cares of the preparation, the giving of orders, for which all turned to her, took up her whole day. The night from the 14th to the 15th she passed, as usual, without undressing herself, in the room adjoining the one in which the prince was lying. She awoke several times and heard his groaning and mumbling, the creaking of his bed, and the steps of Tikhon and the doctor, who turned him over. She listened several times at the door, and it seemed to her that he was mumbling louder than ever, and that he had been turned over oftener than usual. She could not sleep and several times went up to the door, listening, on the point of entering, and still unable to make up her mind. Though he could not speak, Princess Märya saw and knew that every expression of anxiety about him was disagreeable to him. She had noticed that he turned away dissatisfied from her glance, which now and then was instinctively and stubbornly directed at him. She knew that her appearance at night, at an unusual hour, would only excite him.

Never before had she been so sorry for him, and never had she felt so terribly about losing him. She recalled her whole life with him, and in every word and action of his she discovered an expression of his love for her. Now and then, amidst these recollections, there broke into her imagination the temptations of the devil, — the thoughts of what would be after his death, and how her new, free life would arrange itself. P>ut she repelled these thoughts in horror. Toward morning he grew quieter, and she fell asleep.

She awoke late. That sincerity of thought which one has at waking showed her clearly what it was in the illness of her father which interested her most. She awoke, listened to what was taking place behind the door, and, hearing his groans, said to herself with a sigh that it was still the same.

“What is it that I want? I want his death,” she exclaimed in horror to herself.

She dressed herself, washed herself, prayed, and went out on the porch. At the porch stood the unhitched carriages, into which things were being put away. It was warm and cloudy. Princess Märya stopped awhile on the porch, still horrified at the baseness of her soul and trying to arrange her thoughts before going in to see him.

The doctor came down the stairs and walked over to her.

” He feels better to-day,” said the doctor. ” I have been looking for you. It is possible to make out a few words of what he says, — his head is clearer. Come ! He is calling you — “

Princess Märya’s heart beat so strongly at this bit of news that she grew pale and had to lean against the doorpost in order not to fall down. To see him, to speak with him, to fall under his glance now that the soul of Princess Märya was brimful of terrible criminal temptations, was both painfully agreeable and terrible for her.

” Come ! ” said the doctor.

Princess Marya went to her father and walked over to his bed. He lay high on his back, with his small, bony hands, with their lilac-coloured knotty veins, on the coverlet, with his left eye looking straight and his right eye turned awry, and with motionless eyebrows and lips. He was all so lean, so small, and so pitiable ! His face looked dried up or melted, and its features were all diminished. Princess Märya walked over to him and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers in such a way that it was evident he had long been waiting for her. He jerked her hand, and his brows and lips moved angrily.

She looked at him in fright, trying to guess what it was he wanted of her. When she changed her position and moved up to him in such a way that his left eye could see her face, he became calmer and for a few seconds did not take his eye off her. Then his lips and tongue began to move, sounds were heard, and he began to speak, looking timidly and imploringly at her, apparently being afraid that he would not be understood by her.

Princess Marya strained all her powers of attention as she looked at him. The comical labour with which he turned his tongue caused Princess Märya to lower her eyes and with difficulty to repress her tears which rose with a lump in her throat. He said something, several times repeating his words. Princess Marya could not understand them ; but she endeavoured to divine what he was saying, and inquiringly repeated his words.

The doctor thought that he could make out his words, and so he asked: “Is the princess afraid?” He shook his head negatively and again repeated his incomprehensible syllables.

“ I have a pain in my heart,” was what Princess Marya guessed it to be, and she repeated these words.

He gave an affirmative grunt, took her hand, and began to press it to the different parts of his breast, as though trying to find the proper place for it.

” Thoughts and thoughts ! About you — ” he then said better and more distinctly than before, when he was satisfied that he was understood. Princess Marya pressed her head against his hand, trying to conceal her sobs and tears.

He moved his hand over her hair.

” I have been calling you all night — ” he said.

“ If I had only known — ” she said through tears. ” I was afraid to come in.”

He pressed her hand.

” Did you not sleep ? “

” No, I did not,” said Princess Märya, with a negative shake of her head. Instinctively submitting to her father, she now tried to speak, like him, in signs, rather than words, and it seemed to her that she could not well move her tongue.

“ Darling,” or “ my friend,” Princess Märya could not make out what he was saying ; but it was evident from his glance that he was using a word of endearment such as he had never before employed. “ Why did you not come ? ”

” And I have been wishing for his death ! ” thought Princess Märya. He was silent.

“ Thank you — daughter, friend — for everything, for everything — forgive — thanks — forgive — thank you ! ” And tears began to course down his cheeks. ” Call An-dréy,” he suddenly said, and with this question there came into his face an expression of something childishly timid and incredulous. He seemed to know himself that this request had no meaning. At least, Princess Märya thought so.

” I have had a letter from him,” replied Princess Märya.

He looked at her timidly in surprise.

” Where is he ? ”

“ He is with the army, mon père, at Smolénsk.”

He shut his eyes and was silent for a long time ; then he nodded affirmatively, as though in reply to his doubts and in confirmation of having understood and recalled everything, and opened bis eyes.

” Yes,” he said, clearly and softly. ” Russia is lost ! They have ruined it ! ” And he again began to sob, and the tears gushed from his eyes. Princess Märya was unable to endure it any longer, and she, too, wept, looking at his face.

He again shut his eyes. His sobs stopped. He pointed toward his eyes with his hand ; Tikhon understood him, and dried them.

Then he opened his eyes and said something which nobody was able for a long time to make out, and which Tikhon finally comprehended and translated. Princess Marya had been trying to explain the meaning of his words from what he had been saying before. She thought that he was speaking of Russia, or of Prince Andrey, or of her, or of his grandchild, or of bis death, and so she could not divine his words, which in reality were, ” Put on your white dress, I love it.”

Having made out these words, Princess Marya sobbed out louder still, and the doctor, taking her arm, led her out of the room on the terrace, asking her to compose herself and to attend to the preparations for the departure. When Princess Marya had left the prince, he once more began to speak of his son, of the war, of the emperor. He angrily twitched his brows, and began to raise his hoarse voice, and had his second and last stroke.

Princess Marya stopped on the terrace. It had cleared up ; the sun shone brightly and warmly. She could not understand, or think, or feel a thing, except her passionate love for her father, — a love which she thought she had not known before.

She ran into the garden and, sobbing, rushed down to the pond, over the paths which had been bordered by Prince Andréy with young linden-trees.

“Yes — I — I — wished for his death ! Yes, I wanted him to die soon — I wanted to regain my composure — What will become of me ? What good will my calm do me when he is no more ? ” Princess Màrya muttered aloud, striding rapidly through the garden and pressing her hands against her breast, from which escaped convulsive sobs. Having made a circle through the garden and arrived again at the house, she saw Mlle. Bourienne (who had remained at Boguchàrovo and did not wish under any consideration to leave it) and an unfamiliar man coming up toward her. This man was the marshal of the county’s nobility, who had come in person to see Princess Märya and to impress on her the necessity of an immediate departure. Princess Marya listened to him, without understanding what he was saying ; she took him to the house, offered him breakfast, and sat down with him. Then, asking him to excuse her, she went up to the door of the old prince. The doctor came out to her with an agitated face, and told her that she could not come in.

” Go, princess, go, go ! “

Princess Marya again went into the garden, where she sat down in the grass at the foot of a hill, near the pond, where she could not be observed. She did not know how long she remained there. The sound of a woman’s feet running down the path brought her to her senses. She rose and saw that Dunyäsha, her chambermaid, who evidently was running to find her, suddenly stopped as though frightened at the sight of her mistress.

“Please, princess — the prince — ” Dunydsha said, in a broken voice.

“ I am coming at once,” the princess hastened to say, giving Dunydsha no time to finish her sentence. She ran to the house, trying not to look at Dunyasha.

“ Princess, the will of God is being done, you must be prepared for every tiring,” said the marshal, meeting her at the door.

” Let me alone, — it is not true,” she cried angrily at him. The doctor wanted to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to the door. “ Why do these men with the frightened faces stop me ? I need nobody ! And what are they doing here ? ” She opened the door, and the glaring daylight in the room, which had been half-darkened before, frightened her. In the room were women and the nurse. They moved away from the bed, letting her pass. He was lying on the bed as before, but the stern expression of his calm face made Princess Marya stop on the threshold.

“No, he has not died, it cannot be!” said Princess Mârya. She went up to him, and overcoming the terror which had taken possession of her, pressed her Ups against his cheek. But she immediately drew back from him. In a twinkle all the power of tenderness, which she had felt for him, was gone, giving way to a sensation of terror in the presence of that which was before her. “ He is no longer ! He is gone, and here, in the place where he was, there is something strange and hostile, a terrible, horrifying, repulsive mystery ! ” And, covering her face with her hands, Princess Marya fell into the arms of the doctor, who was supporting her.

In the presence of Tikhon and the doctor, the women washed that which had been he, tied a kerchief about his head that the gaping mouth might not become stark, and with another kerchief bound the sprawling legs. Then they dressed him in his uniform with the decorations, and placed the small, shrivelled body on the table. God knows who thought of all this, and when, but everything took place as though it were natural. At night, candles were burning around the coffin ; on the coffin there was a shroud ; juniper twigs were strewn on the floor ; under the shrivelled head of the dead man a printed prayer was placed, and in a corner sat a sexton, reading the Psalter.

Just as horses startle and crowd and snort about a dead horse, so people, both friends and strangers, were crowding in the drawingroom about the coffin : there were the marshal, and the elder, and the women, and all with staring eyes and frightened faces made the sign of the cross and bowed, and kissed the cold, stark hand of the old prince.

IX.

Boguchârovo had always been, previous to Prince Audrey’s settlement there, an absentee estate, and the peasants of Boguchârovo, therefore, had an entirely different character from those at Lysyya G dry. They differed from them in speech, and attire, and manners. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to praise them for their patience at work, whenever they came to Lÿsyya Gdry to assist in the harvest, or to dig ponds and ditches, but did not love them because of their wildness.

Prince Andréy’s late stay in Boguchârovo, with his innovations, — hospitals, schools, and diminution of tenant pay, — had not softened their manners, but, on the contrary, had only strengthened those features of their character which the old prince had denominated “wildness.” There were always current among them indistinct rumours about inscribing them all among the Cossacks, or about a new faith to which they would soon be converted, or about some imperial document, or about the oath to Paul Petrdvich in the year 1797 (in regard to which it was said that their freedom was granted even then, but that the masters had taken it away), or about the enthronement of Peter Feddorovich, which would take place seven years hence, when everything would be so free and so simple that there would not be anything. The rumours of the war and of Bonaparte and his invasion were in their minds connected with just such indistinct conceptions about the antichrist, the end of the world, and the ” clean ” freedom.

In the neighbourhood of Boguchârovo there were large villages belonging to the Crown or to landed proprietors with tenant peasants. There were very few proprietors living in that locality : there were also very few manorial servants and literate persons, and so one could observe here better than elsewhere those mysterious streams of Russian popular life, the causes and meaning of which are inexplicable to contemporaries. One of these phenomena was the movement, winch had appeared among the peasants of this locality some twenty years before, to migrate to some warm rivers. Hundreds of peasants, among them some from Bogucharovo, suddenly began to dispose of their cattle and to travel with their families in a southeasterly direction. Just as people migrate across the ocean, so these men, with their wives and children, went there, to the southeast, where none of them had been before. They started in caravans, or bought their emancipation one by one, or ran away there, toward the warm rivers. Many of them were punished and sent to Siberia ; many died on the road of cold and hunger ; many returned themselves, and the movement died out, as it had begun, without any apparent cause. But the undercurrent did not cease flowing among these people and was gathering for a new manifestation, which was to appear just as strangely, unexpectedly, and at the same time just as simply, naturally, and strongly. Then, in the year 1812, it was apparent to a man who lived in close contact with the masses, that this undercurrent was very active and about to break forth into a new manifestation.

Alpatych, who had arrived at Boguchärovo a little while before the demise of the old prince, noticed that the masses were agitated and that, contrary to what was taking place at Lÿsyya Gory and in a radius of sixty versts from it, where the peasants ran away, leaving their villages to be destroyed by the Cossacks, the peasants of the steppes, at Bogucharovo, were said to be in communication with the French, received from them certain documents which were current among them, and remained in their villages. He learned from loyal manorial servants that peasant Karp, who had been driving a government team, and who had a great influence in the meetings of the Commune, had returned with the news that the Cossacks were destroying the villages, from which the villagers departed, while the French did not touch them. He knew also that another peasant had brought the day before from the village of Visloukhov, where the French were stationed, a paper from a French general, in which the inhabitants were informed that no harm would befall them, and that they would be paid for everything taken from them, if they did not run away, but remained. In proof of this, the peasant had brought with him one hundred roubles in assignats (he did not know that they were counterfeit), which he had received in advance for his hay.

Finally, what was more important still, Alpatych knew that on the very morning of the day when he ordered the elder to furnish teams to take the princess’s baggage away from Bogucharovo, there had been a meeting of the Commune, at which it had been decided not to furnish the teams, but to wait. Time, however, was pressing. The marshal insisted, on August 15th, the day of the prince’s death, that Princess Mdrya should leave at once, as it was getting dangerous. He said that after the 16th he would not be responsible for anything. He left on the evening of the prince’s death, but promised to be back the next day, to attend the funeral. But he could not come on the following day, because he had received the information that the French had unexpectedly advanced, and he had only time enough to take his family and his valuables away from his estate.

For thirty years, Bogucharovo had been managed by Dron. Dron was one of those physically and morally sound peasants, who, as soon as they reach manhood, let their beards grow, and live to sixty or seventy years, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, and who are as strong at sixty as they were at thirty.

Dron, soon after the migration to the warm rivers, in which movement he had taken part with the rest, was made village mayor, in which dignity he presided without reproach for twenty-three years. The peasants were more afraid of him than of the master. The masters, both the old and the young princes, and the manager respected him and jokingly called him minister. During the whole time of his service, Dron had not once been drunk or ill ; never, neither after sleepless nights, nor after any great labour, did he show the least fatigue, and, though he did not know how to read or write, he never forgot a single sum of money or amount of puds in the enormous loads of grain which he sold, nor a single rick of grain in any desyatma of the Boguchärovo fields.

This same Dron was called up by Alpatych, who had arrived from the ruined Lÿsyya Gdry estate, on the day of the prince’s funeral, and was ordered to furnish twelve horses for the carriages of the princess and eighteen teams for the baggage, which was to be taken away from Boguchärovo. Though the peasants were tenants, this order, in Alpdtych’s opinion, ought to have met with no difficulty, because there were 230 hearths in Boguchärovo, and the peasants were well-to-do. But the elder Dron, having heard the command, lowered his eyes in silence. Alpätych named the peasants whom he knew, and from whom he ordered him to take the teams.

Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were hired out. Alpätych mentioned other peasants. But, according to Dron’s statement, these had no horses, either : some were hauling government goods, others were disabled, while the horses of others again had died from lack of feed. It was Dron’s opinion that it would be impossible to get any horses, either for the baggage or for the carriages.

Alpätych looked attentively at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was an exemplary elder, so Alpatych had not in vain managed the prince’s estates for twenty years, and was an exemplary manager. He was in the highest degree endowed with a fine sense of discrimination in respect to the needs and instincts of the people with whom he had to deal, and so he was an excellent manager. Looking at Dron, he comprehended at once that Dron’s answers were not the expression of Dron’s thought, but of that general disposition of the Boguchärovo Commune, which had also affected the elder. At the same time he knew that Dron, who had managed to save a small fortune, and who was hated by the Commune, would naturally waver between two camps, — that of the master and of the peasants. He had noticed that wavering in his look, and so Alpatych, frowning, moved up to Dron.

“ Listen, Dron ! ” he said. “ Don’t talk nonsense to me ! His Serenity, Prince Andréy Nikolaevich himself, has ordered me to send all the people away, and not to leave them to the enemy, — and there is an order from the Tsar to this effect. Who remains is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you hear ?”

” I do,” replied Dron, without raising his eyes.

Alpätych was not satisfied with this answer.

” Oh, Dron, it will go badly with you ! ” said Alpatych, shaking his head.

” As you will ‘ ” Dron said, gloomily.

“ Oh, Dron, stop it ! ” Alpatych repeated, taking his hand out of the bosom of his coat, and with a solemn gesture pointing with it to the floor under Dron’s feet. ” I not only see through you, but I can see three arshins down underneath you,” he said, looking at Dron’s feet.

Dron became confused, cast a hurried glance at Alpätych, and again lowered his eyes.

“ Leave that nonsense, and tell the people to leave their homes and go to Moscow, and get the horses by tomorrow for the prince’s caravan, and don’t go yourself to the meeting. Do you hear ? ”

Dron suddenly fell down before his feet.

“ Ydkov Alpatych, deliver me ! Take the keys from me, and for Christ’s sake let me give up my office ! “

” 8top ! ” Alpatych said, sternly. ” I can see three arshins underneath you,” he repeated, knowing full well that his skill in looking after the bees, his knowledge of the proper time to sow the oats, and the fact that for twenty years he had managed to please the old prince, had long ago earned for him the reputation of a wizard, and that wizards were supposed to possess the property of seeing three arshins beneath a man.

Dron got up and wanted to say something, but Alpdtych interrupted him :

” What are you all up to, eh ? What do you mean to do, eh ? “

“What shall I do with the people?” asked Dron. ” They are all stirred up. I have been telling them — “

” Telling them ! ” said Alpdtych. ” Are they drinking ? ” he asked, curtly.

” They are all stirred up, Yakov Alpatych : they have brought the second keg.”

« Listen ! I will go at once to the chief of the rural police, and you inform the people to stop it all and furnish the teams.”

” Yes, sir,” replied Dron.

Yakov Alpatych did not insist any longer.

He had been in contact with the people long enough to know that the chief means of getting them to obey was not to show any suspicion that they would not obey. Having obtained from Dron the humble ” Yes, sir ! ” Ydkov Alpatych was satisfied, though he was not only in doubt, but was almost convinced that the teams would not be furnished without the assistance of a company of soldiers.

Indeed, by evening the teams had not been collected. There was again a meeting at the tavern, and it was decided there to drive the horses into the woods and not to furnish the teams. Without saying anything to the princess, Alpdtych ordered his own baggage taken off from the carts which had arrived with him from Lysyya Gdry and the horses used for the carriages of the princess, while he himself drove away to see the authorities.

X.

After her father’s funeral, Princess Marya locked herself in her room and did not admit any one. A maid went up to her door to say that Alpätych had come to ask her orders in regard to the departure. (This happened before Alpätych’s conversation with Dron.) Princess Marya half-raised herself from the sofa, on which she was lying, and said through the closed door that she would never go anywhere, and asked to be let alone.

The windows of the room in which Princess Marya was lying looked out on the west. She was lying on the sofa with her face to the wall and, fingering the buttons on the leather cushion, saw nothing but this cushion, and her indistinct thoughts were concentrated only on this: she was thinking of the irretrievableness of death and of her own moral baseness, which she had not known before, and which had manifested itself in her during the illness of her father. She wanted to pray, but did not dare to ; she did not dare to turn to God with her soul in that condition, in which it was then. She lay for a long time in that position.

The sun had passed over on the other side of the house and with its slanting evening rays, which fell through the open windows, lighted up the room and part of the morocco cushion on which Princess Marya was looking. The march of her thoughts suddenly stopped. She raised herself unconsciously, fixed her hair, got up, and went to the window, instinctively inhaling the freshness of the clear, breezy evening.

“ Yes, now it is convenient for you to enjoy the evening ! He exists no longer, and nobody will disturb you,” she said to herself, and, dropping down in a chair, she fell with her head on the window-sill.

Somebody called her in a gentle and soft voice from the side of the garden, and kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mlle. Bourienne, in a black dress trimmed for mourning. She softly walked over to Princess Mdrya, kissed her with a sigh, and immediately began to weep. Princess Marya looked at her. She thought of all her former conflicts with her and of her jealousy of her; she also recalled how he had of late changed in respect to Mlle. Bourienne and how he could not bear to see her, and, consequently, how unjust those reproaches had been which Princess Marya had in her heart been making her. ” What right have I, who wished for his death, to sit in judgment over any one ? ” she thought.

Princess Marya vividly imagined the position of Mlle. Bourienne, who of late had been removed from her society, but who at the same time was dependent on her and lived in a strange house. She began to feel sorry for her. She cast an inquiring and tender glance at her and stretched forth her hand. Mlle. Bourienne burst out into tears, kissed the princess’s hand, and began to speak of the sorrow which had befallen the princess, making herself a participant in her grief. She said that her only consolation in her sorrow was the fact that the princess allowed her to share it with her. She said that all existing misunderstandings ought to disappear before the great bereavement, that she felt herself pure in the sight of all, and that he could see from there her love and gratitude. The princess listened to her, without understanding her words, but now and then looking up to her and catching the sound of her voice.

“ Your situation is doubly terrible, princess,” Mlle. Bourienne said, after a moment’s silence. ” I understand that you have not been able to think of yourself ; but I am obliged to do this for you through the love I bear you. Has Alpatych come to see you ? Has he spoken with you about your departure ? ” she asked.

Princess Marya made no reply. She did not comprehend who was to travel, and whither. “ How could one undertake anything now, or think of anything? What difference does it make ? ” She made no reply.

” Do you know, chère Marie” said Mlle. Bourienne, ” do you know that we are in imminent danger, that we are surrounded by the French ? It is dangerous to travel now. If we do, we shall certainly be taken captives, and God knows — “

Princess Marya looked at her companion without understanding what she was saying.

” Oh, if you only knew how little I care now,” she said. ” Of course, I should not like to leave him for anything — Alpätych did say something to me about leaving — Speak to him ! I cannot and do not want to know anything — “

” I have spoken to him. He hopes that we shall be able to start tomorrow ; but I think it would be better now to stay here,” said Mlle. Bourienne, ” because, confess, chère Marie, that it would be terrible to fall into the hands of the soldiers or rioting peasants on the road.”

Mlle. Bourienne drew out of her reticule a proclamation (printed not on common Russian paper) of the French General Rameau, enjoining the inhabitants not to leave their homes, and promising them due protection by the French authorities. This she handed to the princess.

” I think it will be best to address this general,” said Mlle. Bourienne, ” and I am sure that you will receive proper consideration.”

Princess Marya read the paper, and dry sobs twitched her face.

” Through whom did you receive this ? ” she said.

“No doubt they found out that I was a Frenchwoman by name,” Mlle. Bourienne said, blushing.

Princess Mdrya, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with a pale face left the room and went to Prince Audrey’s former cabinet.

” Dunydsha, send to me Alpätych, Dron, or somebody ! ” said Princess Märya, ” and tell Amdliya Kdrlovna not to come to see me,” she added, when she heard Mlle. Bourienne’s voice. ” Let us leave at once ! Immediately ! ” said Princess Marya, terrified at the thought of being left in the power of the French.

” If Prince Andréy knew that she was in the power of the French ! She, the daughter of Prince Nikoldy Andreevich Bolkdnski, to ask General Rameau to offer her protection, and for her to accept his benefactions ! ” This thought terrified her, made her shudder, blush, and experience entirely unfamiliar outbursts of anger and pride. She vividly saw the whole magnitude of her trouble and, what was worse, the humiliation of her position. ” They, the French, will take their abode in this house; General Rameau will occupy the cabinet of Prince Andréy ; for amusement they will rummage through his letters and papers, and will read them. Mlle. Bourienne lui fera les honneurs de Boejuchdrovo. I shall be given a room for charity’s sake; the soldiers will open my father’s fresh grave, in order to take off his crosses and stars ; they will tell me of their victories over the Russians, and will express their feigned sympathy for my’sorrow — ” Princess Mdrya did not think her own thoughts, but felt herself under obligations to think the thoughts of her father and her brother. For her personally it did not make any difference where they stopped, or what might become of her ; but she, at the same time, felt herself to be the representative of her deceased father and of Prince Andréy. She instinctively thought their thoughts and felt their feelings. She felt it her duty to do what they would have said, what they would have done. She went into the cabinet of Prince Andréy and, essaying to be permeated by his thoughts, reflected on her position.

The demands of life, which she had regarded as annihilated with the death of her father, suddenly arose before Princess Marya with a new, unknown force, and took possession of her.

Agitated and red in her face, she paced in the room, asking now for Alpâtych, now for Mikhail Ivanych, now for Tikhon, and now for Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and all the maids were quite unable to tell her anything as to how much truth there was in what Mlle. Bourienne had told her. Alpâtych was not at home : he had left to find the authorities. Mikhail Ivânych, the architect, who was called in, came into the presence of Princess Marya with sleepy eyes, and could not tell her a thing. He replied to her with the same smile of consent, with which he had become accustomed in the course of fifteen years to reply to the questions of the old prince, without expressing his opinion, so that it was impossible to get any definite results from his answers. The old valet, Tikhon, with drawn and fallen face, which bore the impress of an incurable grief, replied, ” Yes, miss,” to all of Princess Marya’s questions, and with difficulty restrained his tears, every time he looked at her.

Finally Elder Dron entered the room and, bowing low before the princess, stopped near the door.

Princess Marya crossed the room and stopped in front of him.

“Dron,” said Princess Mârya, who saw in him her staunch friend, the same Dron who every year brought her from the Vyazma Fair an especial kind of cookies, which he handed her every time with a smile. “ Dron, now, after our misfortune — ” she began. But she stopped, being unable to proceed.

” We all walk under God’s protection,” he said, with a sigh.

They were silent for awhile.

” Dron, Alpâtych has gone somewhere, and I have nobody to turn to, — is it true what I am told, that I cannot leave ? ”

” Why not, your Serenity, you may travel — ” said Dron.

” I was told that it is dangerous on account of the enemy. My dear, I cannot do anything, I do not understand anything,— I have no one with me. I want to leave by all means tonight, or early tomorrow morning.”

Dron was silent. He looked stealthily at Princess Mârya.

“There are no horses,” he said, “and I told Yâkov Alpâtych so.”

“ Why not ? ” asked the princess.

“ It is all on account of the scourge sent by God,” said Dron. ” Such horses as we had have been taken for the army, and others have died, it being a bad year. We not only have nothing to feed the horses on, but we shall have to starve ourselves ! Some people have not had anything to eat for three days. We have nothing, — they have ruined us completely.”

Princess Mârya listened attentively to what he was telling her.

“ The peasants are ruined ? They have no bread ? ” she asked.

“ They are starving,” said Dron. ” Let alone the teams — “

“ Why did you not tell me, Dron ? Is it not possible to assist them ? I will do everything I can — ”

It seemed strange to Princess Mârya to think that now, at the moment that such a grief filled her heart, there could be rich people and poor people, and that the rich should not assist the poor. She had a dim recollection that there was such a thing as manorial grain, and that this was given to the peasants. She knew also that neither her brother nor her father would have refused to aid the peasants ; but she was afraid she might make some mistake in her words in reference to this distribution of the grain, which she was contemplating. She was glad that a pretext for some care presented itself to her, and that for its sake it was not disgraceful for her to forget her grief. She began to ask Dron for the details of the want of the peasants, and of what the manor of Bogucharovo had in store.

” You have some manorial grain, belonging to my brother, have you not ? ” she asked.

” The manorial grain has not been touched,” he said, proudly. “ Our prince has ordered us not to sell it.”

« Give it to the peasants, — give them all they need : I permit you to do so in the name of my brother,” said Princess Marya.

Dron made no reply and drew a deep sigh.

“ Distribute this grain to them, if there is enough for them. Give them all. I so command you in the name of my brother, and tell them that what is ours belongs to them. We will spare nothing for them. Tell them so ! “

Dron looked fixedly at the princess, while she was speaking.

“ Free me, motherkin, for God’s sake ! Tell them to receive the keys from me ! ” he said. ” I have served for twenty-three years, and have done no wrong. Free me,, for God’s sake ! ”

Princess Marya did not understand what it was he wanted her to do, and what it was he wanted to be freed from. She replied to him that she had never doubted his loyalty, and that she was always ready to do everything for him and the peasants.

XI.

Two hours later Dunydsha came to the princess with the news that Dron had come and that all the peasants had gathered near the granary at the princess’s command, wishing to have a talk with the mistress.

” I have never called them,” said Princess Marya. “All I did was to tell Dron to distribute the grain to them.”

” For the Lord’s sake, princess dear, drive them away, and do not go out to them ! It is nothing but a deception — ” said Dunydsha, ” and when Ydkov Alpatych arrives, we shall leave — but you, please — ”

” What deception ? ” the princess asked, in surprise.

” I will tell you, if you will only listen to me, for the Lord’s sake. You may ask the nurse, too. They say they do not agree to leaving here at your command.”

“ What are you talking about ? I have never ordered them to leave — ” said Princess Marya. ” Send Dron to me ! ”

Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha’s words: the peasants had come at the princess’s command.

” I have never sent for them,” said the princess. ” You must have made a mistake. I only told you to distribute the grain to them.”

Dron heaved a sigh and made no reply.

“If you so order, they will leave,” he said.

“No, no, I will go out to see them!” said Princess Marya.

In spite of Dunydsha’s and the nurse’s advice not to go out. Princess Marya stepped out on the porch. Dron, Dunyäsha, the nurse, and Mikhail Ivänych followed after her.

“No doubt they think I have offered them the grain on condition that they remain here, while I go away and leave them to the mercy of the French,” thought Princess Marya. ” I will promise them a monthly allowance and quarters in the Moscow suburban estate ; I am sure Andrey would have done even more in my place,” she thought, as she walked up in the twilight to the throng which was gathered in the pasture near the granary.

The crowd formed a denser circle and the hats were swiftly taken off. Princess Märya, lowering her eyes and tripping on her dress, walked over close to them. The eyes of so many old and young men were directed upon her, and there were so many different persons there, that Princess Marya could not see a single face, and, as she felt the necessity of speaking at once to every one, she did not know what to do. But the consciousness of being the representative of her father and her brother again gave her strength, and she boldly began her speech :

” I am very glad that you have come,” said Princess Märya, without raising her eyes, and feeling how rapidly and how strongly her heart was beating. ” Dron told me that the war has ruined you. This is our common sorrow, and I will spare nothing in order to assist you. I myself shall leave because it is dangerous here — and the enemy is near — because — I give you everything, my friends, and ask you to take everything, all our grain, so that you may suffer no want. And if you have been told that I give you the grain that you may stay here, it is an untruth. On the contrary, I ask you to leave here with all your families and all your possessions and to go to our Moscow suburban estate, where I promise you I will take care of you so that you may not suffer. You will be given homes and grain there.”

The princess stopped. Sobs were heard in the crowd.

” I am not doing this on my account,” continued the princess, ” but in the name of my deceased father, who was a good master to you, and for my brother, and for his son.”

She stopped again. Nobody interrupted her silence.

” We have a common sorrow, and we will divide with you. All that is mine belongs to you,” she said, watching the faces which were in front of her.

All eyes were directed upon her, with a similar expression, the meaning of which she could not make out. Whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or fright and mistrust, — the expression on all the faces was one and the same.

” We are very much satisfied with your favours, only it is not proper for us to take the manorial grain,” a voice was heard in the rear.

” Why ? ” asked the princess.

No one made any reply, and Princess Märya, looking at the throng, noticed that all the eyes were lowered, the moment she met their glances.

” Why do you not want it ? ” she asked again. Nobody replied.

Princess Marya felt ill at ease during the silence ; she tried to catch somebody’s glance.

” Miry do you not speak ? ” the princess turned to an old man, who, leaning on a cane, was standing in front of her. “ Tell me if you think that something else is to be done. I will do anything,” she said, having caught his eyes. But he, as though angry at this, dropped his head entirely, and said :

” Why should we agree ? We do not want the grain.”

“ Why should we abandon everything? We do not agree to it — We do not give our consent. We are sorry for you, but we do not give our consent. Go yourself ! ” voices were heard on different sides. And again the same expression appeared on the faces of all the people present, but now it certainly was not the expression of curiosity and gratitude, but of grim determination.

” Evidently you have not understood,” Princess Marya said, with a sad smile. ” Why do you not want to go ? I promise to give you houses, and to feed you. Here the enemy will ruin you — “

But the voices of the crowd drowned hers.

“ We do not give our consent, — let him destroy us ! We do not take your grain, we do not give our consent ! “

Princess Märya again tried to catch somebody’s eyes, but not one glance was directed at her ; their eyes apparently evaded her. She felt strange and ill at ease.

” I declare, she wants to enslave us ! Destroy our homes, and become her slaves ! Indeed ! ‘ I will give you grain!’ says she,” were heard the voices in the throng.

Princess Marya, lowering her head, left the circle and went to the house. She repeated her order to Dron to have the horses ready by the next morning, and went to her room, where she was left with her thoughts.

XII.

Princess Marya sat that night for a long time at the open window of her room, listening to the sounds of the peasants’ conversations, which were borne from the village, but she did not think of them. She felt that no matter how much she might think of them, she would not understand them. She was only thinking of her grief, which now, after the interruption produced by the cares of the present, had become the past for her. She now could recall things, could weep and pray. With sundown the wind died down. It was a calm, fresh night. At midnight the voices began to quiet down ; a cock crowed ; the full moon rose behind the lindens ; there rose a fresh, white mist and dew ; and stillness reigned over the house.

One after another there rose before her the pictures of the immediate past, — of her father’s illness and last minutes. She now dwelt on these images with a sad joy, in horror warding oft* only the last form of bis death which, she felt, she was not able to contemplate even in her imagination during that quiet and mysterious hour of the night. These pictures appeared to her with such clearness and with such details that they seemed to her now a reality, now the past, and now the future.

She thought vividly of the moment when he had his stroke, and was dragged along by the arms in the garden at Lÿsyya Gdry, and muttered something with his impotent tongue, jerked his gray eyebrows, and looked restlessly and timidly at her.

“ He wanted to tell me on that day what he told me later on the day of his death,” she thought. “ He always thought what he told me then.” And now she thought in all its details of the night at Lÿsyya Gory preceding his paralytic stroke, when, having a presentiment of misfortune, she had remained with him, against his will. She did not sleep and in the night went on tiptoe downstairs, and, going up to the door of the flower-room, where her father slept that night, listened to his voice. He was speaking with Tikhon in a fatigued voice. He was saying something about the Crimea, about warm nights, and about the empress. Evidently he wanted to talk. ” Why did he not call me ? Why did he not permit me to be with him in Tikhon’s place ? ” Marya had thought then, and she thought so now. ” He will now never tell anybody all that was in his heart. Never again will that minute return for him and for me, when he might tell all that there was on his mind, and I, and not Tikhon, should have listened to him and have comprehended him. Why did I not enter the room then ? ” she thought. ” Maybe he would have told me what he told me later on the day of his death. He then asked Tikhon twice about me. He wanted to see me, and I stood there, behind the door. It was hard and sad for him to speak with Tikhon, who did not understand him. I remember how he spoke with him about Liza, as though she were alive, — he had forgotten that she was dead, and Tikhon reminded him that she had died, and he called out, ‘Fool !’ He was oppressed. I heard him groan behind the door, as he lay down on his bed, and called out, ‘ My God ! ‘ Why did I not go in then ? What would he have done to me ? What should I have lost ? Maybe he would have been consoled, and would have spoken that word to me.” And Princess Mdrya pronounced aloud that word of endearment which he had spoken to her on the day of his death. “Darling ! ” Princess Mdrya repeated the word, and burst out into tears which brought alleviation to her soul. She now saw his face before her, — not that face which she had known ever since she could remember, and which she had always seen from a distance, but that timid and feeble face, which she, bending down to his mouth in order to hear what he was saying, for the first time made out with all its wrinkles and details.

” Darling,” she repeated.

“ What was he thinking about when he said that word ? What does he think now ? ” the question suddenly occurred to her, and, in response to it, she saw him before her with that expression on his face, which he had in his coffin, where his head was tied with a white kerchief. And that terror, which had seized her then, as she touched him and convinced herself that it was not he, but something mysterious and repugnant, took possession of her even now. She wanted to think of something else, and wanted to pray, but was unable to do anything. She looked with her large, open eyes at the moonlight and at the shadows, expecting any moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the quiet, which lay over the house, fettered her.

“ Dunydsha ! ” she whispered. “ Dunydsha ! ” she exclaimed in a wild voice, and, tearing herself away from the stillness, she ran to the maids’ room, meeting on the way the nurse and the maids, who were running toward her.

XIII.

On August 17th Rostov and Ilin, accompanied by Lavrushka, who had just returned from the French captivity, and by a hussar orderly, left their halting-place of Yankovo, within fifteen versts of Boguchärovo, in order to take a look at the country, — and incidentally to test Ilin’s newly bought horse, and to find out whether there was not some hay in the villages.

Boguchärovo had for three days been between two hostile armies, so that it was as easily reached by the Russian rearguard as by the French vanguard, and so Rostov, as a cautious commander of a squadron, wanted to anticipate the French in obtaining the provisions which were still left at Boguchärovo.

Rostov and Ilin were in the merriest of moods. On their way to Boguchärovo, to the estate of a prince with its manor, where they expected to find a large number of manorial servants and pretty girls, they kept asking Lavrushka about Napoleon, and laughing at his stories, or they raced, in order to test Ilin’s horse.

Rostov did not know that the village to which they were going was the estate of the very Bolkénski who had been the fiancé of his sister.

Rostév and Ilin for the last time started a race on the slope of a hill leading to Boguchärovo, and Rostév, who outraced Ilin, was the first to reach the street of the village.

” You beat me,” said Ilin, red with exhaustion.

” Yes, I was ahead of you on the meadow, and here, too,” Rostév replied, patting his sweating Don charger with his hand.

“ But I, on my French horse, your Serenity,” Lavrushka said behind them, calling his cart dobbin a French horse, ” could have beat you, but I did not want to put you to shame.”

They rode at a pace to the granary, where a large crowd of peasants was gathered.

A few of the peasants took off their hats, while some looked at the riders, without donning theirs. Two old, lank peasants, with wrinkled faces and scanty beards, came out of the tavern, .and, smiling, walked up to the officers with a waddling gait, and singing a nonsense song.

” Fine fellows ! ” Rostév said, laughing. ” Have you any hay ? ”

“ They all look alike — ” said Ilin.

“A most hap-py con-ver-sa-tion,” one of the peasants was singing with a merry smile.

A peasant left the crowd and went up to Rostév.

” Who are you ? ” he asked.

” We are Frenchmen,” Ilin replied, laughing. “ Here is Napoleon himself,” he said, pointing to Lavrushka.

” So you are Russians ?” the peasant asked.

” How great are your forces ? ” asked another, a peasant of low stature, coming out from the crowd.

” Very great,” replied Rostév. ” What are you gathered for ? ” he added. “ Is it a holiday ? ”

” The old men have come together to discuss communal matters,” replied the peasant, walking away from him.

Just then two women appeared on the road from the manor, and with them came a man in a white hat. They were walking up to the officers.

« The one in the pink dress is mine, — you must not cut me out ! ” said Ilin, when he noticed Dunyäsha, who was running up in a determined way.

” She will be ours ! ” Lavrushka said to Ilin, with a wink.

“ What do you wish, my beauty ? ” said Ilin, smiling.

” The princess begs to be informed of what regiment you are and what your name is.”

” This is Count Rostdv, commander of a squadron, and I am your humble servant.”

“ Con-ver-sa-tion ! ” sang the drunken peasant, with a happy smile, and looking at Ilin, who was talking to the girl. Immediately after Dunydsha, Alpdtych came up to Rostdv, having doffed his cap at a distance.

” I take the liberty of troubling your Honour,” he said, with due respect, but with comparative disdain for the youth of the officer, while placing his hand in the bosom of his coat. ” My mistress, the daughter of General-inchief Prince Nikoldy Andréevich Bolkonski, deceased the 15th of this month, finding herself in difficulty on account of the ignorance of these persons,” he pointed to the peasants, ” begs you — Will it not please you,” Alpdtych said, with a sad smile, ” to ride a little to one side, for it is not convenient in the presence — ” Alpdtych pointed to the two peasants who hovered about him, like flies about a horse.

” Ah ! Alpdtych ! Ah, Yakov Alpdtych ! Fine ! Forgive us, for Christ’s sake ! Fine, eh ?” said the peasants, with merry smiles at him. Rostdv looked at the drunken peasants and himself smiled.

” Maybe this amuses your Serenity ? ” Yakov Alpdtych said, staidly, pointing with his free hand to the old men.

” No, there is little amusement in this,” said Rostdv, riding away. ” What is the matter ? ” he asked.

” I take the liberty of informing your Serenity that the ignorant people of this village do not wish to let the mistress out of her estate, and threaten to unhitch the horses, so that everything has been packed since morning, and her Serenity cannot move.”

“ Impossible ! ” exclaimed Rostov.

” I have the honour of reporting the actual facts,” repeated Alpdtych.

Rostdv dismounted from his horse, and, giving it to the orderly, went with Alpdtych to the house, asking him in the meantime for the details of the case. Indeed, the offer of grain, made to the peasants on the previous evening, the princess’s explanation with Bron and with the meeting had so spoiled matters that Dron gave up his keys, joined the peasants, and did not make his appearance in response to Alpdtych’s command. Furthermore, in the morning, when the princess ordered the carriages to be hitched up, in order to depart, the peasants came out to the granary in a large throng and sent word that they would not let the princess out of the village, that there was an order not to leave, and that they would unhitch the horses. Alpdtych went out to reason with them, but he was told (Karp spoke more than the rest; Dron did not show up in the crowd) that the princess could not be sent out, because there was an order about it ; but if the princess remained, they would serve her as of old and would obey her in everything.

Just as Rostov and Ilin came galloping through the village, Princess Marya, in spite of the dissuasion of Alpdtych, of the nurse, and of the maids, ordered the horses hitched up, and was on the point of leaving, but, upon seeing the cavalrymen passing through the village, — she took them for Frenchmen, — the coachmen ran away, and the women in the house began to weep.

” Father, protector ! God has sent you,” spoke the joyous voices, as he passed through the antechamber.

Princess Mdrya, disconsolate and exhausted, was sitting in the parlour, when Rostdv was led into her presence. She did not understand who he was, what he was doing, or what would become of her. Seeing his Russian face, and recognizing by his carriage and his first few words that he belonged to the same circle with herself, she looked at him with her deep, beaming glance, and began to speak with a voice which faltered and trembled from agitation. To Rostov there appeared something romantic in this meeting. ” A defenceless, grief-stricken maiden, alone, left to the mercy of coarse, riotous peasants ! What strange fate has brought me here! ” thought Rostov, listening to her and looking at her. ” What meekness, what nobility in her features and in her expressions ! ” he thought, as he listened to her timid story.

When she told him that all this had happened on the day following the funeral of her father, her voice faltered. She turned away, and then she suddenly cast an inquiring and frightened look at him, fearing lest he might take her words as a desire to enlist his sympathy. Tears stood in Rostov’s eyes. Princess Märya noticed them, and gratefully cast a beaming glance at Rostdv, which made him forget the plainness of her face.

“Princess, I cannot express to you how happy I am that I have accidentally come here, and that I shall have an opportunity of showing you my readiness to serve you,” said Rostov, rising. “You may depart, and I pledge my honour that not a single man will dare to cause you any unpleasantness, if you will only permit me to be your convoy.”

And, bowing politely, as one bows to ladies of royal blood, he walked toward the door. By the respectfulness of his tone Rostov seemed to show that, in spite of his regarding it as a happiness to cultivate her acquaintance, he did not wish to profit by her misfortune, in order to approach her.

Princess Mdrya understood and appreciated this tone.

“ I am very, very thankful to you,” the princess said, in French, « but I hope that it was all only a misunderstanding, and that nobody is to blame for it.” The princess suddenly began to weep. ” Pardon me,” she said.

Rostdv, frowning, bowed once more and left the room.

XIV.

“ Well, is she nice ? No, my dear, the pink one is my beauty, — her name is Dunyasha — ” But, looking at Rostov’s face, Ilin grew silent. He saw that the thoughts of his hero and commander had an entirely different trend.

Rostdv looked grimly at Ilin and, without answering him, rapidly strode down toward the village.

” I will show them ! I will show those robbers ! ” he said to himself.

Alpätych, trotting along with a swimming motion, so as to avoid running, with difficulty caught up with Rostov.

” What decision has it pleased you to make ? ” he said, coming abreast with him.

Rostdv stopped and, compressing his fists, suddenly moved up threateningly against Alpätych.

“ Decision ? What decision ? Old fool ! ” he shouted at him. “ What have you been doing, eh ? The peasants are rioting, and you cannot manage them ? You yourself are a traitor. I know you ! I will flay you all alive — ” and, as though fearing lest he should expend all his supply of rage uselessly, he left Alpätych and hurriedly moved on. Alpätych, suppressing the feeling of insult, followed after Rostdv with his swimming motion, and continued to impart to him his reflections. He told him that the peasants were stubborn, that at the present moment it was not wise to oppose them without a sufficient military command, and that it would be best first to send for a detachment of soldiers.

” I will give them a detachment ! I will oppose them,” Nikoldy said, senselessly, choking from an unreasonable animal anger and from the necessity of finding vent for this anger. Without reflecting what be would do, he unconsciously moved toward the crowd with a rapid, determined gait. The nearer he approached them, the more Alpatych felt that his reckless act might bear good fruit. The same was felt by the peasants, as they looked at his rapid and firm gait and determined, scowling face.

After the hussars had reached the village and Rostov had gone in to see the princess, confusion and discord took possession of the crowd. A few peasants began to say that the newcomers were Russians, and that they might be offended because the lady had not been permitted to depart. Dron was of the same opinion ; but the moment he expressed it, Karp and some other peasants attacked the former elder.

” How many years have you been lording it over the Commune ? ” Karp shouted at him. ” You don’t care. You will dig up your pot and will take it with you, not caring much whether our homes are destroyed or not.”

“ We have been told not to leave our homes, and not to take away as much as a puff of smoke, — that is the end of it ! ” cried another.

” It was your turn to send a son to the army, but you were sorry for your fine lad,” a little old man suddenly began to speak rapidly, attacking Dron, ” but my Yanka you had shaven a soldier. Oh, we shall all die ! “

” Precisely, we shall die ! “

” 1 don’t go against the Commune,” said Dron.

” Exactly, you are not against it : you have fattened your belly on it ! “

The two lank peasants were still talking. The moment Rostdv, accompanied by Ilin, Lavrushka, and Alpdtych, approached the crowd, Karp, sticking his fingers behind his belt and smiling slightly, stepped forward. Dron, on the contrary, went to the rear, and the throng grew more compact.

“ Oh, there ! Who is your elder ? ” shouted Rostov, walking up to the crowd at a rapid gait.

” The elder ? What do you want him for ? ” asked Karp.

But he had not finished his words, when his cap flew off from him, and his head was bent sidewise from a terrible blow.

” Hats off, traitors ! ” Rostdv shouted, in a resonant voice. ” Where is the elder ? ” he cried, in a preternatural voice.

” He is calling for the elder — Dron Zakhdrych, you ! ” were heard a few hasty and submissive voices, and the caps were taken off one after another.

“We cannot riot, we carry out orders,” muttered Karp, and several voices in the rear suddenly spoke out at the same time:

” The old men have decreed that, since there are so many of you, the authorities — “

” What, you are still talking ? — Riot ! Murderers ! Traitors!” Rostov shrieked senselessly, taking Karp by the collar. ” Bind him, bind him ! ” he shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpdtych.

Nevertheless, Lavrushka ran up to Karp and caught him behind by his arms.

” Shall I call our soldiers from the foot of the hill ? ” he cried.

Alpdtych turned to the peasants, calling two of them out by name, to bind Karp. The peasants came out submissively from the crowd and began to ungird themselves.

“ Where is the elder ? ” shouted Rostdv.

Dron, with pale and frowning face, stepped forward.

” Are you the elder ? Bind him, Lavrushka,” cried Rostov, as though this order, too, would find no obstacles. And, indeed, two more peasants came out and began to bind Dron, who, as though to aid them, took off his belt and handed it to them.

« All of you, listen to me ! ” Rostov turned to the peasants. “March home at once, and let me not hear your voices again ! “

« We did not mean any offence. We did it only through ignorance. It was only our stupidity — I kept saying that it was not right,” were heard the voices, rebuking each other.

” I told you so,” said Alpätych, reasserting his rights. ” It is not good, boys ! “

“It is our stupidity, Ydkov Alpätych,” replied the voices, and the crowd at once began to disperse through the village.

The two bound peasants were taken to the manor yard. The drunken peasants followed them.

” Oh, what a shame to look at you ! ” said one of them, turning to Karp.

” How could you have spoken so to the masters ? What did you expect? Fool!” confirmed the other. ” Really, you are a fool ! “

Two hours later the teams stood in the yard of the Boguchdrovo manor. The peasants industriously carried out the things from the manor, and packed them away in the carts, and Bron, who at the request of Princess Marya was let out from the closet, where he had been locked up, stood in the yard and gave his orders to the peasants.

“Don’t pack it so badly,” said one of the peasants, a tall man, with a round, smiling face, receiving a small safe from a chambermaid. “ It cost money. Why do you slam it down that way under the rope? It will only get rubbed. I do not like things this way. Let everything be honest and according to the law. Like this, under the mat, and cover it with hay, — now it is right.”

“ Just see what a lot of books ! ” said another peasant, who was carrying out the bookcases of Prince Andrdy. “ Don’t catch at anything ! The books are heavy, though, boys !”

“ Yes, those who wrote them did not loaf !” said a tall, round-faced peasant, with a significant wink, pointing to the lexicons which were lying on top.

Rostov, who did not wish to obtrude his acquaintance on the princess, did not go to see her, but remained in the village, waiting for her departure. When he saw that the carriages of Princess Mdrya had started from the house, Rostov mounted, and accompanied her on horseback to the road that was occupied by our armies, which was within twelve versts of Bogucharovo. In Yankovo, he respectfully bade her farewell in the tavern, and for the first time allowed himself to kiss her hand.

“ Are you not ashamed ? ” he said, blushingly, to Princess Marya, in response to her expression of gratitude for her salvation (as she called this act). “ Any officer of the police would have done as much for you. If we had only to fight the peasants, we should not have let the enemy get so far,” he said, being ashamed of something, and trying to change the subject. ” I am happy that I have had the opportunity to get acquainted with you. Goodbye, princess ! I wash you happiness and consolation, and I hope we shall meet under more fortunate conditions. If you do not wish to make me blush, please do not thank me ! ”

But if the princess did not thank him in words, she thanked him with the whole expression of her face, which was beaming with gratitude and tenderness. She was absolutely convinced that she certainly would have perished, both from the rioters and the French, and that he had subjected himself to most evident and most terrible perils in order to save her ; and still more convinced was she that he was a man of an exalted and noble soul, who was able to understand her position and her bereavement. His kindly, honest eyes, with the tears standing in them, as she, weeping herself, spoke of her loss, did not leave her imagination.

When she bade him goodbye and was left alone, she suddenly was conscious of tears in her eyes, and now there appeared to her, not for the first time, the strange question whether she did not love him.

On her road to Moscow, though the princess’s condition was not a joyful one, Dunydsha, who was riding in the same carriage with her, noticed more than once that the princess frequently put her head out of the carriage and joyfully and sadly smiled at something.

“What difference if I should love him?” thought Princess Mdrya.

Though she felt ashamed to confess to herself that she was the first to fall in love with a man who, perhaps, would never love her, she consoled herself with the thought that no one would ever find it out, and that she could not be blamed if to the end of her life she, without telling to any one, should love him whom she had loved for the first and last time.

Now and then she recalled his glances, his sympathy, and his words, and happiness did not seem impossible to her. It was then that Dunydsha noticed that she smiled and looked out of the window of the carriage.

” How strange that he should have come to Boguchdrovo, and at that particular moment ! ” thought Princess Märya. ” And his sister had to refuse Prince Andréy” And in all this Princess Marya saw the will of Providence.

The impression which Princess Marya had produced on Rostdv was an agreeable one. When he thought of her, he felt happy, and when his comrades, having learned of his adventure at Boguchdrovo, joked him, saying that when he went for hay he had caught one of the richest matches in Russia, Rostdv grew angry. He was angry because the thought of marrying the charming, gentle Princess Mdrya, with her immense property, more than once crossed his thoughts. For himself personally Nikolay could not wish a better wife than Princess Marya: his marrying her would make the countess, his mother, happy, and would mend the affairs of his father ; and, Nikoläy felt sure it would make Princess Marya happy.

But StSnya ? And the promise ? And it was on this account that Rostdv was angry, when they joked him about Princess Bolkônski.

XV.

When Kutuzov took the command of the armies, he thought of Prince Andréy, to whom he sent an order to report at headquarters.

Prince Andréy arrived at Tsärevo-Zaymfshche on the very day and at the time of the day when Kutuzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. Prince Andréy stopped in the village at the house of the priest, near which stood the carriage of the commanderin-chief. He sat down on a bench to wait for his Most Serene Highness, as everybody now called Kutuzov. In the field back of the village could be heard the sounds of regimental music and the roar of an immense number of voices shouting, ” Hurrah ! ” to the new commanderin-chief. Near the gate, within ten paces from Prince Andréy, stood two orderlies, a courier, and a majordomo, taking advantage of the prince’s absence and of the beautiful weather. A swarthy, bearded, small lieutenantcolonel of hussars rode up to the gate and, looking at Prince Andréy, asked him whether his Most Serene Highness was quartered there and whether he would soon be back.

Prince Andréy told him that he did not belong to the staff of his Highness, and had himself just arrived. The lieutenantcolonel of hussars turned to a dressed-up orderly, and the orderly of the commanderin-chief told him, with that peculiar disdain with which orderlies of commanders-in-chief speak to officers :

” What ? His Most Serene Highness ? He will be here soon, no doubt. “What do you wish ? “

The lieutenantcolonel of hussars smiled into his moustache at the tone of the orderly, dismounted from his horse, turned it over to Ins own orderly, and with a slight bow walked over to Bolkénski. Bolkénski made room for him on the bench. The lieutenantcolonel sat down near him.

” Are you yourself waiting for the commanderin-chief ? ” said the lieutenantcolonel of hussars. ” They say that he is accessible to all, thank God. For with the sausageeaters it is simply terrible ! Ermdlov had good reason to ask to be promoted to the rank of a German. Now, perhaps, Russians will have a chance to say something. The devil knows what they have been doing. We have been doing nothing but retreat. Have you been in the campaign ? ” he asked.

“ I not only had the pleasure,” replied Prince Andréy, ” of taking part in the retreat, but I have also lost in this retreat everything which was dear to me, not to mention my estates and my native home, namely, my father who died from grief. I am from the Government of Smolénsk.”

” Ah ? You are Prince Bolkdnski ? Very happy to make your acquaintance : LieutenantColonel Denisov, better known by the name of Vaska,” said Denisov, pressing the hand of Prince Andréy and with especial attention scrutinizing Bolkénski’s face. “ Yes, I have heard,” he said, with compassion, and, after a moment’s silence, he continued : “ This is a Scythian war. This is all very nice, except for those who suffer from it. Ah, so you are Prince Bolkdnski?” He shook his head. “Very glad, prince, very glad to make your acquaintance,” he added, again with a sad smile, as he pressed his hand.

Prince Andréy knew Denisov from the accounts Natasha had given him about her first fiancé. This reminiscence now pleasantly and painfully transferred him to those morbid sensations, of which he had not been thinking of late, but which still were in his soul. Of late he had received so many other and such serious impressions, such as the abandonment of Smolensk, his arrival at Lÿsyya Gdry, the recent news about his father’s death, and had experienced so many different sensations, that these reminiscences had not come to him for a long time, and when they did come, they no longer affected him as of old. For Denisov that series of reminiscences which was evoked by the name of Bolkonski was a remote, poetic past, when, after the supper and Natdsha’s singing, he, himself not knowing how, proposed to the fifteenyear-old girl. He smiled at the recollection of that time and at his love for Natdsha, and immediately passed over to that which now interested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of the campaign, which he had thought out, while serving in the outposts during the retreat. He had presented that plan to Barclay de Tolly, and now he intended to present it to Kutuzov. His plan was based on this : the French line of operation was too extended, and so, instead of acting from the front, or, while acting from the front, essaying to bar their progress, it was necessary to harass their communications. He began to explain his plan to Prince Andréy.

“ They cannot keep up all this line. It is impossible, and I promise to break through it. Give me five hundred men, and I will break through it, you will see ! Nothing but a partisan war can succeed ! “

Denisov got up and, making gestures, expounded his plan to Bolkdnski. In the middle of the exposition, the shouts of the army, more discordant and more extended, and blending with the music and the songs, were heard on the reviewing ground. Trampling and shouting were heard in the village.

” He is coming,” exclaimed a Cossack, who was standing at the gate. “ He is coming ! “

Bolkénski and Denisov moved up to the gate, where stood a group of soldiers (the guard of honour) and saw Kutuzov, who was coming down the street, riding on a small bay horse. An enormous suite of generals followed him. Barclay rode almost by his side ; a crowd of officers ran after them and around them, and cried, ” Hurrah ! “

First the adjutants rode into the yard. Kutuzov impatiently spurred on his horse, which was going at an amble under his heavy weight, and, constantly nodding his head, kept putting his hand to the cap which he wore, — a white, visorless one with a red band, belonging to the chevalier guards. Biding up to the guard of honour, which consisted of a lot of fine-looking grenadiers, most of whom were decorated, and seeing them present arms, he for a moment looked silently at them with his stubborn eye of a commander, and then turned around to the group of generals and officers who surrounded him. His face suddenly assumed a thin expression ; he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture indicative of perplexity.

” The idea of retreating, and retreating with such fine fellows!” he said. “Well, goodbye, general,” he added, urging on his horse through the gate, past Prince Andréy and Denisov.

” Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! ” they shouted back of him.

Since Prince Andréy had last seen him, Kutuzov had grown stouter still, and his face looked swollen. But the familiar white eye, and the wound, and the expression of fatigue in his face were the same. He wore a long uniform (the whip hung on a thin leather strap down his shoulder) and a white cap of the chevalier guards. He sat on his lively horse, lolling and swaying heavily from side to side. ” Whew — whew — whew,” he gave a barely audible whistle as he rode into the yard. On his face was expressed the contentment of a man who wants to take a rest after his presentation. He took his left foot out of his stirrup, lurching forward with his whole body and scowling from the effort, with difficulty drew it over the saddle, bent his knee, grunted, and let himself down to the Cossacks and adjutants who were supporting him.

He adjusted himself, looked around with his halfclosed eyes, and glanced at Prince Andréy, apparently not recognizing him, and with his lurching motion started toward the porch. ” Whew, whew, whew ! ” he whistled, and again looked at Prince Andréy. The impression produced on him by Prince Andréy’s face only after a few seconds (as is frequently the case with old men) connected itself in his recollection with Prince Andréy’s personality.

” Good morning, prince, good morning, my dear ! Come ! ” he spoke wearily, looking about him. He ascended the steps which creaked under his weight. He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on the bench which was standing on the porch.

” How is your father ? “

” I received yesterday the news of his death,” Prince Andréy said, curtly.

Kutuzov looked at Prince Andréy with wide-open eyes and with an expression of terror, then took off his cap and made the sign of the cross. ” The kingdom of heaven be his ! The will of God be done on all of us ! ” He drew a deep breath with full lungs, and grew silent. ” I have loved and respected him greatly, and I sympathize with you with all my heart.” He embraced Prince Andréy, pressed him against his fat breast, and held him so for a long time. When he let him go, Prince Andréy saw that Kutuzov’s flabby lips were trembling, and that there were tears in his eyes. He drew a sigh and leaned both his hands against the bench, in order to raise himself.

” Come, come to my room ! We will have a talk !” he said ; but just then Denisov, who was as little timid in the presence of his superiors as he was in the sight of the enemy, in spite of being stopped by the adjutants near the porch, who spoke to him in an angry whisper, boldly ascended the steps, with a clatter of his spurs. Kutuzov, still leaning his hands on the bench, cast a dissatisfied glance at Denisov. Denisov gave his name and informed his Highness that he had a communication to make to him, which was of great importance to the good of the country. Kutuzov began to look at Denisov with a weary glance and with a gesture which betrayed bis vexation, and, folding his hands over his abdomen, repeated : ” For the good of the country ? What is it ? Speak ! ” Denisov blushed like a girl (it was so strange to see this bearded, drunken old face flushing crimson) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the enemy’s line of operation between Vyäzma and Smolénsk. Denisov had lived in that part of the country and knew the locality well. The plan seemed unquestionably good, especially under the persuasiveness of his words. Kutuzov kept looking at his feet, and now and then looked at the yard of the neighbouring house, as though he expected something disagreeable to come from there. And indeed, while Denisov was speaking, a general, carrying a portfolio under his arm, emerged from that house.

” Well,” Kutuzov exclaimed in the middle of Denisov’s exposition, ” are they ready ? ”

” Ready, your Highness,” said the general.

Kutuzov shook his head, as though saying, ” How is one man to manage it all!” and continued to listen to Denisov.

“ I give you the word of honour of a Russian officer,” said Denisov, ” that I will break Napoleon’s communications.”

” What relation of yours is Kirill An cirée vich Denisov, chief of the commissariat ? ” Kutuzov interrupted him.

” My uncle, your Highness.”

” Oh ! We were such friends ! ” Kutuzov said, merrily. “Good, good, my dear, stay here with the staff! We will talk about it tomorrow.” He nodded his head to Denisov and turned away and stretched out his hand for the papers which Konovnitsyn had brought him.

” Would not your Highness like to go into the house ? ” the general of the day said, in a dissatisfied tone of voice. ” It is necessary to look at some plans, and to sign certain papers.”

An adjutant, coming out of the house, reported that everything was ready inside. But Kutuzov apparently wanted to enter the house free from work. He frowned.

” No, bring everything out here, my dear ! Bring out a little table, and I will look at it here ! ” he said. ” Do not go away ! ” he added, turning to Prince Andréy.

Prince Andréy remained on the porch, listening to the report of the general of the day.

During the report, Prince Andréy heard the whispering of a woman and the rustling of a silk gown within. Looking several times in that direction, he observed behind the door a full-formed, ruddyfaced, pretty woman, in a rose-coloured dress and with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, with a dish in her hands, evidently waiting for the commanderin-chief to come in. Kutuzov’s adjutant informed Prince Andréy in a whisper that it was the hostess, the wife of the pope, who was waiting to receive his Highness with bread and salt. Her husband had received him with the cross at church, and she was to receive him at home. ” She is very pretty,” the adjutant added, with a smile. Kutuzov looked around at these words.

Kutuzov was listening to the report of the general of the day (the chief subject of which was a censure of the position at Tsârevo-Zaymfshche) in precisely the same manner in which he had listened to Denisov, and in the same way as he had seven years before listened to the debates of the Austerlitz council of war. Apparently he listened because he had ears, which, even though one of them was plugged with a piece of a cable, could not shut out sounds ; but it was evident that nothing of what the general was telling him could either surprise or interest him, and that he knew in advance what they were going to tell him, and that he listened only because he had to listen to it, as to a service in a church. Everything Denisov had told him was to the point and clever. Everything the general of the day was telling him was still more to the point and more clever still, but it was obvious that Kutuzov despised knowledge and cleverness, and that he knew something different that was to decide the matter, — something apart from knowledge and reason. Prince Andréy carefully watched the face of the commanderin-chief, and the only expression which he could observe on it was that of tedium, and of curiosity about what the whispering of the woman behind the door might mean, and a desire to preserve decorum. It was evident that Kutuzov despised cleverness and knowledge, and even the patriotic sentiment which Denisov had evinced, but he despised them not because of any superior cleverness, knowledge, and sentiment (for he did not even try to give evidence of these), but because of something else. He despised them because of his age and experience in life.

One order which Kutuzov had added to that report had reference to the marauding of the Russian troops. The general of the day at the end of the report presented a paper for his Most Serene Highness to sign ; it offered the landed proprietors redress for reaped green oats, by petitioning against the chiefs of the army.

Kutuzov smacked his lips and shook his head, as he listened to this affair.

” Pitch it into the stove. Let me tell you once for all, my dear,” he said, “ you must pitch all these affairs into the fire. Let them harvest the grain and bum wood, if they prosper from it ! I do not order nor permit it, but

likewise I cannot hold them to account for it. We cannot get along without it. When the wood is cut the chips fly.” He looked once more at the document. “Oh, that German precision ! ” he muttered, shaking his head.

XVI.

” Now it is all done,” said Kutuzov, signing the last paper. Rising heavily and smoothing out the folds of his white, puffed-up neck, he advanced toward the door with a merry face.

The wife of the pope, with her blood rushing to her face, took hold of the dish, which she did not give him in time, although she had been so long ready. She made a low bow and took it up to Kutuzov.

Kutuzov’s eyes were halfclosed ; he smiled, touched her chin with his hand, and said :

” What a beauty ! Thank you, my little dove ! “

He fetched a few gold coins out of the pocket of his pantaloons, and placed them on the dish. “Well, how are you getting on ? ” Kutuzov asked, walking to the room set aside for him. The pope’s wife, smiling a dimpled smile on her ruddy face, walked after him to her own room. An adjutant came out to Prince Andréy on the porch and invited him to breakfast ; half an hour later Prince Andréy was again called to Kutuzov. Kutuzov was lying in an easy chair, his uniform being still unbuttoned. He was holding a French book in his hand. When Prince Andréy entered the room, he put in a knife to mark the place, and turned the book down. It was “Les Chevaliers du Cygne” a work by Aladame de Genlis, as Prince Andréy found out from the cover.

” Sit down, sit down, and we will talk ! ” said Kutuzov. ” It is sad, very sad. Remember, my dear, that I am your father, your second father.”

Prince Andréy told Kutuzov everything which he

knew about the decease of his father, and about what he had seen at Lÿsyya G6ry, when he visited it.

” See what they have brought us to ! ” Kutuzov suddenly said, in an agitated voice, evidently forming a clear picture, from Prince Andréy’s recital, of the condition in which Russia then was.

” Give me time, give me time ! ” he added, with a grim expression on his face, and, apparently not wishing to prolong this conversation, which agitated him, he said : ” I have called you, because I want you to stay with me.”

“ I thank your Highness,” replied Prince Andréy, ” but I am afraid that I am no longer any good for the staff,” he said, with a smile which Kutuzov noticed. ” Above all,” added Prince Andréy, ” I am used to the regiment. I like my officers, and I think my men like me. I should feel sorry to leave my regiment. If I decline the honour of being with you, you must believe me — “

Kutuzov’s puffed-up face was lighted up by an intelligent, kindly and, at the same time, sarcastic smile. He interrupted Bolkonski.

“ I am sorry, for I need you ; but you are right, you are right. We do not need anybody here. There are always plenty of counsellors, but no men. The regiments would be something quite different, if all the counsellors served in the regiments, as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz. I remember, I remember what you did with the flag,” said Kutuzov, and a flush of joy came over Prince Andréy’s face at the mention of it. Kutuzov drew Prince Andréy to him by his hand, offering him his cheek, and again Prince Andréy saw tears in the eyes of the old man. Though he knew that Kutuzov was prone to weep, and that he was kind to him and pitied him, wishing to express his sympathy for him in his loss, he was both flattered and pleased at this reminiscence of the battle of Austerlitz.

” God protect you on your own path ! I know your path is the path of honour.” He was silent. ” I was sorry for you in Bucharest: I had to send for you.” Changing the conversation, Kutuzov began to speak of the Turkish war and the peace which had been concluded. ” I have been rebuked enough,” said Kutuzov, ” for the war, and for the peace — but everything came out all right. Tout vient à point à celui qui sait attendre. There were just as many counsellors there as there are here,” he continued, returning to the counsellors, who apparently interested him. ” Oh, the counsellors, the counsellors ! ” he said. ” If I had listened to them all, there would have been no peace in Turkey, and the war would not be finished yet. They wanted to do everything in a hurry, but what is done in a hurry sometimes turns out to be a long business. If Kämenski had not died, he would have been ruined. He stormed the fortresses with thirty thousand men. ‘It is not hard to take a fortress, but it is hard to win a campaign. For this it is not necessary to storm and attack, but to have patience and bide your time. Kamenski sent his soldiers against Rushchuk, but I sent out nothing but patience and time, and I took more forts than Kamenski, and made the Turks eat horseflesh. So will the French. Take my word for it,” Kutuzov said, becoming animated and striking his breast : ” They will eat horseflesh yet.” And again his eyes were dimmed by tears.

“ But it will be necessary to accept battle, will it not ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

” It will be necessary, if all demand it, — there will be no way out— But believe me, my dear, there are no stronger enemies than patience and time; they will do everything, but the counsellors n’entendent pas de cette oreille, voilà le mal. Some want it, others don’t. What is to be done ? ” he asked, apparently waiting for an answer. ” What would you want me to do ? ” he repeated, and his eyes sparkled with a deep, intelligent expression.

” I will tell you what to do,” he said, since Prince Andréy had not yet made any reply. ” I will tell you what to do. Dans le doute, mon cher,” he was silent for a moment, ” abstiens-toi,” he said, scanning his words. ” Well, goodbye, my dear. Remember that I bear your loss with you with all my heart, and that I am not for you a Serene Highness, not a prince, and not a commanderin-chief, but a father. If you need anything, come straight to me ! Goodbye, my dear ! “

He embraced and kissed him once more. And before Prince Andréy left the room, Kutuzov drew a sigh of relief and picked up his unfinished novel by Madame de Genlis, “Les Chevaliers du Cygne”

How and why it had happened, Prince Andréy was unable to explain ; but after this meeting with Kutuzov he returned to his regiment, reassured as to the general state of affairs and as to the man to whom they had been entrusted. The more he saw the absence of all personal interests in this old man, in whom there seemed to be left only the habits of passions and, instead of a mind that groups events and makes deductions, the mere ability to contemplate calmly the course of events, the more he was satisfied that everything would be as it ought to be. ” There will be nothing of his own in this matter. He will not invent anything, will undertake nothing,” thought Prince Andréy, “ but he will listen to everything, will take note of everything, will put everything in its place, will not hamper anything that is good, and will prevent anything harmful from happening. He understands that there is something more powerful and significant than his will, — and that is the inevitable march of events, and he knows how to see them and how to understand their meaning, and in view of this meaning he knows how to renounce his participation in these events, and his personal will, which is directed to something else. Above all,” thought Prince Andréy, ” one feels like believing him because he is a Russian, in spite of the novel by Genlis and his French proverbs, and because his voice trembled as he said, ‘ See what they have brought us to ! ‘ and because he started weeping as he said that he would make them eat horseflesh.” On this feeling, dimly experienced more or less by everybody, was based that unanimity and general assent which accompanied the popular selection of Kutuzov for commanderin-chief, which was contrary to court considerations.

XVII.

After the emperor’s departure from Moscow, life there began to flow in its habitual order, and the stream of this life was so much like that of every day that it was hard to remember the past days of patriotic enthusiasm and transports, and hard to believe that Russia was really in danger, and that the members of the English club were at the same time sons of their country, ready for any sacrifice in its behalf. The one thing which recalled the universal patriotic enthusiasm which had been manifested during the stay of the emperor was the demands made by the sacrifices in men and money, which, as soon as they had been made, were clothed in a legal, official form and seemed to be inevitable.

With the approach of the enemy to Moscow, the view held by the Muscovites in respect to their condition not only showed no greater seriousness, but, on the contrary, greater levity, as is always the case with people who see a great peril approaching them. When a danger is imminent, two voices always speak with equal strength in the soul of a man : one very sensibly says that a man should carefully consider the quality of the danger and the means for freeing himself from it ; another says more sensibly still that it is too hard and too painful to think of the danger, while it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and to save himself from the common march of events, and that therefore it is better to turn away from the calamity, so long as it has not yet appeared, and to think only of pleasure. In solitude man generally submits to the first voice ; in society, on the contrary, to the second. Even thus it now happened with the inhabitants of Moscow. For a long time there had not been so much gaiety in Moscow as during that year.

Ros topchin’s broadsides, with the heading representing a tavern, a saloon-keeper, and the Moscow burgher Kàr-pushka Chigirin, ” who, having been a soldier and having taken a dram too much, heard that Bonaparte intended to march against Moscou’, whereupon he grew angry and cursed all the French with base zcords, and went out of the tavern and began to speak under the eagle to the assembled people,” were read and discussed on a par with the last bout-rime of Vasili Lvdvich Pushkin.

At the club, men gathered in the corner room to read these broadsides, and some were pleased to read how Kdr-pushka made fun of the French, saying ” that they will puff up from the cabbage, will burst from the porridge, and will choke from the beet soup, and that they are all midgets, and that one woman will pitch three of them on a fork.” A few did not approve of this tone, saying that it was contemptible and stupid. They told stories about Rostopchin having sent all Frenchmen and even strangers out of Moscow, and that there were spies and agents of Napoleon among them ; these stories were told mainly in order to retail those clever words which Rostopchin uttered at their deportation. The strangers were despatched in a boat to Nizhni-Ndvgorod, and Rostopchin said to them : ” Rentrez en vous-mcme, entrez dans la barque et n’en faites pas une barque de Caron.” They also said that all the government officials had been sent out of Moscow, and to this they added Shinshin’s joke that for this alone Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. They said that Mamdnov’s regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand, that Bezukhi had spent an even larger sum on his soldiers, and that the best part of Bezukhi’s act was that he himself would put on a uniform and would ride at the head of his regiment, and would not charge anything to those who should come to look at him.

” You never spare a soul,” said Julie Drubetskdy, pick- -ing up and pressing down a mass of freshly made lint with her thin, ring-covered fingers.

Julie was getting ready to leave Moscow on the following day, and now gave her parting evening entertainment.

” Bezukhi est ridicule, but he is so good, so charming ! What pleasure do you find to be so caustique ? “

” A fine !” said a young man in a militia uniform, whom Julie called “mon chevalier,” and who was going with her to Nizhni-Novgorod.

In Julie’s circle, as in many other societies in Moscow, it had been agreed to speak only Russian, and those who made use of any French words had to pay a fine to the committee of voluntary contributions.

“ Another fine for the Gallicism,” said a Russian writer, who was present in the drawingroom. ” ‘ The pleasure to be ‘ is not Russian.”

” You spare nobody,” Julie continued to speak to the militiaman, without paying any attention to the remark of the author.

” For ‘ caustique ‘ I am to blame,” she said, ” and I shall pay, but for the pleasure to tell you the truth I am ready to pay again; for the Gallicisms I am not responsible,” she turned to the author, ” I have neither the money nor the time that Prince Golitsyn has, to hire a teacher and study Russian.”

“Ah, here he is!” said Julie. “Quand on— No, no,” she turned to the officer of the militia, “ you will not catch me. When we speak of the sun we see his beams,” said the hostess, smiling graciously to Pierre. ” We have just been speaking of you,” Julie said, with that freedom in lying which is characteristic of society women.

“We said that your regiment, no doubt, will be better than Mamdnov’s.”

“ Oh, please do not speak to me about my regiment,” replied Pierre, kissing the hand of the hostess and sitting down by her side. “ I am sick of it.”

” You will certainly command it in person ! ” said Julie, exchanging a sly and sarcastic glance with the officer of the militia.

In Pierre’s presence the officer of the militia was no longer so caustique, and in his face there was an expression of perplexity as to what Julie’s smile might mean. In spite of his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre’s personality at once put a stop to all attempts at ridiculing him in his presence.

” No,” Pierre answered, smiling, and surveying his huge, fat body. “The Frenchmen would find it too easy to hit me, and besides, I am afraid I could not climb on a horse.”

Among the subjects raked up for conversation, Julie’s company also hit on the Rostdvs.

“ They say their affairs are in a pretty bad shape,” said Julie. ” And he, the count, is such a scatterbrain. The Razumdvskis wanted to buy his house and suburban estate, and the matter has been drawn out so long ! He asks too big a price.”

” I have heard that the sale will be consummated in a few days,” somebody remarked. ” Though, I must say, it is reckless to buy anything in Moscow now.”

“ Why ?” asked Julie. ” Do you really think there is any danger for Moscow ? ”

” Why do you depart ? ”

“I ? How strange ! I am leaving because — well, because everybody is leaving, and because I am not a Joan of Arc, and not an Amazon.”

“All right. Give me some more rags !”

“If he knows how to manage things, he will be able to pay all his debts,” the officer of the militia continued in reference to Rostdv.

” He is a good old man, but a very pauvre sire. Why do they live here so long ? They wanted to go to the country long ago. Natasha, I think, is well now,” Julie addressed Pierre, with a sly smile.

“ They are waiting for their younger son,” said Pierre. “ He entered Obolénski’s regiment of Cossacks and for that purpose went to Byélaya Tsérkov, where the regiment is forming. Now he has been transferred to my regiment, and he is expected any day. The count intended to leave some time ago, but the countess would not leave Moscow until her son arrived.”

” I saw them the other day at the Arkhérovs. Natâsha has grown pretty again and is making merry. She sang a romance. How easily some people get over things ! “

” Get over what ? ” Pierre asked, with dissatisfaction.

Julie smiled.

” You know, count, such knights as you are are to be found only in the novels of Madame Souza.”

“ What knight ? ” Pierre asked, blushing.

” Please don’t, dear count ! C ‘est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire, ma parole d’honneur.”

” A fine ! A fine ! ” said the officer of the militia.

“ All right. I can’t tell you how tedious it is ! ”

” Qu’est ce qui est la fable de tout Moscou ? ” Pierre, rising, said angrily.

” Please don’t, count ! You know ! “

” I know nothing,” said Pierre.

” I know that you have been friendly with Natâsha, and therefore— No, I, I am a greater friend of Vyéra’s. Cette chère Vera.”

“ Non, madame,” Pierre continued, in a dissatisfied voice. ” I have by no means taken upon myself the rôle of Natäsha Rostov’s knight, and I have not been at their house for nearly a month. But I do not understand the cruelty — ”

” Qui s’excuse, s’accuse” said Julie, smiling, and waving the lint. In order to have the last word, she at once changed the conversation. “ I heard to-day that poor Marya Bolkdnski arrived yesterday in Moscow. Have you heard ? She has lost her father.”

” Really ? Where is she ? I should like very much to see her,” said Pierre.

” I passed last evening with her. She will leave tonight or tomorrow with her nephew for the suburban estate.”

” How is she ? ” asked Pierre.

“ So so, sad. Do you know who saved her ? It is a whole romance: Nikoläy Rostov. She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill her, and had wounded some of her men. He rushed in and saved her — ”

” Another romance ! ” said the officer of the militia. “ Really, this universal flight is causing all the old maids to get married. Catiche is one, and Princess Bolkonski is another.”

” Do you know, I think that she is un petit peu amoureux du jeune homme.”

” A fine ! A fine ! A fine ! “

” But how are you going to say that in Russian ? “

XVIII.

When Pierre returned home, he was handed two of Rostopchin’s broadsides, which had been brought out that day.

The first gave the information that the rumour that Count Rostopchm had forbidden people to leave Moscow was false, and that, on the contrary’, Count Rostopchm was glad to see the ladies and merchants’ wives leaving Moscow. ” There will be less fear, less gossip,” said the broadside, “but I shall forfeit my life if the scoundrel gets into Moscow.” These words convinced Pierre for the first time that the French would be there. The second broadside informed the inhabitants that our headquarters were at Vyäzma, that Count Wittgenstein had conquered the French, but that, since many inhabitants wished to arm themselves, there were weapons offered them in the arsenal, such as sabres, pistols, and guns, which they could get at a reasonable price. The tone of the broadsides was no longer as jocular as in the former Chiginn conversations. Pierre fell to musing over these broadsides. It was obvious that the terrible thunder-cloud, which he had invoked with all the powers of his soul, and which at the same time caused him instinctive terror, was approaching.

” Shall I enter military service and go into the army, or shall I wait?” Pierre asked himself this question for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards, which was lying on his table, and began to play solitaire.

” If this solitaire comes out,” he said to himself, shuffling the cards and looking up, “if it comes out, it means — What does it mean ? “

He had not yet decided what it meant when outside the door of the cabinet he heard the voice of the elder princess, asking whether she could enter.

“ Then it will mean that I must go to the army,” Pierre finished. ” Come in, come in ! ” he added, turning to the princess.

(The elder princess, the one with the long waist and the petrified face, continued to live in Pierre’s house ; the two younger ones had married.)

“ Pardon me, mon cousin, for having come to see you,” she said, in a voice of mingled rebuke and agitation. ” Some decision must be made at last. What will it be ? Everybody has left Moscow, and the people are getting riotous. Are we going to stay ? ”

“ On the contrary, everything seems to be favourable, ma cousine,” Pierre said, with that habitual jesting, which he, bearing in embarrassment his rôle of benefactor to the princess, had assumed in relation to her.

” Yes, very favourable, thank you ! Värvara Ivdnovna has told me to-day how our troops are distinguishing themselves. Great honour it does them ! The people are rioting, and have quit obeying ; even my maid is saucy to me. Soon they will begin to strike us. You can’t walk in the streets. But worse than all, in a day or two the French will be here, — why should we wait? I ask you only for this, mon cousin,” said the princess, “ order them to take me to St. Petersburg. Such as I am, I cannot live under Bonaparte’s rule.”

” But, ma cousine, where do you get your information from ? On the contrary — “

” I will not submit to your Napoleon. Others may do as they please — If you will not do it — “

“Yes, I will. I will give the order at once.”

The princess was apparently annoyed because there was no one to be angry with. She whispered something and sat down on a chair.

” But you are getting false reports,” said Pierre. ” In the city everything is quiet, and there is no danger. I have just read — ” Pierre showed the princess the broadsides. ” The count writes that he will forfeit his life if the enemy gets into Moscow.”

” Ah, that count of yours ! ” the princess said, with malice. ” He is a hypocrite, a rascal, who has himself instructed the people to start rioting. Did he not write in these stupid broadsides, * Whoever it be, yank him by his hair to the lockup ! ‘ How stupid ! ‘ Whoever takes him,’ says he, ‘ shall receive honour and glory.’ That is what he has brought us to with his sweet speeches. Varvara Ivänovna told me that a crowd almost killed her because she spoke in French — ”

” That is so. But you take everything so much to heart,” said Pierre, beginning to lay out the solitaire.

Although the solitaire came out, Pierre did not go into the army, but remained in deserted Moscow in the same turmoil and indecision, with fear and, at the same time, with joy, expecting something terrible.

On the following night the princess departed, and Pierre’s chief manager came to inform him that it was impossible to procure the amount demanded for furnishing the uniforms of the regiment, if one estate were not sold. His manager reminded him in general that all these plans about the regiment would ruin him. Pierre with difficulty concealed a smile, while listening to the words of the manager.

” Sell it ! ” he said. ” What is to be done ? I cannot refuse now.”

The more critical was the condition of all affairs, especially of his own, the more obvious it was, and the more agreeable to Pierre, that the catastrophe which he had been expecting was near at hand. There was hardly any one of his acquaintances left in Moscow, du lie had gone, and so had Princess Marya. Of his close friends only the Rostdvs were still in Moscow, but Pierre did not visit them.

On that day Pierre, to divert himself, drove to the village of Vorontsdvo to look at the large balloon which Leppich was building for the destruction of the enemy, and the trial balloon which was to be sent up on the next day. This balloon was not yet ready ; as Pierre learned, it was being built at the request of the emperor. The emperor had written to Count Rostopclun about this balloon as follows :

“ As soon as Leppich is ready, you will choose for his boat a crew of reliable and intelligent men, and you will despatch a courier to General Kutuzov, to inform him of it. I have communicated with him about it. Please enjoin Leppich to be very careful about the place where he will descend the first time, lest he be mistaken and fall into the hands of the enemy. It is indispensable that he should combine his movements with those of the commander-inchief.”

On his return home from Vorontsovo, Pierre crossed the BolOtnaya Square, where he saw a crowd at the Judgment Place. He stopped his cab and got out. It was the public whipping of a French cook accused of being a spy. The whipping had just taken place, and the executioner was untying from the bench a pitifully groaning, stout man with red whiskers, wearing blue stockings and a green camisole. Another culprit, lean and pale, was standing near by. Both, to judge from their faces, were Frenchmen. With a frightened and ailing expression, like the one on the countenance of the lean Frenchman, Pierre pushed his way through the crowd.

” What is it ? Who ? For what ? ” he asked.

But the attention of the crowd, consisting of officials, burghers, merchants, peasants, women in cloaks and small furs, was so eagerly concentrated on that which was going on in the Judgment Place that no one made any reply to him. The stout man rose, frowningly shrugged his shoulders, and, apparently wishing to express firmness, began to put on his camisole, without looking around him ; but suddenly his lips trembled, and he burst out into tears, from anger at himself, as people of a sanguine temperament weep. The crowd began to speak loudly, in order, as Pierre thought, to drown the feeling of compassion in themselves.

“ He is some prince’s chef — “

“ Well, moossioo, evidently the Russian sauce is tart for a Frenchman, — it has put his teeth on edge,” said a wrinkled scribe, who was standing near Pierre, just as the cook began to weep. The scribe looked around him, apparently expecting to see his joke appreciated. A few laughed, while some continued to look in fright at the executioner, who was undressing the other man.

Pierre began to snivel and to scowl, and, turning rapidly around, he went back to his cab, all the time muttering something to himself, both while he was walking and taking his seat in the cab. During his ride he several times shuddered and exclaimed so loudly that the coachman asked him :

” What do you wish ? “

” Whither are you driving ? ” Pierre shouted at the coachman, who was turning into the Lubydnka.

” You ordered me to drive to the commanderin-chief,” replied the coachman.

” Stupid ! Beast ! ” shouted Pierre, who hardly ever called his coachman names. ” I told you to drive home ; and go there as fast as you can, idiot ! I must leave this very day,” he muttered to himself.

At the sight of the chastised Frenchman and of the crowd which surrounded the Judgment Place, Pierre decided so definitely that he could no longer remain in Moscow and that he would at once join the army, that it appeared to him that either he had told the coachman about it, or that the coachman ought to have known it.

Upon reaching home, Pierre informed his all-knowing coachman, Evstdfevich, who could do almost anything and whom all Moscow knew, that he was going to leave in the evening for Mozhàysk, in order to join the army, and ordered him to send his mounts to him there. All this could not be done in a day, and so, at the representations of Evstäfevich, Pierre had to put off his departure till the next day, so as to give the teams a chance to start out on the road.

On the 24th it cleared up after some bad weather, and in the afternoon Pierre left Moscow. In the night, while changing horses at Perkhushkovo, Pierre learned that during that evening a great battle had been fought. He was told that the earth had trembled there, at Perkhushkovo, from the reports of the guns. To his questions who had won, no one was able to give any answer. (It was the battle of the 24th at Shevardind.) At daybreak Pierre drove up to Mozhäysk.

All the houses of Mozhdysk had troops quartered in them, and at the tavern, where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman, there was no room in the house: every available space was occupied by officers.

In Mozhaysk and beyond Mozhâysk stood and marched the troops. Cossacks, footsoldiers, cavalrymen, wagons, caissons, ordnance were seen on all sides. Pierre hastened to drive ahead as fast as possible, and the farther he left Moscow behind him, and the deeper he penetrated into this sea of troops, the more he was seized by alarm and by an unfamiliar new sensation. It was similar to the sensation which he had experienced in the Slobddski palace during the appearance of the emperor, a feeling that it was necessary to undertake something and to make sacrifices. He now experienced the agreeable consciousness

that everything which formed the happiness of man, the comforts of life, wealth, even life itself, was nonsense, which it was a joy to give up in comparison with something— with what, Pierre could not tell, nor could he make it clear to himself for whom and for what he found it so charming to sacrifice everything. He was not interested in that for which he wanted to make the sacrifices, but the sacrifice itself afforded him a novel, pleasurable sensation.

XIX.

On the 24th took place the battle at the redoubt of Shevardind ; on the 25th not one shot was fired on either side ; on the 26th the battle of Borodind was fought.

Why and how were the battles given and accepted at Shevardind and at Borodind ? Why was the battle of Borodind fought? Neither for the French nor for the Russians did it have the least significance. The most immediate result of it was, and had to be : for the Russians, that we got nearer to the ruin of Moscow (of which we were afraid more than of anything in the world), and for the French, that they came nearer to the ruin of their whole army (of which they, too, were afraid more than of anything in the world). This result was quite evident then, and yet Napoleon gave, and Kutuzov accepted, this battle.

If the generals had been guided by reason, Napoleon, it seems, ought to have seen clearly that, in advancing more than two thousand versts and accepting battle with the probable outcome of losing one-fourth of his army, he was marching to his certain ruin ; and it should have appeared just as clear to Kutuzov that by accepting the battle and himself risking the loss of one-fourth of his army, he certainly would lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was mathematically clear, just as it is clear that if in a game of chess I have one piece less and make an exchange, I shall certainly lose, and that therefore I must make no even exchange.

When my antagonist has sixteen pieces, and I only

fourteen, I am only one-eighth weaker than he ; but when I exchange thirteen pieces, he will be three times as strong as I.

Up to the battle of Borodino, our forces stood in relation to those of the French approximately as five to six, and after the battle as one to two, that is, before the battle as 100,000 to 120,000, and after the battle as 50,000 to 100,000. And yet clever and experienced Kutuzov accepted the battle. Napoleon, on the contrary, the gifted general, as he is called, gave a battle in which he lost one-fourth of his army, and thus stretched his lines even farther than before. If it shall be said that by taking Moscow he expected to finish the campaign, as he had done in the case of Vienna, we can adduce many arguments against it. The historians of Napoleon themselves say that he wanted to stop soon after Smolénsk, that he knew the danger of his extended position and that the capturing of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, because from Smolénsk on he saw in what condition the Russian cities were left to him, and because he did not receive a single answer to his repeated declarations that he wished to carry on negotiations.

In giving and accepting the battle of Borodiné, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted independently of their wills and senselessly. But the historians later subordinated the accomplished facts to cleverly concocted arguments about the foresight and genius of the generals, who of all the involuntary tools of the world’s events were the most slavish and involuntary of actors.

The ancients have left us examples of heroic poems, in which the heroes form the whole interest of history, and we have not yet been able to get used to the idea that for our human times such history has no meaning.

To the other question of how the battle of Borodino and the preceding battle of Shevardino were given there is an extremely false conception, just as definite and well known. All the historians describe the affair in the following manner:

The Russian army in retreating from Smolénsk was looking for the best possible position for a general battle, and such a position it found at Borodino.

The Russians had fortified this position in advance on the left of the road (from Moscow to Smolensk), almost at a right angle with it, from Borodino to Ùtitsa in the very place ‘ where the battle took place.

In front of this position was placed the fortified outpost on the Shevardino Mound, in order to keep watch on the enemy. On the 24th Napoleon attacked the outpost and took it ; on the 26th he attacked the whole Russian army, which occupied its position on the field of Borodino.

Thus the histories tell, but it is quite untrue, and anybody may convince himself so, who wants to acquaint himself with the facts in the case.

The Russians had not been looking for a better position, but, on the contrary, in their retreating passed many positions which were better than the one at Borodino. They did not stop at any of these positions, because Kutuzov did not wish to accept a position which he did not choose, and because the demand for a national battle had not yet found sufficient expression, and because Milorédovich had not yet joined him with his militia, and for innumerable other reasons. It is a fact that the former positions had been stronger, and that the position at Borodiné (where the battle was given) was not only not strong, but for some reason was no more of a position than any other spot in the Russian Empire, at which one might point on a map at haphazard with a pin.

The Russians not only had not fortified the position of the field of Borodiné, on the left, at a right angle with the road (that is, the place where the battle actually took place), but they had even never thought before the 25th of August of the year 1812 that the battle would take place on that spot. This is proved by the fact that there were no fortifications there before the 25th, and that those which were begun on the 25th and 26th were never finished ; secondly, as to the location of the Shevardino redoubt : it has no meaning in front of the position where the battle was accepted. Why was this redoubt fortified more strongly than any other point ? And why were all efforts exhausted on the 24th in defending it until late at night, with a loss of six thousand men ? A Cossack patrol would have been sufficient to keep watch on the enemy. In the third place, a further proof that the position where the battle took place had not been foreseen and that the Shevardind redoubt was not the advance point of this position is found in the fact that Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced until the 25 th that the Shevardind redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutuzov himself, in his report written just after the battle, called the Shevardind redoubt the left flank of the position. Only much later, when the reports on the battle of Borodind were written at leisure, they invented (no doubt, in order to explain away the blunder of the commanderin-chief, who was supposed to be impeccable) that unjust and strange declaration that the Shevardind redoubt served as an advance post (whereas it was only a fortified point of the left flank), and that the battle of Borodind was accepted by us in a fortified position, chosen in advance, although it took place in an entirely unexpected and almost unfortified place.

The matter obviously was like this: the position had been chosen along the river Koldcha, which cuts the highway not at a right, but at an oblique angle, so that the left flank was at Shevardind, the right near Ndvoe Selo, and the centre at Borodind, at the confluence of the rivers Koldcha and Vdyna. This position, protected by the river Koldcha, for an army whose purpose it was to stop the enemy who was moving on the Smolensk road to Moscow, is manifest to any one who will look at the field of Borodind, forgetting how the battle actually took place.

Napoleon, who on the 24th rode up to Valuevo, did not see (as histories tell) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to Borodind (he could not see it, because it did not exist) ; nor did he see the outpost of the Russian army, but, in pursuing the Russian rearguard to the left flank of the Russian position, he came upon the Shevardind redoubt and unexpectedly to the Russians took his army across the Koldcha. The Russians, having had no time to give a general battle, retreated with their left flank from the position which they had intended to occupy, and took up a new position, which had not been foreseen and was not fortified. Passing over to the left of the Koldcha and to the left of the road, Napoleon shifted the whole future battle from the right to the left (from the standpoint of the Russians), and transferred it to the field between Utitsa, Semdnovskoe, and Borodind (to that field which presented no other advantages of position than any other field in Russia), and on that field took place the battle of the 26th. In a rude form the plan of the proposed battle and of the actual battle will be as follows :

If Napoleon had not ridden out on the evening of the 24th to the Koldcha, and had not ordered an attack on the redoubt that very evening, but had begun the attack on the following morning, no one would have doubted that the Shevardind redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the battle would have taken place as we had expected it. In this case we should have defended more stubbornly still the Shevardind redoubt, which was our left flank : we should have attacked Napoleon at the centre or on the right, and on the 24th would have taken place the general battle in the position which had been fortified and foreseen. But since the attack on our left flank took place in the evening, soon after the retreat of

our rearguard, that is, immediately after the battle at Gridneva, and since the Russian generals did not wish, or were not yet prepared, to begin the general battle on the evening of the 24th, the first and chief action of the tion on the left flank and were placed under the necessity of deflecting our left wing and hastily fortifying it wherever it happened to be.

battle of Borodind was lost on the 24th, and obviously led to the loss of the one which was given on the 26th.

After the loss of the Shevardind redoubt, toward the morning of the 25th, we found ourselves without a posi

Not only did the Russian troops stand on August 26th under the protection of weak, unfinished fortifications, but the disadvantage of their position was increased by the fact that the Russian military leaders, without fully recognizing the accomplished fact (the loss of the position on the left flank and the transference of the whole future field of battle from the right to the left),z remained in their extended position from Ndvoe Selo to Utitsa, and, in consequence of this, were compelled during the battle to move their troops from the right to the left. Thus, the Russians had, during the whole battle, only half as strong forces opposed to the French army, which was directed against pur left wing. (The actions of Poniatowski against Utitsa and of Uvärov on the right flank of the French formed separate actions in the whole course of the battle.)

Thus, the battle of Borodind took place quite differently from the way it is described (in the attempt to conceal the blunders of our military leaders, thus minimizing the glory of the Russian army and people). The battle of Borodind did not take place in a chosen and fortified position with slightly weaker forces on the side of the Russians, but, on account of the loss of the Shevardind redoubt, was accepted by the Russians in an open, almost unfortified locality, with forces only half as strong as those commanded by the French, that is, under conditions under which it was unthinkable to fight for ten hours and make the battle undecisive, or even to preserve the army for three hours from absolute annihilation and flight.

XX.

On the 25th, Pierre drove out of Mozhaysk. On the incline of a very steep and crooked hill, which led out of the city, past a cathedral on the right, in which service was being held and bells were ringing, Pierre climbed out of his carriage and went on foot. Back of him a regiment of cavalry, with singers in front, was coming down the hill. Toward him ascended a train of carts with the men wounded in the engagement of the day before. The peasant drivers, shouting to their horses and cracking their whips, kept running from one side to another. The carts, in each of which three or four wounded men were lying or sitting, jolted against the cobblestones of the pavement along the steep incline. The wounded, bandaged with rags, pale, with compressed lips and knit brows, holding on to the rounds of the carts, were jolted and knocked against each other in the carts. Nearly all looked with naïve, childish curiosity at Pierre’s white hat and green dress coat.

Pierre’s coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of the wounded to keep to one side. The regiment of cavalry, descending the hill with songs, pressed against Pierre’s carriage and took up the whole road. Pierre stopped, pressing against the wall which the hill formed at the roadside. The sun did not reach that spot on account of a jutting ledge, and it was cold and damp there ; overhead was a bright August morning, and the ringing of the bells sounded merry. One team with wounded soldiers stopped

The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the singers.

« Oh, what dudes ! ” he said, reproachfully.

” I have seen not only soldiers, but even peasants to-day ! They are driving even the peasants,” said the soldier who was standing behind the cart, turning to Pierre, with a sad smile. “They don’t make any distinction now— They want to press forward with the whole nation, in short, it is Moscow. They want to make an end of it.”

In spite of the indistinctness of the soldier’s words, Pierre understood everything he wanted to say, and nodded his head approvingly.

The road was cleared, and Pierre went downhill and drove on. Pierre kept looking on both sides of the road, trying to discover familiar faces, and meeting only with unfamiliar, military faces from all kinds of regiments, who looked with equal surprise at his white hat and green dress coat.

After journeying for about four versts, he met his first acquaintance, and he cheerfully addressed him. This acquaintance was one of the chief physicians of the army. He was travelling in a small vehicle toward Pierre, sitting beside a young doctor. Upon recognizing Pierre, he stopped his Cossack, who was sitting on the box in the place of a coachman.

” Count ! Your Serenity, how did you get here ? ” asked the doctor.

” I just wanted to see — ”

“Yes, yes, there will be something to see — “

Pierre got out of his carriage and, stopping, spoke with the doctor, to whom he expressed his intention of taking part in the battle.

The doctor advised Bezukhi to go straight to his Most Serene Highness.

“ What is the use of being in some forgotten place during the battle,” he said, exchanging a glance with his young companion, “ when his Most Serene Highness knows you and will receive you favourably. Do this, my friend,” said the doctor.

The doctor looked weary, and as though in a hurry to get away.

“You think so?— I wanted to ask you where the position is,” said Pierre.

“ The position ? ” said the doctor. ” That is not my department. When you cross Tatärinovo, you will see them digging there a great deal. Walk up the mound, and you will see from there,” said the doctor.

“ Is it visible from there ? If you — ”

But the doctor interrupted him, and moved up on his seat.

“ I should like to take you there, but, upon my word ” (the doctor pointed to his throat), “ I am galloping to the commander of the corps. You know how it is ! Tomorrow there will be a battle. Out of the one hundred thousand men, at least twenty thousand will be wounded ; and we have no stretchers, no cots, no assistants, no doctors for more than six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but something else, too, is needed ; do as you please — ”

The strange thought that out of the thousands of sound, living men, both young and old, who were looking at his hat in joyful surprise, there were some twenty thousand who were certainly doomed to wounds and death (maybe the same that he now saw), staggered him.

” They will perhaps die tomorrow, so why do they think of anything else but death ? ” and suddenly, by a mysterious affiliation of ideas, he saw vividly before him the slope of the Mozhaysk hill, the carts with the wounded, the slanting rays of the sun, and heard the ringing of the bells and the singing of the cavalrymen.

“ The cavalrymen are on their way to a battle and meet the wounded, and yet they do not stop for a moment to think of what is in store for them, but ride by and wink to the wounded men. And there are twenty thousand of these who are destined to die, and they marvel at my hat ! It is terrible ! ” thought Pierre, proceeding on his way to Tatdrinovo.

In front of a landed proprietor’s house, on the left of the road, stood carriages, wagons, crowds of orderlies, and guards. Here his Most Serene Highness was stationed. But when Pierre arrived there he was not in, and there was hardly any one of the staff there. They were all in church attending prayers. Pierre drove on to Gorki.

Driving up the hill and into the short village street, Pierre saw for the first time the peasant militia with crosses on their caps and in white shirts, who, with loud conversation and laughter, animated and perspiring, were working at something on the right of the road, on an immense grass-covered mound.

Some of them were digging up the hill with spades, others were taking the dirt away in wheelbarrows over planks, while others again stood and did nothing.

Two officers were standing on the mound and giving them orders. Upon seeing these peasants, who evidently were still enjoying their new military duties, Pierre again thought of the wounded soldiers at Mozhaysk, and it became clear to him what the soldier had meant to convey when he said, ” They want to press forward with the whole nation.” The sight of these bearded peasants working in the field, with their odd, clumsy boots, their sweaty necks, their slanting shirt-openings, unbuttoned here and there, so that beneath them could be seen their sunburnt shoulder-bones, acted on Pierre more powerfully than all he had heard and seen heretofore about the solemnity and significance of the present moment.

XXI.

Pierre got out of his carriage, and, passing the working militiamen, ascended the hill, from which, as the doctor had said, could be seen the field of battle.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning. The sun stood a little to the left and back of Pierre and, through the clear, rarefied air, illuminated the panorama which lay before him in the form of an amphitheatre.

In the upper part of this amphitheatre, and to the left, meandered, cutting it, the Smolénsk highway, which went through a village with a large church, within five hundred steps in front of the mound and below it (this was Borodin<5). The road went past this village over a bridge and, over slopes and hills, wound higher and higher to the village of Valuevo, which could be seen about six versts distant, and where Napoleon was now stationed. Beyond Valuevo the road disappeared in a yellowing forest on the horizon. In this forest, composed of birch and fir trees, toward the right of the general direction of the road there glistened in the sun the distant cross and bell-tower of the Koldcha monastery. In all this azure vista, to the right and left of the woods and road, the smoky campfires and indefinable masses of our troops and of those of the enemy could be seen in various places. To the right, along the beds of the Koldcha and the Moskvd, the locality was precipitous and mountainous. In the ravines thus formed, the villages of Bezzubovo and Zakhdrino could be seen in the distance. Toward the left the ground was more level; there were grain-fields there, and one could see a smoking, burnt-down village, Seménovskoe.

Everything which Pierre saw to the right and left was so indefinite, that neither the left nor the right side of the field entirely satisfied his expectations. Everywhere there was not a field of battle, such as he had expected to see, but fields, clearings, troops, forests, campfire smokes, villages, mounds, brooks, and, no matter how much he tried, he was unable to find such a thing as positions, and could not even distinguish our troops from those of the enemy.

” I must ask some one who knows,” he thought, and he turned to an officer, who was looking with curiosity at his unsoldierly, immense figure.

” Permit me to ask you,” Pierre turned to the officer, ” what village is this in front of us ? ”

” Burdind, or something like it,” said the officer, turning with a question to his companion.

” Borodind,” the other corrected him.

The officer, evidently happy to have a chance to talk, moved up toward Pierre.

” Are our men there ? ” asked Pierre.

“Yes, and over there are the French,” said the officer. ” There they are, over there ! You can see them ! ”

” Where, where ? ” asked Pierre.

“ You can see them with the naked eye. There.” The officer showed him with his hand the smoke which could be seen on the left, beyond the river, and on his face appeared that stem and serious expression which Pierre had seen on many countenances which he had met.

“Oh, those are the French! And there?” Pierre pointed to the left at a mound, near which troops were visible.

“ Those are our men.”

“ Oh, ours ! And there ? ” Pierre pointed to another, a distant mound, with a large tree near a village, which could be seen in the gorge, and near which campfires were burning and something black was looming up.

“ This is again he” said the officer. (It was the Shevardind redoubt.) “ Yesterday it was ours, but now it is his.”

“ Where, then, is our position ? ”

“ Position ? ” said the officer, with a smile of satisfaction. “ I can tell you that exactly, because I have built all our fortifications. You see, our centre is at Borodind, over there.” lie pointed to a village with a white church, which was in front of them. ” Here is the ford across the Koldcha. Over there, you see, where the rows of mowed grass are still lying in the meadow, is the bridge. That is our centre. Our right flank is over there ” (he pointed abruptly to the right, far into the ravine), “ there is the Moskvd Biver, and there we have constructed three powerful redoubts. The left flank — ” here the officer stopped. “ You see, this is hard to explain to you — Yesterday our left flank was over there, at Shevardind, over there where you see the oak ; now we have drawn back the left wing, — over there you see the village and the smoke, — that is Seménovskoe, and over here,” he pointed to Baévski’s Mound. “ But I doubt whether the battle will take place here. His having taken the troops over here is only a ruse ; he will, no doubt, go around on the right of the Moskva. Wherever it may be, we shall miss a good many tomorrow,” said the officer.

An old underofficer, who had approached the officer during his explanation, waited in silence for his superior to finish speaking; but at this juncture, he, apparently dissatisfied with the words of the officer, interrupted him.

“ We must go for the gabions,” he said, sternly.

The officer seemed to be embarrassed, as though he understood that it was proper to think that many would be missed on the following day, but that it was not proper to speak of it.

” All right, send the third company again for them,” hurriedly said the officer.

“ And who are you ? One of the doctors ? “

« No, I am just looking on,” said Pierre. And Pierre went downhill, again past the militiamen.

« Ah, the accursed ones ! ” said the officer, who was following 1dm, putting his fingers to his nose and running past the workmen.

« There they are ! — They are carrying it — They are coming — Here they are — They will be here in a minute,” several voices were suddenly heard exclaiming, and the officers, soldiers, and militiamen ran ahead, along the road.

Up the hill from Borodind ascended the church procession. In front, the infantry marched in parade order along the dusty road, with bared heads and reversed arms. Behind the infantry could be heard church singing.

Soldiers and militiamen, without their caps, ran past Pierre, to meet the procession.

« They are carrying the Virgin ! The protectress ! The Virgin of the Tver Church ! “

” The Virgin of Smolensk,” somebody corrected him.

The militiamen, both those who were in the village and those who were working in the battery, threw away their spades and ran toward the church procession. Back of the battalion, which was marching on the dusty road, marched the clergy in vestments, an old man in a cowl, accompanied by the ministrants and the choir. Behind him soldiers and officers carried a large, black-faced image, surrounded by gold foil. It was the image which had been taken away from Smolénsk, and which since then had been following the army. Back of the image, all around it, in front of it, on all sides, bareheaded groups of military men were walking, running, and making low obeisances.

Upon reaching the summit, the image stopped ; the men who had carried the image on canvas were relieved by another set ; the sextons again lighted the incense, and the Te Deum began. The hot rays of the sun beat down vertically ; a faint, fresh breeze played with the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons with which the image was adorned ; the singing resounded softly in the open. An enormous mass of officers, soldiers, and militiamen, baring their heads, surrounded the image. Back of the priest and the sexton, on a cleared place, stood the notabilities. A bald-headed general, with the cross of St. George on his neck, was standing directly behind the priest’s back and, without crossing himself (apparently he was a German) was impatiently waiting for the end of the Te Deum, which he considered it necessary to listen to, no doubt in order to rouse the patriotism of the Russian nation. Another general stood in a soldierly attitude and, swaying his hand in front of his chest, was surveying the crowd in front of him. In this circle of notabilities, Pierre, who was standing among a group of peasants, recognized several acquaintances ; but he did not look at them ; his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious expression of the faces in this crowd of soldiers and militiamen, who were looking at the image with equal eagerness. The moment the weary sextons (who were singing the twentieth Te Deum) began to sing in an indolent and habitual voice, “ Mother of God, save Thy slaves from calamity,” and the priest and deacon proceeded, ” for we all in God have recourse to Thee, as an indestructible wall and protection,” there burst forth on all the faces the consciousness of the solemnity of the impending moment, the same which he had observed at the foot of the hill in Mozhàysk, and occasionally on many, many faces which he had seen on that morning, and the heads were lowered oftener and oftener, the hair fluttered, and there were heard sobs and the striking of crosses against the breast.

The throng which surrounded the image suddenly opened up and pressed against Pierre. Somebody, evidently a distinguished personage, to judge from the haste with which the men stepped aside, was walking over to the image.

It was Kutuzov, who had been examining the position. On his way back to TatLrinovo he went up to hear the Te Deum. Pierre immediately recognized Kutuzov from Iris peculiar figure, which distinguished him from all the rest.

In his long coat over an extremely fat body, with stooping shoulders, white unbared head, and white, maimed eye in a puffed-up face, Kutuzov, with his ducking and waddling gait, entered the circle and took up his position back of the priest. He made the customary sign of the cross, reached the ground with his hand, and, heaving a deep sigh, lowered his gray head. Back of Kutuzov was Bénigsen and the suite. In spite of the presence of the commanderin-chief, who attracted the attention of all the higher ranks, the militiamen and soldiers, without looking at him, continued to pray.

When the Te Deum was over, Kutuzov went up to the image, heavily sunk down on his knees, bowing to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to overcome his weight and feebleness while rising. His gray head twitched in the effort. Finally he got up and with a childishly naïve puckering of the lips kissed the image and again made an obeisance, while touching the ground with his hand. The generals followed his example ; then the officers, and after them, crowding each other, stepping on each other’s feet, gasping and nudging, with agitated faces, the soldiers and militiamen made their way to the image.

XXII.

Swaying in the crush, in which he was caught, Pierre looked around him.

” Count, Pierre Kinllych ! How did you get here ? ” somebody exclaimed.

Pierre looked around. Boris Drubetskdy, brushing with his hands the knees which he had soiled (apparently he, too, had kissed the image), walked over to Pierre, with a smile. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a shade of campaign militarism. He wore a long coat and a whip over bis shoulder, just as Kutuzov carried his.

In the meantime Kutuzov went up to the village and sat down in the shade of the nearest house on a bench, which a Cossack had darted away to bring, and which another quickly covered with a rug. An enormous, brilliant suite surrounded the commanderin-chief.

The image moved on, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped within thirty paces of Kutuzov, talking all the time with Bons.

Pierre explained to him his intention of taking part in the battle and examining the position.

” Do like this,” said Boris. ” Je vous ferai les honneurs du camp. You will see everything best from a place where Count Bénigsen will be. I am attached to him. I will report to him. If you wish to take in the position, come along with us : we shall ride out to the left flank at once. Then we shall return, and I beg you to stay with me overnight. We will have a party. You are acquainted with Dmitri Sergyéich, are you not ? He stays over there,” he pointed to the third house in Gdrki.

« But I should like to see the right flank. They say that it is very strong,” said Pierre. ” I should like to ride down from the Moskvd River and see the whole position.”

“ That you can do later, but the main thing is the left flank — ”

“ Yes, yes. And can’t you show me where the regiment of Prince Bolkonski is ? ” asked Pierre.

” Of Andréy Nikolaevich ? We shall pass it, and I will take you to him.”

” What about the left flank ? ” asked Pierre.

” To tell you the truth, entre nous, our left flank is God knows in what condition,” said Boris, confidentially, lowering his voice. “Count Bénigsen had intended something quite different. He had intended to fortify that mound over yonder, and in a different way — but,” Boris shrugged his shoulders, “ his Most Serene Highness did not want to, or somebody dissuaded him. You know — ” Boris did not finish his sentence, because just then Kaysarov, Kutuzov’s adjutant, went up to Pierre. “ Ah, Paisi Sergyéich ! ” said Boris, turning to Kaysarov with an easy smile. ” I am trying to explain the position to the count. It is remarkable how his Most Serene Highness could have so well guessed the intentions of the French.”

” Are you speaking of the left flank ? ” asked Kaysarov.

“ Yes, yes, precisely. Our left flank is now very, very strong.”

Although Kutuzov drove all superfluous people out of the staff, Boris, after the changes produced by Kutuzov, had managed to hold his position at the headquarters. Boris found a place with Count Bénigsen. Count Bénigsen, like all the men to whom Boris had been attached, regarded the young Prince Drubetskdy as a priceless man.

In the command of the army there were two distinct, diametrically opposed parties : that of Kutuzov, and that of Bénigsen, the chief of the staff. Boris was attached to this latter party, and no one knew so well how to lavish expressions of servile respect for Kutuzov and, at the same time, to give it to be understood that the old man was unimportant, and that the whole business was carried on by Bénigsen. In any case, as the result of the engagement of the following day great rewards would be distributed and new men would be brought forward. For this reason Boris had been in a state of irritable animation on that day.

After Kaysarov, other acquaintances came up to see Pierre, and he had scarcely time to answer all the questions about Moscow, with which they overwhelmed him, and to hear all the stories which they told him. But it seemed to Pierre that the cause of the agitation which was expressed on the countenances of some of them lay more in the questions of personal success, and he could not forget that other expression of agitation which he had seen on other faces, and which spoke not of personal interests, but of the general interests of life and death. Kutuzov noticed Pierre’s figure and the group which was collected about him.

” Call him to me,” said Kutuzov.

An adjutant transmitted the wish of his Most Serene Highness, and Pierre walked over to the bench. But before he reached it, a militiaman of the rank and file went up to Kutuzov. It was Ddlokhov.

“ What is this man doing here ? ” asked Pierre.

“ He is the kind of a beast that will get through any place ! ” was the reply given to Pierre. ” He has been degraded. Now he has to bob up. He has submitted some projects, and in the night he has gone to the enemy’s outposts — but he is a brave fellow ! “

Pierre took off his hat and respectfully bowed to Kutuzov.

“ I decided that if I had myself announced to your Most Serene Highness, you would send me away or would tell me that you knew already what I had to report, and then I could not come again — ” said Dolokhov.

” Yes, yes ! “

” And if I am right, I shall be useful to my country, for which I am prepared to die.”

” Yes, yes ! ”

” And if your Serenity needs a man who will not spare his hide, I beg you to think of me. I may be of some use to your Serenity.”

” Yes, yes,” repeated Kutuzov, looking at Pierre with a smiling, narrowing eye.

Just then Boris, with his courtier agility, moved out with Pierre in the neighbourhood of the authorities, and in the most natural manner possible and softly, as though continuing a conversation, said to Pierre :

“The militiamen have put on clean white shirts, to prepare themselves for death. What heroism, count ! ”

Boris said this obviously in order to be heard by his Most Serene Highness. He knew that Kutuzov would listen to these words, and, indeed, his Most Serene Highness turned to him :

“What are you saying there about the militia?” he asked Boris.

” Your Highness, they have put on white shirts, to prepare themselves for the morrow, for death.”

” Ah ! Charming, rare people ! ” said Kutuzov, and, closing his eyes, he shook his head. “ Rare people ! ” he repeated, with a sigh.

“ You want to smell powder ? ” he said to Pierre. ” Yes, it is a pleasant odour. I have the honour of being an admirer of your wife, — is she well ? My halting-place is at your service.” And, as often is the case with old men, Kutuzov began to look around absent-mindedly, as though forgetting everytliing which it was necessary for him to say or do.

Apparently recalling what he had been looking for, he beckoned to Andréy Sergyéich Kaysdrov, his adjutant’s brother, to come up to him.

“ How, how, how do Marin’s verses, written on Ge-rakov, run ? How ? ‘ In the academy a teacher.’ Say them, say them to me,” said Kutuzov, evidently getting ready to have a laugh.

Kaysdrov recited the verses. Kutuzov, smiling, nodded his head to keep time with them.

As Pierre walked away from Kutuzov, Dolokhov, moving up to him, took his hand.

“ I am very glad to meet you here, count,” he said aloud to him and without being embarrassed by the presence of strangers, speaking with especial determination and solemnity. ” On the eve of the day, when God knows who of us will be left alive, I am glad to have a chance to tell you that I am sorry for those misunderstandings which have existed between us, and I wish you would have nothing against me. I beg you to forgive me.”

Pierre, smiling, looked at Dolokhov. Dolokhov, with tears appearing in his eyes, embraced and kissed Pierre.

Boris said something to his general, and Count Bénigsen turned to Pierre and invited him to ride down with him along the Une.

” It will be interesting for you,” he said.

” Yes, very interesting,” said Pierre.

Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinovo, and Bénigsen with his suite, among whom was also Pierre, rode down the line.

XXIII.

From Gérki Bénigsen descended the highway to the bridge, which the officer had indicated to Pierre from the mound, as the centre of the position, and near which rows of mown grass with the odour of new hay were lying on the bank. They rode over the bridge to the village of Borodind, where they turned to the left and passed an enormous quantity of troops and ordnance, and rode up to a high mound, on which the militia were digging the earth. It was a redoubt, which had not yet a name, but which later received the name of the Raévski redoubt or the Mound Battery.

Pierre paid no especial attention to this redoubt. He did not know that this place would be more memorable to him than all the other spots of the field at Borodino. Then they crossed the ravine and reached Seménovskoe, where the soldiers were dragging away the last logs from the houses and grain kilns. Then, down and up hill, they passed through some rye which was knocked down and broken, as though struck by hail, along a road which the artillery had just made over the lumps of a newly ploughed field, toward the flèches winch were still in process of construction.

Bénigsen stopped on the flèches and began to look ahead at the Shevardind redoubt, which but the day before had been ours, and on which he now saw several riders. The officers said that it was Napoleon himself or Murat. All looked eagerly at that group of mounted men. Pierre, too, looked in that direction, essaying to divine which one of those barely visible men was Napoleon. Finally the riders descended from the mound and disappeared.

Bénigsen turned to a general who had come up to him and began to explain to him the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to Bénigsen’s words, straining all his mental powers in order to comprehend the whole essence of the impending battle, but he felt with bitterness that his mental powers were not sufficient for it. He did not understand a thing. Bénigsen quit talking, and, noticing the figure of attentive Pierre, he suddenly turned to him and said :

” This, I suppose, is not interesting to you.”

” On the contrary, it is ver)- interesting,” Pierre said, not quite honestly.

From the flèches they rode along the road, still more to the left, which wound through a dense young birch forest. In the middle of this forest a cinnamoncoloured, white-legged rabbit leaped out on the road in front of them, and, frightened by the trample of a large number of horses, became so confused that it kept running along the road in front of the riders, rousing their general attention and laughter, and only when several voices shouted at it did it take to the bushes at the sides and disappear in the thicket. Having ridden about two versts through the forest, they rode out into a clearing, where stood the troops of Tuchkév’s corps, which was to defend the left flank.

Here, on the extreme left of the flank, Bénigsen spoke much and with animation, and gave some orders which, as Pierre thought, were very important from a military point of view. In front of the position of Tuchkév’s troops there was an eminence. This was not occupied by any troops. Bénigsen loudly criticised this mistake, saying that it was senseless to leave unoccupied a commanding height and to place the troops at the foot of it.

Several generals expressed the same opinion. One especially spoke with military ardour about having been placed there for slaughter. Bénigsen ordered in his own name the troops moved up the height.

This disposition on the left flank made Pierre still more doubt his ability to understand matters of war. As he listened to Bénigsen and to the generals, who condemned the position of the troops at the foot of the hill, Pierre fully comprehended them and shared their opinion ; but for this very reason he was unable to understand how the one who had placed them there at the foot of the hill could have made such a palpable and coarse blunder.

Pierre did not know that these troops had not been stationed there for the defence of the position, as Bénigsen thought, but for the sake of a concealed ambush, that is, in order that they might remain unnoticed and could suddenly strike the advancing enemy. Bénigsen did not know it, and moved up the troops according to Iris own combinations, without saying anything to the commanderin-chief about it.

XXIV.

Prince Andréy, on that clear August evening of the 25th, lay, leaning on his arm, in a broken shed of the village of Knyàzkovo, on the edge of the position of his regiment. Through the opening of the shattered wall he was looking at a strip of thirty-year-old birches running down the fence, with their lower branches lopped off, at the field with its demolished oat-ricks, and at the shrubbery along which could be seen the smoke rising from the campfires, — the soldier kitchens.

No matter how narrow, useless, and hard his life appeared to him, he, just as seven years before at Austerhtz, felt agitated and irritated on the eve of the battle.

The orders for the next day’s battle had been given and received by him. There was nothing else to do. But the simplest, clearest, and, therefore, the most terrible thoughts gave him no rest. He knew that the impending battle was to be the most terrible of all in winch he had taken part, and the possibility of death for the first time in his life vividly, almost with certainty, clearly and terribly presented itself to his soul, without any relation to vital interest, without any reflection as to the effect it would have upon others, but only in relation to himself. And from the height of this perception that which formerly had tormented and interested him suddenly was illuminated by a cold white light, without shadows, without perspective, without distinction of contours. His whole life presented itself to him like a magic lantern, into which he had long looked through a glass and under artificial illumination. Now he suddenly saw these badly painted pictures without a glass, and in the bright daylight.

“ Yes, yes, there they are, those false images that have agitated and delighted and vexed me,” he said to himself, rummaging in his imagination through the chief pictures of Ins magic lantern of life, looking at them in this cold white light of day, the clear thought of death. ” There they are, those coarsely drawn figures, which have seemed so beautiful and so mysterious. Glory, the common good, love of woman, the fatherland itself, — how great these pictures did appear to me ! How filled with deep meaning! And all this is so simple, so pale and coarse in the cold white light of the morning which, I feel sure, is breaking for me.” Three chief sorrows of his life in particular arrested his attention : his love of a woman, the death of his father, and the French invasion, which now embraced half of Russia. ” Love ! That girl who seemed to me to be filled with some mysterious powers ! Really ! I loved her, and I made poetic plans of love and of happiness with her. — Oh, dear boy ! ” he suddenly exclaimed in anger. ” Of course ! I believed in some kind of an ideal love, which was to have preserved her faithfulness to me for a whole year of my absence. Like the gentle dove of the fable, she was to pine away for me during our separation. But it is all much simpler — It is all terribly simple and abominable !

” My father, too, built in Lÿsyya Gory, thinking that it was his place, his lands, his air, his peasants; but Napoleon came and, not knowing of his existence, pushed him off the road like a chip, and his Lÿsyya G6ry and his whole life went to pieces. Princess Mérya says that it is all a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, since he is and will be no longer? He will never be again ! He is gone. For whom, then, is this trial ? The fatherland, the ruin of Moscow ! Tomorrow I shall be killed, — not by a Frenchman even, but by a Russian, just as yesterday a soldier discharged a gun near my very ear, and the French will come, will take me by my feet and head, and will pitch me into a ditch that I may not smell under their very noses, and new conditions of life will arise, which will be just as natural to others, and I shall not know of them, and I shall be no more.”

He looked at the strip of the birches with their immovable yellow and green leafage and white bark, which glistened in the sun. ” To die — that they should kill me tomorrow — that I should not be — that everything should be, but not I ! ” He vividly presented to himself the absence of himself from this life. And these birches, with their fights and shadows, and these curly clouds, and this smoke from the campfires, — all this about him was suddenly transformed for him and appeared something terrible and threatening. A chill ran up his spine. He rose rapidly, went out of the shed, and began to walk around.

Voices were heard behind the shed.

“ Who is there ? ” Prince Andréy asked.

Red-nosed Captain Timdkhin, I)61okhov’s former commander of a company, but now, on account of the scarcity of officers, the commander of a battalion, timidly walked into the shed. An adjutant and the treasurer of the regiment came in after him.

Prince Andréy hurriedly got up, listened to what the officers had to report to him, himself gave them certain orders, and was on the point of dismissing them, when outside of the shed was heard a familiar, lisping voice.

” Que diable ! ” was heard the voice of a man, who had stumbled against something.

Looking out of the shed, Prince Andréy saw Pierre, who was advancing toward him. He had tripped up against a stick and had come very near falling. It displeased Prince Andréy to see people from his circle, especially Pierre, who reminded him of those heavy moments which he had gone through during his last stay in Moscow.

“I declare!” he said. “By what fate? I did not expect you ! “

While he was saying this, his eyes and the expression of his face were more than dry, — there was a hostility in them, and Pierre at once noticed it. He had been approaching the shed in a most agitated condition of soul, but, when he saw the expression on Prince Andréy’s countenance, he felt embarrassed and ill at ease.

” I came — you know — I came — it interests me — ” said Pierre, who on that day had so often repeated the word ” interest.” ” I wanted to see a battle.”

“Yes, yes. And what do the brother Masons say about the war? How is it to be avoided?” Prince Andréy said, sarcastically. ” Well, how is Moscow ? How are my people ? Have they, at last, arrived at Moscow ? ” he asked, seriously.

“ They have. Julie Drubetskdy told me so. I went to see them, but did not find them. They had left for the suburban estate.”

XXV.

The officers wanted to bow themselves out, but Prince Andréy, as though wishing not to be left with his friend without witnesses, proposed to them that they should sit down and drink tea. Benches and tea were brought in. The officers not without surprise looked at Pierre’s immense, stout figure, and listened to his stories about Moscow and about the disposition of our troops, which he had had occasion to examine. Prince Andréy was silent, and Ins countenance was so unpleasant that Pierre addressed the good-natured commander of the battalion Timokhin, rather than Bolkénski.

” So you have grasped the whole position of our troops?” Prince Andréy interrupted him.

“Yes, — that is, how?” said Pierre. “Not being a military man, I am unable to say that I have fully comprehended it ; still, I think I understand the general disposition.”

“Eh lien, vous êtes plus avancé que qui que cela soit” said Prince Andréy.

“ Ah ! ” said Pierre, looking in perplexity at Prince Andréy. “ What do you say about Kutuzov’s appointment ? ” he asked.

“ I was very glad to see him appointed, — that is all I know,” said Prince Andréy.

” Well, and tell me what your opinion is about Barclay de Tolly ? In Moscow they have said God knows what about him. “What do you think of him ? ”

” Ask them ! ” said Prince Andréy, pointing to the officers.

Pierre glanced at Timokhin with an inquiring, condescending smile, such as any one instinctively gave him.

” We see light, your Serenity, since his Most Serene Highness has taken his post,” said Timokhin, timidly and constantly looking at the commander of his regiment.

” How so ? ” asked Pierre.

” Take, for example, the question of wood and provender. As we were retreating from Sventsyäny, we were not permitted to touch a stick of wood, or a handful of hay, or anything else. If we do not take it, he will get it, — is it not so, your Serenity ? ” he turned to the prince. ” But no, we must not. Two officers of our regiment were court-martialled for such things. Well, since his Most Serene Highness has taken his post, these matters have become very simple. We see light — “

« Why did he prohibit it ? “

Timokhin looked around in confusion, at a loss what to say to this question. Pierre turned to Prince Andréy with the same question.

” In order not to devastate the country which we were abandoning to the enemy,” Prince Andréy said, with grim sarcasm. ” There was good reason for it : it is not right to allow the troops to pillage the country and thus get used to marauding. In Smolénsk, too, he judged correctly : he figured out that the French could walk around our position, and that they had greater forces. But he could not understand,” Prince Andréy suddenly shouted in a thin voice, as though it had broken loose, ” but he could not understand that it was the first time we were fighting there for the Russian land, that the army was possessed of a spirit such as I had never seen before, that we for two days beat off the French, and that this success increased our strength tenfold. He ordered a retreat, and all the efforts and losses were made in vain. He did not think of treason ; he tried to do everything in the best manner possible, — he reasoned everything out; but for this very reason he is of no use. He is of no use now because he reasons everything out ver)’ thoroughly and accurately, as is proper for a German. How shall I tell you ? Well, your father has a lackey, and he is a fine lackey and gratifies all his wants better than you do, and so it is all right for him to attend your father ; but if your father is dying, or ill, you will send away the lackey, and you will look after him with your own unaccustomed, awkward hands, and you will soothe him better than a skilful stranger can. Precisely this has been done with Barclay. While Russia was well, a stranger could serve it, and he made a nice minister, but the moment she is in danger, she needs a man of her own. In your clubs they have concocted a story about his being a traitor ! Having calumniated him in such a manner, they will later be ashamed of their false accusation, and from a traitor will change him to a hero or genius, which will be more unjust still. He is an honest and very precise German.”

” However, they say that he is a very skilful general,” said Pierre.

” I do not understand what is meant by a ‘ skilful general,’ ” Prince Andréy said, with a smile.

” A skilful general,” said Pierre, ” is one who foresees all eventualities — well, who guesses the thoughts of his adversary.”

“ That is impossible,” said Prince Andréy, as though that were a long settled matter.

Pierre looked at him in surprise.

” Still, they say that a war resembles a chess-board.”

“ Yes,” said Prince Andréy, ” but with this little difference, that at chess you may at every step think as much as you please, and that there you. are outside of the conditions of time, and with this other difference that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of troops cannot be known to any one. Believe me,” he said, ” that if anything depended on the dispositions of the staffs, I should be there making dispositions, whereas I have the honour of serving here, in the regiment, with these gentlemen, and I assume that tomorrow will really depend on us, and not on them — Success never has depended, and never will depend, on position, or on equipment, or even on numbers ; but least of all on position.”

” On what, then ? ”

” On that feeling which is in me, in him,” he pointed to Timdkhin, ” in every soldier.”

Prince Andréy looked at Timdkhin, who looked frightened and perplexed at his commander. In distinction to his former reserved taciturnity, Prince Andréy now seemed agitated. Apparently he could not keep from expressing the thoughts which unexpectedly came to him.

” A battle is won by him who has firmly made up his mind to win it. Why did we lose the battle at Austerlitz ? Our losses were almost equal to those of the French, but we very early said to ourselves that we had lost the battle, and so we had. And we said so because we had no business fighting there : we wanted to get away from the field of battle as soon as possible. ‘ We have lost, so we ought to run ! ‘ and we ran. If we had not said so until evening, God knows what would have happened. Tomorrow we will not say so. You say of our position that the left flank is weak, the right flank extended,” he continued, ” but that is all nonsense, — there is nothing of the kind. What awaits us tomorrow ? One hundred millions of the most varied eventualities that will be momentarily decided by their running away, or by the flight of our own men, by killing this one, or that one ; but what is being done now is mere child’s play. The trouble is that not only those with whom you have examined the position, but others too, are not doing anything to further the matter, but only retard it. They are occupied only with their own petty interests.”

“At such a moment?” Pierre said, reproachfully.

« At such a moment” repeated Prince Andréy. « For them it is only a moment when they can undermine the enemy and receive another little cross or ribbon. Let me tell you what I think of tomorrow’s battle. The two armies, the Russian and the French, of one hundred thousand men each, have assembled to fight, and the fact is that these two hundred thousand men are fighting, and those who will fight most grimly and will spare themselves least will be those who will conquer. And, if you wish, I will tell you that, no matter what may happen, no matter how they may mix matters up there, we shall win the battle tomorrow. Tomorrow, happen what may, we shall win the battle ! ”

“ This, your Serenity, is the truth, the gospel truth,” muttered Timokhin. ” Who would think of sparing himself now ? The soldiers in my battalion, will you believe it ? have had no vddka to-day. ‘ This is not the day for it,’ they say.”

All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andréy went with them back of the shed, giving his last orders to the adjutant. Pierre went up to Prince Andréy and was on the point of beginning a conversation with him, when not far from the shed the trampling of three horses was heard, and, looking in that direction, Prince Andréy recognized Wolzogen with Klausewitz, accompanied by Cossacks. They rode up close, continuing to talk, and Pierre and Andréy involuntarily heard the following sentences :

” Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben,” said one.

” 0 ja,” said the other, ” der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen,— so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privatpersonen in Achtung nehmen.”

” 0 ja,” assented the first voice.

“ Yes, im Raum verlegen ,” Prince Andréy repeated, snorting, as they passed by. “ Im Raum my father, my son, and my sister were left at Lysyya Gory. What does he care ? So you see, it is as I told you. These Germans will not win the battle tomorrow, — they will only make a mess of it as much as they can, because in their German heads there are only considerations which are not worth an empty egg-shell, while in their hearts there is lacking that which is needed tomorrow, and which is in Timokhin. They have given all Europe to him, and have come to teach us, — fine teachers ! ” he shrieked.

” So you think that tomorrow’s battle will be won ? ” asked Pierre.

“Yes, yes!” Prince Andréy replied, absent-mindedly. ” What I would do if I had power,” he began once more, ” would be not to take prisoners. All that nonsense about captives ? Nothing but chivalry. The French have destroyed my house and march to destroy Moscow ; they have insulted me, and insult me every second. They are my enemies, — they are criminals, one and all, according to my ideas. And thus reasoned Timokhin and the whole army. They ought to be executed. If they are my enemies, they cannot be my friends, no matter what they said about it at Tilsit.”

” Yes, yes,” said Pierre, looking at Prince Andréy with sparkling eyes, ” I fully agree with you ! “

The question which had been vexing Pierre the whole day, ever since he had come down from the hill at Mozhaysk, now presented itself to him quite clear and completely solved. He now understood the whole meaning and significance of this war and of the impending battle. Everything he saw on that day, all the significant, stern expressions on the faces, which he had seen in passing, were now illuminated for him by a new light. He now comprehended that latent heat of patriotism, to speak in the language of physics, which was in all those people whom he had seen, and which explained to him why all these men were preparing themselves calmly and, as it were, frivolously for death.

” No captives taken ! ” continued Prince Andréy. ” This alone would change the whole war and would make it less cruel. We have only been playing at war,— that is bad. We are acting the magnanimous persons. This magnanimity and sentimentality is like the magnanimity and sentimentality of the young lady who feels nauseated when she sees some one killing a calf : she is so good that she cannot see blood, but she devours this calf with a relish when it is properly seasoned. We are told about the rights of war, about chivalry, parliamentarism, sparing the unfortunate, and so forth. Nonsense ! I saw chivalry and parliamentarism in 1805: we were cheated, and we cheated ourselves. They pillage the houses of strangers, put in circulation counterfeit assignats, and, what is worse still, they kill my children, my father, and talk about the rules of war and magnanimity to the foe. Take no captives, but kill, or go to a certain death ! He who has come to this, as I have, through suffering — ” Prince Andréy, who had thought that it made no difference to him whether Moscow would be taken like Smolénsk, or not, suddenly stopped in the middle of his speech from the unexpected convulsion which compressed his throat. He walked up and down several times in silence, but his eyes shone feverishly, and his lip quivered, when he began to speak once more.

” If there were no magnanimity in war, we would go into it only when it was worth while to go to a certain death, as in the present case. Then there would be no war because Pdvel Ivdnych had insulted Mikhail Ivdnych. And if it were a war like the present one, it would be a

terrible war. Then the intensiveness of the troops would be different from what it is at present. Then all these Westphalians and Hessians, whom Napoleon is leading, would not follow him into Russia, and we ourselves would not go into Austria or Prussia to fight, not knowing why. War is not a pleasantry, but a very nasty piece of business, and one has to understand it, but not play war. This terrible necessity must be accepted in all austerity and seriousness. The whole thing is to throw off the lie, and let war be war, and not a play. As things now are, war is the favourite occupation of idle and frivolous people. The military profession is most honourable.

” What is war ? and what is necessary for success in military matters ? What are the habits in military circles ? The purpose of war is murder ; its tools are spying, treason, and the encouragement of treason, the ruin of the inhabitants, robbing them or stealing from them to supply the army, deceit and lies, called military ruses; the habits of the military profession are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauch, drunkenness. And yet, despite all this, it is the higher profession, which is respected by all. All the kings, except the Emperor of China, wear a military uniform, and he who has killed the greatest number of men receives the greatest honours.

” They come together, as they will tomorrow, to kill each other; they will kill and maim tens of thousands, and then they will have thanksgiving services for having killed a big lot of men (the number of winch they are still increasing) and they proclaim the victory, assuming that the greater the number they have killed, the greater their deserts. How God looks at them from there, and listens to their talk ! ” Prince Andréy shouted in a thin, squeaky voice. ” Oh, my soul, of late it has become a hard matter for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. It is not good for man to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, it is not for long ! ” he added.

” But you are sleeping, and it is time for me to go. Go to Gdrki ! ” Prince Andréy suddenly said.

” Oh, no ! ” Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrey with frightened and compassionate eyes.

” Go, go ! Before a battle one must sleep well,” repeated Prince Andrey. He rapidly walked over to Pierre, embraced him, and kissed him. « Goodbye ! Go ! ” he cried. ” Whether we shall see each other again, or not — ” and, turning abruptly around, he went into the shed.

It was dark, and Pierre could not make out the expression on Prince Audrey’s face, whether it was grim or tender.

Pierre stood for a little while in silence, reflecting whether he had better follow Prince Andréy, or go home. ” No, he does not want me ! ” Pierre decided, “and I know that it is our last meeting.” He drew a deep breath and drove back to Gérki.

Upon returning to the shed, Prince Andréy lay down on a carpet, but could not fall asleep.

He closed his eyes. One series of pictures gave way to another. On one of these he for a long time dwelt with pleasure. He vividly recalled an evening at St. Petersburg. Natdsha was telling him with an animated, agitated face, how the previous summer she had lost her way in a big forest, while looking for mushrooms. She incoherently described to him the thicket and her feeling, and a conversation which she had with the beekeeper, whom she met, and every moment interrupting her story, she kept saying, ” No, I can’t, — I am not telling it right : no, you do not understand ! ” although Prince Andrey kept assuring her that he did understand, and indeed did understand all she meant to say. Natasha was dissatisfied with her words, — she felt that she did not succeed in manifesting that intensely poetic sensation which she had experienced on that day, and which she wished to convey to him. “ It was so charming : that old man, and the darkness in the woods — and he had such good — no, I can’t tell it,” she said, blushing and agitated. Prince Andrey now smiled the same joyous smile he had smiled then, looking into her eyes. ” I understood her,” thought Prince Andréy. ” I not only understood her, but this very power of her soul, this sincerity, this frankness, this soul of hers, which seemed to bind her body, this very soul I loved in her — oh, so strongly, so happily — ” And suddenly he recalled the end of his love. He did not need anything of that. He did not see, nor understand anything. He saw in her a pretty and untouched girl, with whom he did not think it worth while uniting his fate. But I ? And he is still alive and happy.

Prince Andréy leaped up as though some one had scalded him, and once more began to pace up and down in the shed.

XXVI.

Ox August 25th, on the eve of the battle of Borodind, the prefect of the palace of the French Emperor, M. de Beausset, and Colonel Fad vier, came, the first from Paris, the second from Madrid, to see Emperor Napoleon in his halting-place at Valuevo.

Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a package for the emperor to be carried before him, and entered the first division of Napoleon’s tent, where, conversing with Napoleon’s adjutants, who surrounded him, he busied himself with opening the box.

Fab vier did not come into the tent, but stopped at its entrance to talk with such of the generals as he knew.

Emperor Napoleon had not yet come out of his sleeping-room and was finishing his toilet. Snorting and grunting, he turned now his fat back, and now Iris hirsute, fleshy breast toward the brush, with which his valet was rubbing his body. Another valet, holding his finger on a bottle, was spraying eau de Cologne on the emperor’s well-groomed body, with an expression which said that he alone could tell how much eau de Cologne was to be sprayed, and on what parts of the body. Napoleon’s short hair was wet and matted over his brow. But his face, though puffed up and sallow, expressed physical pleasure : “ Allez ferine, allez toujours ! ” he kept saying to the valet who was rubbing him, compressing himself and grunting during the operation. An adjutant, who had entered the sleeping-room in order to report to the emperor how many prisoners had been taken in the engagement of the day before, having transmitted what was necessary, was standing at the door and waiting for permission to leave. Napoleon, frowning, looked stealthily at the adjutant.

” Point de prisonniers,” he repeated the words of the adjutant. t(Jls se font démolir. Tant pis pour farmee russe? he said. “Allez toujours, allez ferme? he muttered, bending his back and offering his fat shoulders.

” C ’est bien ! Faites entrer M. Beausset, ainsi que Fabvier? he said to the adjutant, nodding his head.

“ Oui, Sire,” and the adjutant disappeared through the door of the tent.

The two valets quickly dressed his Majesty, and, wearing his blue uniform of the Guard, he walked with rapid steps into the reception-room.

Beausset was busy with his hands, placing the empress’s present, which he had brought with him, on two chairs, exactly in front of the entrance. But the emperor had dressed himself so unexpectedly fast and had come out so soon, that he had no time to finish arranging the surprise.

Napoleon noticed at once what they were doing and divined that they were not yet ready. He did not want to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him a surprise. He acted as though he did not see M. Beausset, and called up Fabvier. Napoleon, scowling, listened in silence to what Fabvier was telling him about the bravery and devotion of his troops who had been fighting at Salamanca, at the other end of Europe, and who had had but one thought, — to be worthy of their emperor, — and one fear, — not to please him. The result of the battle was a sad one. Napoleon made ironical remarks during Fabvier’s story, as though he could not have expected things to have gone otherwise during his absence.

” I must mend this in Moscow,” said Napoleon. ” A tantôt? he added. He called up Beausset, who by that time had finished the arrangement of the surprise, having placed something on the chairs, and covered it with a sheet.

Beausset bowed low with that low bow of a French courtier, which only the old servants of the Bourbons knew how to make, and walked up, handing him an envelope.

Napoleon turned cheerily to him and pulled his ear.

“You have hurried up, I am glad of it. What does Paris say ? ” he said, suddenly changing his stern expression to one of great kindness.

” Sire, tout Paris regrette votre absence? Beausset replied, as was proper.

Although Napoleon knew that Beausset was going to tell him this, or something similar to it, although he knew in his lucid moments that that was not true, it gave him pleasure to hear it from Beausset. He again honoured him with a touch of his ear.

” Je suis fâché de vous avoir fait faire tant de chemin? he said.

” Sire ! Je ne m’attendais pas à moins qu’à vous trouver aux portes de Moscou? said Beausset.

Napoleon smiled and, absent-mindedly raising his head, looked to the right. An adjutant walked up with a gliding motion, holding in his hand a gold snuffbox, which he offered to Napoleon. Napoleon took it.

“ Yes, things have turned out well for you,” he said, taking the open snuffbox up to his nose. ” You like to travel, and in three days you will see Moscow. You, no doubt, had not expected to see the Asiatic capital. You will have made a pleasant journey.”

Beausset bowed in gratitude for tliis attention to his proneness to travel, which was new to him.

” Ah ! What is this ? ” said Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were looking at that which was covered up with a sheet. Beausset, with a courtier’s agility, without showing his back, took two steps back in a semicircle and at the same time pulled off the cover, saying, “ A present for your majesty from the empress.”

It was a painting in glaring colours, by Gérard, representing the boy born of Napoleon and the daughter of the Austrian emperor, whom all for some reason called the King of Rome.

The very pretty, curly-headed boy, with a look resembling that of Christ in the painting of the Sistine Madonna, was represented as playing bilboquet. The ball represented the terrestrial sphere, and the cup in the other hand was formed as a sceptre.

Although it was not quite clear what the painter meant to express by representing the so-called King of Rome as sticking the stick through the earth-ball, the allegory had seemed quite clear and acceptable to all who had seen it in Paris, even as it now pleased Napoleon.

“Roi de Rome” he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful gesture of his hand. ” Admirable ! ” With that ability so characteristic of the Italians, of changing the expression of his face at will, he walked over to the portrait and assumed the aspect of meditative tenderness. He felt that what he should now say and do would be history. And it seemed to him that the best thing to be done was for him, with his majesty, by virtue of which his son was playing bilboquet with the terrestrial sphere, to show, in contradistinction to this majesty, the simplest paternal tenderness. His eyes became dimmed, he moved up, he looked around for a chair (which sprang underneath him), and sat down opposite the portrait. One gesture of his, and all went out on tiptoe, leaving him to himself and to his feeling — of a great man.

Having remained for some time in a sitting posture and having for some reason fingered the rough touches of light on the portrait, he rose and again called Beausset and the adjutant of the day. He ordered the portrait to be taken out in front of the tent, in order not to deprive the old Guard, which stood near the tent, of the happiness of seeing the King of Rome and the heir of their adored emperor.

And, indeed, as he had expected, while he was breakfasting with Beausset, who was honoured this way, there were heard in front of the tent the enthusiastic shouts of the officers and soldiers of the old Guard, who ran up to see the portrait.

” Vive l’Empereur ! Vive le Roi de Rome ! Vive l’Empereur ! ” were heard the voices of transport.

After breakfast, Napoleon, in the presence of Beausset, dictated his order of the day to the army.

” Courte et énergique ! ” said Napoleon, as he himself read the proclamation which was written down at once without corrections. The order ran as follows:

” Warriors ! Here is the battle which you have been wishing for so much. The victory depends on you. It is necessary for us ; it will supply us with everything we need, with comfortable quarters, and an early return to your country. Act as you acted at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolénsk ! Let the remotest posterity recall your deeds of this day ! Let them say of each of you : He was at the great battle near Moscow ! “

” De la Moskowa ! ” repeated Napoleon, and, inviting Beausset, who liked to travel, to accompany him on his promenade, he left the tent and went up to the saddled horses.

” Votre Majesté a trop de bonté” said Beausset, in response to the emperor’s invitation to accompany him : he wanted to sleep, and he did not know how to ride and was afraid to mount a horse.

But Napoleon nodded to the traveller, and Beausset was compelled to ride. As Napoleon left the tent, the shouts of the soldiers of the Guard in front of the portrait of his son increased. Napoleon frowned.

“ Take it down ! ” he said, pointing to the portrait with

a gracefully majestic gesture. ” It is too early yet for him to see a field of battle.”

Beausset, closing his eyes and lowering his head, heaved a deep sigh, showing by this gesture that he knew how to appreciate and understand the words of the emperor.

XXVII.

All this day, on the 25th of August, the historians say, Napoleon passed on horseback, examining the locality, considering the plans, which his marshals presented to him, and personally giving commands to his generals.

The original line of the position of the Russian troops, along the Koldcha, was broken, and part of tins line, namely the left flank of the Russians, was carried back, on account of the loss of the Shevardind redoubt, on the 24th. This part of the line was not fortified, no longer protected by the river, and before it alone was there a more open and level place. It was evident to every military and non-military man that the French would attack this particular spot. It looked as though it did not take much consideration, that there was no need of such care and worry on the part of the emperor and the marshals, and none of that especial, higher ability, called genius, which one is so apt to ascribe to Napoleon ; but the historians, who later described this event, and the people, who then surrounded Napoleon, and he himself, thought differently.

Napoleon rode down the field, thoughtfully looked at the locality, approvingly or incredulously shook his head to himself, and, without communicating to Ins generals that thoughtful march of ideas which guided his decisions, transmitted to them only the final conclusions in the shape of commands. Having listened to the plan of Dav out, called the Duke of Eckmühl, which was to surround the left flank of the Russians, Napoleon said that this need not be done, without explaining why. To the

proposition of General Compans (who was to attack the flèches) to take his division through the woods, Napoleon gave his assent, although the so-called Duke of Elchingen, that is, Ney, took the liberty of remarking that the movement through the forest was dangerous and might disorganize the division.

Having examined the locality opposite the Shevardino redoubt, Napoleon reflected for a few minutes in silence, and pointed out the places where by the next day two batteries were to be erected, to act against the Russian fortifications, and the places beside them where the field artillery was to be erected.

Having given this and similar orders, he returned to his halting-place, and under his dictation the disposition of the battle was written.

This disposition, of which French historians speak with enthusiasm, and other historians with profound respect, ran as follows :

« At daybreak two new batteries, erected in the night in the plain occupied by the Prince of Eckmühl, shall open fire on the two opposing batteries of the enemy.

” At the same time the commander of the artillery of the first corps, General Pernetti, with thirty pieces of ordnance of Compans’s division, and with all the howitzers of Dessaix and Friant’s division, shall move forward, open fire, and overwhelm with grenades the enemy’s battery, against which will act : twenty-four guns of the artillery of the Guard, thirty guns of Compans’s division, and eight guns of Friant and Dessaix’s division ; in all, sixty-two guns.

” The commander of the artillery of the 3d corps, General Fouché, shall place all the howitzers of the 3d and 8th corps, sixteen in all, along the flanks of the battery which shall fire on the left fortification, which will have forty guns in all directed against it.

” General Sorbier must be ready, at the first signal, to advance with all the howitzers of the artillery of the Guard against the one or the other of the fortifications.

“ During the cannonade, Prince Poniatowski shall move against the village into the forest, and shall outflank the enemy’s position.

” General Compans shall advance through the forest, to get possession of the first fortification.

“After entering thus into battle, orders will be given in conformity with the movements of the enemy.

” The cannonade on the left flank shall begin the moment the cannonade of the right wing is heard. The riflemen of Morand’s division and of the division of the viceroy shall open a strong fire when they see the beginning of the attack by the right wing.

” The viceroy shall take possession of the village and pass by its three bridges, following on the same height with the divisions of Morand and Gérard, which, under his guidance, shall advance to the redoubt and enter into a line with the remaining troops of the army.

” All this shall be done in an orderly and methodical manner, sparing as far as possible the troops in the reserve.

” In the imperial camp, near Mozhaysk, September 6th, 1812.”

This disposition, written in a very confused manner, if it be permitted to refer to Napoleon’s orders without any religious terror before his genius, contained four points, — four distinct dispositions. Not one of them could be executed, and not one of them was executed.

In the disposition it says, in the first place, that the ‘batteries erected in a place especially chosen by Napoleon, with the ordnance of Pernetti and Fouché lined up with them, in all 102 guns, should open fire and overwhelm the Russian flèches and redoubts with projectiles. This could not be done, because from the places chosen by Napoleon the projectiles could not reach the Russian works, and these 102 guns kept wasting their ammunition until the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon’s order, moved them forward.

The second arrangement was that Poniatowski, moving against the village into the forest, should surround the left wing of the Russians. This could not have been done, and it was not done, because Poniatowski, moving into the forest against the village, there met Tuchkov, who barred his way, and he could not surround, and did not surround, the Russian position.

The third arrangement : General Compans shall move into the forest to take possession of the first fortification. Oompans’s division did not take possession of the first fortification, but was repelled because, upon emerging from the forest, it had to be drawn up under a fire of grape-shot, which Napoleon did not know of.

The fourth : The viceroy shall take jwssession of the village (Borodind) and pass by its three bridges, following on the same height with the divisions of Morand and Friant (as to whither and when these latter should move, nothing is said), which, lender his guidance, shall advance to the redoubt and enter into a line with the remaining troops of the army.

As much as can be made out, if not from this senseless period, at least from the attempts made by the viceroy to execute the orders which he had received, he was to have moved through Borodino to the left, against the redoubt, while the divisions of Morand and Friant were to have moved simultaneously from the front.

All this, like the other points of the disposition, was not, and could not have been, executed. Upon passing through Borodino, the viceroy was beaten off at the Ko-Idcha, and was unable to proceed ; while the divisions of Morand and Friant did not take the redoubt, but were repelled, and the redoubt was taken only at the end of the battle by the cavalry (apparently an unforeseen and unheard-of tiring for Napoleon). And thus not one of the plans of the disposition was, nor could have been, executed. But in the disposition it says that, after entering thus into battle, other orders would be given, in conformity with the actions of the enemy, and so it might have seemed that Napoleon would give all the necessary orders during the battle ; but that did not happen, and could not have happened because during the battle Napoleon was so far away from it that (as was actually proven later) the course of the battle could not have been known to him, and not one of his orders could have been executed during the battle.

XXVIII.

Many historians say that the battle of Borodind was not won by the French because Napoleon had a cold in his head, that, if he had not had a cold, his orders before and during the battle would have been more ingenious still, and Russia would have perished, ” et la face du ‘inonde eut été changée.” For the historians, who recognize that Russia was formed by the will of one man, Peter the Great, and that France from a republic naturally grew into an empire, and that the French troops entered Russia by the will of one man, — Napoleon, such reasoning as this, that Russia remained powerful because on the 26th Napoleon had a cold, is inevitable and consistent.

If it depended on Napoleon’s will to give or not to give the battle of Borodino, or to make this or that arrangement, then it is evident that a cold, which had an influence on the manifestation of his will, could have been the cause of Russia’s salvation, and that, therefore, the valet who on the 24th forgot to hand Napoleon a pair of watertight boots was the saviour of Russia. By this manner of reasoning the deduction is incontestable ; just as incontestable as that other deduction which Voltaire made jesting (himself not knowing at what), when he said that the night of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX.’s disordered stomach. But for people who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of the one man, Peter the Great, and that the French empire was formed, and the war with Russia started, by the will of one man, Napoleon, this reasoning not only presents itself as faulty and unreasonable, but also as contrary to all human existence. To the question what forms the cause of historical events there presents itself another answer, which consists in assuming that the march of terrestrial events is predestined from above, depends on the coincidence of all the wills of the men who take part in these events, and that the influence of Napoleon’s on the march of these events is only external and fictitious.

However strange it may seem at first sight to assume that the night of St. Bartholomew, for which Charles IX. gave the order, did not take place by his will, and that he only thought that he gave the order for it, and that the Borodind slaughter of eighty thousand men did not take place by the will of Napoleon (although he gave the orders for the beginning and the progress of the battle), but that he only thought that he was its author, — however strange this supposition may seem, yet that human dignity, which tells me that each of us, if not more, is certainly not less, than any Napoleon, compels me to admit this solution of the question, and historical investigations amply confirm this assumption.

At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at nobody and killed nobody. The soldiers did all that. Consequently it is not he who killed men.

The soldiers of the French army went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodind, not on account of Napoleon’s order, but by their own will. The whole army, — the French, Italians, Germans, Poles, — hungry, ragged, and weary from their marches, felt, at the sight of the army which barred their way to Moscow, that “ le vin est tiré et qu’il faut le Loire.” If Napoleon had forbidden their fighting the Russians, they would have killed him and would have proceeded to fight them, because they needed to do so.

When they heard Napoleon’s order of the day, which, to console them for their maimed bodies and for death, offered them the words of posterity that they, too, had been in the battle near Moscow, they shouted, ” Vive VEmpereur ! ” just as they had shouted ” Vive VEmpereur ! ” at the sight of the representation of the boy sticking the bilboquet stick through the globe, and just as they would have shouted, ” Vive l’Empereur ! ” at any trifle said to them. There was nothing left for them to do but to call, ” Vive l’Empereur ! ” and to proceed to fight, in order to find the food and rest of victors in Moscow. Consequently they did not kill their like on account of Napoleon’s orders.

Nor did Napoleon guide the battle, because nothing mentioned in his disposition was carried out, and because during the battle he did not know what was going on in front of him. Consequently, even the manner in which the people killed each other did not take place according to Napoleon’s will, but independently of it, by the will of hundreds of thousands of men who took part in the general engagement. It only seemed to Napoleon that all this affair was taking place by his will. Consequently the question whether Napoleon had, or had not, a cold in his head, is of no greater interest to history than the question of the last soldier of the baggagetrain.

On the 26th of August, Napoleon’s cold was of still less importance, since the assertions of the writers that Napoleon’s cold was the cause of the disposition and the orders during the battle, which were not as good as former dispositions and orders, are quite untrue.

The disposition given above is by no means worse, but even better, than all former dispositions by which battles had been won. But this disposition and the orders only seem worse than before because the battle of Borodind was the first which Napoleon had not won. All the most beautiful and profound dispositions and orders appear very bad, and every learned military man criticises them with a knowing look, when the battle to which they refer is not won ; and the worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious men use whole volumes to prove the advantages of such bad orders, when the battles are won with them.

The disposition composed by Weyrother at the battle of Austerlitz was a sample of perfection in compositions of this kind, but it was, nevertheless, condenmed on the ground of its perfection, of its minute details.

At the battle of Borodino Napoleon carried on his business as a representative of power just as well and even better than at other battles. lie did nothing injurious to the course of the battle ; he looked favourably on the more sensible opinions ; he did not become confused, nor contradict himself, did not get frightened, and did not run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and experience of war calmly and worthily carried on his rôle of a seeming commander.

XXIX.

Upon returning from his second thoughtful ride along the line, Napoleon said :

” The chessmen are on the board, — the game will begin tomorrow.”

Ordering a glass of punch and calling up Beausset, he began with him a conversation on Paris, on certain changes which he intended to make in the “maison de ï Impératrice” surprising the prefect by his memory for the minutest details of the relations of the court.

He was interested in trifles, joked Beausset on account of his love of travel, and chattered nonchalantly, like a famous, confident, skilful operator, when he rolls up his sleeves and puts on his apron, and the patient is tied to the cot. ” The whole business is in my hands and head, — clearly and definitely. When the time comes to do the business, I will do it better than anybody else, but now I may joke, and the more I jest and am self-possessed, the more you will be at your ease, and calm, and surprised at my genius.”

Having emptied his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to take a rest before the serious business which, so he thought, awaited him on the morrow.

He was so much interested in this impending matter, that he was unable to sleep, and, in spite of the cold which increased in the evening dampness, at three o’clock he went out into the large division of the tent, loudly clearing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had not departed. He was told that the campfires of the enemy were still in the same places. He nodded his head approvingly.

The adjutant of the day entered the tent.

” Eh bien, Rapp, croyez-vous que nous ferons de bonnes affaires aujourd’hui ? ” he turned to him.

” Sans aucune doute, Sire,” replied Rapp.

Napoleon looked at him.

” Vous rappelez-vous, Sire, ce que vous m’avez fait l’honneur de dire à Smolensk,” said Rapp, ” le vin est tire, il faut le boire.”

Napoleon frowned and for a long time sat in silence, dropping his head on his arms.

« Cette pauvre armée,” he suddenly said, “ elle a bien diminué depuis Smolensk. la fortune est une franche courtisane, Rapp ; je le disais toujours, et je commence à l’éprouver. Mais la garde, Rapp, la garde est intacte ? ” he said, interrogatively.

” Oui, Sire,” replied Rapp.

Napoleon took a little pastille, put it in his mouth, and looked at his watch. He did not feel like sleeping, and it was yet long till morning ; to kill time he could not give any more orders, because they had all been given and were being executed.

” A-t-on distribué les biscuits et le riz aux régiments de la garde ? ” Napoleon asked, sternly.

” Oui, Sire.”

“ Mais le riz ? ”

Rapp replied that he had transmitted the emperor’s command about the rice, but Napoleon looked dissatisfied and shook his head, as though he did not believe that his order had been carried out. A servant came in with some punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought in for Rapp and silently sipped swallows of his punch.

” I have neither taste, nor smell,” he said, sniffing at his glass. ” I am tired of this cold. They talk about medicine. What kind of medicine is it, since they cannot cure a cold ! Corvisart gave me these pastilles, but they do me no good. What can they cure ? You can’t cure. Notre corps est une machine à vivre. Il est organise pour cela, cost sa nature ; laissez-y la vie à son aise, qu’elle s’y défende elle-même ; elle fera plus que si vous la paralysiez en l’encombrant de remèdes. Notre corps est comme une montre parfaite qui doit aller un certain temps; l’horloger n’a pas la faculté de l’ouvrir, il ne peut la manier qu’à tâtons et les yeux bandés. Notre corps est une machine à vivre, voilà tout” and suddenly Napoleon, as though he had entered upon the path of definitions, of which he was fond, made a new, unexpected definition.

” Do you know, Rapp, what the military art is ? ” he asked. ” It is the art of being at a given moment stronger than your enemy. Voilà tout.”

Rapp made no reply.

“ Demain nous allons avoir affaire à Koutouzoff !” said Napoleon. ” Let us see. You remember, at Braunau he commanded the army, and in three weeks he did not once mount a horse to examine the fortifications. We shall see ! “

He looked at his watch. It was only four o’clock. He could not sleep; the punch-bowl was emptied, and yet there was nothing to do. He rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm coat and his hat, and left the tent. It was a dark, damp night ; a scarcely perceptible mist was settling down. The campfires near by, of the French Guard, did not burn briskly, and in the distance, through the smoke, they glistened along the Russian line. There was calm everywhere, and he could clearly hear the bustle and tramp of the French troops in motion, getting ready to take up their positions.

Napoleon walked up and down in front of his tent, looked at the fires, listened to the trampling, and, passing by a tall Guardsman in a shaggy hat, who was standing sentry at his tent, and who straightened himself up like a black post at the appearance of the emperor, he stopped in front of him.

“ Since what year have you been in the service ? ” he asked, with that customary affectation of a coarse and kindly militarism, with which he always addressed his soldiers. The soldier answered him.

” Ah ! un des vieux ! Have they received the rice in the regiment ? ”

” They have, your Majesty ! “

Napoleon nodded his head and walked away from him.

At half-past five, Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardind.

Day was beginning to break ; the sky had cleared up, and only one cloud lay in the east. The abandoned campfires were going out in the dim light of the morning.

On the right resounded a solitary, hollow cannon report which passed by and died amidst the general silence. A few minutes went by. There resounded a second, a third report, and the air shook ; a fourth and a fifth rang out near by and solemnly somewhere on the right.

The first reports had not yet died away, when others were heard, again and again, blending and interrupting each other.

Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardind redoubt and dismounted from his horse. The game had begun.

XXX.

Having returned to Gdrki after seeing Prince Andréy, Pierre gave his groom the order to get the horses ready and to wake him early in the morning, and at once fell asleep back of the partition, in the corner which Boris had turned over to him.

When Pierre awoke fully on the next morning, there was no one in the hut. The panes rattled in the small windows. The groom was standing near him, trying to rouse him.

“Your Serenity, your Serenity, your Serenity — ” the groom kept repeating, without looking at Pierre and stubbornly shaking him by the shoulder, apparently having, lost all hope of ever waking him.

” What ? Has it begun ? Is it time ? ” Pierre muttered, waking up.

“You hear the firing,” said the groom, an ex-soldier. ” All the gentlemen have gone out, and his Most Serene Highness passed by long ago.”

Pierre dressed himself hurriedly and ran out on the porch. Without, it was clear, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from a cloud which had shrouded it, sent forth its gleaming rays, that were halfbroken by the cloud, over the roofs of the street opposite upon the dew-covered dust of the road, upon the walls of the houses, upon the windows of the fence, and upon Pierre’s horses that were standing near the hut. The boom of the guns could be heard more distinctly in the yard. An adjutant with his Cossack galloped down the street.

“ It is time, count, it is time ! ” shouted the adjutant.

Ordering his groom to lead the horse after him, Pierre went along the street up to the mound, from which, the day before, he had surveyed the field of battle. On this mound there was a mass of military men and the French conversation of the officers of the staff could be heard, and Kutuzov’s gray head could be seen, with his white, red-visored cap and gray occiput disappearing between his shoulders. Kutuzov was looking through a field-glass down the highway.

Walking up the steps of the entrance on the mound, Pierre looked ahead of him, and stood as though petrified in contemplation of the beautiful spectacle. It was the same panorama which he had enjoyed the day before on this mound ; but now this whole locality was covered with troops and with the smoke of the discharges, and the slanting rays of the bright sun, which rose to the left and back of Pierre, cast upon it in the pure morning air a piercing light with a gold and rose-coloured shade and long, dark shadows. The distant forests, which completed the panorama, as though cut out of a precious yellow and green stone, could be seen with their winding crests of tree-tops against the horizon, and between them and back of Valuevo ran the Smolénsk highway, which was all covered with troops. Closer at hand glistened the golden fields and wolds. Everywhere, in front, on the right, and on the left, could be seen masses of soldiers. All this was animated, majestic, and unexpected ; but what most interested Pierre was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodind, and of the ravine on both sides of the Koldcha.

Over the Koldcha, in Borodino, and on both sides of it, especially to the left, where, between swampy banks, the Vdyna falls into the Koldcha, there hovered that mist which melts, scatters, and becomes transparent at the appearance of the bright sun, and magically colours and delineates everything which can be seen through it. To this mist was added the smoke of the discharges, and through this mist and smoke gleamed the flashes of the morning light, now on the water, now on the dew, and now on the bayonets of the troops collected along the banks and at Borodind. Through this mist could be seen a white church and a few roofs of the huts at Borodino, or serried ranks of soldiers, or green caissons and ordnance. And all this was in motion, or seemed to be, because the mist and smoke extended through all this space. Just as in this mist-covered locality of the lowlands about Borodino, so also outside of it, above and especially to the left of the whole line, over the forests, over the fields, in the lowlands, on the eminences, there constantly rose out of nothing, and of their own accord, puffs of cannon-smoke, now singly, now in masses, now light, now dense, and they, swelling, growing, whirling, blending, could be seen over the whole extent of space.

The smoke of the discharges and, strange to say, their sound produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.

” Puff ! ” suddenly appeared the round, dense smoke, iridescent in lilac, gray, and milk-white colours, and, ” Boom ! ” a second later resounded the peal that accompanied that smoke.

“ Puff, puff ! ” two clouds of smoke arose, driving each other and blending ; and, ” Boom, boom ! ” the sounds confirmed what the eye saw.

Pierre looked at the first smoke, which he had left a round, solid ball, and already there were in its place smaller balls drawing sidewise, and, ” Puff ! ” — (after an interval) “ Puff, puff ! ” there arose three more, and four, and to each of these, with the same intervals, ” Boom — boom, boom ! ” replied the beautiful, firm, precise sounds. It looked now as though these clouds of smoke were racing, and now again as though they were standing still, and that the fields, forests, and shining bayonets were running. On the left side, over the fields and bushes, constantly originated these large clouds of smoke with their solemn echoes, and nearer still, in the lowlands and in the woods, puffed up small clouds of smoke, which did not get a chance to whirl into circles, — the smoke from the muskets, and they, too, produced their little echoes. ” Trakh-ta-ta-takh ! ” crackled the guns, in frequent but irregular succession, and faint in comparison with the reports of the ordnance.

Pierre wanted to be down where these clouds of smoke were, these shining bayonets, this motion, these sounds. He looked at Kutuzov and at his suite, to verify his impressions by those of the rest. All were looking like him at the field of battle ahead of them, and, as he thought, they experienced the same sensations. On all the faces now gleamed that latent heat of feeling which Pierre had observed the day before, and which he had come to comprehend fully after his conversation with Prince Andréy.

” Go, my dear, go, and may Christ protect you,” Kutuzov said to a general who was standing near him, without taking his eyes off the field of battle.

Having heard the command, this general passed by Pierre, on his way down the mount.

” To the ford! ” the general said, sternly and coldly, in reply to the question of one of the officers of the staff as to where he was going.

” I too, I too,” thought Pierre, and went in the direction of the general.

The general mounted his horse, which a Cossack brought up to him. Pierre went to his groom, who was holding his horses. Asking which of them was most gentle, Pierre climbed on the horse, took hold of the mane, pressed the heels of his outward-toed feet against the horse’s belly and, feeling that his glasses were falling down and that

he was not able to take his hands off the mane and reins, he galloped after the general, provoking smiles among the officers of the staff, who looked down on him from the mound.

XXXI.

The general, behind whom Pierre was galloping, turned sharply to the left, after reaching the foot of the hill, and Pierre, having lost sight of him, galloped into the ranks of infantry soldiers, who were marching in front of him. He tried to ride out ahead, and to the left, and to the right ; but everywhere were soldiers whose thoughtful faces seemed to be occupied with some invisible, but apparently important matter. All of them cast the same dissatisfied and inquiring glances at this stout man in the white hat, who, no one knew why, was crushing them with his horse.

” What is he doing here in the midst of the battalion ! ” shouted one. Another struck his horse with the butt of his gun, and Pierre, pressing against the saddle-bow and with difficulty checking bis startled mount, galloped out in front of the soldiers, where there was an open space.

In front of him was a bridge, and at the bridge stood other soldiers who were firing off their guns. Pierre rode up to them. Without knowing it, Pierre had ridden up to the bridge over the Koldcha, which was between Gdrki and Borodino, and which the French, having occupied Borodind, were attacking in the first action of the battle. Pierre saw that the bridge was in front of him, and that on both sides of it, in the meadow, the soldiers were doing something in the rows of mown hay, which he had not observed through the smoke on the previous day ; but, in spite of the incessant fusilade which took place in this spot, it never occurred to him that it was a field of battle.

He did not hear the sounds of the bullets that pinged on all sides, nor of the projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy, who was on the other side of the river, and for a long time did not see the killed and the wounded, though many fell but a short distance from him. He looked about him with a smile which did not leave his face.

” Why is this man riding in front of the line ? ” somebody shouted at him.

” To the left ! Keep to the right ! ” they called out to him.

Pierre turned to the right and unexpectedly fell in with an acquaintance, — an adjutant of General Baévski. This adjutant looked angrily at Pierre, apparently getting himself ready to shout at him, but, upon recognizing him, he nodded his head to him.

“ What are you doing here ? ” he said, riding along.

Pierre, who felt himself out of place there and without any definite work, and fearing lest he should again be in somebody’s way, galloped after the adjutant.

“ What is tins here ? May I ride with you ? ” he asked.

“Directly, directly,” replied the adjutant, and, after riding up to a fat colonel who was standing in the meadow, and telling him something, he again turned to Pierre.

” Why did you come down here, count ? ” he said to him, with a smile. “ Are you still curious ? ”

” Yes, yes,” said Pierre.

But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.

” Here it is passable,” said the adjutant, ” but at the left flank, where Bagratidn is, there is a terrible fire.”

” Really ? ” asked Pierre. ” Where is that ? “

” Gome with me to the mound, — from there you can see it. It is still bearable in our battery,” said the adjutant.

“ Yes, I will ride with you,” said Pierre, looking about him and trying to find his groom. It was then that Pierre for the first time saw wounded soldiers, tottering along, or carried in stretchers. On the very meadow with the redolent rows of hay, over which he had ridden the day before, a soldier, with his shako knocked off, was lying motionless across the rows. ” Why has not this one been picked up ? ” Pierre began, but, upon noticing the stern face of the adjutant, who was looking in the same direction, he stopped.

Pierre did not find his groom, and he rode with the adjutant through the lowlands and along the ravine to Raévski’s Mound. Pierre’s horse fell behind the adjutant and evenly jolted him.

” You are evidently not accustomed to riding, count ‘ ” said the adjutant.

“ No, I do not mind it, but the horse is leaping dreadfully,” Pierre said, in perplexity.

” Oho ! Why, it is wounded,” said the adjutant, ” in the right fore leg, above the knee. No doubt, a bullet. I congratulate you, count,” he said, ” le baptême du feu.”

After riding through the smoke along the sixth corps, behind the artillery, winch, having been moved forward, was firing off the guns and deafening everything with their discharges, they rode up to a small forest. The woods were cool and calm, and redolent with the autumn. Pierre and the adjutant got down from their horses and ascended the hill on foot.

“ Is the general here ? ” asked the adjutant, walking up to the mound.

“He was here a moment ago ; he rode off in this direction,” somebody replied, pointing to the right.

The adjutant looked at Pierre, as though not knowing what to do with him now.

“ Do not trouble yourself,” said Pierre. ” I will go to the mound, if I may.”

” Yes, do go ! Everything is visible from there, and it is safe there. I will come for you.”

Pierre went to the battery, and the adjutant rode away. They did not see each other again, and only much later did Pierre learn that on that day the adjutant had his arm torn off.

The mound to which Pierre went was that famous place (which later became known to the Russians under the name of the Mound Battery, or Raévski’s Battery, while the Frenchmen knew it under the name of ” la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre “) around which fell tens of thousands, and which the French regarded as the most important point of the position.

This redoubt consisted of a mound, on three sides of which ditches had been dug. In the place which was surrounded by the ditches stood ten firing guns, placed in the embrasures of the ramparts.

On the same line with the mound, guns were placed on both sides, and they, too, kept up a cannonade. A little back of the guns stood infantry troops. Upon ascending this mound, Pierre did not think that this small, ditch-bordered mound, from which a few guns were firing shot, was the most important place of the battle.

On the contrary, Pierre thought that this place (even because he happened to be there) was one of the most insignificant spots of the battle.

Having ascended the mound, Pierre sat down at the end of the ditch which surrounded the battery, and with an unconscious smile of joy looked at what was taking place about him. Now and then Pierre got up, still with the same smile on his lips, and walked up and down along the battery, trying to keep out of the way of the soldiers who loaded and planted the guns, and who kept running past him with cartouches and with shot. The guns on this battery were continually discharged one after another, drowning everything with their sounds and shrouding the whole locality with their powder smoke.

In contradistinction to that uneasy feeling experienced among the infantry soldiers of the epaulement, here, in the battery, where the small number of busily occupied men was limited and separated from the rest by the ditches, there was abroad a universal, so to speak, a family animation.

The appearance of Pierre’s unsoldierlike figure, in his white hat, at first gave these men a disagreeable sensation. The soldiers, passing by him, looked askance at his figure in surprise and even fear. The senior officer of artillery, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, walked over to Pierre, as though intending to look at the action of the farthest gun, and cast a curious glance at him.

A very young, round-faced officer, a mere child yet, who evidently had just been let out from the military school, and who looked very carefully after the two guns entrusted to him, sternly addressed Pierre.

“ Sir, permit me to ask you to get out of the way,” he said to him. ” Nobody is allowed here.”

The soldiers shook their heads in disapproval, as they looked at Pierre. But when they convinced themselves that this man in the white hat did no harm and calmly sat on the incline of the rampart, or, with a timid smile and politely getting out of the way of the soldiers, walked up and down along the battery, with as calm a demeanour under the shots as though he were promenading on a boulevard, the feeling of malevolent perplexity slowly passed into one of a kindly and jocular sympathy, such as soldiers are wont to express to their animals, their dogs, cocks, goats, in general, to any animals attached to their military commands. These soldiers mentally received Pierre into their family, adopted him, and gave him a nickname. « Our master ” they called him, and they exchanged good-natured laughs with each other about him.

A ball dug up the earth within two steps from Pierre. Cleaning off the dirt which the ball had bespattered him with, he looked around him with a smile.

” blaster, how is it you are not afraid ? ” Pierre was addressed by a red-faced, broad-shouldered soldier, who displayed his sound white teeth in a smile.

” Are you afraid ? ” Pierre asked him.

” Of course I am,” replied the soldier. ” It does not spare any one. When it digs into you, out come your guts. How can a man help being afraid?” he said, laughing.

A few soldiers stopped in front of Pierre with merry and kindly expressions on their faces. They looked as though they had not expected him to speak like anybody else, and this discovery gave them pleasure.

” Our business is that of soldiers. But you are a master, — and so it is wonderful. That is what I call a master ! “

“To your places!” the young officer shouted to the soldiers who had congregated around Pierre. It was evident that this officer was doing duty for the first or the second time, and so he addressed his soldiers and his superiors with particular precision and formality.

The pealing cannonade and the fusilade grew stronger along the whole field, especially on the left, there where were Bagration’s flèches; but through the smoke of the guns it was impossible to see anything from the place where Pierre was. Besides, the observation of that family circle of men in the battery separated from all the rest absorbed Pierre’s whole attention. His first unconscious and pleasurable agitation, which had been induced by the sight and the sounds of the field of battle, now, especially after he had seen that lonely soldier lying in the meadow, gave way to another sensation. Sitting on the incline of the ditch, he watched the faces which surrounded him.

By ten o’clock about twenty men had been removed from the battery ; two guns were disabled, and projectiles fell ever more frequently on the battery, and distant bullets, buzzing and whistling, found their way there. But the men at the guns did not seem to notice all of this. On every side could be heard merry conversation and jokes.

“ Dumpling ! ” cried a soldier to an approaching grenade, as it flew by with a whistling sound. ” Not this way ! To the infantry ! ” added another, noticing that the grenade had passed beyond and had fallen into the ranks of the epaulement.

” What is it, a friend of yours ? ” another soldier laughed at a peasant who ducked at the sight of a flying ball.

A few soldiers congregated at the rampart, looking at what was going on in the distance.

” They have taken off the cordon, you see, and have retreated,” they said, pointing over the rampart.

” Mind your own business ! ” the old underofficer shouted at them. ” If they have retreated, they, no doubt, have some business farther back.” And the underofficer, taking a soldier by his shoulder, gave him a kick with his knee.

The soldiers burst out laughing.

” To the fifth gun ! Boll it out ! ” they shouted on one side.

” All together, in towing fashion ! ” were heard the merry shouts of those who were changing the gun.

” Oh, it has almost knocked the cap off the head of our master,” the red-faced jester said, grinning at Pierre. ” Oh, awkward one ! ” he added, reproachfully, in reference to the ball which struck a wheel and a man’s leg.

” Come now, you foxes ! ” another said, laughing at the stooping militiamen, who came to the battery for the wounded. ” Doesn’t the porridge taste good ? Oh, you ravens, what are you dallying for? ” they cried to the militiamen who were busy about the soldier with the torn-off leg. ” A chap what is a chap ! ” they imitated the peasant talk. ” Oh, how they hate it ! “

Pierre noticed that after each ball which hit, after each loss, the general animation kept increasing. Just as in an approaching thunder-cloud, the lightnings of a hidden and kindling lire ever more frequently and more brightly flared upon the faces of all these men, as though in defiance of what was taking place.

Pierre was not looking ahead of him at the battlefield and took no interest in what was going on there : he was all absorbed in the contemplation of the growing fire which, he felt, was also flaming up in his soul.

At ten o’clock the infantry soldiers, who had been in front of the battery in the bushes and along the brook of Kamenka, retreated. From the battery they could be seen running back past it, carrying the wounded on their muskets. A general with his suite ascended the mound and, having said something to the colonel, and casting an angry look at Pierre, he again descended and ordered the infantry of the epaulement behind the battery to lie down in order to subject themselves as little as possible to the fire. Immediately after this a drum and shouts of command were heard in the rows of the infantry, to the right of the battery, and the ranks of the soldiers were seen to advance.

Pierre looked over the rampart. One person in particular attracted his attention. It was an officer, who, with a pale, youthful face, was walking in the rear, carrying his drooping sword, and restlessly looking about him.

The ranks of the soldiers disappeared in the smoke, and there could be heard their protracted shout and a constant fusilade. A few minutes later throngs of wounded and of litters came from that direction. Projectiles began to fall more frequently upon the battery. Several men lay on the ground and had not been taken away. The soldiers moved more busily and with greater animation around the guns. Nobody was now paying attention to Pierre. Once or twice some one shouted at him for being in the way. The senior officer, with frowning face, kept pacing with long, rapid strides from one piece of ordnance to the other. The youthful officer, flushed more than ever, gave still more precise orders to his soldiers. The soldiers handed the shot, moved quickly, loaded, and did their work with strained foppishness. They leaped in their walk, as though they were on springs.

The thunder-cloud had moved up, and in every face burnt that fire, the kindling of which Pierre had been watching all the time. lie was standing near the senior officer. The youthful officer ran up to the senior officer, holding his hand to his shako.

“ I have the honour of reporting, colonel, that there are only eight charges left,— do you order the fire to be continued ? ” he asked.

” Canister-shot ! ” without replying, shouted the senior officer, who was looking over the rampart.

Suddenly something happened. The youthful officer shrieked and, doubling up, sat down on the ground, like a bird shot on the wing. Everything became strange, indistinct, and gloomy in Pierre’s eyes.

One after another balls whistled and struck the breastwork, the soldiers, the guns. Pierre, who had not heard these sounds before, now heard nothing but these sounds. On one side of the battery, on the right, the soldiers, shouting ” Hurrah! ” were running, not ahead, but back, as Pierre thought.

A ball struck at the very edge of the rampart in front of which Pierre was standing, and caved in some dirt. A black ball flashed past Pierre’s eyes, and at the same moment it plashed into something. The militiamen who had come up to the battery ran back again.

” Canister-shot from every gun ! ” shouted the officer.

An underofficer ran up to the senior officer and in a frightened whisper (such as that in which the majordomo informs his master at the table that there is none of the wine for which he is asking) informed him that there were no charges left.

” Rascals, what are they doing ? ” shouted the officer, turning to Pierre. The face of the senior officer was red and sweaty, and his gloomy eyes glistened. “ Run to the reserves and bring the caissons ! ” he cried, angrily overlooking Pierre and turning to his soldier.

” I will go,” said Pierre. The officer made no reply to him, and with rapid steps walked away to another side.

” Don’t fire ! Wait ! ” he shouted.

The soldier who had been ordered to go for the charges stumbled against Pierre.

“ Oh, master, this is not a place for you,” he said, running downhill.

Pierre ran after the soldier, walking around the place where the youthful officer sat.

A ball, a second, a third, flew over him, striking in front, on both sides, in his rear. Pierre ran downhill. ” Whither am I running ? ” he thought, just as he was near the green caissons. lie stopped in indecision as to whether he had better go back or ahead. Suddenly a terrible blow threw him back, on the ground. At the same moment the flash of a great fire lighted him up, and at the same time there resounded a deafening thunder, crackling, and whistling, which rang out in his ears.

Upon regaining Iris senses, Pierre found himself sitting on the ground, leaning with his arms against the sod ; the caisson, néar which he had been standing, was no more. Scattered on the singed grass there lay only scorched green boards and rags, and a horse, clattering with the remnants of a shaft, galloped past him, while another was lying on the ground like Pierre, and whining in a long-drawn, piercing manner.

XXXII.

Beside himself with fear, Pierre sprang up and ran back to the battery, as to the only refuge from all the terrors that surrounded him.

Just as he entered the entrenchment, he noticed that no discharges were heard in the battery, but that some people were doing something there. Pierre did not have time to make out who these people were. He saw the senior colonel lying with his back toward him on the rampart, as though examining something below, and a soldier, whom he had specially noticed, tearing himself away from some men who were holding his hand, and crying, ” Brothers ! ” and something else.

He had no time to make out that the colonel was dead, that the soldier who was shouting ” Brothers ! ” was a captive, and that before his eyes another soldier had been stabbed in the back. He had barely run into the entrenchment, when a lean, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue uniform, with a sword in his hand, ran into him, shouting something. Instinctively warding off the blow, for they had run into each other without seeing one another, Pierre spread out his arms and grabbed this man (it was a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand, and by the neck with the other. The officer dropped his sword and took Pierre by his collar.

For a few seconds both of them looked with frightened eyes at each other’s unfamiliar faces, and both were in doubt about what they had done, and what they were to do. ” Am I made a prisoner, or have I made a prisoner

still sitting at the edge of the rampart, rolled up as before, in a pool of blood. The red-faced soldier was still contracting his muscles, but he was not taken away.

” Now they will leave it all ! Now they will be terrified at what they have done ! ” thought Pierre, aimlessly following a mass of stretchers that were moving away from the field of battle.

But the sun, shrouded by smoke, was still standing high, and in front, and especially at the left, near Seménovskoe, something was seething in the smoke, and the din of volleys and the cannonade not only did not die down, but grew desperately stronger, like a man who shrieks with the expenditure of his last strength.

XXXIII.

The chief action of the battle of Borodino took place within seven thousand feet, between Borodino and Bagration’s flèches. (Outside of this space, on one side, a demonstration had been made, in the middle of the day, by Uvarov’s cavalry, and, on the other, a conflict occurred beyond Ûtitsa between PoniatOwski and TuchkOv ; but these were two separate actions, weak in comparison with what took place in the centre of the field of battle.)

In the field between Borodind and the flèches near the forest, in an open expanse, visible from both sides, the chief action of the battle took place in the most guileless and simple manner.

The battle began by a cannonade on both sides from several hundreds of guns.

Then, when the smoke shrouded the whole field, there moved in this smoke (on the side of the French), on the right, two divisions of Dessaix and Oompans, against the flèches, and on the left, the regiments of the viceroy, against Borodind.

From the Shevardind redoubt, on which Napoleon stood, the flèches were a verst distant, while Borodind was more than two versts distant in a bee-line, therefore Napoleon was unable to see what was going on there, the more so since the smoke, mixing with the mist, shrouded this whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix’s division, which moved against the flèches, could be seen only so long as they did not descend to the ravine, which separated them from the flèches. The moment they went down there, the smoke from the discharges of the muskets and from the ordnance in the flèches became so dense that it shrouded the whole slope on the other side of the ravine. Through the smoke there flashed something black, apparently men, and now and then the gleam of bayonets. But it was impossible to tell from the Shevardind redoubt whether they were in motion or standing still, whether they were Frenchmen or Russians.

The sun went up bright and beat with its slanting rays straight into the face of Napoleon, who was shielding his eyes with his hand and looking at the flèches. The smoke lodged in front of the flèches, and now it seemed that the smoke was in motion, and now again that the troops were moving. Occasionally the shouts of men could be heard through the volleys, but it was impossible to tell what they were doing there.

Napoleon, standing on the mound, was looking through a field-glass, and through the small circle of the glass he saw smoke and men, now his own, and now the Russians ; but where that which he saw was he did not know when he again looked at the scene with the naked eye.

He descended from the mound and began to walk up and down in front of it. Now and then he stopped to listen to the discharges and to look at the field of battle.

Not only from the spot below the mound where he was standing, not only from its summit, where stood a few of his generals, but even on the flèches themselves, where there were, either together or in succession, Russians and Frenchmen, dead, wounded, and living, frightened or frantic soldiers, it was impossible to tell what was going on in that spot. In the course of several hours, amidst an incessant din from the musketryfire and from the discharge of the large guns, there appeared in this spot now Russians, now Frenchmen, now infantry, now cavalry ; they appeared, fell, shot, came in contact, without knowing what to do with each other, shouted, and ran back.

From the field of battle kept galloping to Napoleon his especial adjutants, and the orderlies of his marshals, to report about the progress of the battle ; but all these reports were false, because in the heat of battle it is impossible to tell what is going on at a given moment, and because many adjutants did not reach the actual battlefield, and reported only what they had heard from others ; and also because, while an adjutant rode the two or three versts which separated him from Napoleon, the information which he was bringing was no longer reliable. Thus an adjutant came galloping from the viceroy with the news that Borodino was taken, and that the bridge over the Kolocha was in the hands of the French. The adjutant asked Napoleon whether he wished to order the troops to cross. Napoleon commanded the troops to draw up on the other side and wait; but, not only while Napoleon was giving this command, but even when the adjutant had barely left Borodino, the bridge was already retaken and burnt by the Russians, in the very hand-to-hand fight in which Pierre had taken part in the beginning of the battle.

An adjutant galloping up from the flèches, with a pale and frightened face, reported to Napoleon that the attack was repulsed and that Oompans was wounded and Davont killed, whereas the flèches were being occupied by another part of the troops, while the adjutant was told that the French had been driven back, and Davout was alive and only slightly bruised. In conformity with such necessarily false reports, Napoleon gave his orders, which were executed before they were given, or could not be, and never were executed.

The marshals and generals, who were at closer range to the field of battle, but who, like Napoleon himself, did not participate in the battle itself, and who only occasionally rode under the fire, made their own dispositions, without consulting Napoleon, and gave their own orders about whither and whence they were to shoot, and where the mounted troops were to ride, and the infantry to run. But even their own dispositions, like those of Napoleon, were but rarely and to a very small degree carried out. As a rule the opposite of what they ordered actually took place. Soldiers who were ordered to advance, coming into the range of grape-shot, ran back ; soldiers who were commanded to stand their ground, seeing opposite them Russian troops, which had unexpectedly appeared from somewhere, at times rushed forward, and the cavalry galloped without orders to pursue the fleeing Russians. Thus two regiments of the cavalry galloped across the Seménovskoe ravine and, having barely reached the summit, turned around and at full speed rode back again. Even thus the footsoldiers moved, running frequently to some spot, where they had not been ordered to advance. All the dispositions about where and when to move the ordnance, when to send out the infantry to fire, and when the cavalry to crush the Russian footsoldiers, — all these dispositions were made by the nearest chiefs of the parts, who happened to be in the ranks, without consulting Ney, Davout, Murat, let alone Napoleon. They were not afraid to be called to accounts for not carrying out orders, or for their arbitrary commands, because in a battle the main question lies in that which is most precious to man, — in his personal life, and at times salvation seems to present itself in flight, and at other times in advancing, and these men, who were in the thickest of the fight, acted according to the exigencies of the moment. In reality, all these movements forward and backward did not mitigate or change the condition of the troops. All their attacks and rushes against each other produced hardly any harmful results ; death and mutilation were caused by the bullets and balls that flew everywhere over this extent of space, over which the men were rushing to and fro. The moment these men emerged from the locality over which flew the

bullets and balls, their commanders, who occupied positions behind them, at once formed them and subjected them to discipline, and, under the influence of this discipline, they again led them into the region of the fire, where they again, under the influence of the terror of death, lost their discipline and rushed about according to the accidental mood of the crowd.

XXXIV.

Napoleon’s generals, Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were in the neighbourhood of this sphere of fire, and who now and then rode into it, several times led enormous masses of troops in excellent order into this sphere. But, contrary to what had invariably happened in all former battles, instead of the expected news that the enemy had retreated, the orderly masses of the troops returned from there in disorganized, frightened crowds. Again they formed them, but the number of the men was continually growing less. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon, to send him reinforcements.

Napoleon was sitting at the foot of the mound and drinking punch, when Murat’s adjutant came galloping to him, to assure him that the Russians would certainly be crushed, if his Majesty would give him another division.

” Reinforcements ? ” thought Napoleon. ” What reinforcement do they want, since they have in their hands half of the army, which is directed against the weak, unfortified wing of the Russians ? “

” Dites au roi de Naples” Napoleon said, sternly, “ qu’il n’est pas midi et que je ne vois pas encore clair sur mon échiquier. Allez ! ”

The pretty boyish adjutant with long hair, without taking his hand off the hat and heaving a deep sigh, galloped back to the place where they were killing people.

Napoleon rose and, calling up Caulaincourt and Berthier, began to talk to them about matters which had no reference to the battle.

In the middle of the conversation, which was beginning to interest Napoleon, Berthier’s eyes turned to a general with his suite, riding toward the mound on a sweaty horse. It was Belliard. He dismounted, with a rapid gait walked over to Napoleon, and loudly and boldly began to prove the necessity of reinforcements. He gave his word of honour that the Russians would perish if the emperor gave them another division.

Napoleon jerked his shoulders and, without making any reply, continued his promenade. Belliard began to speak in a loud and animated voice to the generals of the suite, who surrounded him.

” You are very excited, Belliard,” said Napoleon, again approaching the general. ” It is easy to make a mistake in the heat of the fire. Go back and see, and then come back to me ! “

Belliard had not yet had time to disappear from view when from the other side a new messenger arrived from the field of battle.

” Eh bien, qu’est-ee qu’il y a ?” said Napoleon, in the tone of a man who is irritated by constant interruptions.

” Sire, le prince — ” began the adjutant.

” Asks for reinforcements ? ” Napoleon interposed with an angry gesture.

The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to make his report ; but the emperor turned away from him, took two steps, stopped, turned back, and called up Berthier.

“We must give him the reserves,” he said, with a light motion of his hands. ” Whom shall we send there ? What is your opinion ? ” he turned to Berthier, that ” oison que j’ai fait aigle,” as he later called him.

” Emperor, we should send the division of Claparède,” said Berthier, who knew by heart all the divisions, regiments, and battalions.

Napoleon nodded his head in assent.

The adjutant galloped up to Claparède’s division, and a few minutes later the young Guard, which had been standing back of the mound, started. Napoleon looked in silence in that direction.

“ No,” he suddenly turned to Berthier, ” I cannot send Claparède. Send Friant’s division.”

Although there was no advantage gained by sending Friant’s division instead of that of Claparède, and although it caused an apparent inconvenience and delay to stop Claparède and send Triant in his place, the command was punctually executed. Napoleon did not see that in relation to his troops he played that rôle of a doctor who with his medicaments only retards the cure, — a rôle which he comprehended and condemned so correctly.

Friant’s division, like the rest, disappeared in the smoke of the battlefield. Adjutants kept galloping from various sides, and all, as though having plotted together, repeated one and the same tiling. All asked for reinforcements ; all said that the Russians held their ground and poured ” un feu d’enfer f from which the French army melted away.

Napoleon sat in meditation in a folding-chair.

Beausset, who was fond of travelling, and who had not eaten anything since morning, walked over to the emperor and respectfully proposed to his Majesty to partake of a breakfast.

” I hope that now I may already congratulate your Majesty on a victory,” he said.

Napoleon silently shook his head in sign of dissent. Assuming that the dissent had reference to the victory, and not to the breakfast, Beausset took the liberty of remarking jestingly, though respectfully, that there were no causes in the world which could prevent a man from breakfasting, whenever it was possible to get something to eat.

” Allez-vous — ” Napoleon suddenly said, with a gloomy expression, turning away.

A blissful smile of compassion, repentance, and transport beamed on the face of Beaussct, and he walked with a swimming motion to the other generals.

Napoleon was experiencing a heavy feeling, like what is experienced by an ever lucky winner, who has been in the habit of recklessly staking his money, who has always been winning, and who, at a moment when he has carefully considered all the chances of the game, feels that the more his step has been well considered, the surer will his loss be.

The troops were the same, the generals the same, the preparations, the disposition, the ” proclamation courte et énergique ” were all the same, he himself was the same, he knew this, nay, he knew that he was now much more experienced and skilful than before ; even the enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland; but the terrible swing of the arm fell powerless, as though bewitched.

All the former methods, which had invariably been crowned by success, — the concentration of the batteries at one point, the attack of the reserves to break through the lines, the attack of the cavalry — “ des hommes de fer,” all these methods had already been employed, and not only was there no victory, but from all directions came exactly the same reports about generals killed and wounded, about the necessity of sending reinforcements, about the impossibility of dislodging the Russians, and about the disorganization of the troops.

Formerly, after two or three dispositions, two or three phrases, the marshals and adjutants used to gallop up with cheerful faces and with congratulations, reporting the trophies in the throngs of the captives, “ des faisceaux de drapeaux et d’aigles ennemis,” and in cannon and in the baggagetrains, and Murat asked only permission to allow the cavalry to pursue in order to seize more of the baggagetrain. Thus it had been at Lodi, at Marengo, at Arcole, at Jena, at Austerlitz, at Wagram, and so forth. Now, something terrible was taking place with the troops.

In spite of the announcement that the flèches were taken, Napoleon saw that it was not at all what had happened before in all former battles. He saw that the same feeling was present in all the men who surrounded him, and who were experienced in the matter of battles. All the faces were sad ; all the eyes avoided each other. Beausset was the only one who did not understand the meaning of what was going on. After his long experience in war, Napoleon knew well what it meant for the attacking party, after having exhausted all efforts for a period of eight hours, not to win a battle. He knew that it was almost a lost battle, and that the least eventuality could, — at this strained point of wavering, at which the battle had now arrived, — cause both his destruction and that of his army.

As he passed in review all this strange Russian campaign, in which not a single battle had been won, in which during two months no flags, no cannon, no corps of troops had been taken ; as he looked at the secretly sad faces of the -persons surrounding him, and heard the reports that the Russians were holding their own, — a terrible sensation, similar to what one experiences in dreams, took possession of him, and there occurred to him all the unfortunate accidents which might destroy him. The Russians might attack his left wing, or might break through his centre, or a stray ball might kill him. All this was possible. In his former battles he had considered only the possibilities of success ; but now an endless number of contingencies presented themselves to him, and he expected them all. Yes, it was all as in a dream, when a man imagines that a malefactor is attack-guided by him and to depend on him, and this work for the first time, on account of its unsuccessfulness, appeared useless and terrible to him.

One of the generals, riding up to Napoleon, permitted himself to suggest that the old Guard be brought into action. Ney and Berthier, who were standing near Napoleon, exchanged glances and smiled contemptuously at the senseless proposition of this general.

Napoleon lowered his head and for a long time remained silent.

” A huit cents lieux de France je ne ferai pas démolir ma garde ! ” he said, and, turning his horse, he rode back to Shevardino.

XXXV.

Kutuzov was sitting, with his gray head drooping and his heavy body relaxing on the same rug-covered bench, in the same spot where Pierre had seen him in the morning. He made no dispositions, and only agreed with, or dissented from, anything which was proposed to him.

“Yes, yes, do it!” he replied to all kinds of propositions. “ Yes, yes, ride down there, my dear, and take a look ! ” he turned now to one, and nbw to another of those near him ; or ” No, it is not necessary, — we will wait awhile,” he would say. He listened to all the reports which were brought to him, and gave orders whenever the officers demanded them ; but, while listening to the reports, he was not interested in the meaning of the words, but in the expression of the faces and in the tone of speech of those who reported to him. He knew from his long military experience, and comprehended with his old man’s mind, that one man could not guide hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were struggling with death ; he knew also that not the dispositions of the commanderin-chief decided the fate of a battle, nor the place where the armies stood, nor the number of guns and soldiers killed, but that intangible force, called the spirit of the army, and this force he watched and guided in so far as it lay in his power.

The general expression of Kutuzov’s face was that of a concentrated, calm attention, and of a tension which with difficulty overcame the fatigue of his feeble old body.

off. At the centre, the French did not move farther than Borodino. On the left flank, Uvdrov’s cavalry caused the French to run.

After two o’clock the attacks of the French ceased. On all the faces of those who arrived from the field of battle, as also on the faces of those who stood about him, Kutuzov read the expression of tension which had reached the highest degree. Kutuzov was satisfied beyond all expectation by the success of the day. But his power of physical endurance was leaving the old man. His head several times sank low, as though falling, and he kept dozing off. Dinner was brought to him.

Aid-de-camp Wolzogen, the same who, riding past Prince Andréy, had said that the war ought to be “ transferred into space,” and whom Bagration hated so, rode up to Kutuzov while he was dining. Wolzogen came from Barclay with a report on the state of affairs at the left flank. Sensible Barclay de Tolly, seeing the masses of the wounded in flight and the disorganized rear of the army, and weighing all the circumstances in the case, decided that the battle was lost, and sent his favourite to the commanderin-chief with this information.

Kutuzov was munching a roast chicken with difficulty, and he looked at Wolzogen with merry, blinking eyes. Wolzogen, carelessly stretching his legs and with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, walked over to Kutuzov, lightly touching the visor of his cap with his hand.

Wolzogen treated his Most Serene Highness with a certain affected carelessness, which was to show that he, as a highly trained military man, left it to the Russians to make an idol of this old, useless man, but that he himself knew with whom he was dealing. ” Der alte Herr ” (thus the Germans called Kutuzov in their circle) ” macht sich ganz bequem,” thought Wolzogen, and, casting a stern look at the plates which were standing before Kutuzov, he began to report to the “ old gentleman ” the state of affairs on the left flank just as Barclay had ordered him to do, and as he himself had seen and comprehended it.

“ All the points of our position are in the hands of the enemy, and we cannot retake them, because we have no troops ; they are running, and there is no possibility of stopping their flight,” he reported.

Stopping to chew, Kutuzov gazed in surprise at Wolzogen, as though he did not understand what he was being told. Wolzogen, noticing the agitation of the “alter Herr” said, with a smile :

” I did not consider it right for me to conceal from your Serenity that which I have seen. The troops are completely disorganized — ”

“You saw it? You saw it?” Kutuzov shouted, with a scowl, getting up with a start and moving up against Wolzogen. “How — how dare you!” he cried, making threatening gestures with his trembling hands, and choking from excitement. ” How dare you, dear sir, tell me such a thing? You know nothing. Transmit in my name to General Barclay the information that his news is false, and that the general course of the battle is better known to me, the commanderin-chief, than to him.”

Wolzogen wanted to retort, but Kutuzov interrupted him :

“ The enemy has been repulsed on the left, and is beaten on the right flank. If you have not seen well, dear sir, then do not take the liberty of telling me that which you do not know. Please to go to General Barclay and inform him of my determination to attack the enemy tomorrow,” said Kutuzov, sternly.

All were silent, and one could hear only the heavy breathing of the gasping old general.

“ They are beaten off at every point, for which I thank God and our brave army. The enemy is vanquished, and tomorrow we will drive him out of the sacred Russian land,” said Kutuzov, making the sign of the cross ; he suddenly sobbed from the tears that rushed to his eyes.

Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and contorting his lips, went silently to one side, wondering ” über diese Eingenommenheit des alten Herrn.”

“ Yes, here is my hero,” Kutuzov said to the handsome, black-haired general, who just then came up the mound. It was Raévski, who had passed the whole day at the chief point of the field of Borodind.

Raévski reported that the troops were standing their ground firmly, and that the French no longer dared to attack them.

Having listened to his report, Kutuzov said in French :

” Vous ne pensez donc pas comme les autres que nous sommes obliges de nous retirer ? ”

” Au contraire, votre Altesse, dans les affaires indécises c’est toujours le plus opiniâtre qui reste victorieux,” replied Raévski, ” et mon opinion — ! ”

” Kaysarov ! ” Kutuzov called up his adjutant. ” Sit down and write the order of the day for tomorrow. And you,” he turned to another, ” ride down the line, and inform them that tomorrow we will attack.”

While the conversation was going on with Raévski and the order was being dictated, Wolzogen returned from Barclay, reporting that General Barclay de Tolly would like to have written confirmation of the order, which the fieldmarshal had given.

Without looking at Wolzogen, Kutuzov commanded this order to be written down, which the former commanderin-chief wanted to have in writing, in order to avoid liis personal responsibility.

And by dint of that invincible, mysterious bond, which throughout the army kept up the same mood, called the spirit of the army, and which formed the main nerve of the war, Kutuzov’s words and his order for the battle on the following day were simultaneously communicated to all the ends of the army.

It was far from being the words themselves, or the order itself which was communicated to the most distant links of this chain ; there was not even anything resembling what Kutuzov had said in what was being communicated to all the ends of the army ; but the meaning of these words was communicated everywhere, because what Kutuzov had said originated not in clever combinations, but in that feeling which lay in the heart of the commanderin-chief, as much as in the heart of every Russian.

And having learned that on the morrow we were to attack the enemy, and hearing from the higher spheres of the army the confirmation of what they wanted to believe, the exhausted, wavering soldiers were consoled and animated with courage.

XXXVI.

Prince Andrey’s regiment was in the reserves, which up to two o’clock stood back of Seménovskoe in inaction, under a scathing artillery-fire. At two o’clock the regiment, having lost more than two hundred men, was moved forward on the trampled down oat-field, that interval between Seménovskoe and the Mound Battery, on which on that day thousands of men were killed, and against which, at two o’clock, was directed an intensified, concentrated fire from several hundred pieces of the enemy’s ordnance.

Without leaving the spot, and without having emptied a single charge, the regiment lost another third of its men. In front and especially on the right side the guns roared in the hovering smoke, and from the mysterious sphere of the smoke, which shrouded the whole locality ahead, there emerged without cessation the swiftly hissing balls and languorously whistling grenades. Occasionally, as though taking a rest, there passed fifteen minutes when all the balls and grenades flew past, but sometimes several men were struck in a course of a minute, and all the time the dead were dragged aside and the wounded were carried away.

With every new detonation the chances of life were more and more diminished for those who had not yet been killed. The regiment stood in battalion columns at a distance of three hundred steps, and yet all the men of the regiment were all the time under the influence of the same mood. All the men were equally taciturn and gloomy. But rarely conversation could be heard in the ranks, and this died down every time a projectile fell and the shout was heard, “ The stretchers ! ” Most of the time the men of the regiment, by order of their officers, sat on the ground. One took off his shako and carefully opened and closed the folds ; another, crushing the dry clay in his hands, was burnishing his bayonet ; a third had loosened the strap of his sabrctasche, and was buckling it more tightly ; a fourth carefully unwrapped and relaid his leg rags and put on his boots. Some built little houses from the tufts in the field, or wove whips from the stubble. All seemed to be lost in their occupations. When men were wounded or killed ; when the stretchers started ; when our soldiers returned ; when large masses of the enemy could be seen through the smoke, — nobody paid the least attention to these circumstances. But when the artillery or cavalry passed in front, and the movements of our infantry were visible, approving remarks could be heard on all sides. But the greatest attention fell to the share of entirely foreign events which had nothing to do with the battle. It looked as though the attention of these spiritually exhausted men found relief in the habitual occurrences of every-day life.

A battery of the artillery passed in front of the regiment. The off horse hitched to one of the artillery caissons stepped on its traces. “ Oh, there, look at the off horse ! Straighten it out ! She will fall ! Oh, there, don’t you see ? ” they shouted from all the ranks of the regiment alike. Another time the attention of every one was directed to a cinnamoncoloured little dog with a firmly raised tail, which, God knows whence, was running before the ranks in a frightened trot and suddenly whimpered at the sound of a projectile striking near by, and, taking its tail between its legs, ran away to one side. The whole regiment resounded with guffaws and whoop-ings. But the diversions of this kind lasted only minutes, while the men had beeu standing more than eight hours without food and without work under the unceasing terror of death, and their pale and frowning faces grew all the time paler and more frowning.

Prince Andréy, as pale and frowning as all the men of the regiment, kept pacing up and down in the meadow, from one balk to the other near the oat-field, with his arms behind his back and his head drooping. He had nothing to do and no orders to give. Everything worked itself out without his interference. The killed were dragged away beyond the line ; the wounded were carried away ; the ranks closed up. If the soldiers started to run, they soon returned.

At first Prince Andréy, regarding it as his duty to stir up the valour of his soldiers and to give them an example, marched up and down the ranks ; later he convinced himself that he had nothing to teach them. All the powers of his soul, like those of any soldier, were instinctively directed only toward keeping himself from contemplating the horror of the situation they were in. He walked over the meadow, dragging his feet along, crumpling the grass, and observing the dust which covered his boots ; now he strode with long steps, trying to get into the footsteps left by the reapers ; now, counting his steps, he calculated how many times he must pass from one balk to the other in order to make a verst ; now he picked the wormwood, which grew on the balk, and crushed its flowers in his hands, and sniffed their strong, pungent odour. Nothing was left of all the mental labour of the day before. He was not thinking of anything. With his fatigued ears he listened to the same sounds, distinguishing between the whistling of the flying projectiles and the boom of the discharges. He looked at the curiously watching faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited.

“ There it is — again toward us ! ” he thought, listening to the whistling sound which was approaching from the shrouded region of smoke. ” One, another ! One more ! It struck this time ! ” He stopped and looked at the ranks. « No, it has carried across ; but this one has hit ! ” And he again resumed his walk, essaying to take long steps so as to reach the balk in sixteen steps. A whistle and a blow! The dry earth was torn up within five paces from him, and the ball disappeared. No doubt it had disabled a number of men ; a large crowd gathered around the second battalion.

” Adjutant,” he shouted, “command them not to crowd SO I

Having carried out the order, the adjutant started back to Prince Andréy. The commander of a battalion was riding up from another direction.

“ Look out ! ” was heard the frightened shout of a soldier, and, whistling in its rapid flight and settling on the ground, like a bird, a grenade plashed with a subdued noise within two feet of Prince Andréy, near the horse of the commander of the battalion. The horse, -without asking whether it was right or wrong to give expression to its fear, was the first to start back. Snorting and rearing, and almost throwing off the major, it jumped to one side. The terror of the horse was communicated to the soldiers. “ Lie down ! ” cried the adjutant, who himself fell to the ground. Prince Andréy stood in indecision. The grenade, smoking, whirled like a humming-top between him and the prostrate adjutant, on the edge of the ploughed field and the meadow, near a wormwood plant.

“ Is this death ? ” thought Prince Andréy, looking with an entirely new, envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streak of smoke, which was whirling from the rotating black balk “ I cannot, I do not want to die ! I love life, I love this grass, this earth, this air — ” He was thinking all this and at the same time was conscious of being watched.

“Shame, Mr. Officer!” he said to the adjutant. ” What — ” He did not finish. At one and the same moment there was heard an explosion and the jangle of the splinters, as though from a broken window-pane, and there was spread the stifling odour of smoke, and Prince Andréy darted sidewise and, raising up his hands, fell down on his breast.

Several officers ran up to him. From the right side of his abdomen a large spot of blood had trickled into the grass. The militiamen were called with the stretchers, and they stopped back of the officers. Prince Andréy was lying on his breast, his face reaching down to the grass. He breathed stertorously.

“ What are you standing for ? Walk up ! ”

The peasants came up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he groaned pitifully, and the peasants exchanged glances and again set him down.

“Take him up and put him on the stretcher all the same ! ” somebody exclaimed. He was again taken up by the shoulders and placed on the stretcher.

“ 0 God, my God ! What is this ? The abdomen ! This is the end ! 0 Lord ! ” voices were heard among the officers. “ It whizzed by me within a hair’s breadth,” said the adjutant.

The peasants, having fixed the stretcher on their shoulders, hurried off over a path which they had tramped down, toward the ambulance.

“ Keep step ! Oh, you country louts ! ” shouted an officer, stopping the peasants, who were walking with an uneven step and were shaking the stretcher.

“ Fall in, Khvédor, oh, Khvédor,” said the peasant in front.

“ Now this is like it,” the hind man said, merrily, having fallen in with the step of the front man.

” Your Serenity, prince ! ” Timokhin said, in a quivering voice, running up and looking into the stretcher.

Prince Andréy opened his eyes and looked from the stretcher, into wliich his head had sunk, at him who was speaking, and again closed his eyelids.

The militiamen brought Prince Andréy to the woods, where wagons stood, and where the ambulance was. The latter consisted of three tents with their folds thrown back, standing at the edge of a birch grove. In the birch wood stood horses and wagons. The horses were eating oats out of nose-bags, and the sparrows flew down to them and picked up the spilled kernels. The ravens, scenting blood, flitted from birch to birch, croaking impatiently. Around the tents, occupying more than two desyatinas of space, lay, sat, stood bloodstained men in all kinds of uniforms. About the wounded stood crowds of bearers, with gloomy and attentive faces, and the officers in charge of this place in vain drove them away. The soldiers paid no attention to the officers, but stood leaning against the stretchers and fixedly looked at what was going on before them, as though attempting to comprehend the oppressive meaning of tliis spectacle. From the tents proceeded loud weeping and pitiful groans. Now and then assistants ran out to fetch water and to point out those that were to be taken in. The wounded, waiting at the tent for their turns, snored, groaned, wept, cried, scolded, and asked for vddka. Some were delirious. Prince Andréy, as a commander of a regiment, the stretcher-bearers, stepping over the unattended patients, carried up close to one of the tents, where they stopped, waiting for further orders. Prince Andréy opened his eyes and for a long time could not understand what was going on around him. The meadow, the wormwood, the ploughed field, the black, whirling ball, and Ids impassioned outburst of love of life, all that passed through his imagination. Within two paces from him a tall, handsome, black-haired underofficer, with a bandaged head, was leaning against a bough and, speaking aloud, was attracting everybody’s attention. He had been wounded by bullets in his head and one leg. Around him, listening eagerly to what he was saying, gathered a throng of wounded men and of bearers.

« We whacked him so from down there that he threw up everything, and we took their very king,” cried the soldier, looking about him with feverishly glistening black eyes. ” If at that time the reserves had come up, my friend, their name wouldn’t be left, because I am telling you the truth — “

Prince Andréy, like all those who surrounded the storyteller, looked with a beaming glance at him and experienced a consoling sensation. “ But what difference does it make now ? ” he thought. ” And what will be there, and what has been here ? Why was I so sorry to give up life ? There was something in this life which I did not understand and do not understand now.”

XXXVII.

One of the doctors in a bloodstained apron and with small, bloodstained hands, in one of which, between his little finger and thumb (in order not to soil it), he was holding a cigar, came out of the tent. This doctor raised his head and began to look to one side, but above the wounded soldiers. Evidently he wanted to rest a little. Having turned his head to the right and left for awhile, he sighed and lowered his eyes.

“ Immediately,” he replied to the words of the assistant, who was pointing to Prince Andréy. Then he ordered the assistant to carry him into the tent.

A murmur rose in the throng of the wounded men who were waiting.

” Apparently gentlemen will live by themselves even in the hereafter,” muttered one.

Prince Andréy was carried in and placed on a freshly cleared table, from which an assistant was rinsing something. Prince Andréy could not make out in detail what there was in the tent. The pitiful groans on all sides, and the tormenting pain in his thigh, his abdomen, and his spine diverted his attention. Everytliing he saw about him blended for him in one general impression of naked, bloodstained human flesh, which, it seemed, filled the whole low tent, just as a few weeks before, on that warm August day, the same flesh had filled the dirty pond on the Smolénsk highway. Yes, it was the same flesh, the same chair à canon, the sight of which even then, as though predicting the occurrences of this day, had filled him with horror.

In the tent there were three tables. Two of them were occupied; on the third Prince Andréy was placed. For some time he was left alone, and he involuntarily saw what was taking place on the other two tables. On the nearest table sat a Tartar, evidently a Cossack, to judge from the uniform, which was thrown down near by. Four soldiers were holding him. A doctor in spectacles was cutting at something in his cinnamoncoloured, muscular back.

“Ugh ! Ugh ! Ugh ! ” the Tartar grunted, and suddenly, raising up his swarthy, bony, snubnosed face, and displaying his white teeth, began to tug, pull away, and whine with a penetrating, drawn-out whimpering. At the other table, about which a large number of men were crowding, a patient, a plump man with his head thrown back, was lying on his spine (the curly hair, its colour, and the form of the head seemed strangely familiar to Prince Andréy). Several assistants lay down on his breast and held him down. His wliite, large, full leg kept jerking incessantly, rapidly, and frequently, with feverish trepidation. This man was sobbing convulsively and choking from tears. Two doctors — one of them was pale and trembling — silently were doing something to the other, red leg of this man. Having attended to the Tartar, over whom an overcoat was thrown, the doctor, in spectacles, wiping off his hands, walked over to Prince Andréy.

He looked at Prince Andréy’s countenance and hurriedly turned his face away.

“Undress him! Why are you so slow?” he shouted angrily at his assistants.

Prince Andréy recalled his first, most distant childhood, when a doctor’s assistant with hurrying, bare arms unbuttoned his coat and took it off. The doctor bent low over the wound, felt it, and drew a deep sigh. Then he made a sign to somebody. The tormenting pain in his abdomen made Prince Andréy lose consciousness. When he awoke, the shattered bones of his thigh had been removed, chunks of flesh had been cut off, and his wound was dressed. Water was being sprinkled on his face. When Prince Andréy opened his eyes, the doctor leaned over him, silently kissed him on his lips, and hurriedly walked away.

After this terrible suffering, Prince Andréy felt a blissful sensation such as he had not experienced for a long time : all the best and happiest moments of his life, especially his most remote childhood, when they used to undress him and put him in a crib, when the nurse used to put him to sleep with songs, when, burying his head in the pillows, he felt happy in the mere consciousness of life, — presented themselves to his imagination, not as the past, but as reality.

The doctors were stirring about the wounded man, the contours of whose features seemed familiar to Prince Andréy : he was raised up, and they tried to quiet him. ” Show me — Oh, oh, oh ! Oh ! Oh, oh, oh, oh ! ” was heard his terrified groaning, which succumbed to the suffering, interrupted now and then by sobs. Hearing this groan, Prince Andréy wanted to weep. Whether it was that he was dying without glory, or because he hated to part with life, or because of those irretrievable recollections of childhood, or liecause he was suffering, because others were suffering, and that man so pitifully groaned in his presence, — he felt like weeping childish, kindly, almost joyful tears.

The wounded man was shown an amputated leg in a boot, with clotted blood. ” Oh ! Oh, oh, oh ! ” he sobbed like a woman. The doctor, who was standing in front of the wounded man, shielded his face and walked away.

“ My God ! What is this ? Why is he here ? ” Prince Andréy said to himself.

In the unfortunate, sobbing, feeble man, whose leg had just been amputated, he recognized Anatdl Kuragin. Anatol was being held in the arms of attendants, and was offered a glass of water, the rim of which he was not able to hold with his quivering, swollen lips. Anatdl was sobbing aloud. ” Yes, it is he; this man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,” thought Prince Andréy, still failing to grasp clearly what was before him. “ In what consists the connection of that man with my childhood, with my life ? ” he asked himself, without finding an answer. Suddenly a new, unexpected recollection from the pure world of childhood and love presented itself to Prince Andréy. He recalled Natasha as he had seen her the first time in the year 1810, at the ball, with her thin neck and arms, with her timorous and happy face, which was ready for outbursts of enthusiasm, and love and tenderness for her awoke in his soul more vividly and more strongly than ever. He now recalled the connection which existed between him and that man, who, through the tears that filled his swollen eyes, looked dimly at him. Prince Andrey recalled everything, and an ecstatic pity and love for this man filled his happy heart.

Prince Andréy was unable to restrain himself any longer and wept tender tears of love over other people and over himself, over their errors and over his own.

“ Compassion, love of our brothers, love of those who love us and who hate us, love of our enemies, — yes, the love which God himself preached upon earth, which Princess Marya told me of, and which I did not understand, — that is the reason why I hated to part from life, that is what is left for me, if I were to live. But now it is too late. I know it ! “

XXXVIII.

The terrible sight of the battlefield covered with corpses and wounded, in conjunction with his cold and with the news of the death or mutilation of twenty of the officers he knew well, and with the consciousness of the impotence of his once powerful arm, produced an unexpected impression on Napoleon, who otherwise was fond of looking at the dead and killed, in order to put his firmness to the test (as he thought). On that day the terrible sight of the battlefield vanquished that firmness in which he supposed that his merit and his grandeur lay. He hurried away from the field of battle and returned to the mound of Shevardind. Sallow, puffed up, heavy, with bleared eyes, red nose, and hoarse voice, he sat in his folding-chair, instinctively listening to the sounds of the firing, and keeping his eyes in a drooping position. He was waiting in morbid anguish for the end of that action, of which he regarded himself as a participant, but which he was unable to stop. His personal human feeling for a short moment triumphed over that artificial apparition of life, which he had been serving for such a long time. He transferred to himself those sufferings and that death, which he had seen on the field of battle. The ponderousness of his head and the oppressive feeling in his breast reminded him of the possibility of suffering and of death for himself. During that moment he did not wish for Moscow, nor for victory, nor for glory (what other glory did he want?). The one thing he wanted now was rest, calm, and freedom. But when he had been on the height of Seménovskoe, the commander of the artillery had asked him to plant several additional guns on these heights, in order to strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowding before Knyäzkovo. Napoleon had consented, and had given orders to have reported to him the effect which these batteries produced.

An adjutant arrived to say that by the emperor’s order two hundred pieces of ordnance were directed against the Russians, but that the Russians still stood their ground.

« Our fire tears out whole rows of them, but they still stand,” said the adjutant.

“Ils en veulent encore” said Napoleon,in a hoarse voice.

” Sire ?” asked the adjutant, who had not made out his words.

” Ils en veulent encore,” Napoleon, frowning, repeated in rasping voice, ” donnez-leur-en ! “

Even without his command they did that which he wished, and he gave the order only because he thought that an order was expected from him. And again he transferred himself to his former artificial world of apparitions of some kind of grandeur, and again (like a horse which walks on a tread-wheel, imagining that it is doing something for itself) he began submissively to carry out that cruel, sad, and painful inhuman rôle, which was destined for him.

And not only for this one hour and day was obscured the conscience of him who more than all the other participants in this affair bore the burden of all that was taking place ; never, to the end of his life, could he understand the good, the beauty, the truth, the meaning of his acts, which were too much opposed to the good and the true, too far removed from everything humane for him to have been able to understand their meaning. He could not renounce his acts, which were praised up by half the world, and so he had to renounce truth and goodness and every tiling humane.

Not on that day alone, when he was riding over the battlefield, which was covered with dead and mutilated people (as he thought, by his own will), did he, looking at these men, figure out how many Russians there were to each Frenchman, and, deceiving himself, find cause to rejoice because to each Frenchman there were five Russians. Not on that day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that ” le champ de bataille a été superbe,” because there were fifty thousand corpses upon it ; but even on the island of St. Helena, in the quiet of his solitude, where, he said, he intended to devote his leisure to the exposition of the great things he had done, he wrote:

” The Russian war was to have been the most popular of modem times: it was a war of good sense and true interests, a war of repose and security for all ; it was purely pacific and conservative.

” It was for the great cause, the end of hazards and the beginning of security. A new horizon, new labours would have been opened, full of weal and prosperity for all. The European system was already established ; it was only a question of organizing it.

” Satisfied on these great points and completely at rest on all sides, I, too, should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. These are ideas that have been stolen from me. In this union of the great sovereigns we should have treated our interests as a domestic matter, and should have accounted to the nations, as a clerk to his master.

” Europe in this manner would really have become soon one nation, and each individual, no matter where he travelled, would always have been in a common country. I should have demanded that all rivers be made navigable to all, that the sea be made common, and that the large permanent armies be reduced from then on to the single guard of the sovereigns.

” Upon my return to France, in the bosom of my great, strong, magnificent, tranquil, glorious country, I should have proclaimed its immutable limits ; every future war purely defensive ; every new aggrandisement antinational. I should have associated my son with the empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and its constitutional reign would have begun.

” Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of the nations!

” My leisure and my old days would have been consecrated, in company with the empress, and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to visiting slowly, like a real country couple, with our own horses, all the corners of the empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and sowing everywhere and on all sides knowledge and benefactions.”

Napoleon, who had been destined by Providence for the sad, involuntary rôle of an executioner of the nations, assured himself that the aim of his deeds was the good of the nations, and that he could have guided the fates of millions and could have bestowed benefactions by means of power!

” Of the four hundred thousand men who crossed the Vistula,” he wrote further on about the Russian war, ” one-half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wiirtembergians, Mecklenburgians, Spaniards, Italians, Neapolitans. The imperial army, properly speaking, was fully one-third composed of Dutch, Belgians, inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genoans, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the thirty-second military division, of Bremen, Hamburg, etc.; it counted scarcely 140,000 men who spoke French. The expedition into Russia cost France itself less than fifty thousand men ; the Russian army, in its retreat from Vflna to Moscow, lost in the different battles four times as many as the French army ; the conflagration of Moscow cost the lives of one hundred thousand Russians, who died in the woods of cold and discomfort ; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder, the Russian army also was affected by the inclemency of the season : upon arriving at Vflna, it counted only fifty thousand men, and at Kälisz less than eighteen thousand men.”

He imagined that the war with Russia took place by his will, and the terror of what had taken place did not strike his soul. He boldly assumed the whole responsibility of the incident, and his obscured mind saw some measure of excuse in the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of men who perished, there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

XXXIX.

Several tens of thousands of men lay dead in all kinds of positions and uniforms in the fields and meadows, which belonged to Messrs. Davÿdov and to Crown peasants, in the fields and meadows, on which the peasants of the villages of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardind, and Seménovskoe for hundreds of years had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle together. At the ambulance the grass and earth was, for the space of a desyatina, saturated with blood. Crowds of wounded and unharmed men belonging to various commands, with frightened faces, on one side sauntered back to Mozhaysk, and on the other to Valuevo. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, led by commanders, walked ahead. Others again stood in their places and continued shooting.

Over the whole field, which before had been so cheerful and beautiful, with its gleaming bayonets and its smoke in the morning sun, now hovered a mist of dampness and smoke, and a strange acid odour of saltpetre and blood was borne across it. The clouds gathered, and a light rain began to sprinkle on the dead, the wounded, the frightened, the exhausted, and the doubting men. It seemed to say : ” Enough, enough, men ! Stop ! Come to your senses ! What are you doing ? “

The men on either side, exhausted by lack of food and rest, began to have their misgivings about the righteousness of destroying each other, and in all the faces could be seen wavering, and in each soul there rose the same question : ” For what purpose, for whom shall I kill and be killed ? Kill whom you please, do what you wish, but I will not do it any longer ! ” This thought ripened toward evening in the soul of each. At any moment these men might become frightened at what they were doing, and throw everything away and run.

And though, toward the end of the battle, the men felt the whole enormity of their deed, although they would gladly have stopped, a certain incomprehensible, mysterious force kept guiding them, and the perspiring, powder-stained, and gory artillerists, — only one in every three being left now, — tripping over things and gasping from fatigue, brought the charges, loaded, aimed, applied the linstock; and the balls flew just as swiftly and just as cruelly from both sides, and crushed human bodies, and there went on that terrible work which is done not by the will of men, but by the will of Him who guides men and worlds.

Any one who could have seen the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have said that the French would have to make only one more small effort, and the Russian army would disappear ; and he who could have looked at the French would have said that the Russians would only have to make one more small effort, and the French would perish. But neither the French nor the Russians made this small effort, and the flame of the battle slowly burnt out.

The Russians did not make this effort because they were not attacking the French. In the beginning of the battle they only stood on the road to Moscow, barring it, and they continued to stand there at the end of the battle, as they had at its beginning. But even if the aim of the Russians had consisted in defeating the French, they could not have made this last effort because all the troops of the Russians were broken, and there was not a single part of the army which had not suffered in the battle, and the Russians, remaining in their places, had lost one-half of their army.

The French, with the memory of all their former victories during the period of fifteen years, with their conviction of the invincibleness of Napoleon, with their consciousness of having gained possession of a part of the battlefield, of having lost only one-fourth of their men, and of having still an untouched Guard of twenty thousand men, could easily have made that effort. Some historians say that all Napoleon needed to have done was to have given up his untouched old Guard in order to have won the battle. To speak of what might have been if Napoleon had given up his Guard, is the same as if one were to talk of what would happen if autumn were changed to spring. It could not have been. Napoleon did not give up the Guard, not because he did not want to do so, but because he could not do so. All the generals, officers, and soldiers of the French army knew that this could not be done, because the fallen spirit of the army did not permit it.

It was not merely Napoleon who experienced that feeling which resembled a dream, when the terrible swing of the arm falls powerlessly, but all the generals, all the soldiers of the French army who took part, or who did not take part, after all the experiences of former battles (when the enemy ran after efforts only a tenth as great), experienced the same feeling of terror in the presence of an enemy who, having lost one-half of his army, was standing as threatening at the end as in the beginning of the battle. The moral strength of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not the victory which is determined by the captured pieces of stuffs on poles, called flags, and by the space in which the troops have been standing, but the moral victory, which convinces the adversary of the superiority of the enemy and of his own impotence, had been obtained by the Russians at Borodind. The French invasion, like an infuriated animal which in his leap has received a mortal wound, felt its ruin ; but it could not stop, just as the Russian army, which was only half as strong, could not swerve. With the impulse already given, the French army might still roll on as far as Moscow ; but there, without any new efforts on the part of the Russian army, it had to perish, from the loss of blood from the mortal wound which it had received at Borodind. The direct outcome of the battle of Borodind was the aimless flight of Napoleon from Moscow, the return along the old Smolénsk road, the destruction of the invading army of five hundred thousand men, and the ruin of Napoleonic France, upon which the hand of the stronger-spirited adversary was for the first time placed at Borodind.

PART THE ELEVENTH

I.

For the human mind the absolute perpetuity of motion is incomprehensible. The laws of any motion become intelligible to man only when he considers units of this motion taken arbitrarily. At the same time, from this arbitrary division of uninterrupted motion into interrupted units rises the greater part of human aberrations.

There is a well-known sophism of the ancients that Achilles can never catch up with a turtle ahead of him, despite the fact that Achilles walks ten times as fast as the turtle : the moment Achilles will have walked the distance which separates him from the turtle, the turtle will have advanced one-tenth of that space ; Achilles will walk this tenth, when the turtle will walk one-hun-dreth, and so forth, ad infinitum. This problem appeared insoluble to the ancients. The absurdity of the solution (that Achilles can never catch up with the turtle) arose from the fact that they arbitrarily admitted interrupted units of motion, whereas the motion of both Achilles and the turtle went on uninterruptedly.

By assuming increasingly minute units of motion, we only approach the solution of the question, but never reach it. Only by introducing an infinitely small quantity and its ascending progression up to one-tenth, and by taking the sum of this geometric progression, do we arrive at a solution of the problem. A new branch of mathematics, having attained the art of treating infinitely small

quantities, now gives answers, in other, more complicated questions of motion, which formerly seemed to be insoluble.

This new branch of mathematics, which was unknown to the ancients, by introducing into the discussion of questions of motion infinitely small quantities, that is, such that by means of them the chief condition of motion (absolute perpetuity) is reestablished, corrects that inevitable error which the human mind cannot help making, when it considers separate units of motion instead of the uninterrupted motion itself.

Precisely the same thing takes place in the search for the laws of historical motion.

The motion of humanity, arising in an endless quantity of human wills, goes on in an uninterrupted succession. The discovery of the laws of this motion is the aim of history. But, in order to grasp the laws of the uninterrupted motion of the sum of all the wills of men, the human mind introduces arbitrary, interrupted units. The first method of history consists in taking an arbitrary series of uninterrupted events and examining it separately from the rest, whereas there is not, and there cannot be, the beginning of any event, but one event uninterruptedly flows from a preceding one. A second method is to consider the actions of one man, a king, a general, as the sum of the wills of men, whereas the sum of human wills is never expressed in the activity of one historical person.

Historical science in its motion assumes ever smaller and smaller units for its consideration, and in this way strives to approach the truth. But, however small these units which history introduces, we feel that the admission of a unit, separated from others, the admission of the Veginning of any phenomenon, and the admission that the wills of all men are expressed in the actions of one historical person, are in themselves false.

Every historical deduction, without the least effort on the part of criticism, falls to pieces like dust, without leaving anything behind, simply because criticism selects for its object of observation a more or less interrupted unit, which it always has a right to do, because the historical unit taken is always arbitrary.

Only by introducing the infinitely small unit for observation — the differential of history, that is, the homogeneous tendencies of men — and by acquiring the art of integrating (of taking the sums of the infinitesimals), can we hope to grasp the laws of history.

The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe represent an unusual motion of millions of people. Men leave their customary occupations, tend from one end of Europe to another, pillage, kill each other, triumph, and despair, and the whole course of life is changed for a number of years and shows an intensified motion, which at first keeps growing, and then falls off. What is the cause of this motion, or by what laws did it take place ? is what the human mind asks itself.

The historians, in reply to this question, expound to us the acts and speeches of a few dozen men, in one of the buildings of Paris, giving these acts and speeches the name of Revolution ; then they give a detailed biography of Napoleon and of a few sympathetic persons and a few hostile ones connected with him, tell us of the influence exerted by some of these persons on the others, and say : “ This is what has caused the motion, and these are its laws ! “

But the human mind refuses to believe this explanation ; it says straight out that the method of explanation is not correct, because under it the weaker phenomenon is assumed as the cause of the stronger. The sum of human wills made both the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of these wills suffered and annihilated them.

” But every time that there were conquests, there were conquerors ; every time that there were revolutions in a country, there were great men,” says history. Indeed, every time that conquerors made their appearance, there were wars, replies human reason, but that does not prove that the conquerors were the cause of wars, or that it should be possible to find the laws of war in the personal activity of one man. Every time I look at my watch and see the hand approaching ten, I hear them commence ringing the bells in the neighbouring church ; but from the fact that the bells are rung ever)’ time when the hand of the watch approaches ten o’clock, I have no right to conclude that the position of the hand is the cause of the movement of the bells.

Every time I see the motion of a locomotive, I hear the sound of a whistle and see the opening of a throttle and the motion of the wheels; but from this I have no right to conclude that the whistle and the motion of the wheels are the causes of the movement of the locomotive.

The peasants say that a cold wind blows in a late spring, because the oak buds are unfolding, and, indeed, a cold wind does blow every spring when the oak begins to unfold its buds. But, although the cause of the cold wind which blows at the unfolding of the oak-tree is unknown to me, I cannot agree with the peasants that the unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, simply because the force of the wind lies outside the influence of the buds. I only see the coincidence of those conditions which are to be found in every vital phenomenon, and I see that, no matter how carefully I may look at the watch hand, the throttle and the wheels of the locomotive, and the buds of the oak-tree, I shall not find out the cause of the ringing, of the motion of the locomotive, and of the vernal wind. In order to learn these, I must completely shift my point of observation and learn the laws of the motion of the steam, the bell, and the wind. History must do the same, — and attempts in this direction have already been made.

For the study of the laws of history, we must completely change the subject of observation, leave alone kings, ministers, and generals, and study the homogeneous, infinitely small elements, by which masses are guided. Nobody can say how much it is in the power of man on this path to attain the comprehension of the laws of history ; but it is evident that upon this path only lies the possibility of grasping the historical laws, and that on this path human reason has not expended even one-millionth part of those efforts which have been lavished by the historians on the description of the acts of various kings, generals, and ministers, and on the exposition of their reflections in reference to these acts.

II.

The hosts of twelve tongues of Europe have invaded Russia. The Russian army and population retreat, avoiding conflicts before Smolénsk, and from Smolénsk to Borodin<5. The French army with a continually increasing force of impulsion bears toward Moscow, the aim of its motion. The force of its impulsion, upon approaching the goal, keeps increasing, like the accelerated motion of a falling body, in measure as it approaches the ground. Behind are thousands of versts of a hungry, hostile country ; in front, tens of versts separating it from its goal. This is felt by every soldier of Napoleon’s army, and the invasion proceeds by itself, by the mere force of impulsion.

In the Russian army, the spirit of infuriation against the enemy flames more and more, in measure as it recedes : as the army retreats, the fury grows more concentrated and more intense. At Borodino the conflict takes place. Neither the one army nor the other disintegrates, but the Russian army, immediately after the conflict, retreats with the same fatality with which a ball rebounds when it strikes another, which bears upon it with greater impulse ; and with the same fatality (though losing all its power in the shock) the impelled ball of the invasion still rolls on for a short distance.

The Russians retreat 120 versts beyond Moscow, while the French reach the city and stop there. For five weeks after this there is not a single battle. The Frenchmen do not move. Like a mortally wounded beast, which, exhausted from loss of blood, licks its wound, they remain in Moscow for five weeks, without undertaking anything, and suddenly without any apparent reason run back again : they throw themselves on the Kaluga road and (after a victory, for the battlefield was again left to them at Mälo-Yaroslävets), without giving any serious battle, run faster still, back to Smolénsk, beyond Smolénsk, beyond Vilna, beyond the Berézina, and farther still.

On the evening of August 26th, Kutuzov and the whole Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodiné was won. Kutuzov so wrote the emperor. Kutuzov gave orders to get ready for a new battle, in order to finish up the enemy, not because he wanted to deceive any one, but because he knew that the enemy was vanquished, just as every person who had taken part in the battle knew it.

But, on that same evening and on the following day, there began to come in, one after another, bits of news about unheard-of losses, about the loss of half the army, and a new battle became a physical impossibility.

It was out of the question to give battle so long as all information was not yet in, the wounded not removed, the projectiles not supplied, the dead not counted, new commanders not appointed in place of those killed, and the men not yet fed and rested. And yet, immediately after the battle, on the following morning, the French army (by force of that impulsion which was now increased in an inverse ratio to the square of the distance) of its own accord advanced against the Russian army. Kutuzov wanted to attack on the following day, and so did the whole army. But, in order to attack, it is not enough to wish to do so, — a possibility of doing was needed, and this possibility did not exist. They could not help retreating one day’s distance ; later it was just as impossible to keep from retreating for a second and third day’s stop, and, at length, on September 1st, when the army approached Moscow, the force of circumstances demanded, in spite of the strong sentiment in the ranks of the army, that the troops should recede beyond Moscow. And the troops retreated one more day’s march, and surrendered Moscow to the enemy.

For people who are in the habit of thinking that the plans of wars and battles are made by generals in the same way that each of us, sitting in his cabinet over a map, makes his combinations about what his disposition would have been in such and such a battle, there arise the questions why Kutuzov in retreating had not done so or so, why he had not taken up a position before Fili, why he did not at once turn on the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow, and so forth. People who are in the habit of judging in this manner forget, or do not know, those inevitable conditions under which the activity of any commander-inchief always takes place. The activity of the general has not the slightest resemblance to the one which we imagine, sitting comfortably in our cabinet, looking up a campaign on the map, with a given number of men on either side and in a given locality, and beginning our considerations from a given moment. The commanderin-chief never is in those conditions of the beginning of any event, under which we contemplate it. The commanderin-chief is always in the middle of a moving series of events, and in such a way that never, at any minute, is he able to reflect on the whole significance of what is taking place. The event imperceptibly, moment after moment, carves itself into significance, and at every moment of this consecutive, uninterrupted carving of the event the commanderin-chief is at the centre of a most complicated game of intrigues, cares, subordination, arbitrary power, projects, counsels, threats, and deceits, and is constantly obliged to answer a multitude of questions, which are propounded to him, and which always contradict each other.

The learned military writers tell us in a most serious manner that Kutuzov ought to have moved his troops on the Kaluga road long before Fili, and that some one had even proposed such a plan. But, before a commanderin-chief, especially at a difficult moment, there are ever, not one, but dozens of projects at the same time. And each of these projects, based on strategy and tactics, contradicts all the others. It would seem, then, that the business of the commanderin-chief consisted in selecting one of these projects. However, he can’t do this, either. Events and time do not wait.

Let us say that on August 28th he is advised to cross over to the Kaluga road. Just then there comes galloping up an adjutant from Miloradovich, asking whether they should engage the French at once, or whether they should retreat. He must give an order at once, that very minute; but the order to retreat blocks our way to the Kaluga road. Immediately after the adjutant, the chief of the commissariat wants to know whither to take the provisions, and the chief of the hospital whither to take the wounded ; and a courier brings a letter from St. Petersburg, from the emperor, which leaves no possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the rival of the commanderin-chief, the one who is undermining him (there are always several such on hand), proposes a new project, which is diametrically opposed to the plan of passing over to the Kaluga road ; and the strength of the commanderin-chief himself demands sleep and rest ; and an esteemed general, who has been overlooked in the distribution of rewards, comes to enter a complaint ; and the inhabitants implore his protection ; and an officer sent out to survey the locality comes back and reports precisely the opposite of what the previously despatched officer has reported ; and a spy, a captive, and a general, who has made a reconnaissance,— all describe differently the position of the hostile army.

People, who are in the habit of not understanding, or

of forgetting these necessary conditions of the activity of every commanderin-chief, represent to us, for example, the position of the troops at Fili, and assume that on September 1st the commanderin-chief was quite at liberty to decide the question about abandoning or defending Moscow, whereas, with the position of the Russian army within five miles of Moscow, this question could not have existed. When was this question decided ? At the Drissa, at Smolensk, and, most palpably, on the 24th at Shevardind, and on the 26th at Borodind, and on every day, and hour, and minute of the retreat from Borodino to Fili.

III.

When Ermölov, who had been sent by Kutuzov to examine positions, told the fieldmarshal that it was impossible to fight at the walls of Moscow, Kutuzov looked at him in silence.

” Let me have your hand,” he said, and, turning it so as to feel his pulse, he said, ” You are not well, my dear. Think what you are saying.”

Kutuzov was still unable to understand that it was possible to retreat beyond Moscow, without giving battle.

At the Pokldnnaya Hill, within six versts of the Doro-gonnlov barrier, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench at the edge of the road. An immense throng of generals was gathered about him. Count Rostopchm, who had arrived from Moscow, joined them. All this brilliant assembly, breaking up into several coteries, discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the position, the condition of the troops, the proposed plans, the state of Moscow, in general military affairs. All felt that, although they had not been summoned for the purpose, and although it had not been called so, this was a military council. The conversations were all held in the sphere of general questions. If one or another imparted personal news, he did so in a whisper and immediately went over to the general questions : no jests, no laughter, not even smiles could be seen among all these men. All evidently tried to keep themselves up to the level of the situation. All the groups, conversing among themselves, endeavoured to be in the neighbourhood of the commanderin-chief

(whose bench formed the centre of the groups), and they spoke in such a way that he could hear them.

Kutuzov listened and occasionally asked them to repeat what they had said, but did not himself take part in the conversation, and expressed no opinion. Generally, after listening to the talk of one of the groups, he turned away from it with an expression of disappointment, as though they were telling something different from what he wanted to know. Some spoke of the chosen position, criticizing not so much the position itself as the mental capacity of those who had selected it. Others proved that the blunder had been made before and that they ought to have accepted battle two days before. The third group talked of the battle of Salamanca, about winch a Frenchman by the name of Crossart, wearing a Spanish uniform, who had just arrived, had informed them. (This Frenchman was analyzing with one of the German princes serving in the Russian army the siege of Saragossa, foreseeing a possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) In the fourth group, Count Rostopchin said that he was prepared with his Moscow retinue to perish under the walls of the capital, but that, nevertheless, he was sorry that he had been left in such ignorance, and that if he had known it before, it would have been different. Others, exhibiting the depth of their strategical combinations, spoke of the direction which the troops would have to take. Others again spoke more nonsense.

Kutuzov’s face became more and more careworn and sad. From all of these conversations Kutuzov saw this much: the defence of Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full sense of these words, that is, it was so impossible that, if some senseless commander gave the command for a battle, there would ensue a confusion, but no battle would be given, because the higher chiefs not only regarded the position as impossible, but in their conversations restricted themselves to the discussion of what would happen after the unquestionable abandonment of this position. How could the commanders lead their troops to a battlefield which they regarded as impossible ? The lower ranks, even the soldiers (who, too, reflect), also considered the position untenable, and so could not advance to fight with the certainty of defeat. If Bénigsen still insisted on the defence of this position, and others discussed it, the question no longer had any meaning in itself, but was used only as a pretext for dissensions and intrigues. Kutuzov saw that.

Having chosen a position, Bénigsen, with a display of his Russian patriotism (which Kutuzov could not hear without frowning), insisted on the defence of Moscow. Bénigsen’s purpose was as clear as daylight to Kutuzov. It was, in case of the failure of the defence, to throw the blame on Kutuzov, who had led the troops as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle, and in case of success, to ascribe it to himself ; but in case of refusal, to clear himself of the accusation of the criminality of abandoning Moscow. But this question of the intrigue did not now occupy the old man. He was interested in only one terrible question. And to this he did not hear any one giving him an answer. The question for him now was : ” Is it possible it is I who have allowed Napoleon to get as far as Moscow, and when did I do it ? When was this decided ? Was it yesterday, when I sent Platov the order to retreat, or night before last, when I fell asleep and commanded Bénigsen to give the orders ? Or even before that ? When, when was this terrible business decided ? Moscow has to be abandoned. The troops must retreat, and this order has to be given.” It seemed to him that giving this terrible order was the same as abandoning the command of the army. He not only loved power and was used to it (the honour shown to Prince Prozordvski, under whom he had served in Turkey, irritated him), but he was also convinced that he was

destined to save Russia, and that, therefore, he had been chosen commanderin-chief in accordance with the wish of the nation, though against the will of the emperor. He was convinced that he was the only one who could hold himself at the head of the army under these hard conditions, that he was the only one in the whole world who could without terror have invincible Napoleon for his adversary ; and he was horrified at the thought of the command which he would have to give. Something had to be decided upon ; it was necessary to cut short these talks all about him, for they were beginning to assume too loose a character.

He called up the senior generals.

“ Ma tête, fut-elle bonne ou mauvaise, n’a qu’à s’aider d’elle même’’ he said, rising from the bench.

He drove to Fili, where his carriages stood.

IV.

In the spacious, best hut of peasant Andréy Savos-tydnov a council met at two o’clock. The men, the women, and the children of the large peasant family crowded in the ” black ” hut, across the vestibule. Only Andrey’s grandchild, Maldsha, a girl of six years, to whom his Most Serene Highness had given a piece of sugar, while fondling her, and drinking tea, remained in the large room on the oven. Malasha timidly and joyfully looked down from the oven on the faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, as they entered, one after another, and seated themselves in the ” fair ” corner, on broad benches, beneath the images. ” Grandfather,” himself, as Maldsha said to herself about Kutuzov, was sitting a distance apart from them, in the dark corner beyond the oven. He was settled deeply in a folding-chair and kept grunting and adjusting the collar of his coat, which choked him, although it was unbuttoned. Those who entered one after another walked over to the fieldmarshal. He pressed the hands of some, and nodded his head to others. Adjutant Kaysdrov was on the point of drawing aside the curtain opposite Kutuzov, but Kutuzov gave him an angry wave of his hand, and Kaysdrov understood that his Most Serene Highness did not want his face to be seen.

Around the peasant’s pine table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, paper, there were gathered such a mass of people that the servants brought another bench, which they placed near the table. On this bench sat down

Ermélov, Kaysärov, and Toll. Under the very images, occupying the first seat, sat Barclay de Tolly, with the cross of St. George about his neck, with a pale, sickly face, and with a high brow which merged into the baldness of his head. He had been suffering from an ague for two days, and even now felt a chill and a breaking in his bones. Beside him sat Uvarov, who, speaking in a subdued voice (in which all spoke), was communicating something to Barclay, making rapid gestures all the time. Small, plump Ddkhturov, raising his brows and crossing his hands over his stomach, was listening to what he was saying. On the other side sat, leaning his broad, bold-featured head with its sparkling eyes on his hand, Count Osterman-Tolstéy, who seemed to be absorbed in his thoughts. Raévski, with an expression of impatience and with a habitual gesture curling his hair over his brow, looked all the time at Kutuzov, or at the entrance door. Konovmtsyn’s firm, handsome, and kindly countenance beamed with a tender and sly smile. He met Malasha’s glance and made signs to her with his eyes, which made the girl smile.

All were waiting for Bénigsen, who was finishing his savoury dinner under the pretext of a new examination of the position. They waited for him from four to six o’clock, and all this time did not proceed to the deliberation, but in soft voices carried on private conversations.

Only when Bénigsen entered the room, Kutuzov moved out of his corner and up to the table, but in such a way that his face was not lighted up by the candles that had just been brought in.

Bénigsen opened the council with the question whether the holy and ancient capital of Russia was to be abandoned or defended. There ensued a protracted general silence. All the faces looked grim, and in the silence could be heard Kutuzov’s angry grunt and cough. All the eyes were directed upon him. Malasha, too, was looking at the “grandfather.” She was nearest to him and saw his face frown, as though he were getting ready to weep. But this lasted only a moment.

11 The holy and ancient capital of Russia /” he suddenly said, in an angry voice repeating Bénigsen’s words, thus indicating their false note. “ Permit me to tell you, your Serenity, that this question has no meaning for a Russian.” (He lurched forward with his heavy body.) ” Such a question cannot be put, and such a question has no meaning. The question for which I have asked these gentlemen to assemble is of a military character. It is this : ‘ The salvation of Russia is in its army. Is it more advantageous to risk the loss of the army and of Moscow by accepting battle, or to give up Moscow without a battle ? ’ It is on this question that I wish to know your opinion.” He once more settled himself against the back of the chair.

The debates began. Bénigsen did not yet regard his game as lost. Admitting the opinion of Barclay and of others about the impossibility of accepting a defensive battle at Fili, he, permeated by Russian patriotism and love of Moscow, proposed to transfer the troops in the night from the right to the left flank and to strike on the following morning against the right wing of the French. Opinions were divided : there were debates for and against this opinion. Ermélov, Dékhturov, and Raévski agreed with Bénigsen’s opinion. Whether they were guided by the feeling of the necessity for sacrifices before abandoning the capital, or by personal considerations, these generals did not seem to understand that the council of war could not change the inevitable course of events, and that Moscow was practically already abandoned. The other generals understood this, and so, leaving alone the question about Moscow, spoke of the direction which the army was to take in its retreat. Malasha, who, without taking her eyes off, was watching the proceedings, understood the meaning of this council in quite a different manner. It seemed to her that it was only a personal conflict between the ” grandfather ” and ” the long-skirted fellow,” as she called Bénigsen. She saw that they were angry whenever they spoke to each other, and in her heart she took ” grandfather’s ” side. In the middle of the conversation she noticed a swift, cunning glance, which the ” grandfather ” cast upon Bénigsen, and then she observed, to her joy, that ” grandfather ” said something to the ” long-skirted fellow,” which settled him : Bénigsen suddenly blushed and angrily paced the room. The words which had such an effect on Bénigsen were Kutuzov’s calmly and quietly expressed opinion about the advantage and disadvantage of Bénigsen’s proposition in regard to transferring the troops in the night from the right to the left flank for the purpose of attacking the French right wing.

” Gentlemen,” said Kutuzov, ” I cannot assent to the count’s plan. The transposition of troops in the proximity of the enemy is always perilous, and military history confirms this consideration. Thus, for example — ” Kutuzov seemed to meditate, trying to find an example, and, casting a clear, naïve glance at Bénigsen. ” Take the battle of Friedland, which, I am sure, the count remembers well: it was not quite successful just because our troops were transferred in too close proximity to the enemy — “

There followed a moment’s silence, which seemed dreadfully protracted to every one. The debates were resumed ; but there ensued many interruptions, and it was felt that there was nothing else to talk about.

During one of these interruptions Kutuzov heaved a deep sigh, as though getting ready to speak. All looked around at him.

” Eh bien, messieurs ! Je vois que c’est moi qui payerai les pots cassés,” he said. And rising slowly, he went up to the table. ” Gentlemen, I have heard your opinions. Some of you will not agree with me ; but I,” he stopped, ” by dint of the power entrusted to me by my emperor and by my country, command a retreat.”

After this, the generals began to depart with the same solemn and taciturn caution with which people leave after a funeral.

A few of the generals communicated something to the commanderin-chief in a subdued voice and a different diapason from the one in which they had spoken in the council.

Maläsha, who had for a long time been expected at supper, cautiously slipped down from the oven beds, catching with her bare feet in the projections of the oven, and, getting lost among the legs of the generals, bolted through the door.

Having dismissed the generals, Kutuzov sat for a long time leaning against the table and thinking all the time the one terrible question : ” When, when was it that it was at last decided that Moscow was lost ? When did that take place which decided the question, and who is to blame for it ? ”

” This, this I did not expect,” he said to Adjutant Schneider, who came in to see him late at night. ” I did not expect this ! I did not think of it ! ”

“ You need rest, your Serenity,” said Schneider.

” Indeed, no ! They will eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks,” without replying, shouted Kutuzov, striking the table with his plump fist. “ They will if only — ”

V.

In contrast to Kutuzov, and in a contemporary event, which was of even greater importance than the retreat of the army without a fight, namely, in the abandonment of Moscow and its conflagration, Rostopchin, who is represented as the instigator of this event, acted quite differently.

This event — the desertion of Moscow and its conflagration — was as inevitable as the retreat of the army without a fight from Moscow, after the battle of Borodind.

Every Russian might have predicted this, not on the ground of ratiocinations, but on the ground of that feeling which is within us and has been in our fathers.

Beginning with Smoldnsk, in all the cities and villages of the Russian land, took place, without the aid of Count Rostopchin and his broadsides, that which happened in Moscow. The people, careless, waited for the enemy, and did not riot, nor become agitated ; they did not tear anybody to pieces, but calmly awaited their fate, feeling that at the most difficult moment they would find the proper strength for doing what was necessary. And the moment the enemy approached, the wealthier elements of the population went away, leaving their property behind them ; the poorer ones remained, and they burnt and destroyed what was left.

The consciousness that it would be so, and always must be so, had always existed in the mind of a Russian. And this consciousness, and, moreover, the presentiment that Moscow would be taken, was present in the Moscow society of the year 1812. Those who began to leave Moscow in July and the beginning of August, showed that they expected it. Those who departed with what they could take along, abandoning their houses and half their estates, acted so by force of that latent patriotism, winch finds its expression not in phrases, not in the murder of their children in order to save the country, nor in other unnatural acts, but which expresses itself imperceptibly, simply, organically, and therefore always produces the most powerful results.

” It is disgraceful to run away from danger ; only cowards are running away from Moscow,” they were told. Rostopchin impressed on them by his broadsides that it was a disgrace to flee from Moscow. They felt ashamed to receive the appellation of cowards ; they felt ashamed to leave ; but they left all the same, knowing that it had to be done. Why did they depart ? It cannot be assumed that Rostopchin frightened them with the terrors produced by Napoleon in the conquered provinces. The first to leave were the rich and cultured people, who knew full well that Vienna and Berlin had remained intact, and that there, during Napoleon’s occupation, the inhabitants had passed the time pleasantly with the charming Frenchmen, whom the Russians, especially the ladies, liked so much.

They went away because there could be no question for the Russians whether the domination of the French would be good or bad for Moscow. It was impossible to remain under the domination of the French : that was worse than anything. They had been leaving previous to the battle of Borodind, and faster still after it, paying no attention to the appeals for the defence, in spite of the proclamation of the commanderin-chief of Moscow that he intended to take up the miracle-working image of the Ivor Church and to go out fighting the enemy, in spite of the balloons which were to destroy the French, and in spite of all the nonsense which Rostopchin wrote in his broadsides. They knew that the army had to fight, and that if the army was unable to prevail, they, with their ladies and servants, could not go to the Three Hills to fight Napoleon, and that it was necessary to depart, however painful it was to abandon their property to ruin. They went, and they did not think of the grand meaning of tliis immense, rich capital, which was abandoned by the inhabitants and was practically doomed to conflagration (it is not in the spirit of the Russian nation to leave houses empty, without destroying and burning them); they went away, each for himself ; but, at the same time, only because they departed did that grand event take place, which for ever will remain the glory of the Russian people. That lady, who as early as June took her negroes and jesters away from Moscow to the Government of Saratov, with the dim consciousness that she would not be a servant to Napoleon, and with the fear lest she be stopped by command of Count Rostopchin, did simply and truly the work which saved Russia.

But Count Rostopchin, who now put to shame those who departed ; now transported the government offices ; now distributed worthless weapons to the drunken rabble ; now raised images ; now prohibited Avgustin from taking away the relics and icons ; now seized all the private teams which were to be found in Moscow ; now moved Leppich’s balloon in 136 teams; now intimated that he would burn Moscow ; now told how he had burnt his own house and wrote a proclamation to the French, solemnly upbraiding them for having destroyed his Home for Children ; now claimed for himself the glory of having burnt Moscow, now denied it, and now reproached the people for it; now sent all the French out of Moscow, but left in the city Madame Aubert-Chalmé, who formed the centre of all the French population of Moscow, and without cause ordered the venerable director of posts, Klyucharév, seized and sent into exile ; now assembled all the people upon the Three Hills, in order to fight the French ; now, to get rid of these people, surrendered a man to them to be killed, while he himself left by a back gate ; now said that he would not outlive the calamity of Moscow; now wrote in albums French verses about his part in the matter,1 — tins man did not understand the meaning of what was going on, and only wanted to do something himself, to surprise somebody, to do an act of patriotic heroism, and like a boy played with the grand and inevitable event of the abandonment and conflagration of Moscow, and tried with his small hand now to encourage and now to arrest the current of the tremendous popular torrent, which carried him along.

1Je suis né Tartare. Je voulus être Romain. Les Français m’appelèrent barbare. Les Russes—Georges Dandin.

VI.

Upon her return with the court from Vilna to St. Petersburg, Hélène was in an embarrassing condition. In St. Petersburg, Hélène enjoyed the special protection of a dignitary who occupied one of the highest offices in the country. In Vilna she had been intimate with a young foreign prince. Upon arriving at St. Petersburg, the prince and the dignitary were both there, and both claimed their rights, so that a problem in Hélène’s career presented itself to her: to preserve the intimacy with both, without offending either.

What would have appeared difficult and even impossible for any other woman did not give the least concern to Countess Bezukhi, who evidently did not in vain enjoy the reputation of a very clever woman. If she had tried to conceal her acts, to disentangle herself from the awkward position by cunning, she would have spoiled the whole business, and would have admitted her guilt ; but Hélène, on the contrary, like a truly great man, who can do everything he wishes, immediately put herself in the position of righteousness, in which she believed sincerely, and put everybody else in a position of guilt.

When the young stranger permitted himself, for the first time, to reproach her, she raised her beautiful head proudly and, turning halfway around to him, said, in a firm voice :

” Voilà, l’égoïsme et la cruauté des hommes ! Je ne m’attendais pas à autre chose. La femme se sacrifie pour vous ; elle souffre, et voilà la récompense ! Quel droit avez-vous, monseigneur, de me demander compte de mes amitiés, de mes affections ? C’est un homme gui a été plus qic’un père pour moi.”

The personage wanted to say something. Hélène interrupted him :

, “ Eh bien, oui” she said, “peut-être qu’il a pour moi d’autres sentiments que ceux d’un père, mais ce n’est pas une raison pour que je lui ferme ma porte. Je ne suis pas un homme pour être ingrate. Sachez, monseigneur,pour tout ce qui a rapport à mes sentiments intimes, je ne rends compte qu’à Dieu et à ma conscience,” she concluded, touching her beautiful, swelling bosom with her hand, and looking up to heaven.

” Mais écoutcz-moi au nom de Dieu.”

” Epousez-moi, et je serai votre esclave.”

” Mais c’est impossible.”

” Vous ne daignez pas descendre jusqic’ à moi, vous — ” Hélène said, weeping.

The high personage began to console her ; but Hélène said through her tears (as though forgetting herself) that nothing could prevent her marrying him, that there were such examples (there were not many examples then, but she named Napoleon and other high personages), that she had never been the wife of her husband, and that she had been sacrificed to him.

” But the laws, religion — ” said the prince, beginning to submit.

” The laws, religion — What were they invented for, if they could not accomplish this ? ” said Hélène.

The prince was surprised that such a simple thought had never occurred to him, and turned for advice to the holy brothers of the Society of Jesus, with whom he stood in close relations.

A few days later, at one of those charming fêtes which Hélène gave at her summer residence on Stone Island, she was introduced to a no longer youthful man, with snow-white hair and black, sparkling eyes, M. de Jobert, ” un Jésuite à robe courte,” who, in the light of the illumination and to the sound of music, for a long time talked with her in the garden of the love of God, of Christ, of the heart of the Holy Virgin, and of the consolation afforded in this life and in the life to come by the only, true Catholic religion. Hélène was touched, and several times tears stood in her eyes and in those of M. de Jobert, and their voices trembled. A dance, to which a gentleman came to take Hélène away, broke up the conversation with her future directeur de conscience but on the following day M. de Jobert came by himself to see her in the evening, and after that called on her frequently.

One day he took the countess to a Catholic church, where she knelt before an altar, to which she had been led. A middle-aged, charming Frenchman put his hands upon her head, and, as she later told herself, she felt something like the wafting of a fresh breeze which descended upon her soul. She was told that this was “ la grâce.”

Then they brought up an abbot “à robe longue,” and he confessed her and absolved her sins. On the next day a box was brought to her, containing the Host, and tins was left at her house for her use. After a few days, Hélène, to her joy, found out that she had now entered the true Catholic Church, and that the Pope would learn about her in a few days, and would send her a certain document.

Everything which was now going on around her, all this attention which was directed toward her by a few clever men, and which found its expression in such agreeable, refined forms, and the dove-like purity in which she now was (all that time she wore white dresses with white ribbons), — all this afforded her pleasure ; but in her pleasure she did not for a moment forget her aim. And, as it always happens that in matters of cunning a stupid man gets the better of those who’are more intelligent, she, seeing that the purpose of all these words and this trouble was chiefly to turn her to Catholicism and take money from her for the benefit of Jesuitic institutions (at which they hinted to her), before giving the money, insisted that all those operations be performed on her which would free her from her husband. To her comprehension the meaning of all religion was to preserve certain proprieties in the gratification of human wants. And for this purpose she, in one of her conversations with the confessor, demanded a definite answer to the question as to how far her marriage bound her.

They were sitting in the drawingroom at a window. It was twilight. Flowers sent their odours through the window. Hélène wore a white dress, which was transparent across the breast and shoulders. The abbot, a well-fed man with a chubby, closely shaven chin, pleasing, firm mouth, and white hands, which were humbly folded on his knees, sat close to Hélène, and with a delicate smile on his lips now and then looked at her face with a glance of humble rapture at her beauty, and expounded to her his view on the question which so interested her. Hélène, smiling restlessly, looked at his flowing hair and smoothly shaven, dark-tinted, full cheeks, and waited for a new turn in the conversation at any moment. But the abbot, though apparently enjoying the beauty of his interlocutrice, was carried away by the mastery of his work.

The course of the reasoning of the director of conscience was as follows :

” Ignorant of the significance of that which you undertook, you made a vow of nuptial fidelity to a man, who, on his side, by entering into matrimony and believing in the religious significance of marriage, has committed a profanation. This marriage has not had the twofold meaning which it ought to have. Yet, in spite of it, your vow binds you. You have swerved from it. What have you committed by this ? Péché véniel, or péché mortel ? — Péché véniel, because you have committed the deed without any evil thought. If now you should again enter wedlock for the purpose of having children, your sin may be forgiven. But the question again falls under two heads : first — “

” But I think,” Hélène, wearied, suddenly said, with her charming smile, “that, after entering into the true faith, I cannot be bound by what the false religion has imposed upon me.”

The directeur de conscience was amazed at the simple manner in which this Columbus’s egg was stood up before him. He was delighted at the unexpected rapidity of the progress which his pupil was making, but he could not abandon his ingenious structure of arguments, which he had built up with so much labour.

« Entendons-nous, comtesse,” he said, with a smile, and began to refute the reflections of his spiritual daughter.

VII.

Hélène understood that the matter was very simple and easy from the spiritual point of view, and that her guides made difficulties only because they were afraid of how the temporal power would look upon it.

Consequently Hélène decided that this affair ought to be prepared for in society. She provoked the jealousy of the old dignitary and told him the same that she had told the first suitor, that is, she put the question in such a way that the only means for him to assert his right to her lay in marrying her. The old dignitary was the first moment as much staggered by this proposition of marrying, while her husband was alive, as the youthful personage had been ; but he was affected by Hélène’s imperturbable conviction that this was as simple and natural as the marriage of a young girl. If there had been noticed the slightest signs of wavering, shame, or concealment in Hélène herself, the affair would certainly have been lost ; but there were not only no signs of concealment and shame, but, on the contrary, she told her intimate friends (this means all of St. Petersburg) with much simplicity and good-natured naïveté that the prince and the dignitary had both proposed to her, and that she loved them both and was afraid of offending them.

The rumour was soon spread in St. Petersburg, not that Hélène wanted to be divorced from her husband (if this rumour had been spread, many would have risen against such an illegal intention), but simply that unhappy, interesting Hélène was in doubt which of the two to marry. The question no longer was to what extent this was possible, but only which match was more advantageous, and how the court would look upon it. There were, indeed, a few narrowminded people who could not rise to the height of this question, and who saw in this scheme a profanation of the sacrament of marriage ; but there were only a few of this class, and they were silent, while the majority were interested in questions about the luck that had befallen Hélène, and about which choice would be the better. They did not speak about whether it was right or wrong to marry while the husband was living, because this question had apparently been “settled by people who are more clever than you or I ” (as they said), and to doubt the correctness of the solution was tantamount to risking the betrayal of one’s ignorance and lack of savoir faire.

Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosiniov, who came to St. Petersburg that summer to see one of her sons, was the only one who took the liberty of expressing her own opinion, which went counter to that of society. Meeting Hélène at a ball, Mdrya Dmitrievna stopped her in the middle of the parlour and, amid a general silence, said to her, in her coarse voice : ” They have begun here to marry while the husband is still alive. You, no doubt, imagine that you have invented something new. Others are ahead of you, my dear. It is an old story. They do like this in all …” And with these words Marya Dmitrievna, rolling up her broad sleeves with her habitual, threatening gesture, and looking sternly about her, walked across the room.

Although people were afraid of Märya Dmitrievna, they looked upon her in St. Petersburg as a jester, and so the coarse word was the only one in her speech that was taken note of, and was repeated in a whisper, assuming that all the salt of the witticism lay in this word alone.

Prince Vasili, who of late had begun very frequently to forget what he was saying, and who repeated exactly the same thing a hundred times, said every time he saw his daughter :

” Hélène, j’ai un mot à vous dire,” he would say to her, taking her aside and pulling her hand down. “J’ai eu vent de certains projets relatifs à — vous savez. Eh bien, ma chère enfant, vous savez que mon cœur de père se réjouit de vous savoir — Vous avez tant souffert — Mais, chère enfant — ne consultez que votre cœur. C’est tout ce que je vous dis.” And, concealing his agitation, which was always the same, he would press his cheek to the cheek of his daughter and would go away. Bilibin, who had not yet lost liis reputation of a very clever man, and who was an unselfish friend of Hélène’s, one of those friends whom brilliant women always have, and who never can pass over to the rôle of lovers, — Bilibin once told his friend Hélène en petit comité his view on the whole matter.

” Ecoutez, Bilibine ! ” (Hélène always called such friends as Bilibin by their family name), — and she touched his dress coat with her white ring-bedecked hand. ” Ditcs-moi comme vous diriez à une sœur, que dois-je faire ? Lequel des deux ? “

Bilibin knit his brow and fell to musing, with a smile on his lips.

” Vous ne me prenez pas unawares, vous savez,” he said. ” Comme veritable ami fai pensé et repensé à votre affaire. Voyez-vous, si vous épousez le prince” he bent down a finger, ” vous perdez pour toujours la chance d’épouser l’autre, et puis vous mécontentez la Cour. (Comme vous savez, il y a une espèce de parenté.) Mais si vous épousez le vieux comte, vous faites le bonheur de ses derniers jours, et puis comme veuve du grand — le prince ne fait plus de mésalliance en vous épousant,” and Bilibin smoothed out the wrinkles on his brow.

” Voilà un véritable ami ! ” said beaming Hélène, once more touching Bilibin’s sleeve with her hand. ” Mais e’est que j aime l’un et l’autre, je ne voudrais pas leur faire de chagrin. Je donnerais ma vie pour leïtr bonheur à tous deux’’ she said.

Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that even he was unable to assist her in such sorrow.

” Une maitressc-femme ! Voilà ce qui s’appelle poser carrément la question. Elle voudrait épouser tous les trois à la fois,” thought Bilibin. ” But tell me, how will your husband look upon this affair ? ” he said, on account of his well-established reputation not fearing to lower himself by such a naïve question. ” Will he consent ? “

” Ah ! Il m’aime tant ! ” said Hélène, who for some reason thought that Pierre, too, loved her. ” Il fera tout pour moi.”

Bilibin wrinkled up his skin, to indicate the coming of a mot.

” Meme le divorce,” he said.

Hélène smiled.

Among the persons who allowed themselves to doubt the legality of the intended marriage, was Hélène’s mother, Princess Kurägin. She was constantly tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that the subject of jealousy was so near to her heart, she could not make peace with this thought. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of a divorce and of marrying during the life of the husband, and the priest informed her that this was impossible, and to her joy referred her to the Gospel text, where the possibility of remarrying during the lifetime of the husband was directly denied.

Armed with these arguments, winch to her seemed unanswerable, the princess went to see her daughter early in the morning, hoping to find her alone at that time of the day.

Having listened to the objections of her mother, Hélène smiled meekly and sarcastically.

” Ah, maman, ne dites pas de bêtises ! Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma position f ai des devoirs,” said Hélène, transferring the conversation from the Russian to the French language, the Russian somehow appearing inadequate to represent her case.

“ But, my dear — “

” Ah, maman, comment est-ce que vous ne comprenez pas que le Saint Père, qui a le droit de donner des dispenses — “

Just then the lady companion, who was living in Hélène’s house, came to report that his Highness was in the parlour and wished to see her.

” Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre lui, parce qu’il m’a manqué parole’.’

” Comtesse, à tout péché miséricorde,” said, entering, a young, light-complexioned man with a long face and nose.

The old princess rose respectfully and curtseyed. The young man paid no attention to her. The princess nodded to her daughter and glided toward the door.

“Yes, she is right,” thought the old princess, all of whose convictions melted at the appearance of his Highness. ” She is right ; but how is it we in our irretrievable youth did not know all this ? And yet it was all so simple,” she thought, seating herself in the carriage.

In the beginning of August Hélène’s affair was clearly defined, and she wrote to her husband (who, she thought, loved her very much) a letter, in which she informed him of her intention of marrying N–-N–-, and of the

fact that she had adopted the only true religion, and asked him to attend to all those necessary formalities of divorce, of which the bearer of the letter would inform him.

“ Sur ce je prie Dieu, mon ami, de vous avoir sous Sa sainte et puissante garde. Votre amie, Hélène.”

This letter was brought to Pierre’s house just as he was on the field of Borodind.

VIII.

Running down, for the second time, at the end of the battle of Borodind, from the Raévski Battery, Pierre with crowds of soldiers rushed down the ravine toward Knyaz-kovo, passed by the ambulance, and, seeing blood and hearing shouts and groans, hurried on, mingling with the crowds of soldiers.

The one thing Pierre now wished above all others, with all the powers of his soul, was to get away as quickly as possible from those terrible impressions, which he had received that day, to return to the customary conditions of life, and calmly to fall asleep on the bed in his room. Only in the habitual conditions of life, he felt, would he be able to understand himself and all that he had seen and experienced. But these habitual conditions did not exist.

Though the balls and bullets did not whistle here, on the road over which he was riding, on all sides, it was the same as it had been on the field of battle. There were the same suffering, exhausted, and occasionally strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldier overcoats, the same sounds of the fusilade, though distant, yet still inducing terror; in addition it was sultry and dusty.

After walking about three versts along the Mozhaysk highway, Pierre sat down at the side of the road.

Twilight descended upon earth, and the din of the ordnance died away. Leaning on his arm, Pierre lay down and lay so for a long time, looking at the shadows moving past him in the darkness. It seemed to him all the time that a ball was flying toward him with a terrible whistle ; he trembled and raised himself a little. He did not remember how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three soldiers dragged up some twigs near him and, making a fire, settled down beside him. Looking askance at Pierre, the soldiers placed a kettle over the fire, broke some hardtack into it, and put in some lard. The agreeable odour of the fat victuals blended with the odour of the smoke. Pierre raised himself a little and sighed. The soldiers (there were three of them) ate, without paying any attention to Pierre, and carried on a conversation among themselves.

“ What kind of a man are you ? ” one of the soldiers suddenly turned to Pierre, evidently understanding the question in the same manner as Pierre understood it. ” If you want to eat, we will give you some, only tell us whether you are an honest man.”

“I ? I ?” said Pierre, feeling the necessity of minimizing as much as possible his social position, in order to get near to the soldiers and be understood by them. ” I am in reality an officer of the militia, only my company is not here ; when I came to the battlefield I lost it.”

” I say ! ” said one of the soldiers.

Another soldier shook his head.

” Well, will you eat some porridge ? ” asked the first soldier, handing Pierre a wooden spoon, which he had licked clean.

Pierre sat down near the fire and began to eat the porridge, — the food which was in the kettle, and which seemed to him the most savoury dish he had ever eaten. While he, bending over the kettle and eagerly taking large spoonfuls, munched his food, his face was visible in the light of the fire, and the soldiers looked at him silently.

” Where do you have to go ? Tell me ! ” one of the soldiers asked him.

” I want to go to Mozhaysk.”

” So you arc a gentleman ? “

« Yes.”

” What is your name ? “

” Peter Kirillovich.”

” dome, I’eter Kirillovich, we will take you there.”

The soldiers went with Pierre to Mozhdysk through the darkness.

The cocks were already crowing when they reached Mozhdysk and began to ascend the steep hill. Pierre walked with the soldiers, entirely forgetful of the fact that his tavern was at the foot of the hill, and that he had passed it long ago. He would not have thought of it (lie was in such a state of forgetfulness), if his groom had not stumbled on him halfway up the hill. The groom had gone all over town, trying to find him, and was on his way back to the tavern ; he recognized Pierre by his hat which gleamed white through the darkness.

” Your Serenity,” he said, ” we were despairing of you. Why are you on foot ? Whither are you going, if you please ? “

” Oh, yes,” said Pierre.

The soldiers stopped.

” Well, have you found your people ? ” asked one of them.

” Goodbye, Peter Kirillovich, I think, it is ? Goodbye, Peter Kirillovich • ” said the other voices.

” Goodbye,” replied Pierre, starting with his groom for the tavern.

” I must give them something ! ” thought Pierre, putting his hand into his pocket. ” No, you must not,” said another voice.

In the rooms of the tavern there was no room : every available place was occupied. Pierre went into the yard and, covering up his head, lay down in his carriage.

IX.

Pierre had barely put his head down on his pillow, when he felt himself falling asleep; but suddenly he heard, almost with the distinctness of reality, the ” Boom, boom, boom,” of the reports ; he heard groans, cries, the plashing of projectiles ; he smelled blood and powder, — and a feeling of terror, of the fear of death, took possession of him. He opened his eyes in fright, and raised his head above his overcoat. Everything was quiet outside. Only in the gateway an orderly was walking around, speaking with the tavern-keeper and plashing through the mud. Above Pierre’s head, under the dark roof of the shingled penthouse, the doves fluttered at the motion which he made in raising himself. Over the whole yard lay that peaceful, strong odour of the tavern yard, the odour of hay, manure, and tar, which at that moment gave Pierre much pleasure. Between two penthouses could be seen the pure, starry heavens.

“ Thank God it isn’t like that now ! ” thought Pierre, again covering up his head. ” Oh, how frightful terror is, and how disgracefully I have abandoned myself to it! But they — they were firm and calm all the time, to the end — ” he thought. ” They,” in Pierre’s mind were the soldiers who had been in the battery, and those who had fed him, and those who had prayed to the image. ” They,” — those strange people, heretofore unfamiliar to him, they stood out clearly and sharply in his mind above all other men.

“ To be a soldier, simply a soldier ! ” thought Pierre, falling asleep. ” To enter this common life with all one’s being, to become permeated by what makes them such ! But how throw off all this superfluous, devilish matter, all the burden of the external man ? At one time I could have been a soldier. I could have run away from my father, as I wished to do. I might have been made a common soldier after my duel with Ddlokhov.” And in Pierre’s imagination flashed the dinner at the club, at which he challenged Dolokhov, and the benefactor at Torzhdk. And now he thought of the solemn table lodge. The lodge was taking place at the English club. A familiar, near, and dear person was sitting at the end of the table. Yes, it was he ! The benefactor. ” But he is dead ! ” thought Pierre. ” Yes, he is ; but I did not know that he was alive. How sorry I am that he is dead, and how glad that he is again alive ! ” At one side of the table sat Anatdl, Dolokhov, Nesvitskoy, Denisov, and others like them (the category of these men was as clearly defined in his sleep, as the category of those men whom he called ” they and these men, Anatdl, Ddlokhov, were shouting and singing ; but through their cries could be heard the voice of the benefactor, speaking without cessation, and the sound of these words was as significant and unbroken as the din on the battlefield, but it was pleasant and consoling. Pierre did not understand what the benefactor was saying, but he knew (the category of ideas was so clear in his dream) that the benefactor was speaking about goodness, about the possibility of being what ” they ” were. And ” they ” with their simple, kindly, firm faces, surrounded the benefactor on all sides. But although they were good, they did not look at Pierre, did not know him. He tried to rise, but just then his feet grew cold and were bared.

He felt ashamed, and with one hand covered his feet, from which the overcoat had actually slipped down. In adjusting the overcoat, Pierre for a moment opened his eyes and saw the same penthouses, posts, yard, but now it was all bluish and bright, and covered with the tinsel of the dew or frost.

” Day is breaking,” thought Pierre. ” But this is a different matter. I must hear the words of the benefactor and understand their meaning.” He again covered himself with his overcoat, but there was no longer any table lodge, nor the benefactor. There were only thoughts, clearly expressed in words, — thoughts which some one was uttering, or which Pierre himself was thinking.

Kecalling these thoughts later, Pierre was convinced that, although they had really been provoked by the impressions of that day, somebody within him had been telling them to him. It seemed to him that never before on waking had he been able to think and express his thoughts so clearly.

“The most difficult thing is the subordination of human freedom to the laws of God,” said the voice. “ Simplicity is humility to God ; one cannot get away from Him. And they are simple. They do not speak, but act. An uttered word is silver, an unuttered word is gold. Man cannot possess anything so long as he is afraid of death ; and he who is not afraid of it, owns everything. If there were no suffering, man would not know his limitations, would not know himself. The most difficult thing,” Pierre continued to think or hear in Ins sleep, “ consists in the ability to connect in one’s soul the meaning of everything. To connect everything ? ” Pierre said to himself. ” No, not to connect. It is impossible to connect ideas, but what is necessary is to make all these thoughts hitch together, that is what is needed ! Yes, they must be hitched, they must be hitched ! ” Pierre repeated to himself with inward enthusiasm, feeling that these words expressed precisely what he wished to say, and that all the mighty question was thus solved.

” Yes, they must be hitched ! It is time to hitch them ! “

« It is time to hitch, it is time to hitch, your Serenity!” repeated a voice, — “it is time to hitch up, it is time to hitch up — “

It was the voice of the groom waking Pierre. The sun was beating down on Pierre’s face. He looked at the dirty tavern yard, in the middle of which soldiers were letting some lean horses drink at the well, and from which teams were leaving through the gate. Pierre turned away in disgust and, closing his eyes, hurriedly threw himself down on the seat of his carriage. “ No, I do not want it, I do not want to see or understand it, — I want only to understand that which was revealed to me during my sleep. What shall I do? Hitch, but how shall I hitch everything ? ” And Pierre felt, to his terror, that the meaning of what he had seen and thought in his dream was destroyed.

The groom, the coachman, and the tavern-keeper told Pierre that an officer had arrived with the news that the French were moving toward Mozhaysk, and that our forces were marching away.

Pierre got up and, having ordered his men to hitch up and overtake him, went on foot through the city.

The troops marched away, leaving about ten thousand wounded. These wounded could be seen in the yards and windows of the houses, and crowded in the streets. In the streets, near the carts which were to take the wounded away, could be heard shouts, curses, and blows. Pierre offered his carriage, when it reached him, to a wounded general whom he knew, and with him drove to Moscow. On his way Pierre learned of the death of his brother-in-law and of the death of Prince Andréy.

On the 30th Pierre returned to Moscow. Almost at the barrier he met an adjutant of Count Postopchin.

“ We have been looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. ” The count wants to see you by all means. He begs you to come to see him at once on some very important business.”

Pierre did not go home, but took a cab and drove to the commanderin-chief.

Count Postopchin had only that morning arrived from his suburban summer residence at Sokdlniki. The waiting and reception rooms in the count’s house were filled with officials, who had come at his request or to receive orders. Vasilchikov and Plâtov had already spoken with the count, and had explained to him that it was impossible to defend Moscow, and that it would be surrendered. Though this news was concealed from the inhabitants, the officials, the chiefs of various departments, knew that Moscow would be in the hands of the enemy, as well as Count Postopchin knew it ; and all of them, to free themselves of the responsibility, came to the commanderin-chief to ask him what to do with the departments in their charge.

Just as Pierre entered the waiting-room, a courier, who had come from the army, was leaving the count. The courier waved his arm in sign of despair in response to the questions with which they turned to him, and passed through the parlour.

Waiting in the reception-room, Pierre with weary eyes surveyed the different officials in the room, the old and young, the military officers and those of the civil service, the men of importance and those of lesser grade. All seemed to be dissatisfied and restless. Pierre walked over to a group of the officials, among whom there was an acquaintance of his. Exchanging greetings with Pierre, they continued their conversation.

” If we could send it away and then bring it back, there would be no trouble ; in this state of affairs one cannot answer for anything.”

“This is what he writes,” said another, pointing to a printed sheet, which he was holding in his hand.

“ That is another matter. That is necessary for the people,” said the first.

“ What is it ? ” asked Pierre.

” A new broadside.”

Pierre took it into his hand and began to read it :

“His Most Serene Highness has passed Mozhdysk, in order to unite as soon as possible with the troops which are going to him, and has taken up a strong place, where the enemy will not go so soon for him. We have forwarded to him from here forty-eight guns with the projectiles, and his Most Serene Highness says that he will defend Moscow with the last drop of his blood, and that he is ready to fight in the streets, if necessary. Brothers, don’t bother about the closing up of the government offices : it is necessary to clean up, but we will take the law in our hands against the malefactor ! When the time comes, I shall need a lot of brave fellows, both from the city and the country. I will give you a call two days ahead, but now I do not need you, so I am silent. An axe will do ; and a spit is not a bad thing ; but best of all is a three-pronged fork: a Frenchman is not heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow, after dinner, I will raise the fver image, and will have it taken to the Catherine Hospital, to the wounded. There we will sanctify the water : so they will get well soon. I myself am well now ; I had a pain in my eye, but now I look sharp with both eyes.”

“ Military men have told me,” said Pierre, “ that it is impossible to fight in the city, and that the position — “

“ Exactly, that is what we have been saying,” remarked the first official.

“ What does this mean : ‘ I had a pain in my eye, and now I look sharp with both eyes ‘ ? ” asked Pierre.

“ The count had a stye,” the adjutant said, smiling, “ and he was much disturbed when he was told that the people came to find out what the matter was with him. Well, count?” the adjutant suddenly said, turning to Pierre with a smile, “ we have heard that you have some domestic troubles, that the countess, your wife — “

“ I have not heard anything,” Pierre said, with indifference. “ What have you heard ? ”

“You know, they frequently invent stories. I only say what I have heard.”

” What did you hear ? “

“They say,” the adjutant said, again with the same smile, “ that your wife, the countess, is getting ready to go abroad. No doubt, it is all nonsense — “

“ Maybe,” said Pierre, looking absent-mindedly about him. ” Who is this ? ” he asked, pointing to an undersized old man in a clean, blue, long national overcoat, with a long snow-white beard and eyebrows, and a ruddy face.

“ That one ? It is a merchant, that is, a restaurantkeeper, Vereshchagin. You have, perhaps, heard the story about the proclamation.”

“Oh, so this is Vereshchagin!” said Pierre, gazing at the firm and calm expression of the old man’s countenance, and trying to discover in it the expression of treason.

“ No, not he. This one is the father of him who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. “ The young fellow is sitting in the hole, and, no doubt, will fare badly.”

An old man with a decoration and an official, a German, with a cross on Ins neck, joined the speakers.

“You see,” said the adjutant, “this proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of it. He ordered a prosecution. Gavrflo Ivanych investigated and found that the proclamation had passed through sixty-three hands. We come to one: ‘From whom did you get it?’ — ‘From such a one.’ He goes to this one. ‘ From whom did you get it ? ‘ and so forth. Finally we got down to Vereshchagin — a half-educated son of a merchant, you know, one of those dear little merchants,” the adjutant said, smiling. “They asked him from whom he had it. The point is, we knew from whom he had it. The only person he could have it from was the director of posts. But evidently they had plotted together. Says he : ‘ From nobody, — I have composed it myself.’ They begged him and threatened him, but he insisted : ‘ I have composed it myself.’ They so reported to the count. The count sent for him. ‘ From whom did you get the proclamation ?’ —‘I have composed it myself.’ Well, you know the count ! ” the adjutant said, with a proud and merry smile. “ He flew up terribly, and, indeed, consider what a piece of impudence, what a lie, what stubbornness ! ”

“ Ah ! The count wanted him to point to Klyucharév, I understand ! ” said Pierre.

“ Not at all,” the adjutant replied, with an expression of fear. “ Klyucharév had other sins to answer for, and has been exiled for them. The point is the count was dreadfully excited. ‘ How could you have composed it ? ‘ says the count. He took from the table this Hamburg gazette. Here it is. ‘ You have not composed it, but have translated it, and have translated it badly because, you stupid, you do not know French well.’ Well, what do you suppose ? ‘ No,’ says he, ‘ I have read no gazettes, — I have composed it myself.’ — ‘If so, you are a traitor, and I will have you tried, and you will be hanged. Tell me from whom you got it!’ — ‘I have seen no gazettes, and have composed it myself.’ And so it remained. The count called up his father, but he did not swerve. He was tried and, I think, condemned to hard labour. Now liis father has come to intercede for him. But he is a worthless lad ! You know, a merchant’s son, a fop, a seducer, — he has attended some lectures somewhere, and so he thinks that the devil is no kin to him. A fine fellow is he ! His father has a restaurant near Stone Bridge, and in this restaurant there was a large image of God the All-holder, and God was represented with a sceptre in one hand, and a globe in the other; so he took this image home for a few days, and what do you suppose he did ? He found a scoundrel of a painter — ”

XI.

In the middle of this conversation, Pierre was called in to the commanderin-chief.

Pierre went into the cabinet of Count Rostopchm. Rostopchm, frowning, was rubbing his brow and eyes, when Pierre entered. A low-statured man was talking to him, but as soon as Pierre entered, he grew silent and left.

“Ah, good evening, great warrior,” said Rostopchm, the moment that man had gone out. “We have heard of your prouesses ! But that is a different matter. Mon cher, entre nous, are you a Mason ? ” said Count Ros topchin, in a stern voice, as though there were something bad in this, but he were ready to forgive him.

Pierre was silent.

” Mon cher, je suis bien informé, but I know that there are Masons and Masons, and I hope that you do not belong to those who, under the pretext of saving the human race, want to ruin Russia.”

“ Yes, I am a Mason,” replied Pierre.

” Precisely, my dear. I suppose you know that Messrs. Sperdnski and Magnitski have been despatched where they belong, and that the same has been done with Mr. Klyucharév, and with others, who, under the pretext of building the temple of Solomon, tried to destroy the temple of their country. You will understand that there must be good cause for it, and that I should not have been able to exile the director of posts if he were not a dangerous man. Now, it is known to me that you have sent him your carriage to help him get out of the city, and also that you have received certain papers from him for safe-keeping. I like you, and wish you no evil, and, as you are half my age, I advise you, as a father, to stop all relations with men of that stamp and yourself to leave the city as soon as possible.”

” But wherein does Klyucharév’s guilt lie, count ? ” asked Pierre.

“ That is my business, and you have no right to ask me,” shouted Rostopchm.

“If he is accused of having spread Napoleon’s proclamation, that has not been proved,” said Pierre, without looking at Rostopchm, “ and Vereshchagin — “

“ Nous y voilà,” interrupting Pierre, Rostopchm suddenly shouted louder than before, knitting his brow. “ Vereshchagin is a traitor, who will receive his proper punishment,” said Rostopchm, with that maliciousness with which people speak at the thought of an insult. ” But I have not called you here to discuss my affairs, but in order to give you a piece of advice, or a command, if you prefer it. I beg you to break off all relations with such gentlemen as Klyucharév, and to leave the city. I will knock the conceit out of the head of any person.” And, apparently concluding that he was shouting to Bezukhi, who had not yet been found guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre’s hand in a friendly manner : ” Nous sommes à la veille d’un désastre publique, et je n’ai pas le temps de dire des gentillesses à tous ceux qui ont affaire à moi. My head sometimes goes around in a whirl ! Eh bien, mon cher, qu’est-cc que vous faites, vous, personelle-ment ! ”

” Mais rien,” replied Pierre, without raising his eyes, and without changing the expression of his pensive face.

The count frowned.

“ Un conseil d’ami, mon cher. Décampez et au plutôt, c’est tout ce que je vous dis. A bon entendeur salut ! Goodbye, my dear. Oh, yes,” he cried to him through the door, ” is it true that the countess has fallen into the paws des saints pères de la Société de Jésus ? “

Pierre made no reply and left Postopchin, frowning and angry, as he had never been seen before.

When he reached home, it was getting dark. Eight different men came to see him on that evening. The secretary of the committee, the colonel of his battalion, the superintendent, the majordomo, and all kinds of petitioners. All of them had some business with Pierre, which he had to settle. Pierre comprehended nothing, was not interested in these matters, and gave to all questions only such answers as would free him from these men. Finally, when left alone, he broke the seal of his wife’s letter and read it.

” They — the soldiers in the battery, Prince Andréy killed — old man — Simplicity is the humility to God. It is necessary to suffer — the meaning of all — it is necessary to hitch — my wife is getting married — it is necessary to forget and comprehend — ” and walking over to his bed he threw himself upon it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.

When he awoke on the following morning, the majordomo came and reported that an official of the police had been sent especially from Count Rostopchin, to find out whether Count Bezukhi had already left, or was on the point of leaving.

About ten people of all kinds, who had business with Pierre, were waiting for him in the drawingroom. Pierre dressed himself hurriedly, and, instead of going in to see the visitors, went out by the back porch and from there walked out of the gate.

From that time up to the end of the destruction of Moscow none of the people of the house saw Pierre, in spite of the most persistent search, nor knew where he was.

XII.

The Bostdvs remained in the city until September 1st, that is, till the day preceding the one when the enemy entered Moscow.

After Pétya had entered the regiment of Obolenski’s Cossacks, and after his departure for Byélaya Tsérkov, terror took possession of the countess. The thought that both her sons were in the army, that they had both left her wing, that any day she might hear of the death of one of them, or of both together, as she had heard about the death of three sons of an acquaintance of hers, — for the first time struck her with cruel distinctness. She tried to get Nikoläy to come to see her, and wanted herself to go to see Pétya and to find some appointment for him at St. Petersburg, but neither could be done. Pétya could not be returned to her except with the regiment, or by being transferred to another regiment in active service. Nikolay was somewhere in the army, and since his last letter, in which he gave a detailed description of his meeting with Princess Märya, nothing more had been heard from him. The countess did not sleep for nights at a time, and when she did fall asleep she saw her sons killed in her dreams. After many counsels and parleys, the count finally found a means for quieting the countess, lie transferred Pétya from Obolénski’s regiment to that of Bezukhi, which was being formed at Moscow. Though Pétya remained in active service, the countess had at least the consolation of seeing one son under her wing, and she hoped to be able so to arrange matters that she would not have to let him out of her sight, and to find such service for him that he could by no means get into a battle.

So long as Nikoldy had been in danger, it had seemed to the countess (and she repented it for a long time) that she loved her eldest better than the rest of her children ; but when her youngest, the mischievous boy, who had not studied well, who was wanton and wore everybody out, that snubnosed Pétya, with his merry, black eyes and fresh ruddiness, and his barely sprouting down on his cheeks, fell among the grown-up, terrible, cruel men, who, God knew why, were fighting and finding pleasure in it, — it appeared to the mother that it was he whom she loved more, a great deal more, than all her children. The nearer the time approached when Pétya was to return to Moscow, the more did the restlessness of the mother grow. She thought she should never live to see this happiness. The presence not only of Sdnya, but even of her beloved Natasha, even of her husband, irritated her. ” What do I care for them ? I do not want any one but Pétya ! ” she thought.

During the last days of August the Rostovs received a second letter from Nikoläy. He wrote from the Government of Voronezh, whither he had been sent for mounts. This letter did not assuage her fears. Knowing one of her sons out of danger, she began to worry even more for Pétya.

Although by the 20th of August nearly all the acquaintances of the Rostdvs had left Moscow, and although all counselled the countess to leave as soon as possible, she did not want to hear anything about going before her treasure, adored Pétya, should have returned. On the 28th he came. The morbidly impassioned tenderness with which his mother met him was not to the liking of the sixteen-year-old officer. Although his mother concealed from him her desire to keep him under her wing, Pétya divined her plans and, fearing instinctively that he should become too sentimental with his mother, “ turn woman ” (as he thought to himself), he treated her coldly, avoided her, and, during his stay at Moscow, remained exclusively in Natäsha’s company, toward whom he had always felt a special, almost impassioned, fraternal affection.

With the usual carelessness of the count, on the 28th of August hardly anything was ready for the departure, and the teams from the Ryazdu and Moscow villages, to take all the property away from the house, did not arrive until the 30th.

From the 28th of August to the 30th all of Moscow was in turmoil and motion. Every day thousands of those who were wounded at the battle of Borodiné were brought in through the Dorogomilov barrier and quartered in Moscow, and thousands of teams with the inhabitants and with property passed through the other barriers. In spite of Rostopclnn’s broadsides, or independently of them, or on account of them, the most conflicting and extravagant reports were spread in the city. One said that the order had been given not to let any one out of the city, another, on the contrary, reported that all the images in all the churches had been taken away, and that everybody was being sent out by force; one said that there had been another battle after the one at Borodiné, in which the French had been routed ; another, on the contrary, said that the Russian army had been annihilated ; one told of the Moscow militia, which, headed by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills ; another said softly that Avgustin had not been permitted to leave, that traitors had been caught, that the peasants were rioting and robbing those who departed, and so forth. But these were only the subjects of conversations ; in reality, those who left and those who remained (though the council at which it was decided to abandon Moscow had not yet met at Fili) all felt, though they did not express it, that Moscow would certainly be surrendered, and that it was necessary to get away as quickly as possible and save their property. It was felt that everything would suddenly burst at once and be changed, but by the 1st nothing had changed. As a criminal, who is being led to the execution, knows that he will die in a minute, and yet keeps looking about him and adjusting his tilted cap, so Moscow continued instinctively its customary life, although it knew that the time of ruin was at hand, when all the conventional relations of life, to which they were used to bow, would be broken.

In the course of the three days which preceded the capture of Moscow, the whole family of the Rostovs had all kinds of troubles to contend with. The head of the family, Count Ilyé Andréevich, kept travelling through the city and collecting all kinds of rumours that were current then, and at home made general, superficial, and hasty arrangements about going away.

The countess looked after the packing of the things, was dissatisfied with everything, ran after Pétya, who kept running away from her, and was jealous of Natdsha, in whose company he passed all of his time. Sénya was the only one who attended to the practical side of the affair, — the packing of the things. But Sénya was particularly sad and taciturn during this last period. Nikoldy’s letter, in which he mentioned Princess Marya, called forth in her presence the joyful reflections of the countess, that in the meeting of Princess Marya with Nikolay she saw God’s providence. ” I was never happy when Bolkénski was Natasha’s fiancé, but I always wished that Nikolay would marry the princess, and I have a presentiment that he will. How nice it would be ! “

Sénya felt that it was true, that the only possibility of mending the affairs of the Rostovs lay in Nikolay’s marriage to a rich girl, and that the princess was a good match. But it was very painful to her. In spite of her sorrow, or, perhaps, on account of it, she took upon herself all the heavy cares of the packing, and was busy all the time. The count and countess turned to her when they had any orders to give. Petya and Natasha, on the contrary, not only gave their parents no assistance, but generally managed to get into everybody’s way and to annoy them. Nearly all day long could be heard their running about, their cries, and their causeless laughter. They laughed and were happy, not because there was any reason ; they simply felt happy and merry, and so anything that happened was for them a cause of joy and laughter. Petya was happy because, having left the house a boy, he returned (so all told him) a dashing man ; he was happy because he was at home, because he was back from Byélaya Tsérkov, where there was no hope of getting into a battle soon, and because he was in Moscow, where they would fight in a few days; but chiefly, because Natäsha, with whose mood he always fell in, was happy. Natäsha was happy because she had been sad for too long a time, and now nothing reminded her of the cause of her grief, and she was well. She was also happy because there was a man who admired her (the admiration of others was that axle-grease which was absolutely necessary to make her machine move quite freely), and Pétya admired her. But, above all, they were merry because the war was at the gates of Moscow, because there would be a fight near the barrier, because all were going away and fleeing, in general, because something unusual was taking place, and this is always a source of joy to a man, especially a young man.

XIII.

On August 31st, which was Saturday, everything seemed to be turned topsyturvy in the house of the Rostovs. All the doors were open, all the furniture out of place or taken away, and the mirrors and pictures taken down. Boxes were standing in the rooms, and hay, wrapping-paper, and ropes were scattered about. The peasants and manorial servants, who were taking the things out, walked with heavy steps over the parqueted floors. In the yard were crowded peasant carts, some of them loaded to the top and tied up, others still empty.

The sounds and steps of an immense retinue of servants and of the peasants who had arrived with the teams could be heard in the yard and in the house. The count had driven away in the morning. The countess, whose head was paining her from the worry and noise, lay in the new sofaroom with vinegar bandages on her head. Pétya was not at home (he went to see a companion with whom he intended to leave the militia and pass to the active army). Sdnya was in the parlour looking after the packing of the glass and porcelain. Natäsha was sitting on the floor in her dismantled room, amid scattered robes, ribbons, and scarfs, and, looking .fixedly at the floor, was holding in her hand an old ball-dress, the same (it was now out of style) which she had worn the first time she attended a ball iu St. Petersburg.

Natasha felt ashamed that she did nothing, while all in the house were busy, and tried several times to be doing something ; but her heart was not in her work, and she could not do anything, and did not know how to do anything in which she was not interested with her whole soul. She stood by Sdnya’s side while the porcelain was being put away and wanted to help, but immediately gave it up and went to her room to put away her things. At first it interested her to give her dresses and ribbons away to the maids, but later, when it became necessary to pack away the rest, this seemed tiresome to her.

” Dunydsha, you will put it away for me, my dear, won’t you ? ” And, when Dunyäsha said that she was only too glad to do everything, Natdsha sat down on the floor, took up her old ball-dress, and fell to musing on something quite different from what ought to have interested her just then. Natdsha was roused from her meditation by the talk of the maids in the adjoining room, and by the sounds of their hurried steps from the maids’ room to the back porch. Natdsha got up and looked out of the window. An immense convoy of wounded had stopped in the street.

The maids, lackeys, housekeeper, nurse, cooks, coachmen, outriders, scullions, stood at the gate, looking at the wounded.

Natdsha threw a white handkerchief over her head and, holding it by the corners with both her hands, went out into the street.

The ex-housekeeper, old Mdvra Kuznnnishna, separated herself from the crowd which was standing at the gate, and, going up to a cart, over which there was a mat booth, began to speak to a young, pale officer who was lying in it. Natdsha moved up a few steps and stopped timidly, still holding down her handkerchief and listening to what the housekeeper was saying.

“ So you have no one here in Moscow ? ” said Mavra Kuzmfnishna. ” You would be more comfortable in some private house — say in this house. The masters are leaving.”

« I do not know whether they will permit,” the officer said, in a feeble voice. ” There is the chief — ask him,” and he pointed to a fat major who was returning down the street along the carts.

Natdsha looked with frightened eyes into the face of the wounded officer and immediately walked over to the major.

” May the wounded stop in our house ? ” she asked.

The major, smiling, put his hand to his visor.

” Whom do you wish, mamzelle ? ” he said, blinking and smiling.

Natdsha calmly repeated her question, and her countenance and whole manner, in spite of her holding the handkerchief at its corners, were so serious that the major stopped smiling and, after reflecting, as though asking himself to what degree that was possible, gave her an affirmative answer.

” Oh, yes, why not ! They may,” he said.

Natasha slightly bent her head and with rapid steps returned to Mavra Kuzminishna, who was standing near the officer and speaking with him with compassionate sympathy.

“ You may, he said you may ! ” Natdsha said, in a whisper.

The officer in the booth was driven into the yard of the Rostovs, and dozens of carts with the wounded, being invited by the city dwellers, drove into the yards and in front of the entrances of the houses of Povarskaya Street. Natasha apparently was pleased to have these relations with new men, outside the habitual conditions of life. She tried, with the aid of Mavra Kuzminishna, to get as many carts as possible to enter their yard.

” We must, however, inform your father,” said Mavra Kuzminishna.

“Never mind! What difference does it make? For this one day we will go to the drawingroom. You may give them all our apartments.”

“ What do you mean, miss ? Even though we send them to the wing, to the male servants’ room, to the nurse’s room, we must ask permission.”

” Well, I will ask it.”

Natasha ran into the house and on tiptoe ran through the half-open door of the sofaroom, from which proceeded the odour of vinegar and Hoffmann’s drops.

“ Are you asleep, mamma ? ”

” Oh, what a dream ! ” waking, said the countess, who had just dozed off.

” Mamma, dear,” said Natdsha, kneeling down before her mother and putting her face close to hers. ” I am sorry, forgive me ! I shall never do it again. I am sorry I have waked you. Mdvra Kuzminishna has sent me to you. They have brought some wounded officers here. Will you permit it ? They have no place to go to ; I know you will permit it — ” she spoke rapidly, without drawing breath.

” What officers ? Whom have they brought ? I do not understand a thing,” said the countess.

Natdsha laughed, and the countess, too, gave a weak smile.

” I knew that you would permit— I will tell her so.”

And kissing her mother, Natdsha got up and went to the door. In the parlour she met her father, who had returned home with bad news.

” We have stayed here too long,” the count said, in involuntary anger. ” The club is closed, and the police is leaving.”

” Papa, does it make any difference that I invited the wounded to the house ? ” Natdsha asked him.

“ Of course not,” the count said, absently. ” But this is a different matter. I ask you not to busy yourself now with trifles, but to help pack. We must leave, leave tomorrow— ” The count gave the same order to the majordomo and to the servants.

Pétya, who returned home to dinner, told his news. He said that the people had been receiving weapons in the Kremlin, that, although it said in Rostopchin’s broadside that he would call them two days beforehand, a definite arrangement had already been made for the people to go on the next day to the Three Hills with the weapons, and that a grand battle would be fought there.

The countess glanced with timid terror at the merry, heated face of her son, while he was saying this. She knew’ that if she said a word about her wish that Pétya should not go to that battle (she knew that he rejoiced at the thought of the impending battle), he would say something about men, about honour, and about his country, — something nonsensical, manlike, stubborn, which could not be gainsaid, and the whole matter would be spoiled. Therefore, hoping to arrange things so that she would leave before that event, and take Pétya with her, as her defender and protector, she said nothing to Pétya, but after dinner called the count, whom she begged with tears in her eyes to take her away at once, that very night, if possible. With her feminine, instinctive cunning of love, she, who heretofore had expressed absolute fearlessness, said that she should die of terror, if they did not leave that very night. She was now, without feigning, afraid of everything.

XIV.

Madame Schoss, who came to see her daughter, increased the countess’s fear by telling her what she had seen in the Myasm’tskaya Street in a liquor-shop. While returning home along the street, she could not pass on account of a drunken crowd, which was riotous in front of the shop. She took a cab and drove home by a side street ; the cabman told her that the people had been breaking barrels in the shop, having received an order to do so.

After dinner all the homefolk of the Rostdvs took hold of the packing and the preparations for the departure with a transport of haste. The old count suddenly applied himself to work and after dinner kept going from the yard to the house, and back again, shouting senselessly at the hurrying people, and making them work in still greater haste. Pétya looked after the people in the yard. Sénya did not know what to do under the influence of the conflicting commands of the count, and was all confused. The servants scurried, shouting, quarrelling, and clamouring, through the rooms and through the yard. Natdsha, with her characteristic enthusiasm, suddenly began to work. At first her participation in the matter of packing was received with incredulity. From her they all expected jokes, and they did not wish to obey her ; but she stubbornly and passionately demanded their obedience, grew angry and almost wept because they paid no attention to her, and finally gained their confidence. Her first exploit, which cost her enormous efforts and gained the power for her, was the packing of the carpets. In the count’s house there were expensive Gobelins and Persian rugs. When Natäsha took a hand in the work, there were two open boxes standing in the parlour : one was filled almost to the top with porcelain, the other with rugs. There was still a lot of porcelain standing on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the storeroom. It was necessary to begin a third box, and the men had gone to fetch one.

” S6nya, wait, we will get everything in as it is,” said Natdsha.

” Impossible, miss, we have tried it,” said the butler.

” No, wait, if you please.” And Natäsha began to take out the paper-covered dishes and plates from the box.

” The dishes must be put in the carpets,” she said.

” But there are enough rugs yet to fill three boxes at the least,” said the butler.

” Wait, if you please.” And Natâsha began to open up bundles. ” Not these,” she said about the Kiev ware ; “but these put in the rugs,” she said about the Saxon dishes.

“ Leave it alone, Natäsha ! Please ! We will get it packed away,” Sdnya said to her, reproachfully.

“ Oh, miss ! ” said the majordomo.

But Natäsha did not give in. She threw out all the things, and began rapidly to pack them in her own fashion, deciding that it was useless to take along damaged native rugs and superfluous china. After all was taken out, things were put in anew. And, indeed, by throwing out everything cheap, that which it did not pay to take along, all the costly things found place in the two boxes. However, the lid would not go on the carpet box. It was possible to take out a few things, but Natésha was stubborn. She placed things differently, pressed down, made the butler and Pétya, whom she had drawn after her into the work of packing, press down the lid, and herself made desperate efforts.

” Stop now, Natäsha ! ” said Sonya. “ I see you are right, but you had better take out the one on top.”

” I don’t want to,” cried Natasha, with one hand holding her straggling hair back from her perspiring face, and with the other pressing down the rugs. ” Press, hard, Pétya, press ! Vasflich, press ! ” she cried. The carpets went down snugly, and the lid closed. Natdsha, clapping her hands, shrieked for joy, and tears gushed from her eyes. But this lasted only a second. She immediately took up some other work, and all trusted her now, and the count was not angry when he was told that Natdsha had changed his order, and the servants came to Natasha to ask whether a team was to be tied with ropes, and whether it was loaded enough. The work proceeded merrily, thanks to Natasha’s arrangements : the useless things were left, and the expensive things were put away in the most compact manner possible.

But, no matter how busy all the people were, everything was not packed away by evening. The countess fell asleep, and the count, delaying the departure until the next day, went to bed.

S6nya and Natdsha slept, without undressing, in the sofaroom.

During that night another wounded man was taken through Povdrskaya Street, and Mävra Kuzmmishna, who happened to stand at the gate, let the vehicle pass into the yard of the Rostovs. This wounded man, according to Mdvra Kuznunishna’s judgment, was a very important personage. He was driven in a carriage which was completely covered by a boot, and the top was down. On the box, with the coachman, sat a venerable old man, a valet. Back of the carriage a doctor and two soldiers drove in another vehicle.

” Please, come to our house ! The masters are departing, and the house is all empty,” said the old woman, turning to the old servant.

« We hardly hoped to bring him in alive,” the valet replied, with a sigh. ” We have a house in Moscow, but it is far away, and nobody is living in it.”

“ I beg you to stop here. Our masters have plenty of everything, if you please,” said Mavra Kuzminishna. ” Is he very ill ? ” she added.

The valet waved his hand.

« We do not hope to get him home alive ! I must ask the doctor.” And the valet climbed down from the box and went up to the other vehicle.

” All right,” said the doctor.

The valet again approached the carriage, looked into it, shook his head, ordered the coachman to drive into the yard, and stopped beside Mdvra Kuzminishna.

“0 Lord Jesus Christ!” he muttered.

Mavra Kuzminishna proposed that the wounded man be taken into the house.

” The masters will say nothing,” she said.

It was necessary to avoid ascending stairs, and so the wounded man was taken to the wing and put down in Madame Schoss’s former room. This wounded man was Prince Andréy Bolkonski.

XV.

There came Moscow’s last day. The weather of that autumn day was bright and cheerful. It was a Sunday. As on any other Sunday, the church-bells rang for mass. No one, it seemed, was able to comprehend what it was that awaited Moscow.

The condition of society showed only two indications of the state in which Moscow was : the rabble, that is, the class of the poor, and the prices for things. Factory hands, manorial servants, and peasants, gathering in a large crowd, with which mingled officials, seminarists, gentlefolk, on that day went early in the morning to the Three Hills. After waiting there in vain for Bostopchin and convincing themselves that Moscow would be surrendered, this crowd scattered throughout Moscow, in taverns and restaurants. The prices, too, on that day showed the condition of affairs. The prices for weapons, for gold, for carts and horses, kept increasing, while the price of paper money and city luxuries grew lower and lower, so that in the middle of the day there were cases when expensive wares, such as cloth stuffs, were with difficulty carried away by cabmen, while a peasant horse would sell for five hundred roubles ; and furniture, mirrors, bronzes were given away for nothing.

In the staid old house of the Bostdvs the dissolution of the former conditions of life was but feebly expressed. Out of the large retinue of servants only three disappeared during the night ; but nothing was stolen, and in view of the changed prices of things, it turned out that the thirty teams, which had arrived from the villages, represented an enormous fortune, which many people envied the Rostdvs, and for which very large sums were offered them. Not only were large sums offered for the teams, but in the evening and early the next morning of September 1st orderlies and servants were sent by the wounded officers to the house of the Rostdvs, or the wounded men themselves, who were quartered in that house and in the neighbouring houses, dragged themselves up, begging the servants of the Rostdvs to procure teams for them. The majordomo, to whom such requests were made, was, indeed, sorry for the wounded, but he refused to do anything for them, saying that he did not even dare to report to the count about it. No matter how much he pitied the wounded who were to be left behind, it was evident to him that if he gave away one team, there would be no reason why he should not give another, all, — even the carriages. Thirty teams could not save all the wounded, and in the general calamity a person could not help thinking of his own family. Thus the majordomo thought for his master.

On awakening in the morning of September 1st, Count Ilya Andréevich softly left the sleeping-room, and in his lilac silk morninggown went out on the porch. The teams stood all tied up in the yard. The carriages were standing at the porch. The majordomo was at the entrance, speaking with an old orderly and a young, pale officer with his arm in a sling. Seeing the count, the majordomo made a significant and stern sign to the orderly and the officer to depart.

“ Well, is everything ready, Vasilich ? ” said the count, rubbing his bald head, and casting a good-natured glance at the officer and the orderly and nodding to them. (The count was fond of new faces.)

” We are ready to hitch up at once, your Serenity ! ” “Very well. As soon as the countess wakes up, we shall leave, with God’s aid. What do you wish, gentlemen ? ” he turned to the officer. “ Are you in my house ? “

The officer moved up. His pale face suddenly flushed with a bright colour.

” Count, do me the favour — permit me — for God’s sake — to take a seat somewhere on your teams. I have nothing here with me — Any cart will do me — ”

The officer had not yet finished, when the orderly came with the same request for his master.

“ Oh, yes, yes, yes ! ” the count said, hurriedly. ” I am very, very glad. Vasilich, give the order, well, to clear one or two carts, well — what is necessary — ” the count said, in indefinite expressions, as though giving some kind of an order.

At the same moment the ardent expression of the officer’s gratitude confirmed what he meant to order. The count looked about him : in the yard, at the gate, in the window of the wing, could be seen wounded men and orderlies. They were all watching the count and moving up toward the porch.

” Please to come to the gallery, your Serenity ! What will your order be about the pictures there?” asked the majordomo.

The count went with him into the house, repeating his order not to refuse the wounded men who asked to be taken along.

” Oh, well, you can take off a thing or two,” he added, in a soft, mysterious voice, as though fearing lest he be heard.

At nine o’clock the countess awoke, and Matréna Timo-fevna, her former maid, who now served the countess in a capacity of something like chief of gendarmes, came to inform her mistress that Mdrya Karlovna was very much offended, and that the misses’ summer dresses could not be left behind. To the inquiry of the countess, why Madame Schoss was offended, it turned out that her trunk had been taken down from a team, and that all the loads were being loosened and goods taken down, to pick up the wounded, whom the count in his goodness ordered to be taken along. The countess sent for her husband.

“ What is this, my dear ? I hear that the things are being again unloaded.”

” You see, ma chère, I wanted to tell you — ma chère little countess — an officer came to see me, asking me to let the wounded have a few teams. Tins is mere pelf, but think what it means for them to stay here ! Really, in our yard there are some officers, — we invited them ourselves — I thought, ma chère, you know, really, now, ma chère — let them be taken along — what is the use of hurrying ? “

The count said this timidly, as he always spoke when there were money considerations. The countess was used to tliis tone, which always preceded some business that was ruinous to the interest of the children, such as the building of some gallery or hothouse, or the arrangement of some domestic theatre or music, and she was in the habit of opposing, and regarded it as her duty to oppose, that which was expressed by that timid tone.

She assumed her humble and lachrymose aspect and said to her husband :

“ Listen, count ! You have carried matters so far that nothing is offered for the house now, and now you want to ruin all the property of our children. You yourself have said that there are one hundred thousand roubles’ worth of goods in the house. My dear, I do not agree with you, not at all. Do as you please ! There is a government for the wounded. They know what to do. Look, over there, at the Lopukhins’ they took everything away two days ago. That is the way people do. We are the only fools. Pity the children, at least, if you will not pity me.”

The count waved his arms and, -without saying a word, left the room.

“Papa, what was it about?” Natasha said, having entered her mother’s room soon after him.

“ Nothing ! What is it to you ? ” the count said, angrily.

” No, I heard it ! ” said Natasha. ” Why does mamma not want it ? “

« What is it to you ? ” shouted the count.

Natasha walked away to the window and became pensive.

“ Papa, Berg has come to see us,” she said, looking out of the window.

XVI.

Berg, Rostov’s son-in-law, was already a colonel with the decorations of St. Vladimir and Anna on his neck, and still occupied that quiet and pleasant place of assistant chief of staff of the assistant chief of staff of the first division of the second corps.

On the 1st of September he arrived in Moscow from the army. He had nothing to do in Moscow; but he noticed that all in the army asked permission to go to Moscow, and they did something there. He, too, regarded it as necessary to ask for a leave of absence, to attend to domestic and family matters.

Berg drove up to the house of his father-in-law in his neat little carriage, drawn by a pair of well-fed bays, precisely such as a certain prince had. He cast a curious glance at the teams in the yard and, ascending the porch, took out a clean handkerchief and tied a knot in it.

From the antechamber Berg ran with a gliding, impatient step into the drawingroom, embraced the count, kissed NaUsha’s and Sdnya’s hands, and hastened to ask about the health of mamma.

” No time to think of health now ! Tell us,” said the count, ” all about the army. Is it retreating, or will there be a battle ? “

” Almighty God alone, papa,” said Berg, ” can decide the fate of our country. The army is burning with the spirit of heroism, and now the leaders have, so to speak, assembled for a consultation. It is not known what will happen. But let me tell you, papa, such a heroic spirit, such truly antique valour in the Russian troops, which they — it,” he corrected himself, ” have shown or evinced during this battle of the 26th, — I tell you, there are no words sufficient to describe them — Let me tell you, papa” (he struck his breast, just as he had seen a general, who made the remark, strike his, though Berg’s gesture came too late, because the breast had to be struck at the words ” Russian army ”), “ I will tell you frankly that we, the chiefs, not only did not have to drive the soldiers, or anything like it, but had great difficulty in restraining these, these — yes, these valorous antique exploits,” he said, hurriedly. ” General Barclay de Tolly everywhere risked his life in front of the army, — let me tell you. Our corps was placed on the slope of a hill. You may imagine !” And here Berg told everything he could remember from the various accounts he had heard about the battle. Natdsha, looking fixedly at Berg, which embarrassed him, seemed in his face to look for the solution of a certain question.

” The heroism which the Russian warriors have evinced cannot be imagined and properly appreciated ! ” said Berg, looking at Natdsha and, with the intention of appeasing her, smiling at her in response to her stubborn look. “ Russia is not in Moscow, but in the hearts of her sons ! Am I right, papa ? ” said Berg.

Just then the countess came out of the sofaroom, with a weary, dissatisfied look. Berg sprang up, kissed the hand of the countess, inquired about her health, and, expressing his sympathy with a shake of his head, stopped beside her.

“ Yes, mamma, I must tell you frankly, these are hard and sad times for ever)- Russian. But why worry so much ? You will have time to get away — “

” I do not understand what the servants are doing,” said the countess, turning to her husband. ” I have just been told that nothing is ready yet. Somebody ought to attend to it. And now you will spare Mitenka. There will never be an end of it ! “

The count wanted to say something, but evidently restrained himself. He got up from his seat and went toward the door.

Berg took out his handkerchief, as though wishing to clear bis nose. Seeing the knot, he meditated awhile, giving a sad and significant shake of the head.

” Papa, I have a great favour to ask of you,” he said.

” Hem,” said the count, stopping.

“ I was just coming past Yusupov’s house,” Berg said, smiling. ” The manager, an acquaintance of mine, came out and asked me if I would not buy something. I went in, you know, from curiosity, and I saw there a chiffonière and a toilet. You know how Vyéra wanted to have it, and how we discussed the matter.” (Berg instinctively passed into a joyful tone at the thought of his fine home, when he began to speak of the chiffonière and toilet.) ” Oh, how beautiful it is ! It moves out, and has an English secret box, you know. Vyéra has been wanting it so long. I should like so much to surprise her. I saw such a mass of peasants in your yard. Let me have one of them, — I will pay him well, and — ”

The count frowned and began to clear his throat.

“ Ask the countess. — I am not looking after things.”

” If it is troublesome, please, don’t,” said Berg. ” I only wanted it for Vyéra’s sake.”

” Oh, all of you get away to the devil, to the devil, to the devil, and to the devil ! ” shouted the old prince. ” My head is all in a whirl.”

He left the room. The countess burst out weeping.

” Yes, yes, mamma, the times are very trying ! ” said Berg.

Natasha left with her father and, as though thinking hard of something, first walked behind him, and then ran downstairs. On the porch stood Pétya, attending to the arming of the men who were to leave Moscow. The hitched teams were still standing in the yard. Two of them were unloaded and upon one of them was climbing an officer, supported by an orderly.

” Do you know why ? ” Pétya asked Natdsha.

Natdsha understood that Pétya was asking why her father and mother had quarrelled. She made no reply.

” Because papa wanted to give all the teams to the wounded,” said Pétya. ” Vasilich told me so. In my opinion — ”

” In my opinion,” Natäsha suddenly almost screeched, turning her angry face to Pétya, ” it is such an abomination, such a baseness, such a — I do not know what. Are we Germans ? ” Her throat trembled from convulsive sobs, and, fearing to weaken and to let out in vain the whole charge of her anger, she turned around and darted upstairs.

Berg was sitting near the countess and respectfully consoling her like a relative. The count, with his pipe in his hand, was walking up and down in the room, when Natäsha, with a face contorted with anger, broke into the room like a storm, and with rapid gait approached her mother.

” It is an abomination ! It is baseness ! ” she cried. ” It cannot be that you should have ordered it.”

Berg and the countess looked at her in perplexity and fright. The count stopped at the window, listening to her.

” Mamma, it won’t do ! Look in the yard ! ” she cried. “ They will be left ! ”

” What is the matter with you ? Who are they ? What do you want ? ”

” The wounded, down there ! That will not do, mamma ! It is horrid — No, mamma, darling, it is not right, — forgive me if you please, darling— Mamma, what do you care for the things which we will take away.

Just see what there is ill the yard — Mamma ! — It cannot be ! “

The count was standing at the window and, without turning his face around, kept listening toNatdsha’s words. Suddenly he began to snivel and put his face to the pane.

The countess looked at her daughter, saw her face, which was embarrassed for her mother’s. sake, saw her agitation, and comprehended why her husband did not look around at her, and cast a confused glance about her.

” Oh, do as you please ! I am not keeping anybody from doing what they want ! ” she said, beginning to surrender.

” Mamma, darling, forgive me ! “

But the countess pushed her daughter aside and went up to her husband.

“ Mon cher, give the proper orders — I know nothing about it,” she said, lowering her eyes in shame.

” The eggs — the eggs are teaching the hen — ” the count said, through tears of joy. He embraced his wife, who was glad to hide her shamefaced countenance on her husband’s bosom.

“ Papa ! Mamma î May I make the arrangements ? May I ?” asked Natàsha. « We will take the most necessary things along anyway,” said Natasha.

The count shook his head in assent, and Natdsha ran with the same rapid gait, with which she used to run in the catching game, through the parlour to the antechamber, and down the stairs into the yard.

The servants assembled around Natasha and could not believe the strange order she was giving, until the count himself, in the name of his wife, repeated the order that the teams be all given to the wounded, while the boxes were to be taken to the storeroom. Having grasped the order, the servants cheerfully and busily set about the new work. It now no longer appeared strange to the servants ; on the contrary, they thought it could not be otherwise, just as fifteen minutes before it had appeared quite natural to leave the wounded and take the things along.

All the people of the house, as though to atone for not having done it before, went with a vim at the business of placing the wounded in the carts. The wounded crawled out of their rooms and with joyful, pale faces surrounded the teams. The rumour spread to the neighbouring houses that there were teams there, and wounded people from the other houses began to fill the yard. Many of these begged them not to take down the things, but to allow them to sit on top of the baggage. But the work of unloading could no longer be stopped. It made no difference whether only half or all was to be left. In the yard lay the unloaded boxes with dishes, with bronze, with pictures and mirrors, which had been packed with such great care the night before, and still they found it possible to take this and that off, and turn the teams over to the wounded.

” We can take four more,” said the manager. “ I give up my cart. Else what shall we do with them ? ”

“Give them my wardrobe cart,” said the countess. ” Dunyäsha will take a seat with me in the carriage.”

The wardrobe cart was given up, and it was sent out to pick up wounded men two houses away. All the homefolk and the servants were lively and animated. Natäsha was in a transport, such as she had not experienced for a long time.

” Where shall we tie it up ? ” said the servants, fixing a box to the narrow backboard of a carriage. “We ought to leave at least one team.”

” What is there in it ? ” asked Natdsha.

“ The count’s books.”

“ Leave them. Vasflich will look after them. They are not necessary.”

The calash was full of people ; the question was where to put Pétya.

” He goes on the box. You will go on the box, Pétya, will you not ? ” cried Natäsha.

Sénya was busy all the time herself ; but the aim of her cares was contrary to that of Natäsha. She put away the things which were to be left, noting them down at the request of the countess, and tried to have as many things as possible taken along with them.

XVII.

At two o’clock the Rostdvs’ four carriages stood at the entrance all packed and with the horses harnessed in. The carts with the wounded, one after another, left the yard.

The carriage, in which Prince Andréy was being taken away, passing the porch, attracted the attention of Sénya, who with the aid of a maid was arranging a seat for the countess in her enormous high carriage, which was standing at the entrance.

“ Whose vehicle is that ? ” asked Sénya, looking through the carriage window.

” Did you not know it, miss ? ” replied the maid. ” The prince is wounded : he passed the night here, in our house, and is going with us.”

” Who is it ? What is his name ? “

” Why, our former fiancé, Prince Bolkénski ! ” the maid said, with a sigh. ” They say he is dying.”

Sénya jumped out of the carriage and ran away to the countess. The countess, already dressed in travelling costume, with a shawl and hat, was walking wearily in the drawingroom, waiting for the family, in order to sit with them awhile with closed doors and pray before the departure. Natäsha was not in the room.

” Mamma,” said Sénya, “ Prince Andréy is here, mortally wounded. He is travelling with us.”

The countess opened her eyes in terror and, taking Sénya’s hand, looked around her.

” Natäsha ? ” she muttered.

Both for Sonya and for the countess this news had in the first moment but one meaning. They knew their Natasha, and the fright at what would happen to her when she received this news drowned in them all sympathy for the man, whom both loved.

” Nat ds ha does not yet know ; but he is travelling with us,” said Sdnya.

” You say that he is dying ? “

Sonya nodded.

The countess embraced Sonya and burst out weeping.

” The ways of the Lord are inscrutable ! ” she thought, feeling that, in everything which was taking place now, there was beginning to be shown the hand of the Almighty, which heretofore had been hidden from the view of men.

” Well, mamma, everything is ready. What is the matter ? ” Natasha asked, with an animated face, as she rushed into the room.

” Nothing,” said the countess. ” If all is ready we will start.” And the countess bent down over her reticule, to conceal her disturbed countenance. Sonya embraced Natasha and kissed her.

Natäsha looked inquiringly at her.

” What is the matter with you ? What has happened ?”

” Nothing —nothing.”

” Something very bad for me ? What is it ? ” asked sensitive Natdsha.

Sdnya drew a sigh and made no reply. Pétya, Madame Schoss, Mavra Kuzminishna, and Vasilich entered the drawingroom and, closing the door, all seated themselves and sat for a few moments in silence, without looking at each other.

The count was the first to rise. Drawing an audible sigh, he began to make the sign of the cross before the image. All did the same. Then the count began to embrace Mävra Kuzminishna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and, while they caught his hand and kissed him on the shoulder, he tapped them lightly on their backs, saying indistinctly some kind words of consolation. The countess went into the image-room, and S<5nya found her there on her knees before the images which, here and there, were still left hanging on the wall. (The most precious images, with which some family tradition was connected, were going with them.)

On the porch and in the yard, the men who were leaving, with daggers and swords, with which Pétya had armed them, and with their pantaloons tucked into their boots, and tightly girded with straps and belts, were bidding goodbye to those who were going to stay.

As always happens at a departure, much was forgotten and improperly packed. Two Haiduks stood for quite awhile at either side of the open carriage door and steps, ready to help the countess in, while the maids kept running with cushions and bundles from the house to the carriages, and back again.

” They will forget things as long as they live ! ” said the countess. ” You know that I cannot sit this way.”

And Dunyàsha, clenching her teeth and without replying, with an expression of reproach in her face, rushed into the carriage to fix the seat differently.

” Oh, what people ! ” said the count, shaking his head.

Old coachman Efim, with whom alone the countess dared to travel, sitting high on his box, did not even look back at what was going on behind him. He knew from his experience of thirty years’ standing that some time would pass yet before they would tell him to proceed, ” With God’s aid ! ” and that, even when that had been said, he would be stopped twice, and people would be sent back for something that had been forgotten, and that, after that, he would again be stopped and the countess herself would put her head out of the window and would ask him for Christ’s sake to drive carefully down slopes. He knew all that, and so waited for what would happen, much more patiently than his horses (especially the left chestnut horse, Falcon, which was pawing the ground and chewing at the bit). Finally all took their seats ; the steps were raised and thrown into the carriage ; the door slammed ; somebody was sent to fetch a little box ; the countess put her head out of the window and said what was expected. Then Efim slowly took off his cap from his head and began to cross himself. The outrider started. The right shaft horse tugged at his collar ; the high springs creaked, and the body of the carriage began to move. A lackey jumped on the box, while the vehicle was in motion. The carriage began to jolt as it drove out on the uneven pavement ; the same happened to the other vehicles, and the procession started down the street. In the carriages all made the sign of the cross toward a church which was opposite them. The people who were to remain in Moscow walked on both sides of the carriages, to see them off.

It was a long time since Natasha had experienced the joyful sensation she was now experiencing, as she was sitting in the carriage near the countess and looking at the slowly receding walls of agitated Moscow, which they were now abandoning. At times she put her head out of the window and looked both back and ahead at the long procession of the carts with the wounded, which preceded them. Almost in front of all she could see the closed top of Prince Audrey’s carriage. She did not know who was in it, and yet, every time she surveyed the caravan, her eyes sought out that carriage. She knew that it was preceding them all.

At Kudrino were met several caravans resembling the procession of the Rostov vehicles, and coming from the Nikftskaya, the Pryésen, the Podnovinskoe wards. Down the Sadovdya the carriages and teams drove in two rows.

Passing by the Sukharev tower, Natasha, who was with curiosity casting rapid glances at the passers-by and at the carriages, suddenly gave a shout of joy and surprise :

” 0 dear ! Mamma, Sdnya, see, it is he ! “

“Who? Who?”

” Look, upon my word, Bezukhi ! ” said Natdsha, putting her head out of the carriage window and looking at a tall, fat man in the caftan of a coachman, evidently a disguised gentleman, to judge by his face and form, who was walking under the arch of the Sukhdrev tower with a sallow, beardless old man in a frieze overcoat.

” Upon my word, Bezukhi, in a caftan, with an old boy ! Upon my word ! ” said Natdsha, ” look, look ! ”

” No, it is not he ! How can you say such foolish things ? “

” Mamma,” cried Natdsha, ” I will stake my head that it is he. I assure you. Wait, wait,” she shouted to the coachman ; but the coachman could not stop because from Myeshchdnskaya Street came other teams and carriages, and they yelled at the Rostov caravan to move on and not bar the way.

Indeed, after a distance had been traversed, all the Rostdvs saw Pierre, or a man who remarkably resembled Pierre, in a coachman’s caftan, walking down the street with bent head and serious face, by the side of a small, beardless old man, who had the appearance of a lackey. This old man noticed the face which looked out of the carriage at him, and he, respectfully touching Pierre’s elbow, said something to him, while pointing to the carriage. It was quite awhile before Pierre made out what he meant, he was so much absorbed in his thoughts. Finally, when he understood him, he looked in the direction pointed out to him and, recognizing Natdsha, that very second, submitting to his first impulse, moved rapidly toward the carriage. But, having taken about ten steps, he evidently recalled something and stopped.

Natäsha’s face, which was thrust out of the window, beamed with a sarcastic kindness.

” Pierre Kirfllych, come here ! We have recognized you ! This is strange ! ” she cried, extending her hand. “ What is this ! Why are you dressed this way ? “

Pierre took the offered hand and, while walking, kissed it awkwardly, as the carriage continued to move.

“ What is this, count ? ” the countess asked him, in a voice expressive of surprise and compassion.

” What ? What ? Why ? Do not ask me,” said Pierre, looking at Natasha, whose beaming glance of joy (he felt this even without gazing at her) embraced him with its charm.

” Are you going to stay in Moscow ? ”

Pierre was silent for awhile.

” In Moscow ? ” he said, interrogatively. ” Yes, in Moscow. Goodbye ! “

” Oh, I wish I were a man ! Then I should certainly stay with you ! Oh, how good this is ! ” said Natasha. ” Mamma, permit me to stay here ! “

Pierre looked absently at Natäsha and was on the point of saying something to her, but the countess interrupted him :

” You have been in a battle, we heard.”

” Yes, I have,” replied Pierre. ” Tomorrow there will again be a battle —” he began, but Natàsha interrupted him :

“But what is this, count? You look like a different man.”

“ Oh, do not ask me, do not ask me ! I do not know anything myself. Tomorrow— No, no! Goodbye, goodbye!” he said. “This is a terrible time!” And, falling behind the carriage, he went to the sidewalk.

Natäsha kept looking out of the window for a long time, beaming on him a kindly and, at the same time, slightly sarcastic, joyful smile.

XVIII.

Since his disappearance from his house, Pierre had passed two days in the empty quarters of the deceased Bazdyéev. It happened like this.

Awakening the next morning after his return to Moscow and his meeting with Bostopclun, Pierre could not for a long time make out where he was and what was wanted of him. When, among the names of other persons, who were waiting for him in the reception-room, he was informed of that of a Frenchman, who had brought a letter from Countess Hélène Vasflevna, he was suddenly overcome by that feeling of confusion and hopelessness to which he was prone to surrender. He suddenly imagined that everything was ended now, that everything was mixed, that there was no righteous and no guilty person, that there was nothing ahead, and that there was no issue from this situation. Smiling an unnatural smile and muttering something, he now sat down on the sofa in a helpless attitude, now rose, walked up to the door, and looked through a chink into the reception-room, now, waving his arms, went back and took up a book. The majordomo came for the second time to report to Pierre that the Frenchman who had brought him a letter from the countess was very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that the widow of O. A. Bazdyéev asked him to take away the books, as she herself had left for the country.

” Oh, yes, wait ! Or no, no, go and tell them that I shall be there soon,” Pierre said to the majordomo.

But the moment the majordomo had left, Pierre took his hat, which was lying on the table, and went out of the cabinet by the back door. There was nobody in the corridor. Pierre passed through the whole length of the corridor up to the staircase and, frowning and rubbing his brow with both hands, walked down to the first landing. The porter was standing at the main entrance. From the landing, to which Pierre had walked down, another staircase led to the back entrance. Pierre took this direction and came out into the yard. But in the street, the coachmen, who were standing with the carriages, and the janitor saw the master, as soon as he passed the gate, and took off their caps before him. Notwithstanding their glances directed upon him, Pierre acted like an ostrich, which hides its head in a bush, in order not to be seen ; he lowered his head and, accelerating his steps, walked down the street.-

Of all the work which presented itself to Pierre, on that morning, that of examining the books and papers of Osip Aleksyéevich seemed the most important to him.

He took the first cab he came across and gave orders to be driven to the Patriarch Ponds, where was the house of Bazdyéev’s widow. Looking around all the time at the caravans which on both sides of him were starting away from Moscow, and so arranging his obese body on the rattling old cab as not to slip down, Pierre, experiencing a joyous sensation, like the one experienced by a truant boy, began to converse with the cabman.

The cabman told him that on that day they were distributing weapons at the Kremlin, and that on the following day the people would all be driven out to the Three Hills barrier, where a great battle would take place.

Upon arriving at the Patriarch Ponds, Pierre found Bazdyéev’s house, where he had not been for a long time. Gerasim, the same sallow, beardless old man whom Pierre had seen five years before in Torzhék with Ösip Aleksyéevich, came out in response to his tap.

“ Is any one at home ? ” asked Pierre.

“ On account of the present state of affairs, Sdfya Danilovna has left with her children for the Torzhok village, your Serenity.”

” Nevertheless I will go in, — I have to examine the books,” said Pierre.

“ If you please, come in ! The brother of the deceased, — the kingdom of heaven be his ! — Makar Aleksyéevich, is staying here, but, as you know, he is feeble,” said the old servant.

Makér Aleksyéevich was, as Pierre knew, a halfdemented brother of Ösip Aleksyéevich, who drank to excess.

” Yes, yes, I know. Come, let us go in ! ” said Pierre, entering the house.

A tall, bald-headed old man in a morninggown, with a red nose, wearing galoshes on his bare feet, was standing in the antechamber; upon noticing Pierre, he angrily muttered something and went into the corridor.

” He used to have a great mind, but now, as you may see, he is enfeebled,” said Gerasim. ” Would you like to go to the cabinet ? ” Pierre nodded. ” The cabinet has remained in the same condition ever since it was sealed up. Sofya Danilovna left orders to have the books handed over to whomever you should send for them.”

Pierre entered the same gloomy cabinet, which he had entered with such trepidation during the lifetime of his benefactor. This cabinet, now dusty and untouched since the demise of Ösip Aleksyéevich, looked gloomier still.

Gerdsim opened a shutter and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre made the round of the cabinet, went up to the safe in which lay the manuscripts, and took out that which at one time formed one of the most important relics of the order. Those were the original Scotch acts with notes and explanations by the benefactor. He sat down at the dusty writing-table and placed the manuscripts before him, opened them, closed them again, and finally, pushing them away from him, leaned his head on his arm and fell to musing.

Gerasim looked cautiously into the cabinet several times, and saw that Pierre was still sitting in the same posture. More than two hours passed. Gerasim permitted himself to make a slight noise at the door, in order to attract Pierre’s attention. Pierre did not hear him.

” Do you command me to dismiss the driver ? “

” Oh, yes,” Pierre said, regaining consciousness, and rising rapidly. ” Pisten,” he said, taking Gerasim by the button of his coat and looking down at the old man with sparkling, moist, ecstatic eyes, ” listen! Do you know that there will be a battle tomorrow? “

” I have heard them say so,” replied Gerasim.

” I beg you not to tell any one who I am. And do what I tell you — “

” Yes, sir,” said Gerdsim. ” Do you wish to eat ? “

” No, but I need something else. I need peasant attire and a pistol,” said Pierre, suddenly growing red in the face.

” Yes, sir,” Gerdsim said, after a moment’s hesitation.

The rest of that day Pierre passed alone in the cabinet of his benefactor, restlessly pacing from one corner to another, as Gerdsim could hear, and speaking to himself. He slept that night on a bed made for him in the same room.

Gerdsim, with the habit of a servant who in his lifetime has seen many queer tilings, accepted Pierre’s migration without surprise, and seemed to be satisfied because he had some one to attend to. That same evening, he without even asking himself what it was for, got a caftan and cap for Pierre, and promised to supply him on the next day with the desired pistol. Mak dr Aleksydevich on that evening, plashing with his galoshes, twice went up to the door and stopped, casting an humble look at him ; but the moment Pierre turned around to him, he angrily and shamefacedly wrapped himself in his morninggown and hurried away. Pierre was dressed in the coachman’s caftan, which Gerdsim had provided and washed out for him, and was on his way with him to the Sukhdrev Tower, to buy himself a pistol, when he met the Rostdvs.

XIX.

On the night of the 1st of September Kutuzov’s command was given for the Russian troops to retreat to the Ryazan road by way of Moscow.

The first troops moved at night. The troops that were marching at night were not in a hurry and moved slowly and leisurely ; but at daybreak, the moving troops, upon approaching the Porogomilov Bridge, saw before them endless masses of soldiers, crowding on the other side, hurrying across the Bridge, and rising beyond and barring the streets and alleys, and other masses, pushing on from behind. A causeless haste and alarm took possession of the troops. They all rushed forward toward the bridge, upon the bridge, to the fords, and into the boats. Kutuzov ordered himself to be taken by back streets to the other side of Moscow.

By ten o’clock of the morning of September 2d, only the troops of the rearguard were left in the Porogomilov suburb. The army was already on the other side of the Moskva and beyond Moscow.

At this same time, at ten o’clock of September 2d, Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonnaya Hill and surveying the spectacle which was revealed before him. From August 26th to September 2d, that is, from the battle of Borodino to the enemy’s entrance into Moscow, during all the days of that alarming, that memorable week, there was that unusual autumn weather, which always surprises people, when the sun, low in the horizon, warms better than in spring ; when everything 462 sparkles in the rarefied, pure air so as to make the eyes smart ; when the breast grows more vigorous and is refreshed, as it inhales the redolent autumnal air ; when even the nights are warm ; and when, during these dark, warm nights, there is a downpour of golden stars from the heavens,— a constant source of fear and delight.

On September 2d, at ten o’clock, the weather was just like that. There was a fairylike morning glow. Moscow, viewed from the Pokldnnaya Hill, extended spaciously with its river, its gardens, and its churches, and seemed to be living its life, quivering with its cupolas, like stars, in the rays of the sun.

At the sight of the strange city, with its unfamiliar forms of an unusual architecture, Napoleon experienced that somewhat envious and restless curiosity, which people experience at the sight of forms of life, which are foreign to them and do not know of them. Apparently this city was living with all the powers of its life. By those indefinable tokens, by winch at a remote distance a living body is unmistakably distinguished from a dead, Napoleon on the Pokldnnaya Hill saw the quivering of life in the city and, as it were, felt the breath of that large and beautiful body.

Every Russian, looking at Moscow, feels that she is a mother; every foreigner, looking at her and not knowing her maternal meaning, must feel the feminine character of this city, and Napoleon, too, felt it.

“ Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables églises, Moscou la sainte ! La voilà donc enfin, cette fameuse ville / Il était temps’,’ said Napoleon, and, dismounting, he ordered the map of this Moscoib to be placed before him, and called up the interpreter, Lelorme dTdeville. ” Une ville occupée par l’ennemi ressemble à une fille qui a perdu, son honneur,” he thought (as he had said to Tuchkdv at Smolensk). And from this point of view he looked at the Eastern beauty, who was lying before him, and whom he

had never seen. It seemed strange to him that his old desire, which had seemed impossible, was now fulfilled. In the bright morning light he glanced now at the city, now at the plan, verifying the details of the city, and the certainty of possessing it both agitated and frightened him.

“But could it have been otherwise?” he thought. “Here it is, that capital, at my feet, awaiting its fate. Where is Alexander now, and what is he thinking? Strange, beautiful, majestic city ! And strange, majestic moment ! In what light do I appear to them ? ” he thought of his troops. ” Here is the reward for all those who were of little faith,” he thought, looking around at his suite and at the advancing troops as they were drawing up. “ One word of mine, one motion of my hand, and the ancient capital des Czars will be in ruins. Mais ma clémence est toujours prompte à descendre sur les vaincu,s. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But no, it is not true that I am in Moscow,” it suddenly occurred to him. ” Still, there it lies at my feet, playing and quivering with its golden cupolas and crosses in the rays of the sun. But I will spare it. On the old monuments of barbarism and despotism I will write the great words of justice and mercy — Alexander will feel this more painfully than anything, I know him.” It seemed to Napoleon that the chief meaning of what was taking place consisted in a personal struggle with Alexander. “ From the heights of the Kremlin, — yes, this is the Kremlin, yes, — I will give them laws of justice, I will show them the meaning of true civilization, I will compel generations of boyars lovingly to recall the name of their conqueror. I will tell the deputation that I did not want and still do not want the war ; that I have been waging war only with the false politics of their court ; that I love and respect Alexander ; and that I will accept in Moscow conditions of peace worthy of me and of my nation. I do not wish to profit by the fortune of war in order to humiliate the respected Tsar. ‘Boyars,’ will I say to them, ‘ I do not want war ; I want the peace and welfare of all my subjects.’ However, I know that their presence will make me enthusiastic, and I will speak to them, as I always speak : clearly, solemnly, and grandly. But is it really true that I am in Moscow ? Yes, here it is ! ”

“ Qu’on m’amène les boyards ! ” he turned to the suite.

A general with a brilliant suite at once galloped away to fetch the boyàrs. Two hours passed. Napoleon had had his breakfast and was again standing in the same spot on the Poklonnaya Hill, waiting for the deputation. His speech to the boydrs was now clearly defined in his imagination. It was full of dignity and of that grandeur which Napoleon understood.

The tone of magnanimity, with winch Napoleon intended to act in Moscow, carried him away. In his imagination he appointed days of “réunion dans le palais des Czars” where the Russian notables were to meet the notables of the French emperor. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would be able to gain the confidence of the population. Having heard that there were many charitable institutions in Moscow, he decided in his imagination that these establishments should be showered with his favours. He thought that, as in Africa it was necessary to sit in a mosque in a bournous, so in Moscow he had to be as merciful as the Tsars. And, completely to touch the hearts of the Russians, he, like all Frenchmen, who cannot imagine anything sentimental without thinking of “ma chère, ma tendre, ma pauvre mère” decided that on all these institutions he would have inscribed in large letters : “ Etablissement dédié à ma chère mère.” “ No, simply, ‘ Maison de ma Mère,’ ” he decided to himself. ” But am I really in Moscow ? Yes, there it is before me : but why is the deputation from the city so late in coming ? ” he thought.

In the meantime an agitated consultation was taking place in a whisper between the generals and marshals, in the rear of the emperor’s suite. Those who had been sent after the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was deserted, that all had left it. The countenances of those who were deliberating were pale and agitated. It was not the fact that Moscow had been abandoned by the inhabitants (however important this event seemed to be) which frightened them, but how to announce the fact to the emperor, how, without placing his Majesty in that terrible situation called by the French ” le ridicule,” to announce to him that he had in vain been waiting so long for the boydrs, and that there were there throngs of drunken men, and nobody else. Some said that it was necessary, at whatsoever cost, to get together some kind of a deputation ; others disputed this opinion and insisted that it was necessary cautiously and cleverly to prepare the emperor and to inform him of the facts.

“Il faudra le lui dire tout de même” said the gentlemen of the suite. “liais, messieurs — ” The situation was the more difficult since the emperor, reflecting on his plans of magnanimity, kept walking patiently up and down, in front of the plan, now and then shielding his eyes and looking down the road toward Moscow and smiling a cheerful and proud smile.

” Mais c’est impossible,” shrugging their shoulders, said the gentlemen of the suite, not daring to utter the well-understood, terrible word ” le ridicule.”

Meanwhile the emperor, tired of his vain expectancy, and feeling with his instinct of an actor that the majestic moment, lasting too long, was beginning to lose its grandeur, gave a sign with his hand. There resounded the single report of the signalling cannon, and the troops which had been besieging Moscow from various sides moved into the city through the Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov barriers. Faster and faster, racing with each other, at a quick step and at a trot, the troops moved, disappearing in the clouds of dust which they raised, and deafening the air with their shouts, which blended in one din.

Absorbed in watching the movement of his troops, Napoleon with them reached the Dorogomilov barrier; but there he stopped again and, dismounting, walked for a long time near the Kammer-kolleg rampart, waiting for the deputation.

XX.

Moscow, in the meantime, was deserted. There were still some people in it; there was still left one-fiftieth part of its population, but it was deserted. It was as deserted as is a queenless hive in the last days of its existence.

In the queenless hive life is extinct, but to a superficial glance it appears as animated as any other hive. The bees circle about the queenless hive as merrily, in the warm rays of an afternoon sun, as about living hives; like living hives it sends the odour of honey out for some distance away, and bees issue from it. But examine it close by, and you will understand that there is no life within. The bees do not fly in the same manner as about the living hives, and not the same odour, not the same sound, startles the bee-master. To the tap of the bee-master against the wall of the injured hive, instead of the former instantaneous, unisonal answer, the hissing of tens of thousands of bees lowering their backs and producing that aerial life sound by the swift beating of their wings, he receives a reply of discordant buzzes, dully resounding in the different parts of the empty hive. From the entrance does not proceed, as before, a pungent, winy odour of honey and poison, nor the warmth of fulness, but with the odour of the honey is blended the odour of emptiness and decay. At the entrance there are no longer the guards, who, ready to perish in the defence, raise up their backs and trumpet the alarm. There is no longer that even, soft sound, the pulsation of labour, resembling the sound of boiling, but there is heard the hard, dissonant din of disorder. Into the hive and out of it fly black, longish, honey-stained plunderer bees ; they do not sting, but slip away from danger. Formerly bees only flew in with burdens, and came out again without them, but now they fly out laden with burdens.

The bee-master opens the upper part of the hive, and looks down at the bottom. Instead of the black clusters of laboriously peaceful, plump bees, holding each other by the legs and pulling off the wax in an uninterrupted whisper of work, — drowsy, dried-up bees stroll here and there, on all sides, along the bottom and the walls of the hive. In place of the clean, glue-calked, wing-swept floor, the bottom is filled with bits of wax, excrements of bees, and halfdead bees, barely moving their legs, and dead ones, which have not been removed.

The bee-master opens the upper part and examines the mouth of the hive. Instead of the serried ranks of the bees, filling up all the interstices of the combs and warming the new brood, he sees the skilful labour of the combs, but no longer in the same state of virgin purity as before. Everything is abandoned and soiled. The black plunderer bees slink rapidly and stealthily through the combs ; native bees, dried up, of small size, flabby, as though old, saunter slowly, not interfering with any one, wishing for nothing, and having lost the consciousness of life. Drones, bumblebees, gadflies, butterflies in their flight senselessly strike against the walls of the hive. Here and there, amidst the comb, with the dead brood and the honey, occasionally is heard an angry hum ; two bees cleaning a nest of the hive from old habit, somewhere are carefully dragging away a drone, tugging at it with all their might, without knowing why they are doing it. In another comer two old bees are languidly fighting, or cleaning, or feeding each other, not knowing whether they are doing so out of hostility or friendship. In a third place, a mass of bees, crushing each other, attack some victim, and beat and choke it. And the weakened or dead bee falls slowly and lightly, like down, on a heap of dead bodies. The bee-master turns aside the middle combs, in order to examine the nets. Instead of the packed black circles of the thousands of bees sitting back to back, and guarding the highest mystery of birth, he sees hundreds of limp, halfdead, and drowsy skeletons of bees. They nearly all of them died without knowing it, while sitting on the sanctuary, which they watched, and which is no more. They emit an odour of decay and death. Only a few of them stir, rise, indolently fly about, and seat themselves on the hand of the enemy, not having the strength to die in stinging him ; the others, that are dead, drop down like fish-scale. The bee-master closes up the hive, marks it with a piece of chalk, and, when the time comes, breaks it up and scrapes it dean.

Just so Moscow was deserted, when Napoleon, tired, restless, and frowning, was walking up and down near the Kammer-kolleg rampart, awaiting at least the external, though to his way of thinking necessary, observance of the proprieties, — the deputation.

In the different corners of Moscow people moved senselessly about, observing the old habits, and not understanding what was going on.

When Napoleon was informed, -with due caution, that Moscow was empty, he looked angrily at him who made that announcement and, turning away, continued to walk in silence.

” The carriage ! ” he said. He seated himself in the carriage, by the side of the adjutant of the day, and drove into the suburb.

« Moscou déserte ! Quel événement invraisemblable ! ” he said to himself.

He did not have himself driven to the city, but stopped at a tavern of the Dorogomilov suburb.

Le coup de théâtre avait raté.

XXL

Our troops passed through Moscow from two o’clock in the night to two o’clock in the afternoon, and drew along with them the last departing inhabitants and the wounded.

The largest crush, during the movement of the troops, took place on the Stone, Moskvd, and Yauza Bridges. While the troops, forking off about the Kremlin, were crowding at the Moskvd and Stone Bridges, an immense number of soldiers, taking advantage of the stop and pressure, returned from the bridges and stealthily and silently slunk past the Church of Basil the Blessed and underneath the Borovitski Gate up to the Fair Esplanade, where they instinctively felt they could without much labour pilfer the goods of others. As big a crowd of people as gathered in Merchant Row, when wares were offered at bargains, now filled all its passages and crossways. But there were lacking the gentle, feigning, and enticing voices of the merchants and of the peddlers, and the variegated mass of female purchasers ; there were only the uniforms and overcoats of the soldiers without their guns, silently entering the rows and coming out with burdens. The merchants and huckstresses (there were but few of them) walked, as though lost, among the soldiers, opened and closed their shops, and with the aid of the lads carried out the wares. In the square near the Merchant Row stood drummers, sounding an alarm ; but the sound of the drum did not cause the plundering soldiers to assemble to the call, but only made them run away farther from the drum. Among the soldiers, in the shops and along the walks, could be seen men in gray caftans with shaven heads. Two officers, one of them with a sash over his uniform, mounted on a lean dark gray horse, the other in an overcoat, on foot, were standing in the corner near the Ilinka and talking about something. A third officer galloped up to them.

“The general commanded them to be driven out at once at all costs. Why, this is dreadful ! Half of the men have run away ! ”

” Where are you going ? Where ? ” he shouted to three footsoldiers, who, without their guns, lifting the skirts of their overcoats, were slipping past him back to the ranks. ” Stop, rascals ! “

“Yes, try and collect them!” replied another officer. ” You can’t pick them all up. They ought to move faster, so that the last of them should not escape, that is all ! ”

” How can they go faster ? There is a crush on the bridge, and they can’t move. Had we not better put out a cordon, to keep the men in the rear from running away ? ”

” Go there and drive them back ! ” shouted the senior officer.

The officer with the sash climbed down from his horse, called the drummer, and went with him under the arches. Several soldiers started on a run in a crowd. A merchant with red warts on his cheek near his nose, with a calm and imperturbable expression of calculation on his well-fed face, walked over hurriedly and foppishly to the officer, swaying his arms.

” Your Honour,” he said, ” do us the favour and defend us. We do not care so much for a trifle, on the contrary, with pleasure, if you please — I will bring out some cloth — to an honourable man I will give two pieces, with the greatest pleasure — because we feel — but this is mere robbery ! Please ! Can’t you order up a guard and give us a chance to close our shops ? ”

Several merchants crowded about the officer.

“ Oh ! What is the use of complaining ? ” said one of them, a lean man with a stern face. ” When your head is taken off you don’t weep for your hair. Let them take what they want ! ” And, with an energetic gesture of his hand, he turned sidewise to the officer.

” Ivdn Siddrych, it is easy for you to talk that way ! ” the first merchant said, angrily. “ Please, your Honour ! ”

” What is the use of talking ! ” cried the lean merchant. ” I have here, in three shops, one hundred thousand roubles’ worth of goods. Do you suppose I can save it all, after the army has left ? People, let me tell you, God’s power cannot be put down.”

” Please, your Honour,” said the first merchant, with a bow.

The officer stood in perplexity, and Iris face expressed indecision.

” What do I care ? ” he suddenly shouted, walking with rapid steps through the rows. In an open shop were heard blows and curses, and, just as the officer walked up to it, a man in a gray coat, with a shaven head, was kicked out from it. This man ducked and rushed past the merchants and officers. The officers made for the soldiers who were in the shop ; but just then the furious cries of an immense crowd were heard on the Moskva Bridge, and the officer rushed out in the square.

” What is it ? What is it ? ” he asked, but his companion was already galloping in the direction of the cries, past the church of Basil the Blessed. The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the bridge, he saw two unlimbered cannon, infantry marching over the bridge, several upturned carts, a number of frightened faces, and the smiling countenances of the soldiers. Near the cannon stood a team drawn by two horses. Back of the vehicle four greyhounds, in collars, were shying from the crowd. On the vehicle there was a

mountain of things, and on the very top, beside an upturned baby chair, sat a woman, who was shrieking in a piercing and desperate manner. The officer’s comrades told him that the cries of the throng and the shrieks of the woman were caused by the fact that General Ermolov, coming up and learning that the soldiers were scattering in the shops and that crowds of inhabitants were barring the bridge, had ordered the cannon to be unlimbered and threatened to shoot on the bridge. The crowd, upsetting carts, crushing each other, crying furiously, and pressing forward, cleared the bridge, and the troops moved on.

XXII.

The city, in the meantime, was deserted. There was hardly any one in the street. All the gates and shops were closed ; here and there a lonely cry or drunken singing could be heard near a dramshop. Nobody travelled through the streets, and but rarely could the steps of a passer-by be heard. In Povârskaya Street everything was quiet and abandoned. In the immense yard of Rostov’s house lay bits of hay and dung from the caravan which had departed, but not a man was to be seen. Two men of those, who were left with all the goods in the house of the Rostdvs were sitting in the drawingroom. Those were janitor Ignat and Cossack Mishka, Vasilich’s grandson, who remained in Moscow with his grandfather. Mishka opened the clavichord and played on it with one finger. The janitor, with arms akimbo and a smile of joy, was standing before a large mirror.

” This is fine, isn’t it ? Eh ? Uncle Ignat ! ” said the boy, suddenly beginning to strike the keys with both his hands.

“ I declare ! ” replied Ignat, wondering how it was that his face kept smiling more and more in the mirror.

“ Shameless people ! How shameless ! ” was heard, behind them, the voice of Mavra Kuzminishna, who had just entered. “ What are you grinning there for, fat snout ? Nothing is put away, and Vasilich is all worn out. Just wait!”

Igndt adjusted his belt, stopped smiling, and, humbly lowering his eyes, left the room.

” Aunty, I was doing it lightly,” said the boy.

” I will give you lightly, brat ! ” cried Mavra Kuzminishna, lifting her arm against him. ” Go and prepare the samovar for your grandfather ! “

Mavra Kuzminishna brushed off the dust, closed the clavichord, and, sigliing deeply, left the drawingroom and locked the entrance door. Upon reaching the yard, she stopped to think where to go to now, whether to drink tea with Vasilich in the wing, or to the storeroom to put away what had not yet been straightened out. In the quiet street rapid steps were heard. They stopped at the small gate : the latch rattled in the hand of him who was trying to open it.

Mavra Kuzminishna went up to the gate.

” Whom do you want ? “

“ The count, Count Ilya Andréevich Rostdv.”

” Who are you ? “

“I am an officer. I want to see him,” was heard the pleasant voice of a Russian gentleman.

Mdvra Kuzminishna opened the gate, and into the yard stepped an eighteen-year-old, round-faced officer, whose type of face resembled that of the Rostovs.

” They have left, sir. They deigned to leave yesterday at vesper-time,” Mavra Kuzminishna said, kindly.

The young officer stood at the gate, as though in indecision whether to go in, or not, and he clicked with his tongue. ” How annoying ! ” he muttered. ” If only yesterday — Oh, what a pity ! “

Mavra Kuzminishna in the meantime attentively and sympathetically examined the familiar features of the Rostov breed in the face of the young man, and the torn overcoat, and the worn boots, which he wore.

“ “What did you need the count for ? ” she asked.

” Well — what is to be done ?” the officer said, in vexation, taking hold of the gate, as though wishing to leave. He again stopped in indecision.

“ You see,” he suddenly said, “I am a relative of the count’s and he has always been good to me. So, you see,” he looked with a kindly and cheerful smile at his overcoat and boots, “ my clothes are getting worn, and I have no money ; I wanted to ask the count — “

Mdvra Kuzminishna did not allow him to finish his sentence.

“Just wait a moment, sir! One little minute,” she said.

The moment the officer dropped his hand from the gate, Mdvra Kuzminishna turned around and with a rapid old woman’s walk went to the back yard and to her wing.

While Mdvra Kuzminislina was running to her room, the officer, lowering his head and looking at his tom boots, walked up and down the yard, with a slight smile on his face. ” What a pity I did not find uncle ! What a charming old woman ! Where has she gone ? If I can only find out by what streets I can soonest catch up with my regiment which now must be near the Rogdzhskaya barrier,” the young officer was thinking.

Mdvra Kuzminishna, with a frightened and, at the same time, determined face, carrying in her hand a rolled-up checkered handerchief, came around the corner. While still a few steps away from him, she unfolded the handkerchief, took out of it a white twenty-five rouble assignat and hastened to hand it to the officer.

“If his Serenity were at home, of course, he would treat you like a relative — but maybe — now — ”

Mdvra Kuzminishna lost her composure and became embarrassed. But the officer, neither refusing, nor hurrying, took the bill and thanked Mdvra Kuzminishna.

“If the count were at home,” Mdvra Kuzminishna repeated, as though apologizing. “ Christ be with you, sir ! May God preserve you ! ” said Mavra Kuzminishna, bowing and seeing him out.

The officer, as though laughing at himself, smiling, and

shaking his head, almost at a trot ran through the empty streets to join his regiment at the Yauza Bridge.

Mdvra Kuzmmishna stood for a long time with moist eyes in front of the closed gate, pensively shaking her head and experiencing a sudden outburst of maternal tenderness and pity for the young officer, who was a stranger to her.

XXIII.

In the unfinished house in the Vdrvarka, underneath which was a dramshop, could be heard drunken shouts and songs. On the benches at the tables, in a small, dirty room, sat some ten factory hands. All of them intoxicated, sweating, with dim eyes, straining hard, and opening their mouths wide, were singing some kind of a song. They were singing out of tune, with great labour and effort, evidently not because they wanted to sing, but in order to prove that they were drunk and carousing. One of them, a tall, light-complexioned fellow, in a clean, blue long coat, stood over them. His face with its thin, straight nose would have been handsome, if it had not been for his thin, hard-set, constantly moving lips, and blear, blinking, motionless eyes. He stood over those who were singing, and evidently reflecting about something, solemnly and angularly swayed above their heads his white arm, which was bared up to the elbow, and at the same time tried to spread his dirty fingers in an unnatural manner. The sleeve of his long coat kept falling down, and the lad every time carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as though it were especially important that his white, muscular, swaying arm should remain uncovered. In the middle of the song, shouts of a fight and blows were heard outside on the porch. The tall lad swung his arm.

” Enough ! ” he yelled, commandingly. “ A fight, boys ! ” and still continuing to roll up his sleeve, he went out on the porch.

The workmen went out after him. The factory hands, who on that morning were drinking in the dramshop under the leadership of the tall lad, had brought the dramshop-keeper Indes from the factory, and for this he gave them the liquor. Some blacksmiths from neighbouring smithies, hearing the carousal in the dramshop, and supposing it had been taken by force, wanted to make their way in. A fight took place on the porch.

The dramshop-keeper was fighting at the door with a smith ; just as the factory hands came out, the smith tore himself loose from the innkeeper and fell with his face on the pavement.

Another blacksmith was trying to get in, pressing with all his might against the innkeeper.

The lad with the rolled-up sleeve as he walked up struck the smith, who was trying to get in, a blow in his face, and yelled wildly :

” Boys, our men are being worsted ! “

Just then the first smith got up from the ground and, scratching up blood on his mauled face, cried, in a whimpering voice :

” Help ! Murder ! They have killed a man ! Friends ! “

” 0 Ford, they have killed a man ! ” screamed a woman, who ran out from a neighbouring gate.

A crowd gathered about the bleeding blacksmith.

“ You have robbed people long enough and taken their shirts off their backs,” said some one, turning to the innkeeper. ” Why have you killed a man ? Murderer ! “

The tall lad, who was standing on the porch, turned his eyes now upon the dramshop-keeper, now upon the smiths, as though reflecting with whom he ought to fight now.

” Ruiner of souls ! ” he suddenly shouted at the dramshop-keeper. “ Bind him, boys ! “

” I guess you will bind me ! ” shouted the dram-shopkeeper, swinging himself free from the men who were rushing up against him. Pulling off his cap, he threw it

down on the ground, äs ____

mysterious meaning, the factory hands, who surrounded the innkeeper, stopped in indecision.

” My friend, I know what is what pretty well. I will go to the captain of police. You think I won’t ? Nobody has been permitted to act the robber to-day ! ” shouted the innkeeper, lifting up his cap.

” We will go there, I declare ! We will — I declare ! ” repeated, one after the other, the innkeeper and that tall lad, and both moved down the street. The bleeding blacksmith walked by their side. The factory hands and others, talking and shouting, followed them.

At the corner of the Moroséyka, opposite a large house with closed shutters, on which there was a shoemaker’s sign, stood about twenty gloomy-visaged shoemakers, lean, emaciated men in cloaks and torn long coats.

” He has paid the people nicely ! ” said the lean master shoemaker with a scant beard and wrinkled brow. ” He has been sucking our blood, and that is the end of it. He has led us on and on, for a week. Now he has brought us to the extremity, and himself has left.”

Upon seeing the people and the bloodstained man, the master stopped talking, and all the shoemakers, with hurried curiosity, joined the moving crowd.

” Where are the people going ? “

” Where else but to find the authorities.”

” Well, is it true that we have been worsted ? ”

” What do you think ? Listen to what the people say ! ”

There were heard questions and replies. The innkeeper, profiting by the preoccupation of the crowd, fell back and returned to his inn.

The tall lad did not notice the disappearance of his enemy, the innkeeper, and, swaying his bared arm, kept talking to the crowd and thus attracted the universal attention. The rabble crowded mainly around him, hoping

to get from him a solution of all the questions that interested them.

” Let him show what is what, — let him show up the law, — that’s what the authorities are for ! Do I say it right, Orthodox people ? ” said the tall lad, with a barely perceptible smile.

“ He thinks that there are no authorities ! How could we get along without the authorities ? There are enough who would be only too glad to rob ! “

” What is the use of talking nonsense ! ” somebody said in the crowd. ” How could they abandon Moscow ? They made fun of you when they told you that, and you believed them. There are a lot of our soldiers coming on ! So they have let him in ! That’s what the authorities are for ! Listen to what people are saying,” they said, pointing to the tall lad.

At the wall of Kitây-gorod, another, a small group of men, surrounded a man in a frieze overcoat, who was holding a paper in his hands.

” An ukase, — they are reading an ukase !” the throng shouted and darted in the direction of the reader.

The man in a frieze overcoat was reading a broadside of August 31st. When the crowd surrounded him, he seemed to feel embarrassed, but, at the request of the tall lad, who had made his way up to him, he, with a slight tremble in his voice, began to read the broadside from the beginning :

” I will go tomorrow morning to the Most Serene Prince,” he read (” To his Serenity ! ” the tall lad said solemnly, smiling with his mouth and knitting his brow), ” in order to have a chat with him, and act and help the troops to destroy the malefactors ; we will kick the life ” (continued the reader, and stopped. ” You see ?” the tall lad shouted, triumphantly. “He will let them have it — ”) ” out of them, and will send all these guests to the devil ; I will come tomorrow at dinner-time, and we will go to work, and will do it up brown, and will do up the malefactors.”

The last words were uttered by the reader during a complete silence. The tall lad gloomily hung his head. It was evident that no one had understood those last words, and that especially the words, ” I will come tomorrow at dinner-time,” pained obviously both the audience and the reader. The comprehension of the masses was tuned on a high key, and this was entirely too simple and too uselessly comprehensible ; it was what any of them might have been able to say, and what, therefore, could not have been contained in an ukase which proceeded from the higher authorities.

All stood in grim silence. The tall lad moved his lips and staggered.

” We ought to ask him ! — There he is ! — I guess you will ask him ! — Why not ? He will tell — ” suddenly was heard in the last rows of the throng, and the attention of all was directed toward the carriage of the chief of police, which was driving into the square, accompanied by two mounted dragoons.

The chief of police had on that morning driven out by the order of the count to set the barges on fire, and through this order had gained a large sum of money, which at that moment he was carrying in his pocket. Upon seeing the mass of people approaching toward him, he ordered the coachman to stop.

“ What are the people doing there ? ” he shouted at the throng, who were singly and timidly walking up to the carriage. ” What kind of people are these, I ask you ? ” repeated the chief of police, who did not receive an answer.

” They, your Honour,” said the scribe in the frieze mantle, ” they, your Worship, in consequence of the proclamation of his Most Serene Count, without sparing their lives, wish to serve, and not to be riotous, as is said by his Most Serene Highness, the count — ”

« The count has not left. He is here, and there will be an order concerning you,” said the chief of police. « March ! ” he said to the coachman.

The throng stopped and crowded about those who had heard what the chief had said, and looked at the receding carriage. Just then the chief looked back in fright, and said something to the coachman, and the horses drove off faster still.

” It’s a deception, boys ! Take us to him ! ” shouted the tall lad. “ Don’t let him get away, boys ! Let him explain ! Hold him ! ” yelled the men, and the rabble bolted for the carriage.

The throng started after the chief of police, turning with noisy conversation into the Lubydnka.

” How is this ? The gentlefolk and the merchants have left, and we shall suffer for them! Are we dogs, or what ? ” could be heard with increasing frequency in the crowd.

XXIV.

On the evening of September 1st, after his interview with Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin, aggrieved and offended because he had not been invited to the council of war, and because Kutuzov had paid absolutely no attention to his proposition that he should take part in the defence of the capital, and surprised by the view, newly revealed to him in the camp, which held the question of the tranquillity of the capital and of its patriotic mood not only as of secondary importance, but even as absolutely useless and insignificant, — aggrieved, offended, and surprised by all this, Count Rostopchin returned to Moscow. Having eaten his supper, the count, without undressing, lay down on the sofa, and was at one o’clock wakened by a courier, who brought him a letter from Kutuzov. This letter informed him that, since the troops were retreating through Moscow on the Ryazan road, he was requested kindly to send out some officers of police who would see the troops through the city. This information was nothing new to Rostopchin. Not only since his meeting with Kutuzov on the Pokldnnaya Hill on the previous day, but even since the battle of Borodind, when all the generals who arrived in Moscow unanimously proclaimed that it was impossible to give battle, and when the Crown property was being taken away every night with his permission, and half the inhabitants left the city, had Count Rostopchm known that Moscow would be evacuated ; none the less this news, transmitted in the form of a simple note with a command from Kutuzov, and received at night, during his first sleep, surprised and irritated the count.

Later on, while explaining his activity during this time, Count Rostopchin wrote several times in his memoirs that he then had two important aims : “ De maintenir la tranquillité à Moscou et d’en faire partir les habitants.” If this double aim be admitted, every act of Rostopchin’s appears reproachless. Why had not the church property, the arms, cartridges, powder, stores of grain been taken away, and why had thousands of inhabitants been deceived into the belief that Moscow would not be surrendered, so that they suffered great losses ? In order that tranquillity might be preserved in the capital, replies Count Rostopchin’s explanation. Why were stacks of useless documents taken away from the government offices, and Leppich’s balloon, and many other objects? In order to leave the city empty, replies Count Rostop-chrn’s explanation. All that is necessary is to admit that something was endangering the public tranquillity, and every action becomes justifiable —

All the atrocities of the Terror were based only on the care for the public tranquillity. On what, then, was based Count Rostopchin’s fear in regard to the public tranquillity of Moscow during the year 1812 ? What reason was there to assume in the city the possibility of an uprising ? The inhabitants were all leaving ; the army, retreating, filled Moscow. Why should the masses have become riotous ?

Neither in Moscow, nor in the rest of Russia, did there take place anything resembling an uprising, during the invasion of the enemy. On the 1st and 2d of September more than ten thousand people were left in Moscow, and there was nothing in the way of a demonstration, except a throng which was assembled in the yard of the commanderin-chief, and which had been invited by him to come together. Evidently there would have been even less fear of an uprising if, after the battle of Borodind, when the evacuation of Moscow became an apparent fact, or, at least, probable, — instead of agitating the masses by the distribution of arms and by broadsides, Rostopchin had taken measures to take away all the church property, the powder, the ammunition, the money, and had frankly proclaimed to the people that the city was to be abandoned.

Rostopchin, a fiery man of sanguine temperament, who had always moved in the highest spheres of the administration, though possessed of a patriotic sentiment, did not have the slightest conception of the people over which he intended to exercise his rule. Ever since the beginning of the invasion of Smolensk by the enemy, Rostopchin had formed in his imagination a plan of guiding the popular sentiment, — the heart of Russia. It seemed to him (as it seems to every administrator) not only that he was ruling over the external actions of the inhabitants of Moscow, but that he was also guiding their sentiments by means of those proclamations and broadsides, written in that language of the rowdies, which in their own circles the masses despise, and which they cannot understand when they hear it proceeding from above. The beautiful rôle of the guide of public sentiment was so much to the liking of Rostopchin and he had become so accustomed to it, that the necessity of emerging from this rôle and of abandoning Moscow without any heroic effect caught him unawares, and he suddenly lost from under him the soil on which he had been standing, and positively did not know what to do. Though he knew it, up to the last minute he did not believe with all his soul in the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and did nothing for this purpose. The inhabitants had been leaving against his wishes. If the government offices were taken away, this was done only at the request of the officials, with whom the count agreed reluctantly. He himself was occupied only with the rôle which he had laid out for himself. As often happens with people who are endowed with a fiery imagination, he had known long ago that Moscow would be abandoned, but he had known this only by reflection ; he had not believed it with his whole soul, had not transferred himself with his imagination into that new state of affairs.

All his activity, thorough and energetic as it was (as to how far it was useful and was reflected on the people is a different question), all his activity was directed only toward rousing in the inhabitants that feeling which he himself experienced, — a patriotic hatred of the French and a confidence in themselves. But when the event assumed its actual, historical proportions ; when it proved insufficient to express in words only his hatred for the French ; when it was impossible to give utterance to this hatred even in battle ; when his selfconfidence proved useless in relation to the one question of Moscow ; when the whole population, like one man, abandoning their property, flowed out of Moscow, showing by this negative action the whole force of their national feeling, — the rôle which Rostopchm had chosen suddenly appeared irrational. He suddenly felt himself lonely, feeble, and ridiculous, without any ground under his feet.

When, awakened from his sleep, he received Kutuzov’s cold and commanding note, he felt himself the more irritated the more he was conscious of being guilty. There was still left in Moscow all that which had been entrusted to him, all the Crown property, which he ought to take away. There was no possibility of hauling everything away.

” Who is to blame for it ? Who has allowed it to come to all this ? ” he thought. ” Of course, not I. Everything was in readiness with me, — I held Moscow like this! And see what they have brought us to ! Scoundrels, traitors ! ” he thought, without clearly defining who these scoundrels and traitors were, but feeling the necessity of hating these very traitors, who were to blame for that false and ridiculous position in which he was placed.

That night Count Rostopchm gave such orders as people from all corners of Moscow came to him to receive. The men nearest to the count had never seen him so gloomy and so irritated.

“Your Serenity, they have come from the Department of Estates,— the director is waiting for orders— From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the University, from the Foundling House, — the vicar has sent some one — he wants to know — What are your orders about the fire brigade ? The inspector of the prisons — the inspector of the insane asylum —” they kept announcing men to the count all night long.

To all these questions the count gave short, angry answers, which showed that his orders were now useless, that the whole work which he had so carefully prepared had been spoiled by somebody, and that that somebody would have to bear all the responsibility for what was taking place.

” Tell that blockhead,” he replied to the inquiry from the Department of Estates, ” to stay and keep a watch on his documents. What nonsense are you asking there about the fire brigade? If they have horses, let them go to Vladimir. Certainly they won’t leave them for the French ! ”

” Your Serenity, the superintendent from the insane asylum has come. What is your order ? ”

” What is my order ? Let them all leave, that is all — And let the insane out on the city. Since crazy people are now commanding our armies, God means these, too, to be out.”

To the question about the prisoners who were sitting in the hole, the count shouted angrily to the inspector :

” What do you want ? Two battalions of guards, which do not exist ? Let them out, that is all ! ”

” Your Serenity, there are some political prisoners :

Myeshkdv, Vereshchagin.”

” Vereshchagin ! Has he not been hanged yet ? ” cried Rostopchin. ” Bring him to me ! “

At nine o’clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving through Moscow, nobody came to ask the count’s orders. Whoever could leave, went away of his own accord ; those who stayed, decided for themselves what was to be done.

The count ordered his horses to be brought, in order to leave for Sokdlniki, and taciturn, looking yellow, and knitting his brow, sat in his cabinet.

It seems to every administrator, during a quiet, stormless time, that the population in his charge moves only by his efforts, and this consciousness of his utility each administrator feels to be the chief reward for his labours and efforts. Naturally, so long as the historic sea is calm, to the administrative governor, who, in his leaky boat, sticks his pole into the ship of the nation and moves along, it must appear that the ship against which he is leaning is moving by his efforts. But let a storm rise, the sea become agitated, and the ship begin to move, and the illusion becomes impossible. The ship moves with its large, independent motion ; the pole does not reach as far as the moving ship, and the administrator suddenly, from his position as ruler, from the source of power, passes over to the rôle of a useless, insignificant, feeble man.

Rostopchm felt this, and it irritated him.

The chief of police, whom the crowd had stopped, and an adjutant, announcing that the horses were ready, entered the count’s cabinet. Both were pale, and the chief of police, having reported the execution of his order,

informed the count that there was an immense concourse of people who wanted to see him.

Without replying a word, Rostopchm rose and with rapid steps marched toward his luxurious, bright drawingroom, walked over to the door of the balcony, took hold of the knob, dropped it again, and went up to the window, from which the throng could be seen better. The tall lad was standing in the front row and was saying something, with a stern face and a swinging of his arm. The bloodstained blacksmith with the gloomy aspect was standing near him. Through the closed windows could be heard the din of voices.

” Is the carriage ready ? ” asked Rostopchm, walking away from the window.

” Yes, your Serenity,” said the adjutant.

Rostopchm again went up to the door of the balcony.

” What do they want ? ” he asked the chief of police.

” Your Serenity, they say that they have assembled to go against the French, as you have ordered, and they have been shouting something about treason. It is a riotous crowd, your Serenity. I got away from them with difficulty. Your Serenity, I take the liberty of proposing — ”

” Please to leave ! I know without you what is to be done,” Rostopchm cried out, angrily. He was standing near the door of the balcony, looking at the rabble. ” Tins is what they have done with Russia ! This is what they have done with me ! ” thought Rostopchm, feeling that in his soul there was rising an irrepressible fury against some one, to whom the cause of all that was happening might be ascribed. As is frequently the case with impassioned people, fury had already possessed him, but he was still looking for an object of his rage: “La voilà, la populace, la lie du pcxi/plc,” he thought, looking at the rabble, ” la plèbe qu’ils ont soulevée par leur sottise. Ils leur faut une victime” it occurred to him, as he glanced at the tall lad, who was swinging his arm. And so it occurred to him that he himself needed this victim, this object of his rage.

“ Is the carriage ready ? ” he asked for the second time.

“ Yes, your Serenity. What is your order in respect to Vereshchagin ? He is waiting at the porch,” replied the adjutant.

” Ah ! ” exclaimed Rostopchm, as though startled by some unexpected recollection.

Opening the door rapidly, he stepped out on the balcony with a determined gait. The din of noises died down ; the caps and hats were taken off, and all eyes were directed upon the count.

“ Good morning, boys ! ” the count said, in a rapid and loud voice. ” Thank you for having come. I will be out in a minute, but first we must attend to the malefactor. We must punish the malefactor who is the cause of the ruin of Moscow. Wait for me!” And the count just as rapidly returned to the apartments, slamming the door behind him.

Through the throng went an approving murmur of satisfaction.

” So, he will attend to all the malefactors ! And you said it was the French— He will show you what is what ! ” said the men, as though upbraiding each other for their want of faith.

A few minutes later an officer hurriedly walked out by the parade entrance and gave some command, and the dragoons drew up. The crowd eagerly moved from the balcony to the porch. Walking out on the porch with swift, angry steps, Rostopchm looked about him, as though in search of somebody.

” Where is he ? ” said the count, and the very moment he said this, he saw a young man with a long, thin neck and half of his head shaven and grown out again, coming around the corner, accompanied by two dragoons. The

young man wore what once had been a foppish fox fur coat, covered with blue cloth, but was now threadbare and dirty, hempen prisoner’s pantaloons, tucked in uncleaned, worn-out, thin boots. On his thin, weak legs hung heavy fetters, which retarded the faltering gait of the young man.

” Ah ! ” said Rostopchfn, hurriedly turning his glance away from the young man in the fox fur coat, and pointing to the lower step of the porch. ” Put him there ! “

The young man, clanging his fetters, stepped heavily to the place indicated, holding down with a finger the tight collar of his fur coat, twice turned his long neck around, and, with a sigh and an humble gesture, placed his thin hands, which were not those of a labourer, over his abdomen.

The silence lasted a few seconds while the young man took up his position on the step. Only in the last rows of the throng, where people were pressing forward to one spot, was there heard grunting, groaning, punching, and the thud of shuffling feet.

Rostopchfn waited for him to stand still, and in the meantime rubbed his face with his hand.

” Boys ! ” said Rostopchfn, in a metallic, sonorous voice. ” This man is Vereshchagin, that same scoundrel, from whom Moscow has perished.”

The young man in the fox fur coat stood in an humble attitude, folding his hands in front of his abdomen and bending his head slightly. His emaciated, hopeless-looking, youthful face, disfigured by the shaven head, was drooping. At the first words of the count he slowly raised his head and looked up at the count, as though wishing to say something or at least to catch his eyes. But Rostopchfn did not look at him. On the long, thin neck of the young man, a vein back of his ear swelled like a rope and grew livid, and his face was flushed red.

All eyes were directed upon him. He glanced at the crowd and, as though despairing at the sight of the expressions which he read on the faces of the men, he smiled sadly and timidly, and, again dropping his head, changed his position on the steps.

” He has betrayed his Tsar and his country ; he has delivered himself to Bonaparte ; he alone of all the Russians has disgraced the name of a Russian, and from him Moscow is perishing,” said Rostopchfn, in an even, piercing voice. He suddenly cast a rapid glance down at Vereshchagin, who was still standing in his submissive attitude. This glance seemed to explode him, and, raising his hand, he shouted, almost addressing the rabble :

“Judge him with your judgment! I give him to you ! ”

The throng was silent and only pressed closer and closer against each other. It became unbearable to support each other, to breathe in that pestiferous air, to miss the power of motion, and to wait for something unknown, incomprehensible, and terrible. The men who were standing in the front rows and who saw and heard everything which was taking place before them, all with frightened and wide-open eyes and gaping mouths, straining their last strength, were stemming with their backs the pressure from behind.

” Strike him ! — Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the name of a Russian ! ” shouted Rostopchfn. ” Beat him ! I command it ! ”

Hearing, not Rostopchm’s words, but his furious sounds, the crowd groaned and moved forward, but again stopped.

” Count ! ” muttered Vereshchagin, in a timid and at the same time theatrical voice, during a moment of silence, which had ensued. “ Count, God alone is above us — ” said Vereshchagin, raising his head, and again the thick vein on his thin neck was filled with blood, and the colour rapidly flushed and left his face. He did not finish what he intended to say.

” Strike him ! I command it ! ” shrieked Rostopchln, suddenly growing as pale as Vereshchdgin.

” Unsheath your sabres ! ” the officer called out to the dragoons, himself taking out his sword.

Another, stronger wave surged through the crowd and, rushing up to the first rows, this wave dislodged the men in front and carried them tottering to the very steps of the porch. The tall lad, with a petrified expression on his face and with arrested raised arm, stood beside Vereshchagin.

” Strike him ! ” the officer almost whispered to the dragoons, and one of the soldiers, with a face disfigured by rage, suddenly struck Vereshchdgin on the head with the dull side of the sabre.

” Ah ! ” Vereshchagin gave a short, surprised shriek, looking around in fright, as though he did not understand why this was being done to him. The same groan of amazement and terror ran through the crowd. ” 0 Lord ! ” was heard some one’s sad exclamation.

But immediately after the exclamation of surprise which had escaped him, Vereshchdgin gave a pitiful cry of pain, and this cry was his ruin. The barrier of humane feeling, which, strained to the highest degree, was holding back the crowd broke instantaneously. The crime was begun, it was necessary to finish it. The pitiful groan of rebuke was drowned by a stormy, furious roar from the rabble. Like the last, the seventh wall which breaks the ships, this last, irrepressible wave surged from the rear, was borne to the front, knocked them down, and swallowed everything. The dragoon who had given the blow wanted to repeat his act. Vereshchdgin, with a cry of terror, shielding himself with his hands, rushed up to the throng. The tall lad, against whom he had run, clutched Vereshchdgin’s thin neck with his hands, and, with a savage yell, fell with him under the feet of the crushing, tearing throng.

Some struck and tugged at Vereshchdgin, while others struck at the tall lad. The cries of the crushed men and of those who tried to save the tall lad only roused the fury of the mass. The dragoons had a hard time freeing the bloodstained factory hand, who was half-beaten to death. And, in spite of all the feverish haste with which the crowd tried to accomplish the work when it had once been begun, those who beat, choked, and tore Vereshchdgin were for a long time unable to kill him ; they had him in the middle, but the throng pressing upon them on all sides and like one mass swaying from side to side, made it impossible for them either to kill, or to give him up.

“ Why don’t you strike him with an axe ? He is killed. — Traitor, you have betrayed Christ ! — He is alive — very much alive — Serves a thief right. Strike him with a rail ! — Is he still alive ? ”

Only when the victim stopped struggling and his cries gave way to an even, long-drawn snoring, the crowd hurriedly moved away from the prostrate, gory corpse. Each walked up, looked at what had been done, and in terror, reproach, and surprise moved back again.

” 0 Lord, what a beast the people are ! How can any •one be left alive ! ” were heard expressions in the crowd. “ He is a young lad — no doubt, from the merchant class ! What people ! — They say it was not he — How not he ? — 0 Lord ! — They have beaten another, and they say he is barely alive ! — Oh, what people ! — Who is not afraid of the sin ? ” — now spoke the same people, looking with an expression of pain and pity at the dead body with the livid, bloodstained and dust-covered face and with the hacked, long, thin neck.

An officious police officer, finding the presence of a corpse in the yard of his Serenity improper, ordered the dragoons to take the body into the streets. Two soldiers took hold of the disfigured legs and dragged the body away. The bloodstained, dust-grimed, lifeless, shaven head on the long neck turned from side to side as it was drawn along the ground. The people withdrew from the corpse.

Just as Vereshchagin fell and the crowd with a savage roar pressed and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly grew pale and, instead of going to the back porch, where his horses were waiting for him, he, without knowing whither, nor wherefore, hanging his head, walked with rapid steps through the corridor which led to the rooms of the lower story. The count’s face was pale, and he could not stop the motion of his nether jaw, which was shaking as though in a fever.

“Your Serenity, this way — whither do you wish to go? This way, if you please,” said behind him a trembling, frightened voice.

Count Rostopchin was not able to make any reply and, submissively turning back, went in the direction pointed out to him. His carriage was standing at the back porch. The distant din of the roaring crowd could be heard even there. Count Rostopchm hurriedly seated himself in the carriage and ordered the coachman to drive him to his suburban house in Sokélniki. When the count reached Myasmtskaya Street and no longer heard the cries of the crowd, he began to repent. He recalled with dissatisfaction the agitation and fright which he had evinced in the presence of his subordinates.

“La populace est terrible, elle est hideuse,” he thought in French. ” Ils sont comme les loups qu’on ne peut apaiser qu’avec de la chair.” ” Count, God only is above us ! ” he suddenly thought of Vereshchagin’s words, and a disagreeable chill ran down the back of Count Rostopchm. But this feeling was only momentary, and he contemptuously smiled at himself. “J’avais d’autres devoirs,” he thought. ” Il fallait apaiser le peuple. Bien d’autres victimes ont péri et périssent pour le bien public,” and he began to think of those general duties which he had toward his family, toward his capital, which was entrusted to him, and toward himself, not as Fédor Vasilevich Rostopchin (he thought that Fédor Vasilevich Rostopchm was sacrificing himself for the bien public), but as the commanderin-chief, the representative of power and the plenipotentiary of the Tsar. “If I were only Fédor Vasilevich, ma ligne de conduite aurait été tout autrement tracée, but I had to preserve the life and dignity of the commanderin-chief.”

Swaying lightly on the soft springs of the carriage, and no longer hearing the terrible sounds of the rabble, Rostopchin physically calmed down, and, as is usually the case, simultaneously with the physical tranquillity, reason found for him causes for moral tranquillity as well. The thought which put Rostopchin at his ease was not a new one. Ever since the world has existed and men have been killing each other, a man has never committed a crime against his like without finding consolation in the same thought. This thought is le bien public, the assumed good of other men.

A man who is not carried away by passions never knows this good ; but a man who commits a crime always knows to a certainty wherein it consists. Rostopchin, too, knew it.

In his reflections he not only did not rebuke himself for the act which he had committed, but even found causes for self-congratulation for having so successfully made use of the occasion, — of punishing a criminal and at the same time assuaging the crowd.

“ Vereshchagin was under trial and condemned to death,” thought Rostopchin (though the Senate had condemned Vereshchagin only to hard labour). “He was a traitor ; I could not let him go unpunished, and, then, je faisais d’une pierre deux coups ; I gave the populace a victim to assuage them, and I punished a criminal.”

After arriving at his suburban house and attending to the business of the home, he was entirely set at ease. Half an hour later the count drove with fast horses over the Sokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had been, but only of what would be. He now was driving to the Yauza Bridge, where he was told Kutuzov was. Count Rostopclnn was preparing in his imagination those angry and sarcastic reproaches, which he meant to utter to Kutuzov because of his deception. He would let that old fox of a courtier know that the responsibility for all the misfortunes arising from the evacuation of the capital, from the ruin of Russia (as Rostopchin thought), would rest on his doting old head alone. In thinking over what he would tell him Rostopchin angrily tossed in his carriage and looked on either side.

The field of Sokdlniki was deserted. Only at the end of it, near the charitable institution and the insane asylum, could be seen small groups of men in white attire and a few separate people, similarly dressed, who were walking over the field, shouting and waving their hands. One of them ran across the path of the carriage of Count Rostopchm. He himself, and his coachman, and the dragoons, — all looked, with a dim feeling of terror and curiosity, at these insane people who had been set free, and especially at the one who had run up to them.

Tottering on his long, thin legs, in Ids fluttering cloak, this crazy man kept running headlong, without taking his eyes off Rostopclnn, shouting to him in a hoarse voice, and making signs to him to stop. His gloomy, solemn face, overgrown with uneven tufts of beard, was pale and sallow. His black, agate pupils flitted low and agitatedly over the saffron-yellow whites of his eyes.

” Stop ! Stop, I say ! ” he shouted, piercingly, and again called out something out of breath, with impressive intonations and gestures.

He came abreast with the carriage and ran along with it. “Thrice they have slain me, and thrice have I risen from the dead. They have stoned me, and crucified me — I shall rise from the dead — I shall rise from the dead — I shall rise from the dead. They have racked my body. The kingdom of God will be destroyed — Thrice will I destroy it, and thrice will I build it up,” he shouted, raising his voice more and more.

Count Rostopchin suddenly paled, as he had paled when the crowd had cast itself upon Vereshchdgin. He turned away.

” Go ! Go fast ! ” he shouted at the coachman in a trembling voice. The carriage flew as fast as the horses could run ; but Count Rostopchin could for a long time hoar behind him the receding, senseless, desperate cry, and see before his eyes the amazed and frightened, bloody face of the traitor in the fox fur coat.

However fresh this recollection, Rostopchin felt now that it had impressed itself deeply, to the blood, in his heart. He felt clearly that the bloody trace of tills memory would never heal, and that, on the contrary, the more time went on, the more cruelly and tormentingly this terrible recollection would live in his heart. He thought he heard the sound of his own words : ” Strike him ! You will answer for it to me with your heads ! ” ” Why did I say these words ? I said them by accident. I might have refrained from saying them,” he thought. “Then there would be nothing.” He saw the frightened and then ferocious face of the striking dragoon, and the look of taciturn, timid rebuke which that boy in the fox fur coat cast at him.

“ But I did not do it for my own sake. I had to act so. La plebe, le traître — le bien public,” he thought.

The troops were still crowding at the Yauza Bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov, frowning, gloomy, was sitting on a bench near the bridge and playing in the sand with his whip, when a carriage noisily drove up to him. A man in the uniform of a general, in a hat with a panache, with fleeting, half-angry, half-frightened eyes, walked over to Kutuzov and began to speak with him in French. This was Count Rostopchm. He told Kutuzov that he had come to see him, because there was no longer a Moscow and a capital, but only an army.

” It would have been different if your Serenity had not told me that Moscow would not be surrendered without a battle : there would be nothing of this ! ” he said.

Kutuzov gazed at Rostopchin and, as though not comprehending the meaning of the words addressed to him, was making a great effort to read something especial in the face of the man who was speaking to him. Rostop-chni became embarrassed and grew silent. Kutuzov slightly shook his head and, without taking his inquisitive look off Rostopchm’s countenance, said, softly :

“ Yes, I will not give up Moscow without a battle.”

Kutuzov was either thinking of something quite different as he said these words, or else he uttered them on purpose, fully aware of their meaninglessness ; in any case, Rostopchin made no reply and hurriedly walked away from Kutuzov. And a strange thing happened! The commanderin-chief of Moscow, proud Count Rostopchin, took a Cossack whip into his hands, walked over to the bridge, and, shouting, began to drive away the crowding carts.

XXVI.

At about four o’clock in the afternoon the troops of Murat began to enter Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wiirtemberg hussars ; in the rear, on horseback, and surrounded by a large suite, came the King of Naples himself.

Near the middle of the Arbät, in the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Nicholas the Manifested, Murat stopped, awaiting news from the detachment in the van as to the condition of the city fortress, ” le Kremlin.”

About Murat there was gathered a small group of men from among those inhabitants who were left in Moscow. They looked with timid surprise at the strange, longhaired chief, adorned with feathers and gold.

” Well, is this their Tsar ? He is all right ! ” were heard their soft voices.

An interpreter rode up to the group of men.

” Take off your hats — your hats — ” they said in the crowd, turning to each other. The interpreter turned to an old janitor, and asked him how far it was to the Kremlin. The janitor, listening in perplexity to the strange Polish accent and not recognizing the sounds of his speech as belonging to the Russian language, did not understand what the interpreter was saying to him, and hid himself behind the rest.

Murat moved up toward the interpreter and ordered him to ask them where the Russian troops were. One of the Russians understood what he was asked, and several voices began to answer the interpreter. A French officer from the detachment of the van rode up to Murat and reported that the gates of the fort were locked, and that there was, no doubt, an ambush there.

“ All right,” said Murat, and, turning to one of the gentlemen of his suite, ordered him to move out four pieces of light ordnance and to fire at the gate.

The artillery trotted out from behind the column, which followed Murat, and drove down the Arbat. Having descended to the end of the Vzdvizhenka, the artillery stopped and drew up in the square. Several French officers took charge of the cannon, placing them in position and looking at the Kremlin through a field-glass.

In the Kremlin was heard the ringing of bells calling to vesper service, and this sound disconcerted the French. They supposed that it was a call to arms. Several footsoldiers ran up to the Kutdfev gate. There lay logs and wooden shields. Two muskets were fired from the direction of the gate, the moment an officer started to run toward it with his command. A general, who was standing near the cannon, shouted a command to the officer, and the officer and his soldiers ran back again.

Three more shots were fired from the gate. One shot hit the leg of a French soldier, and there was heard a strange cry from a few voices back of the shields. On the faces of the French general, the officers, and the soldiers the former expression of merriment and calm simultaneously, as though by command, gave way to a stubborn, concentrated expression of readiness for a fight and for suffering. For all of them, beginning with the marshal and ending with the last soldier, this place was not the Vzdvizhenka, the Mokhoväya, the Kutdfev, and Trinity Gates, but a new locality of a new field, no doubt, of a sanguinary battle. All prepared themselves for this battle. The cries at the gate died down. The ordnance was moved out. The artillerists fanned the burning linstocks. An officer commanded, ” Feu ! ” and two whistling sounds of canisters resounded one after the other. The grape-shot rattled over the stones of the gate, over the logs and shields, and two columns of smoke quivered in the square.

A few minutes after the peals of the discharges had died down in the stone Kremlin, a strange sound was heard over the heads of the French. An immense fiock of jackdaws rose over the walls and, cawing and whirring their thousands of wings, began to circle in the air. At the same time there was heard a solitary human cry in the gateway, and from behind the smoke emerged the figure of a man without a cap and in a caftan. He held his gun and aimed at the French. “Feu!” repeated the officer of artillery, and at exactly the same time were heard one musket-shot and two cannon-shots. The smoke again concealed the gate.

Nothing was now moving behind the shields, and the French soldiers and officers of infantry walked up to the gate. In the gate lay three wounded and four killed. Two men in caftans were running at the foot of the hill, along the walls, toward the Znämenka.

“ Enlcvcz-moi ça ! ” said an officer, pointing to the logs and corpses, and the French, killing the wounded, threw the corpses down over the enclosure. No one knew who these men were. ” Enlcvcz-moi ça ! ” was all there was said about them, and they were thrown away and later picked up, to keep them from infesting the air. Thiers only devoted a few eloquent words to their memory : ” Ces misérables avaient envahi la citadelle sacrée, s’étaient emparés des fusils de l’arsenal, et tiraient (ces misérables) sur les Français. On en sabra quelques uns et on purgea le Kremlin de leur présence.”

Murat was informed that the way was clear. The French entered through the gate and began to encamp on Senate Square. Soldiers threw out chairs from the windows of the Senate building on the square, and fires were lighted.

Other detachments crossed the Kremlin and encamped on the Moroséyka, Lubyânka, and Pokrovka. Others again were located on the Vzdvizhenka, Znâmenka, Nikolskaya, and Tverskaya Streets. Not finding anywhere any persons in their houses, the French located themselves not in quarters, as in a city, but as in a camp which is pitched in a city.

Though ragged, hungry, exhausted, and diminished to one-half of their former numbers, the French soldiers entered Moscow still in good order. This was an exhausted, emaciated, but still threatening and effective army ; but they formed an army only so long as the soldiers did not take up quarters. The moment the men of the regiments began to scatter in the empty and wealthy houses, the army was for ever disbanded, and they formed neither inhabitants nor soldiers, but something intermediate, called marauders. When, five weeks later, the same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They were a crowd of marauders, each of whom carried along with him a mass of things which seemed costly and necessary to him. The aim of each of them, upon leaving Moscow, did not consist, as before, in conquering, but only in retaining what had been acquired. Like the monkey, which, putting its hand through a narrow neck of a pitcher and taking hold of a pile of nuts, does not open its fist, for fear of losing its booty, and thus perishes, the French, upon leaving Moscow, had apparently to perish because they were dragging along with them a mass of plundered things, and it was as impossible for them to give up their plunder as for the monkey to let go of the nuts. Ten minutes after any French regiment reached a given ward of Moscow, not an officer or soldier was left. In the windows of the houses could be seen men in mantles and gaiters, laughing as they walked through the rooms ; in the cellars and basements the same kind of people took possession of provisions; in the yards they opened and broke off the doors of sheds and stables ; in the kitchens, rolling up their sleeves, they made fires, baked, kneaded, and cooked, and frightened, amused, and caressed the women and the children. These men were everywhere, — in the shops and in the houses ; but of the army there was none.

On that day order after order was promulgated by the French chiefs, in which the troops were prohibited from scattering over the city, no violence was to be offered to the inhabitants, and no marauding permitted, and in the evening there was to be a general roll-call ; but, in spite of all the measures, the men who formerly made up an army spread over the opulent, deserted city, rich in comforts and supplies. Just as a hungry ilock goes in a mass over a barren field, but immediately disbands without restraint as soon as it strikes rich pasturage, so the army disbanded without restraint in the wealthy city.

There were no inhabitants in Moscow, and the soldiers percolated through it, like water through sand, and oozed out without hindrance, and radiated from the Kremlin, which they entered first. Cavalrymen, going into a merchant house, which was abandoned with all its possessions, and finding there stalls not only for their horses, but also many to spare, none the less went to occupy the neighbouring house, which seemed to them to be better. Many occupied several houses at a time, wrote upon them with chalk the names of the new occupants, and quarrelled and even fought for them with the other commands. Before they had time to settle down, the soldiers ran out into the streets, to look at the city, and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to the place where they could pick up costly things for nothing. The chiefs went forth to stop the soldiers, and involuntarily were drawn into committing the same acts. In the Carriage Row the carriage shops were left, and the generals assembled there, to pick out carriages for themselves. Such inhabitants as were left invited the chiefs to their houses, hoping thus to secure themselves against being looted. There was no end to the wealth, and no end of it could be seen ; everywhere about the places which the French occupied there were still left untried, unexamined places where, so the French thought, there ought to be still greater riches. And Moscow sucked them in more and more. Just as when water is poured on dry dirt, both the water and the dirt disappear ; so, as the result of the fact that a hungry army entered an opulent, deserted city, there came the destruction of the army and the destruction of the opulent city ; and there was dirt, and conflagrations, and marauding.

The French ascribed the conflagration of Moscow “ au patriotisme féroce de Rostopchine ; ” the Russians, to the savagery of the French. In reality, there were no causes, and there could be none, for the conflagration of Moscow, in the sense of referring this conflagration to the responsibility of one or several persons. Moscow was burnt because it was placed under conditions under which any city built of wood must be consumed, independently of any question whether it possesses 130 wretched hose brigades, or not. Moscow was doomed to destruction, because the inhabitants had left it, and just as inevitably as a heap of shavings must catch on fire, if for several days in succession sparks fall upon it. A city of wood, in which, with the presence of the proprietors and the police, there are fires nearly every day, cannot help being consumed when there are no inhabitants in it, and there are only the troops, smoking pipes, making campfires on Senate Square with the chairs of the Senate, and cooking their victuals twice a day. An army need only take up quarters in the villages of a certain locality, even though in times of peace, and the number of the fires is at once increased in that locality. To what extent, then, will the chance of fires increase in an abandoned wooden city in which a foreign army is quartered ? Le patriotisme féroce de Rostopchinc and the savagery of the French have nothing whatever to do with it. Moscow caught fire from the pipes, the kitchens, the campfires, from the recklessness of the hostile soldiers and the inhabitants, who were not the owners of any houses. If there was arson (which is very doubtful, because no one had any special reason to set houses ou fire, whereas in any case it was troublesome and perilous), the cases of arson cannot be assumed as the causes, because without them the same would have taken place.

No matter how pleasing it was for the French to accuse Rostopchfn of ferocity, and for the Russians to accuse the malefactor Napoleon, or later to place the heroic torch into the hands of the nation, one cannot help seeing that there could have been no such immediate cause of the fire, because Moscow had to be consumed, just as every village, every factory, every house must burn, if the proprietors leave it and strange people are permitted to make themselves at home in it and to cook their meals there. Moscow was burnt by the inhabitants, that is true ; but not by the inhabitants who were left in it, but by those who had deserted it. The reason that Moscow, occupied by the enemy, was not left intact, like Berlin, Vienna, and other cities, was merely because its inhabitants did not offer the French bread and salt, and the keys of the city, but had abandoned it.

XXVII.

The star-shaped percolation of the French through Moscow did not reach the quarter in which Pierre was now living until the evening of September 2d.

After the last two days, spent in solitude and in such a strange manner, Pierre was in a state that bordered on insanity. One fixed idea took possession of his whole being. He did not know himself how and when, but this thought had such a hold on him, that he did not remember anything of the past, nor understand anything of the present; and everything he saw and heard took place before him as in a dream.

Pierre had left his house only in order to be freed from the complex labyrinth of the demands of life, which had taken possession of him, and which he, in the condition in which he then was, had been unable to unravel. He had gone to the quarters of Ösip Aleksyéevich under the pretext of examining the books and papers of the deceased only because he was trying to find rest from the tribulations of life, and because with the memory of Ösip Aleksyéevich there was connected in his soul a world of eternal, calm, and solemn ideas, quite opposed to that troublesome tangle into which he felt himself drawn. He was looking for a quiet retreat, and actually found it in the cabinet of Ösip Aleksyéevich. When, in the dead silence of the cabinet, he sat down leaning on his arms at the dust-covered writing-desk of the deceased, there arose calmly and significantly, one after another, his recollections of the past few days, especially of the battle

whole of Europe, which, in Pierre’s opinion, was due to Napoleon alone.

Pierre knew all the details of the attempt of the German student on the life of Bonaparte in Vienna in 1809, and he knew that that student had been shot. And ^he peril to which he subjected his life in the accomplishment of his intention incited him only more.

Two equally strong sentiments invincibly attracted Pierre to his intention. The first was the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in connection with the consciousness of the common calamity, — that feeling, in consequence of which he had gone on the 25th to Mozhaysk and had ridden into the very thickest of the battle, then had run away from his house, and, instead of his habitual luxury and comforts of life, had slept without undressing on a hard sofa and had eaten the same food as Gerdsim. The other was that indefinite, exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, human, for all that which by the majority of men is regarded as the greatest good in the world. For the first time, Pierre had experienced this strange and alluring sensation in the Slobodski Palace, when he felt that wealth, and power, and life, all that people build up and preserve with such care, — that if all that was worth anything, it was so only from the pleasure with which one could give it up.

It was that feeling, on account of which a volunteer recruit spends his last kopek in drink, and a carousing man breaks all the windows and glasses without any visible cause, knowing full well that this will take away his last money, — that feeling on account of which a man, committing a senselessly base act, seems to be testing his personal power and strength, invoking the presence of a higher tribunal of life, which stands outside human conditions.

Ever since the day when Pierre for the first time had experienced this feeling in the Slobodski Palace, he constantly was under its influence, but only now found its full gratification. Besides, at the present moment, Pierre was sustained in his intention and deprived of the possibility of renouncing it by what he had already done in that direction. His flight from his house, liis caftan, the pistol, his declaration to the Rostdvs that he would remain in Moscow, — everything would not only lose its meaning, but would also be contemptible and ridiculous (about that Pierre was sensitive), if, after all that, he left Moscow like the rest.

Pierre’s physical condition, as is generally the case, coincided with the moral. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vddka which he drank during those days, the absence of wine and cigars, the dirty, unchanged underwear, the two half-sleepless nights, passed on a short sofa without bedding,— all this kept Pierre in a state of irritation approaching insanity.

It was now two o’clock in the afternoon. The French had entered Moscow. Pierre knew it, but, instead of acting, he thought only of his undertaking, reflecting on all its minutest future details. In his reveries, Pierre did not form a vivid conception of either the process of striking itself, or of the death of Napoleon, but with unusual clearness and with melancholy pleasure presented to himself his ruin and his heroic valour.

” Yes, I must accomplish it, once for all, or perish ! ” he thought. « Yes, I will go — ” and then suddenly — ” With a pistol or with a dagger ? ” thought Pierre. ” What difference does it make ? Not I, but the hand of Providence is executing you — I will say,” Pierre thought of the words which he would utter while killing Napoleon. “Very well, take me and kill me,” Pierre continued to speak to himself, with a sad, but firm expression on his face, and with drooping head.

Just as Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was reflecting in this manner, the door of the cabinet opened, and at the threshold appeared the totally changed figure of the formerly timid Makar Aleksyéevich.

His morninggown was wide open. His face was red and homely. Evidently he was drunk. Upon seeing Pierre, he was confused during the first moment, but, noticing the embarrassment on Pierre’s face, he became bolder, and with his tottering, thin legs walked out to the middle of the room.

” They became frightened — ” he said, in a hoarse, confidential voice. ” I said, ‘ I will not surrender ‘ — am I right, sir ? ” He mused and, suddenly, seeing the pistol on the table, he grasped it and ran out into the corridor.

Gerdsim and the janitor, who followed after Makar Aleksyéevich, stopped him in the vestibule and tried to get the pistol away from him. Pierre went out into the corridor and looked with pity and repulsion at the halfdemented old man. Makdr Aleksyéevich, frowning from the effort, was still keeping hold the pistol and crying in a hoarse voice, evidently imagining something solemn.

” To arms ! Board the ships ! You lie, you will not take it away from me ! ” he yelled.

” Stop it, truly, you must stop it ! Please let it go. I beg you, sir — ” said Gerdsim, cautiously attempting to turn Makdr Aleksyéevich by the elbows toward the door.

“Who are you? Bonaparte!” shouted Makdr Aleksyéevich.

” That is not nice, sir. Please to go to your room and rest yourself. Let me have the pistol ! “

” Away, despised slave! Do not touch me! Did you see?” cried Makdr Aleksyéevich, shaking the pistol. ” Board the ships! ”

“ Take hold of him !” Gerdsim whispered to the janitor.

Makdr Aleksyéevich was seized by his arms and dragged to the door. The vestibule was filled with the discordant noises of the struggle and with the drunken, snoring sounds of the gasping voice. ‘

Suddenly a new, piercing, feminine cry was heard on the porch, and the cook ran out into the vestibule.

“ It is they ! 0 Lord ! — Upon my word, they ! Four of them, on horseback ! ” she cried.

Gerdsim and the janitor let Makdr Aleksyéevich go, and in the quieted corridor could clearly be heard the taps of several hands against the entrance door.

xxvni.

Pierre, who had made up his miud that previous to the execution of his intention he ought not to reveal his calling, nor his knowledge of the French language, stood in the half-open door of the corridor, intending to hide himself as soon as the Frenchmen appeared. But the Frenchmen entered, and Pierre did not go away from the door: he was held by an invincible curiosity.

There were two of them. One an officer, a tall, stately, and handsome man, the other, apparently a soldier or orderly, of low stature, a lean, sunburnt man with sunken cheeks and a dull expression on his face. Having taken a few steps, the officer, as though deciding that this would be good quarters, stopped, turned back to the soldiers who were standing at the door, and in a loud, commanding voice told them to take in the horses. Having done this, the officer with a dashing gesture, raising the elbow high, fixed his moustache and touched his hat.

” Bonjour la compagnie ! ” he said, merrily, smiling, and looking about him.

No one said anything.

” Vous êtes le bourgeois ? ” the officer turned to Gerasim.

Gerasim looked in a frightened and inquiring way at the officer.

” Quartire, guartire, logement,” said the officer, superciliously, with a condescending and good-natured smile, looking at the little man. “ Les Français sont de bons enfants. Que diable ! Voyons ! Ne nous fâchons pas, mon vieux,” he added, patting the frightened and taciturn Gerasim on the shoulder.

” A ça ! Dites donc, on ne parle donc pas français dans cette boutique ? ” he added, looking around and meeting Pierre’s glance.

Pierre moved back toward the door.

The officer again turned to Gerasim. He wanted Gerasim to show him the rooms of the house.

“ Master gone — me no understand — mine, yours — ” said Gerdsim, imagining that he was making himself more intelligible by contorting the words.

The French officer, smiling, waved his hands before Gerdsim’s face, to let him know that he, too, did not understand him, and, limping, walked toward the door where Pierre stood. Pierre was on the point of going away, in order to conceal himself, but just then he noticed Makdr Aleksyéevich coming out of the kitchen door, with the pistol in his hands. With the cunning of an insane man, Makér Aleksyéevich examined the Frenchman and, raising the pistol, aimed at him.

” Board the ships ! ” shouted the drunken man, pressing the trigger. The French officer turned around at the cry, and at the same moment Pierre threw himself on the drunken man. Just as Pierre grasped and raised the pistol, Makdr Aleksyéevich at last got his finger on the trigger, and there resounded a deafening report, covering all with smoke. The Frenchman grew pale and ran back toward the door.

Forgetting his intention not to disclose his knowledge of French, Pierre, having pulled the pistol away and thrown it down, ran up to the officer and spoke to him in French.

” Vous n’etes pas blessé ? “

” Je crois que non,” replied the officer, touching himself, “ mais je l’ai manqué belle cette fois-ci,” he added, pointing to the broken plaster on the wall. ” Quel est cet homme ? ” said the officer, looking sternly at Pierre.

” Ah, je suis vraiment au désespoir de ce qui vient d’arriver ,” Pierre said, rapidly, entirely forgetful of his rôle» “ C’est un fou, un malheureux qui ne savait pas ce qu’il faisait.”

The officer went up to Makar Aleksyéevich and grabbed him by the collar.

Makar Aleksyéevich, opening his mouth, as though falling asleep, staggered, leaning against the wall.

” Brigand, tu me la payeras ! ” said the Frenchman, taking his hand away. ” Nous autres, nous sommes cléments après la victoire; mais nous ne pardonnons pas aux traîtres,” he added, with gloomy solemnity on his face, and with a beautiful, energetic gesture.

Pierre continued to persuade the officer in French that he should not punish this drunken, senseless man. The Frenchman listened to him in silence, without changing his sad expression, and suddenly turned to Pierre, with a smile. He glanced at him in silence for several seconds. His handsome face assumed a tragically gentle expression, and he extended his hand.

” Vous m’avez sauvé la vie ! Vous êtes Françaishe said.

For the Frenchman this deduction was incontestable. Only a Frenchman was capable of performing a great act, and the salvation of M. Ramball, capitaine du 13-me léger, was no doubt a great act.

But, no matter how indubitable this conclusion was and the officer’s conviction, which was based on it, Pierre regarded it as necessary to disenchant him.

” Je suis Russe,” Pierre said, rapidly.

” Ti-tv-ti, à d’autres” the Frenchman said, waving his finger before his nose and smiling. ” Tout à l’heure vous allez me conter tout ça” he said. ” Charmé de rencontrer un compatriote. Eh bien ! Qu’ allons-nous faire de cet homme î” he added, turning to Pierre, as to a brother. Even if Pierre had not been a Frenchman, he, having received this highest appellation in the world, could not renounce it, was what the expression and tone of the French officer seemed to say.

In reply to the last question, Pierre once more explained who Makär Aleksyéevich was, and how, immediately before the arrival of the French, this drunken, senseless man had abstracted the loaded pistol, which they had had no time to take away from him. At the same time he begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.

The Frenchman arched his chest and made a royal gesture with his hand.

” Vous m’avez sauvé la vie ! Vous êtes Français. Vous me demandez sa grâce ? Je vous l’accorde. Qu’on emmène cet homme” swiftly and energetically said the French officer, taking the arm of Pierre, now promoted to the rank of Frenchman for having saved his life, and going with him into the house.

The soldiers, who were in the yard, having heard the shot, entered the vestibule, asking what had happened, and expressing their readiness to punish the guilty ; but the officer stopped them with a stern look :

” On vous demandera quand on aura besoin de vous” he said.

The soldiers went out. The orderly, who in the meantime had looked around in the kitchen, went up to the officer :

” Capitaine, ils ont de la soupe et du gigot de mouton dans la cuisine,” he said. “ Faut-il vous l’apporter ? “

” Oui, et le vin,” replied the captain.

XXIX.

When the French officer entered the house with Pierre, the latter considered it his duty again to assure the captain that he was not a Frenchman, and wanted to leave, but the French officer did not even wish to hear of Ins going. He was so polite, amiable, good-natured, and sincerely grateful for his salvation, that Pierre did not have heart to refuse him, and sat down with him in the parlour, the first room which they entered. In reply to Pierre’s assurance that he was not a Frenchman, the captain, who evidently could not comprehend how one could refuse such a flattering distinction, shrugged Ins shoulders and said that if Pierre by all means insisted on passing for a Russian he should do so, but that he himself, none the less, was for ever united to Pierre by a sentiment of gratitude for Pierre’s having saved his life.

If this man had been endowed with the slightest ability of comprehending the sentiments of others and could have guessed Pierre’s feelings, Pierre would have left him ; but his animated dulness and lack of penetration in matters not strictly connected with himself conquered Pierre.

” Français ou prince russe incognito” said the Frenchman, looking at Pierre’s fine, though soiled shirt and at the ring on his finger. ” Je vous dois la vie et je vous offre mon amitié. Un Français n’oublie jamais ni une insulte, ni un service. Je vous offre mon amitié. Je ne vous dis que ça.”

In the sound of his voice, in the expression of his face, in his gestures, there was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense) that Pierre, replying with an unconscious smile to the smile of the Frenchman, pressed the extended hand.

“ Capitaine Famball du 13-me léger, dccoré pour l’affaire du Sept” he introduced himself with a self-satisfied, irrepressible smile, which made his lips curl beneath his moustache. ” Voudrez-vous bien me dire à présent à qui j’ai l’honneur de parler aussi agréablement au lieu de rester à l’ambulance avec la balle de ce fou dans le corps ? “

Pierre replied that he could not give him his name and, blushing, was trying to invent a name and to give him the reasons for not being able to tell it to him, but the Frenchman interrupted him:

” De grâce? he said. “ Je comprends vos raisons. Vous êtes officier — officier supérieur, peut-être. Vous avez porté les armes contre nous. Ce n’est pas mon affaire. Je voies dois la vie. Cela me suffit. Je suis tout à vous. Vous êtes gentilhomme!” he added, with a shade of interrogation. Pierre inclined his head. ” Votre nom de baptême, s’il vous plait ? Je ne demande pas davantage. M. Pierre, dites vous— Parfait. C’est tout ce que je désire savoir.”

When they brought the mutton, the omelet, the samovar, the vddka, and the wine from a Russian wine-cellar, which the French had brought with them, Ramball asked Pierre to take part in the dinner, and at once eagerly and rapidly, like a healthy and hungry man, began to eat, chewing fast with his strong teeth, smacking his lips all the time, and saying, ” Excellent, exquis ! ” His face grew red and was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and partook of the dinner. Morel, the orderly, brought a deep saucepan with hot water and placed in it a bottle of red wine. He brought, besides, a bottle of kvas, which he had taken from the kitchen for a trial. This drink was already familiar to the French and had received a name. They called the kvas ” limonade de cochon,” and Morel praised this limonade de cochon which he had found in the kitchen. But, as the captain had some wine, which he had procured while crossing Moscow, he left the kvas to Morel and himself took up the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to the neck in a napkin and poured out a glass for himself and for Pierre. The satisfying of his hunger and the drinking of the wine animated the captain still more, and he talked unceasingly during the dinner.

“ Oui, mon cher, M. Pierre, je voies dois une fière chandelle de m’avoir sauvé — de cet enragé— J’en ai assez, voyez-vous, de balles dans ce corps. En voilà une” (he pointed to his side) à Wagram, et de deux à Smolensk,” he pointed to a scar on his cheek. ” Et cette jambe, comme vous voyez, que ne veut pas marcher. C’est à la grande bataille du 7 à la Moskowa que j’ai reçu ça. Sacré Dieu, c’était beau ! Il fallait voir ça, c’était un deluge de feu. Vous nous avez taillé une rude besogne ; vous pouvez vous en vanter, nom d’un petit bonhomme. Et, ma parole, malgré l’atout, que j’y ai gagné, je serais prêt à recommencer. Je plains ceux qui n’ont pas vu ça.”

“ J’y ai été’,’ said Pierre.

“Bah, vraiment ! Eh bien, tant mieux” said the Frenchman. ” Vous êtes de fiers ennemis, tout de même. La grande redoute a été tenace, nom d’une pipe. Et vous nous l’avez fait crânement payer. J’y suis allé trois fois tel que vous me voyez. Trois fois nous étions sur les canons et trois fois on nous a culbutés et comme des capucins de cartes. Oh ! c était beau, M. Pierre. Vos grenadiers ont etc superbes, tonnerre de Dieu. Je les ai vus six fois de suite serrer les rangs, et marcher comme à une revue. Les beaux hommes ! Notre roi de Naples qui s’y connaît, a crié, ‘ Bravo ! —— Ah ! ah ! Soldats comme nous autres ! ” he said, smiling, after a moment’s silence. “ Tant mieux, tant mieux, M. Pierre. Terribles en bataille —galants — ” he winked, with a smile, “ avec les belles, voilà les Français, M. Pierre, n’est-ce pas ? “

The captain was so naively and good-naturedly merry, and frank, and satisfied with himself, that Pierre came very near winking himself, as he merrily looked at him. Apparently the word ” galant ” made the captain think of the condition of Moscow.

” A propos, dites donc, cst-cc vrai que toutes les femmes ont quitté Moscou ? Une drôle d’idée ! Qu’avaient-elles à craindre ? “

“ Est-ce que les dames françaises ne quitteraient pas Paris, si les Busses y entraient ? ” asked Pierre.

“Ah, ah, ah!” the Frenchman laughed a merry, sanguine laugh, tapping Pierre on his shoulder. ” Ah ! elle est forte celle-là,” he said. ” Paris ? Mais Paris, Paris — “

” Paris, la capitale du monde,” said Pierre, finishing his sentence.

The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping in the middle of his conversation and gazing fixedly with his laughing, kindly eyes.

” Eh bien, si vous ne m’aviez pas dit que vous êtes Russe, j’aurais parié que vous êtes Parisien. Vous avez ce je ne sais qxtoi, ce — ” and, having said this compliment, he again looked at him in silence.

“ J’ai été à Paris, j’y ai passé des années,” said Pierre.

” Oh ! ça se voit bien. Paris ! — Un homme qui ne connaît pas Paris est un sauvage. Un Parisien, ça se sent a deux lieux. Paris, c’est Talma, la Duschénois, Potier, la Sorbonne, les boulevards,” and observing that his conclusion was weaker than what preceded it, he added : ” Il n’y a qu’un Paris axe monde. Vous avez été à Paris et vous êtes resté Russe. Eh bien, je ne vous en estime pas moins.”

Under the influence of the wine and after days passed in solitude with his gloomy thoughts, Pierre experienced an involuntary pleasure in his conversation with this merry and good-natured man.

” Pour en revenir à vos dames, on les dit bien belles.

Quelle fichue idée d’aller s’enterrer dans les steppes, quand l’armée française est à Moscou. Quelle chance elles ont manqué celles-là. Vos moujicks c’est autre chose, mais vous autres gens civilisés, vous devriez nous connaître mieux que ça. Nous avons pris Vienne, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Varsovie, toutes les capitales du monde — On nous craint, mais on nous aime. Nous sommes bons à connaître. Et puis Vempereur,” he began.

But Pierre interrupted him.

” L’empereur,” repeated Pierre, and his face suddenly assumed a sad and embarrassed expression. ” Est-ce que l’empereur — “

” L’empereur ? C’est la générosité, la clémence, la justice, l’ordre, le génie, voilà l’empereur ! C ‘est moi, Ramball, qui vous le dit. Tel que vous ne voyez, j’étais son ennemi il y a encore huit ans. Mon père a été comte émigré— Mais il m’a vaincu, cet homme. Il m’a empoigné. Je n’ai pas pu résister au spectacle de grandeur et de gloire dont il cozcvrait la France. Quand j’ai compris ce qu’il voulait, quand j’ai vu qu’il nous faisait une litière de lazeriers, voyez-vous, je me suis dit : voilà un souverain, et je me suis donné à lui. Eh voilà ! Oh, oui, mon cher, c’est le plus grand homme des siècles passés et à venir.”

“ Est-il à Moscou ? ” Pierre asked, in embarrassment and with a guilty face.

The Frenchman looked at Pierre’s guilty face and smiled.

“Non, il fera son entrée demain” he said, continuing his conversation.

Their chat was interrupted by the cry of several voices at the gate and by the arrival of Morel, who came to inform the captain that there had come some Wurtemberg hussars who wanted to station their horses in the same yard where the captain’s horses now stood. The difficulty arose chiefly from the fact that the hussars did not understand what they were told.

never do it. Why, he did not know, but he had a presentiment that he should never do it. He fought against the consciousness of his weakness, but he had a dim feeling that he should not overcome it, and that the former gloomy trend of ideas about revenge, murder, and selfsacrifice had dispersed like dust at the touch of the first man.

The captain entered the room, limping slightly, and whistling some kind of a tune.

The Frenchman’s prattling, which before had amused Pierre, now appeared despicable to him. The whistling of the song, the gait, the gesture in twisting the moustache, — everything now appeared offensive to Pierre.

” I will go away at once, and will not speak another word to him,” thought Pierre. That was what he thought, but he continued to sit in the same spot. A strange sensation of weakness fettered him to his seat : he wanted to get up and get away, but he could not.

The captain, on the contrary, seemed very jolly. He twice crossed the room. His eyes glistened, and his moustache twitched lightly as though he smiled to himself at some amusing thought of his.

” Charmant,” he suddenly said, ” le colonel de ces Wurtemberg cois ! C’est un Allemand ; mais, brave garçon s’il en fût. Mais Allemand.”

He sat down opposite Pierre.

” A propos, vous savez donc l’allemand, vous ? ”

Pierre looked at him in silence.

” Comment dites-vous asile en allemand ? “

“ Asile?” repeated Pierre. “ Asile en allemand— Unterkunft.”

“ Comment dites-vous?” the captain repeated, incredulously and hurriedly.

” Unterkunft,” repeated Pierre.

” Ontcrkoff,” said the captain, looking for a few seconds with his laughing eyes at Pierre. ” Les Allemands sont de fières bêtes. N’est-ce pas, M. Pierre?” he concluded.

, “bien, encore une bouteille de ce Bordeaux Moscovite, n est-ce pas ? Morel, va nous chauffer encore une petite bouteille. Morel ! the captain called out, in a merry voice.

Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre under the illumination, and he was evidently struck by the disturbed face of his interlocutor. Ramball went up to Pierre with sincere sorrow and sympathy in his face, and bent down over him.

“ Eh bien, nous sommes tristes,” he said, touching Pierre’s hand. ” Vous aurais-je fait de la peine ? Non, vrai, avez-vous quelque chose contre moi?” he asked him. “Peut-être rapport à la situation ?”

Pierre made no reply, but looked kindly at the Frenchman. This expression of sympathy pleased him.

” Parole d’honneur, sans parler de ce que je vous dois, j ‘ai de l’amitié pour vous. Puis-je faire quelque chose pour vous ? Disposez de moi. C’est à la vie et à la mort. C’est la main sur le cœur que je vous le dis,” he said, striking his breast.

” Merci,” said Pierre.

The captain looked fixedly at Pierre, just as he had looked when he found out what the German word for ” refuge ” was, and his face suddenly brightened.

” Ah ! dans ce cas je bois à notre amitié ! ” he shouted merrily, filling two glasses of wine.

Pierre took the glass and emptied it. Ramball drank his, once more pressed Pierre’s hand, and leaned against the table in an attitude of melancholy meditation.

” Oui, mon ami, voilà les caprices de la fortune’,’ he began. ” Qui m’aurait dit que je serais soldat et capitaine de dragons au service de Bonaparte, comme nous l’appcllions jadis. Et cependant me voilà à Moscou avec lui. Il faut vous dire, mon cher,” he continued in the melancholy and measured voice of a man who is getting ready to tell a long story, ” que notre nom est l’un des plus anciens de la France.”

And with the light and naïve frankness of a Frenchman, the captain told Pierre the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and of all his family, property, and domestic relations. ” Ma pauvre mère ” naturally played an important part in this story.

” Mais tout ça n’est que la mise en scène de la vie, le fond c’est l’amour. L’amour ! N’est-ce pas, M. Pierre ? ” he said, becoming animated. ” Encore un ver ! “

Pierre drank again and filled himself a third glass.

” Oh ! les femmes, les femmes ! ” and the captain, looking at Pierre with liquid eyes, began to speak of love and of his amatory exploits. There were very many of them, which it was not hard to believe, when one looked at the self-satisfied, handsome face of the officer, and saw the ecstatic animation with which he spoke of women. Although all of Ramball’s love-stories had that character of nastiness, in which the French see the exclusive charm and poetry of love, the captain told his history with such sincere conviction that he had experienced and discovered all the charms of love, and so enticingly described women, that Pierre listened to him with curiosity.

It was evident that I’amour, which the Frenchman loved so much, was not that lower and common kind of love, which Pierre had once experienced toward his wife, not that romantic love, fanned by himself, which he bad experienced toward Natasha (Ramball despised equally both these kinds of love, — the first was I’amour des charretiers, the second I’amour des nigauds) ; l’amour, before which the Frenchman bowed, consisted mainly in the unnaturalness of the relations to the woman, and in the combination of vicious extravagancies, in which lay the chief charm of the sensation.

Thus the captain told a touching story of bis love for a seductive marquise of thirty-five years and, at the same time, for the charming, innocent, seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of the seductive marquise. The struggle of magnanimity between the mother and daughter, which ended in the mother’s sacrificing herself and offering her daughter as a wife to her lover, even now, though it was a remote recollection, agitated the captain. Then he told an episode, in which the husband played the rôle of a lover, and he (the lover) the rôle of husband, and several comic episodes from his souvenirs d’Allemagne, where asile was Unterkunft, where les maris mangent de la choux croûte, and where les jeunes filles sont trop blondes.

Finally, the last episode in Poland, still fresh in the captain’s memory, which he told with rapid gestures and burning face, was to the effect that he had saved a Pole’s life (the episode of saving some one’s life was, in general, of frequent occurrence in the recitals of the captain), and that this Pole entrusted to him his seductive wife, Parisienne de cœïi/r, while he himself entered the French service. The captain was happy ; the seductive Polish woman wanted to run away with him ; but he, actuated by magnanimity, returned the wife to her husband, saying to him, ” Je vous ai sauve la vie, et je sauve votre honneur ! ” Having repeated these words, the captain rubbed his eyes and shook himself, as though repelling the weakness which possessed him at this touching recollection.

Listening to the recitals of the captain, as often happens late in the evening and under the influence of wine, Pierre was alert to everything which the captain was telling him, understood everything, and, at the same time, followed up a series of his own personal recollections, which for some reason suddenly presented themselves to his imagination. As he listened to these stories of love, his own love for Natdsha suddenly occurred to him, and, reviewing in his imagination the pictures of that love, he mentally compared them with Ramball’s stories. As he listened to the story about the struggle of duty and love, Pierre saw before him all the minutest details of his last meeting with the object of his love at the Sukhärev Tower. At that time the meeting had produced no effect upon him ; he had not even once thought of it. But now it seemed to him that that meeting was somehow very significant and poetical.

” Pierre Kirillych, come here, I have recognized you,” he now heard her words, and saw before him her eyes, smile, travelling cap, straying lock of hair — and in all this there was something touching and tender.

Having finished his recital about the seductive Polish woman, the captain turned to Pierre with the question, whether he had experienced such a feeling of selfsacrifice for love’s sake and of envy of the legitimate husband.

Provoked by this question, Pierre raised his head and felt himself impelled to give utterance to the thoughts which interested him; he began to explain to him that he understood somewhat differently what love for woman was. He said that he had loved only one woman all his life, and that this woman could never be his.

” Tiens ! ” said the captain.

Then Pierre explained that he had loved this woman since his earliest youth; but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too young, and he an illegitimate son without a name. Later, when he had received a name and wealth, he had not dared to think of her because he loved her too much and placed her too high above the whole world, and therefore so much above himself. Upon reaching this point in his story, he turned to the captain with the question whether he understood what he said.

The captain made a gesture which said that, even if he did not understand him, he asked him to proceed.

” Eamour platonique, les nuages — ” he muttered.

The wine consumed, or the need of unburdening his heart, or the thought that this man did not know and never would know any of the actors of his story, or all these taken together, unloosened Pierre’s tongue, and he, with lisping mouth and liquid eyes, looking somewhere into the distance, told his whole history : his marriage, the story of Natasha’s love for his best friend, and her treason, and all his simple relations with her. Incited by Ramball’s questions, he told him what he had concealed at first, — Ins position in society, and even disclosed his name to him.

What most startled the captain in Pierre’s recital was the fact that he was very rich, that he had two palaces in Moscow, and that he had abandoned everything and had not gone away from Moscow, but had remained in the city, concealing his name and station.

It was late at night when both went out into the street. It was a warm, bright night. To the left of the house could be seen the glow of the first fire in Moscow, on the Petrovka. High on the right stood the young sickle of the moon, and on the side opposite to the moon hung that bright comet, which in Pierre’s soul was connected with his love.

At the gate stood Geräsim, the cook, and two Frenchmen. One could hear their laughter and conversation in languages mutually incomprehensible. They looked at the ruddy sky which was visible over the city. There was nothing terrible in the small, distant fire in the immense city.

Looking at the high starry heaven, at the moon, at the comet, and at the glow, Pierre experienced a joyous satisfaction. ” How nice this is ! What else do I want ? ” he thought. And suddenly, as he recalled his intention, his head began to turn and he felt a nausea so that he had to lean against the fence to keep from falling down.

Without bidding his new friend goodbye, Pierre walked with unsteady feet away from the gate and, returning to his room, lay down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep.

XXX.

The fleeing inhabitants and retreating troops looked with various feelings at the glow of the first conflagration, visible on September 2d from various roads.

The caravan of the Rostovs that night rested at Mytishchi, within twenty versts of Moscow. They had left so late on September 1st ; the road was so barred by carts and troops ; so many things had been forgotten, and men had to be sent for them, — that on that first night it had been decided to stop within five versts of Moscow. The next morning they awoke late, and there were again so many delays, that they got only as far as Great Mytishchi. At ten o’clock the Rostévs and the wounded who travelled with them took up quarters in the yards and huts of the large village. The servants, the coachman of the Rostovs, and the orderlies of the wounded, having looked after their masters, ate their supper, fed their horses, and went out on the porch.

In a neighbouring hut lay Raévski’s wounded adjutant, with a shattered hand, and the terrible pain which he experienced made him groan pitifully without cessation, and these groans sounded terrible in the autumnal darkness of the night. During the first night this adjutant had been located in the same yard with the Rostdvs. The countess said that she had not been able to close her eyes that night, and so in Mytishchi she took up the worst hut, only to be as far as possible away from this wounded man.

One of the servants noticed, in the darkness of the night, beyond the high body of the carriage standing at the entrance, another small glow of another conflagration. One glow had been observed long ago, and all knew that it was the reflection from the burning Little Mytishchi, set on fire by Mamdnov’s Cossacks.

“ Friends, this is another fire ! ” said an orderly.

All turned their eyes to the glow.

” They say that Mamdnov’s Cossacks set Little Mytishchi on fire. Oh, no, this is not Mytishchi, it is farther. Look there, it must be in Moscow.” Two of the men went down from the porch, walked around the carriage, and sat down on the carriage steps. ” This is more to the left, — Mytishchi is over there, and this is in an entirely different direction,” several persons joined the first. ” See it flame up ! ” said one. ” This, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow ; either in the Suchévskaya, or the Rogdzhskaya parts.”

Nobody made any reply to this remark. The men for a long time watched in silence the distant, growing flame of the new fire.

An old man, the count’s chamberlain, as they called him, Danilo Teréntich, went up to the crowd and called Mishka.

” What are you looking at there, lazybones ! The count will ask for you, and there will be no one near by ; go and pick up the clothes ! “

” I was just going to fetch some water,” said Mishka.

” What do you think, Danilo Teréntich ? Isn’t this glow in Moscow ? ” asked one of the lackeys.

Danilo Teréntich made no reply, and all kept silence for a long time. The glow spread and surged farther and farther.

“God have mercy! Wind and drouth — ” again said a voice.

« Look there, how it goes up ! 0 Lord ! You may even see the jackdaws. 0 Lord, have mercy on us sinners ! “

” They will, probably, put it out.”

“ Who is to put it out ? ” was heard the voice of Danilo Teréntich, who had kept silence until then. His voice was calm and grave. ” It is Moscow, friends,” he said, «< Moscow, our white stone — ” his voice broke and he began to sob in old man fashion.

It was as though all had been waiting only for this in order to grasp the meaning that the glow had for them. There were heard sighs, words of prayer, and the sobs of the count’s valet.

XXXI.

The valet returned to the count and informed him that Moscow was burning. The count put on his morninggown and went out to look. With him went Sdnya and Madame Schoss, who were not yet undressed. Natdsha and the countess were left alone in the room. (Pdtya was no longer with bis family : he had gone ahead with his regiment, marching toward Troitsa.)

The countess wept when she heard the news of the fire in Moscow. Natasha, pale, with arrested glance, sitting beneath the images on a bench (the same spot she had been sitting on since her arrival), paid not the least attention to her father’s words. She listened to the unceasing groan of the adjutant, which, though three houses away, could be distinctly heard.

” Oh, how terrible ! ” said chilled and frightened Sdnya, returning from the yard. ” I think all Moscow will burn, — it is a terrible glow ! Natdsha, look there, you can see it through the window,” she said to her, evidently wishing to distract her attention. But Natdsha looked at her as though she did not understand what she was asked about, and again gazed at the corner of the oven. Natasha had been in that condition of stupour since the morning, when Sdnya, to the surprise and annoyance of the countess, for some incomprehensible reason, had found it necessary to inform Natdsha of Prince Andréy’s wound and of his presence in the caravan. The countess had seldom been so angry with Sdnya as she was then. Sdnya wept and begged forgiveness, and now, as though to atone for her guilt, constantly attended to her sister.

” See, Natàsha, how terribly it is burning ! ” said Sonya.

” What is burning ? ” asked Natàsha. “ Oh, yes, Moscow/ And, as though not to offend Sdnya by a refusal, and to get rid of her, she turned her head to the window, looked in such a way that she certainly could not see a thing, and again took up her old attitude.

” But you did not see ? “

” Ideally, I did,” she said, as though entreating to be left alone.

And it was clear to the countess and to Sonya that Moscow, the fire at Moscow, or anything else, could naturally have no meaning for Natàsha.

The count again entered beyond the partition and lay down. The countess walked over to Natäsha, touched her head with the back of her hand, as she used to do when her daughter was ill, then touched her brow with her lips, as though to discover whether she had any fever, and kissed her.

” You are chilled. You are all in a tremble. You had better lie down,” she said.

” Lie down ? Yes, all right, I will lie down. I will, at once,” said Natäsha.

■When Natdsha had been told in the morning that Prince Andréy was dangerously wounded and was travelling with them, she at first asked only, whither ? how ? was he mortally wounded ? and could she see him ? But when she was told that she could not see him, that he was badly wounded, but that his life was not in danger, she apparently did not believe what she was told, but convinced herself that no matter how much she might ask, she would receive the same reply, and so stopped asking and talking.

During the whole journey Natasha sat motionless in the corner of the carriage, her eyes wide open in the way which the countess knew so well, and was so much afraid, and remained in the same posture on the bench on which she had sat down. She was either plotting and planning something, or had already made up her mind to something, — this the countess knew ; but she did not know what it really was, and that terrified and tormented her.

” Natdsha, undress yourself, my darling ! Lie down on my bed ! “

It was only the countess who had a bed made up for her ; Madame Schoss and the two young ladies had to sleep on the floor on hay.

” No, mamma, I will lie down here, on the floor,” Natäsha said, angrily, going up to the window and opening it. The groans of the adjutant were heard more distinctly through the open window. She put her head out into the damp air of the night, and the countess saw that her thin neck shook from sobs and beat against the frame. Natäsha knew that it was not Prince Andréy who was groaning. She knew that Prince Andréy was lying in the same series of buildings with them, in a hut across the vestibule ; but this terrible, unceasing groan, made her sob, too. The countess exchanged glances with Sdnya.

” Lie down, my darling ! Lie down, my dear ! ” said the countess, gently touching Natasha’s shoulder. ” Do lie down ! “

” Oh, yes — Immediately, immediately,” said Natasha, undressing herself in a hurry and breaking the skirt strings. Having thrown off her garments and donned a sack, she sat down on the bed prepared for her on the floor, with her legs under her, and, throwing her short, thin braid over her shoulder, began to braid it. Her thin, long, experienced fingers swiftly and deftly unbraided, braided, and fastened her hair. Natasha’s head with a habitual gesture turned now to one, and now to another side, but her eyes, open feverishly, gazed fixedly in front of her. When her night toilet was finished, she softly let herself down on the sheet, which had been placed over the hay in the corner, near the door.

” Natdsha, lie down in the middle ! ” said Sénya.

” I am all right here,” said Natdsha. “ Lie down all ! ” she added, with annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.

The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sdnya hurriedly undressed themselves and lay down. Only one little lamp was burning in the room. But the yard was lighted up by the fire at Little Mytishchi, two versts away, and there was a nocturnal din of voices in the inn which Mamonov’s Cossacks had pitched in the street diagonally across, and there could be heard the incessant groan of the adjutant.

Natdsha for a long time listened to the sounds which were borne to her, from within and without, and did not stir. She heard at first her mother’s prayers and sighs, the creaking of the bed under her, the familiar wheezing snore of Madame Schoss, and Sdnya’s quiet breathing. Then the countess called Natasha. Natdsha made no reply.

” I think she is asleep, mamma,” Sonya answered, softly.

After a moment’s silence, the countess called her again, but no one this time made any reply.

Soon after Natasha heard the even breathing of her mother. Natdsha did not stir, though her bare little foot, straying from the coverlet, was feeling cold on the bare floor.

As though celebrating a victory over everybody, a cricket began to chirp in a chink. A cock crowed in the distance, and one near by gave response. The sounds had died down in the inn, and only the groan of the adjutant was audible. Natdsha raised herself a little.

” Sdnya, are you asleep ? Mamma ? ” she whispered. No one replied. Natasha rose slowly, cautiously made the sign of the cross, and then with her narrow and flexible bare feet stepped cautiously on the dirty, cold floor. The deals creaked. Rapidly alternating her feet, she ran several steps forward, like a kitten, and took hold of the cold door-latch.

She thought that something heavy was striking in even measure against all the walls of the house : it was the palpitation of her heart, tremulous with fear and with terror, and torn asunder by love.

She opened the door, stepped across the threshold, and put her foot on the damp, cold floor of the vestibule. The cold which surrounded her refreshed her. She ran with her bare foot against a sleeping person, stepped over him, and opened the door to the room in which lay Prince Andréy. This room was dark. In the back corner, near a bed on winch lay something, stood a tallow dip, which had guttered into the shape of a large mushroom.

Natdsha had decided the very morning when she was told of Prince Andréy’s wound and of his presence, that she must see him. She did not know why it ought to be, but she knew that the meeting would be painful, and she was more and more convinced that it had to be.

The whole day she had been living only in the hope of seeing him at night. But now, when this moment had arrived, she was overcome by terror at what she would see. Was he disfigured ? What was left of him ? Was he just like that incessant groan of the adjutant ? Yes, he was precisely like it. To her imagination he was the personification of that terrible groan. When she saw an indistinct mass in the corner, and took his knees, which were raised up under the coverlet, for his shoulders, she imagined a terrible body and stopped in dismay. But an insuperable power drew her on. She cautiously made one step, another, and found herself in the middle of a small room, filled up with many things. Under the images, on the bench, lay another man (it was Timokhin), and on the floor lay two more men (those were the doctor and the valet).

The valet raised himself and whispered something. Timdkhin, suffering from pain in his wounded leg, was not sleeping, and looked, with wide eyes, at the strange apparition of the girl in the white shirt, sack, and nightcap. The sleepy and frightened words of the valet, ” What do you wish ? What is it ? ” made Natasha only walk faster toward that which was lying in the comer. No matter how terrible and how unlike a man that body was, she must see it. She passed the valet, the mushroom-like guttering fell off from the candle, and she saw clearly , Prince Andréy, such as he had always been, lying with straightened arms on the coverlet.

He was the same as always ; but the inflamed colour of his face, the glistening eyes, ecstatically directed upon her, and especially his soft, childlike neck, protruding from the turnover collar of his nightgown, gave him a peculiar, innocent, childlike appearance, which she had never before observed in Prince Andréy. She went up to him and with a rapid, flexible, youthful motion kneeled down before him.

He smiled and extended his hand to her.

XXXII.

Seven days had passed from the time when Prince Andréy regained his consciousness in the ambulance of the field of Borodind. He had been almost all the time unconscious. The feverish condition and inflammation of the bowels, which had been injured, would, in the opinion of the doctor, who was travelling with the wounded man, certainly carry him off. But, on the seventh day, he ate a piece of bread with relish and drank tea, and the doctor noticed that his general fever was subsiding. In the morning Prince Andréy had regained consciousness. The first night after leaving Moscow it was quite warm, and Prince Andréy was left overnight in his carriage ; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked to be taken out and to be given some tea. The pain which was occasioned by his transportation to the room made him groan aloud, and he fainted again. When he was placed on a camp-bed, he lay for a long time with closed eyes. Then he opened them and softly whispered, ” Well, the tea ? ” This attention to the little details of life startled the doctor. He felt the pulse and, to his surprise and dissatisfaction, noticed that it was better. The doctor noticed it with dissatisfaction because, from his experience, he was convinced that Prince Andréy could not live, and that if he did not die at once, he would only die later with greater suffering. With Prince Andréy travelled Major Timdkhin, of his regiment, the man with the red little nose, who had been wounded in the same battle of Borodind : he had joined Prince Andréy in Moscow.

With them also travelled a doctor, the prince’s valet, his coachman, and two orderlies.

Prince Andréy was given some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with feverish eyes in front of him, at the door, as though endeavouring to comprehend something, and to make something out.

” No more ! Is Timokhin here ? ” he asked.

Timokhin crawled up toward him on his bench.

“ I am here, your Serenity.”

” How is the wound ? ”

« Whose ? Mine ? All right. But how is yours ? “

Prince Andréy again fell to musing, as though trying to recall something.

“ Can’t I get a book ? ” he asked.

” What kind of a book ? ”

” The Gospel ! I have none.”

The doctor promised he would try to get him one, and began to ask the prince how he felt. Prince Andréy answered reluctantly, but intelligently, to all the questions of the doctor, and then said that a cushion ought to be put under him, because he felt so uncomfortable and had such pain. The doctor and the valet raised the mantle with which he was covered, and, frowning from the oppressive stench of decaying flesh, which proceeded from the wound, began to examine that terrible place. The doctor was very much dissatisfied with what he saw, changed something, and turned the wounded man around so that he again groaned and, from the pain caused in the turning, again fainted and became delirious. He kept talking about getting him this book as soon as possible, and of putting it down there.

” It would not be much for you to get it ! ” he said. ” I haven’t it, — please get it, — put it there for a minute,” he said, in a pitiful voice.

The doctor went out into the vestibule to wash his hands. ” Oh, how careless of us, truly ! ” the doctor said to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. “ Just neglected him for a minute. Why, it is such a pain, that I wonder how he can bear it.”

” I thought we had fixed him, 0 Lord Jesus Christ!” said the valet.

Prince Andréy comprehended for the first time where he was and what had happened to him, and he recalled that he was wounded, and that, at the moment that the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he had asked to be taken into a house. His thoughts becoming muddled from the pain, he again remembered himself in the house, drinking tea, and then again, repeating in his imagination everything which had happened to him, he most vividly thought of the moment in the ambulance when, at the sight of the suffering of the man he did not like, there had come thoughts to him which gave a promise of happiness. And these thoughts, though indefinite and indistinct, now again possessed his soul. He recalled that he now had a new happiness, and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. And so he asked for the book. But the bad position given to his wound and the new turning again mixed up his ideas, and he returned to life only in the dead silence of the night. All were asleep about him. A cricket was chirping in the room across the vestibule ; in the street some one was singing and shouting ; cockroaches rustled on the table, the images, and the walls ; a fat fly was buzzing above his head and near the tallow dip, which had guttered in the shape of a large mushroom, and which was standing near by.

His mind was in a normal condition. The healthy man generally thinks, feels, and recalls simultaneously an endless number of things, but has the power and strength to choose one series of thoughts and phenomena and to hold his attention on that one series. The healthy man in the moment of his profoundest meditation tears himself away in order to say a few poEte words to a person entering, and again returns to his thoughts. In this respect, Prince Audrey’s mind was not in a normal condition. All the powers of his mind were more active, clearer than ever, but they operated outside his will. The most diverse thoughts and conceptions possessed him at the same time. Occasionally his mind suddenly began to work, with such strength, clearness, and depth, as it had never been able to attain when he was in his health ; but suddenly, in the middle of its work, it broke and gave way to some unexpected representation, and he did not have the power to return to the former thought.

” Yes, a new happiness has been revealed to me, — one that is inseparable from man,” he thought, as he was lying in the dim, quiet hut, gazing ahead of him with feverishly open, fixed eyes, ” a happiness which is beyond material powers, beyond material, external influences upon man, the happiness of soul alone, the happiness of love ! Any man may grasp it, but only God could have conceived and prescribed it. But when was it that God prescribed this law ? Why the son ? ” And suddenly the thread of these thoughts broke, and Prince Andréy heard (not knowing whether it was in a dream or in reality that he heard it) a soft, whispering voice, incessantly repeating in even measure: ” I piti-piti-piti,” and then ” i ti-ti,” and again ” i piti-piti-piti,” and again “i ti-ti.” At the same time, to the sound of this whispering music, Prince Andréy felt that above his face, above the very middle of it, was being raised a strange aerial structure of fine needles or splinters. He felt that (though this was hard for him) he must carefully preserve the balance in order that the building which was being reared might not fall in ; it fell in none the less, and again was erected to the sound of the whispered, cadenced music. “ It is expanding, expanding, expanding all the time ! ” Prince Andréy said to himself. At the same time that he was listening to the whisper and feeling the expansion and the rearing of the building of needles, he saw by starts the red, encircled candle-light, and heard the rustling of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly, which flapped against his pillow and liis face. And every time when the fly touched his face, it produced a stinging sensation ; at the same time he was surprised to see that the fly, striking into the very sphere of the structure rising above Iris face, did not destroy it. In addition to this, there was something else which was of importance. It was something white at the door, the statue of a sphinx, winch, too, was pressing him.

” But, maybe, it is only my shirt on the table,” thought Prince Andréy, ” and these are my legs, and this is the door, — but why does it all expand and rise ?” I piti-piti-piti i ti-ti — i piti-piti-piti — “ Enough, stop, please, stop ! ” Prince Andréy implored some one. And suddenly thought and feeling again swam out with extraordinary clearness and strength.

” Yes, love,” he thought, with absolute clearness, ” not the love which loves for something, for some purpose, or for some reason, but that love which I experienced for the first time when, dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I experienced that sentiment of love which is the very essence of the soul, and for which no object is needed. I even now experience that blissful feeling. To love your neighbour, to love your enemies ! To love everything, — to love God in all His manifestations !

“ A dear man may be loved with a human love ; but only an enemy may be loved with a divine love. And this is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What has happened to him ? Is he still alive?

“ Loving a man with the human love, one can pass from love to hatred ; but the divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, nothing can destroy it. It is the essence of the soul. How many people I have hated in my lifetime ! And of all people I have loved and hated none more than her.” And he thought vividly of Natasha, not as he had thought of her before, with only her charm, which had given him so much pleasure ; he for the first time thought of her soul. And he understood her sentiment, her suffering, shame, repentance. He now for the first time comprehended the cruelty of his refusal, saw the cruelty of his rupture with her. ” If I only could see her once more ! Once only, looking into those eyes, to say — “

I piti-piti-piti i ti-ti i piti-piti-piti — boom, the fly struck against something— And his attention was suddenly transferred to another world of reality and delirium, in which something peculiar was taking place. In this world the structure was still ascending without falling down, and something expanded, and the candle burnt with that red circle, and the shirt-sphinx lay at the door ; but, in addition to all this, something creaked, there was a breath of fresh air, and a new, white sphinx stood before the door. And in the head of this sphinx there were the pale face and the beaming eyes of that very Natâsha of whom he had just been thinking.

” Oh, how oppressive this unceasing delirium is ! ” thought Prince Andréy, essaying to drive this face away from his imagination. But the face stood before him with the power of reality, and it came nearer. Prince Andréy wanted to turn back to the former world of pure thought, but he could not, and the delirium drew him into its sphere. The soft, whispering voice continued its measured lisp ; something pressed him, and expanded, and the strange face stood before him. Prince Andréy collected all his strength, in order to regain consciousness ; he stirred, and suddenly there was a ringing sound in his ears, his eyes grew dim, and, like a man ducking in the water, he swooned. When he came to, Natäsha, that same living Natésha whom of all people in the world he wanted to love with that new, pure, divine love now disclosed to him, knelt before him. He understood that this was the living, real Natasha, and was not surprised, but softly rejoiced. Natasha, kneeling, frightened, fettered to the ground (she could not move), looked at him, repressing her tears. Her face was pale and immovable. Only at the lower part of it something quivered.

Prince Andréy sighed in relief, smiled, and extended his hand.

“ Is it you ? ” he said. ” What happiness ! “

Natdsha with a rapid but cautious motion moved up to him on her knees and, carefully taking his hand, bent her face down to him and began to kiss it, barely touching it with her lips.

“ Forgive me I ” she said, in a whisper, raising her head and looking at him. ” Forgive me ! “

“I love you,” said Prince Andréy.

” Forgive me — “

” What is there to forgive ? ” asked Prince Andréy.

“Forgive me for what I have— done,” Natasha muttered, in a scarcely audible, interrupted whisper, and, barely touching his hand with her lips, began to kiss it oftener and oftener.

” I love thee more, better than before,” said Prince Andréy, raising her face with his hand, so as to be able to look into her eyes.

These eyes, filled with tears of happiness, looked at him timidly, compassionately, and full of the joy of love. Natasha’s thin, pale face with the swollen lips was more than homely, it was terrible. But Prince Andréy did not see that face, — he saw the glowing eyes, which were beautiful. Behind them was heard conversation.

Peter, the valet, now entirely awakened, woke the doctor. Timékhin, who had not slept all the time from the pain in his leg, had for a long time been seeing all that was happening, and writhed on his bench, trying to cover his bare body with the sheet.

” What is this ? ” asked the doctor, raising himself a little in his bed. ” Please go, madam ! “

Just then there was a knock at the door: the countess, discovering the absence of her daughter, had sent the maid for her.

Like a somnambulist who is awakened in the middle of her sleep, Natäsha left the room and, upon returning to the other hut, fell down on her bed sobbing.

From that day on, during all the wandering of the Rostovs, at all resting-places and stops for the night, Natäsha did not leave the bedside of wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to confess that he had not expected from the maiden either such firmness, or such skill in tending the wounded man. Although the countess felt terribly at the thought that Prince Andréy might (very probably would, according to the words of the physician) die on the road on the hands of her daughter, she could not oppose Natäsha. Although, on account of the now established relations between the wounded Prince Andréy and Natasha, it occurred to many that, in case of his recovery, the former relations of fiancés would be renewed, no one, least of all Natäsha and Prince Andréy, spoke of it : the undecided, imminent question of life and death, not only in the case of Bolkdnski, but also of Russia, veiled all other considerations.

XXXIII.

Pierre awoke late on September 3d. His head pained him ; the clothes, in which he, without undressing, had slept, weighed heavily on his body, and on his mind was a dim consciousness of something disgraceful, which he had done the day before ; this disgraceful thing was his conversation with Captain Ramball.

His watch pointed to eleven, but it looked very gloomy outside. Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and, seeing the pistol with the carved stock, which Gerasim had put back on the writing-desk, Pierre recalled where he was and what he had to do on that day.

« Maybe I am already late ! ” thought Pierre. ” No, no doubt he will not make his entrance before noon.” Pierre did not permit himself to reflect on what was before him, but hastened to act.

Adjusting his dress, Pierre took the pistol into his bands and was getting ready to go. But just then it occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could not carry the weapon openly in his hand. Even under a broad caftan it was difficult to conceal a large pistol. It could not be put away in his belt, nor under his arm. Besides, the pistol had been discharged, and Pierre had had no time to reload it. ” All right, the dagger will do,” Pierre said to himself, though, in deliberating on the execution of his intention, he had more than once decided that the chief error of the student in 1809 consisted in his attempt at stabbing Napoleon. But, as though Pierre’s chief aim consisted not in executing the plan, but in proving to himself that he had not given up his intention

and that he was doing everything for its execution, Pierre grasped the dull-toothed dagger in a green sheath, which he had bought at the Sukharev Tower at the same time that he bought the pistol, and concealed it under his waistcoat.

Having girded his caftan and pulled his cap over his forehead, Pierre, endeavouring not to make any noise and not to meet the captain, passed into the corridor and went out into the street.

The fire, at which he had looked so indifferently the night before, had considerably increased in the night. There were burning simultaneously the Carriage Row, the Transmoskvd, Merchant Row, Povdrskaya Street, the barges on the Moskvä River, and the wood market at the Dorogomflov Bridge.

Pierre’s path lay through the alleys to Povärskaya Street, and thence down the Arbat to the Church of St. Nicholas the Manifested, near which he had decided long ago that he would commit his act. In the majority of houses the gates and shutters were closed. The streets and alleys were deserted. The air reeked with fumes and smoke. Now and then he met Russians with restless and timid faces and Frenchmen with an uncitylike, camp look, walking in the middle of the streets. Both looked in surprise at Pierre. In addition to his great size and fatness, and the strange, gloomily concentrated and suffering expression of his face and whole figure, the Russians looked at Pierre because they could not make out to what condition that man might belong. The Frenchmen, on the contrary, followed him with their eyes, because Pierre, unlike all the other Russians, who looked at the Frenchmen with fear or curiosity, paid not the least attention to them. At the gate of one of the houses three Frenchmen, who were talking to some Russians without being understood by them, stopped Pierre, asking him whether he knew French.

Pierre gave a negative shake of his head and walked on. In another alley a sentry, standing near a green caisson, called out to him, and only after his repeated threatening call and the sound of his gun which he took up, did Pierre understand that he had to walk around the caisson on the other side of the street. He neither heard nor saw any-tiring about him. He carried his intention within him in haste and dread, as something terrible and foreign to him, fearing, from his experience of the night before, that he might lose it. But Pierre was not destined to carry his frame of mind intact to the place toward which he was tending. Besides, even if he had not been delayed by any one on his way, his intention could not have been carried out for the simple reason that Napoleon had four hours before gone from the Dorogomilov Suburb over the Arbät to the Kremlin, and now was sitting, in the gloomiest of moods, in the Tsar’s cabinet in the Kremlin palace, and giving detailed, minute orders about the measures which were to be taken to put out the fires at once, prevent marauding, and pacify the inhabitants. But Pierre did not know it. All absorbed by what was impending, he was tormented like a man who stubbornly undertakes a task which is impossible, not on account of its difficulty, but on account of the incompatibility of the deed with his nature ; he was tormented by the thought of weakening at the decisive moment, and, consequently, of losing respect for himself.

Though he did not hear, nor see anything about him, he instinctively groped his way, and did not make any mistake in the alleys which brought him out to Povdrskaya Street.

As he approached the street more nearly, the smoke became denser and denser, and he even felt warm from the radiated heat. Occasionally tongues of fire shot up behind the roofs of houses. More people were met with in the streets, and they looked more agitated. But, although

Pierre felt that something unusual was taking place around him, he did not account for it by the fact that he was approaching a fire. As he walked along a path, which ran across a vacant place which on one side bordered on Povârskaya Street, and on the other on the gardens of Prince Gruzinski, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate wail of a woman near him. He stopped, as though waking up from sleep, and raised his head.

On one side of the path, on the dried-up, dusty grass, were heaped up household goods : feather beds, a samovar, images, and boxes. On the ground, near the boxes, sat a middle-aged, lean woman, with long, protruding upper teeth, dressed in a black cloak and cap. This woman swayed to and fro and, lamenting, wept her heart out. Two little girls of ten and twelve years of age, wearing soiled short dresses and little cloaks, looked at their mother with an expression of perplexity on their pale, frightened faces. A smaller boy, of about seven years, in a long coat and an immense cap, evidently not his own, was weeping in the arms of an old nurse. A barefoot, dirty maid was sitting on a box and, opening her light blond braid, was picking out the singed hair, by smelling at it. The husband, an undersized, stooping man, in an undress uniform, with wheel-shaped whiskers and smooth temple locks, which could be seen underneath the squarely lodged cap, was, with an immobile face, rearranging the boxes placed on top of each other, and pulling out some kind of garments from them.

The woman almost rushed to Pierre’s feet, when she saw him.

” Dear people, Christians, Orthodox men, save me, help me ! Somebody help me ! ” she said, through sobs. “ The girl ! The daughter ! — My youngest daughter has been left there ! — She has burnt ! Oh, oh ! What did I fondle you for ? — Oh, oh, oh ! “

” Stop, Marya Nikolaevna ! ” the husband addressed her in a soft voice, evidently only in order to justify himself in the presence of a stranger. “No doubt, sister has carried her away, for where else could she be ? ” he added.

« Monster, rascal ! ” furiously shouted the woman, suddenly ceasing to cry. ” You have no heart, — you do not pity your child ! Any other man would take her out of the fire. But he is a monster, and not a man, a father ! You are a gentleman,” the woman turned to Pierre, speaking rapidly between sobs. ” There was a fire next door, and our house caught fire, too. The maid cried : ‘We are burning ! ‘ She rushed to pick up things. We jumped out just as we were — This is what we have saved — By God’s mercy we have saved the bed of the dowry, for everything else is lost. We grabbed the children, but Kdticbka is gone. Oh, oh, oh ! 0 Lord ! ” and she sobbed again. ” My sweet little child ! Burnt ! Burnt ! “

” Where, where was she left ? ” asked Pierre.

From the expression of his animated face, the woman saw that this man could help her.

” Father ! ” she cried, grasping his legs. ” Benefactor, at least satisfy my heart — Aniska, go, wretch, take him there!” she shouted to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and in this motion displaying her long teeth even more.

” Take me, take me there ! I — I — will do it, I, ” Pierre spoke rapidly, with a gasping voice.

The dirty maid came out from behind the box, fixed her braid, and, sighing, went ahead with her heavy, bare feet over the path. Pierre felt as though he had just revived after a long swoon. He raised his head higher, his eyes beamed with the sparkle of life, and he followed the girl with rapid step, catching up with her and walking out on Povärskaya Street. The whole street was shrouded by a cloud of black smoke. The people were crowding before the fire in a large mass. In the middle of the street stood a French general, speaking to those who surrounded him. Pierre, accompanied by the maid, was approaching the place where the French general was standing ; but the French soldiers stopped him.

” On ne passe pas,” he shouted to him.

” This way, uncle,” exclaimed the girl. ” We will pass by an alley through the Nikulin yard.”

Pierre turned back and, running now and then, managed to keep up with the maid. The maid ran across the street, to the left up an alley, and, passing three houses, turned to the right through a gate.

“It is not far now,” said the maid, and, running through a yard, she opened a small gate in the wooden fence and, stopping, indicated to Pierre the wooden wing of a house, which was burning bright and hot. One of its sides had fallen down, another was burning, and the flame licked brightly through the openings of the windows and through the roof.

Passing through the gate, Pierre was overcome by the heat, and instinctively stopped.

” Which, which is your house ? ” he asked.

” Oh, oh, oh ! ” howled the girl, pointing to the wing. ” This one, — here was our lodging. You are burnt now, treasure, Kätichka, my precious miss, oh, oh ! ” Aniska whined at the sight of the fire, feeling the necessity of expressing her feeling.

Pierre rushed toward the wing, but the heat was so great that he involuntarily described a large arc around the wing and found himself near a large house, which was burning from one side only, at the roof, and near which there swarmed a mass of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not understand what the Frenchmen who were dragging things out were doing there ; but, upon seeing before him a Frenchman, who was striking a peasant with a dull sword, trying to take away from him a fox fur coat, Pierre understood that they were looting there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.

The sound of crackling and the din of the falling walls and ceilings ; the whistle and hissing of the flame ; the animated shouts of the people ; the sight of the swaying clouds of smoke, now rolling dense and black, now surging up in lighter colour, with the tinsel of sparks; the sight of the now compact, sheaf-shaped, red, and now scaly golden flames, licking the walls ; the sensation of heat and smoke and the rapidity of motion, — all these produced on Pierre the usual, stirring effect of fires. This effect was particularly strong on Pierre because, at the sight of this fire, he suddenly felt himself freed from the thoughts which had weighed so heavily upon him. He felt himself young, merry, agile, and determined. He ran around the wing from the side of the house, and was on the point of running into that part of it which was still standing, when right above him was heard the call of several voices and soon after the thud and metallic sound of something heavy falling near him.

Pierre looked around and saw in the windows of the house the Frenchmen who had thrown out the drawer of a commode, full of some metallic things. Other Frenchmen, standing below, walked over to the drawer.

“ Eh bien, qu’est-ce qu’il veut celui-là ? ” one of the Frenchmen shouted to Pierre.

“ Un enfant dans cettc maison. N’avez-vous pas vu un enfant ? ” asked Pierre.

” Tiens, qu’est-ce qu’il chante, celui-là ? Va te promener ! ” were heard some voices, and one of the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take away the silver and bronzes which were in the drawer, moved threateningly up to him.

“ Un enfant ?” a Frenchman shouted from above. “ J’ai entendu piailler quelque chose au jardin. Peut-être c’est son moutard au bonhomme. Faut être humain, voyez-vous — ”

” Oà est-il ? Oà est-il ? ” asked Pierre.

« Par ici ! Par ici ! ” the Frenchman called out to him from the window, pointing to the garden, which was behind the house. “ Attendez, je vais descendre.” And, indeed, a minute later the Frenchman, a black-eyed lad with a smouch on his cheek, with his coat off, jumped out of the window of the lower floor and, tapping Pierre on the shoulder, ran with him into the garden. a Dcpcchcz-vous, vous autres,” he called out to his companions, ” commence à faire chaud.”

Running back of the house on a sand-covered path, the Frenchman pulled Pierre by the sleeve and pointed to a circle. Under a bench lay a three-year-old girl in a pink little dress.

” Voilà votre moutard. Ah, une petite ! Tant mieux ,” said the Frenchman. “A revoir, mon gros. Faut tire humain. Nous sommes tous mortels, voyez-vous ,” and the Frenchman with the smouch on his cheek ran back to his companions.

Pierre, gasping for joy, ran up to the girl and wanted to take her up in his arms. But, upon seeing a strange man, the scrofulous, homely little child, who resembled her mother, cried out and started to run away. Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her on his arm ; she screamed in a desperate and furious voice and with her tiny hands tried to tear Pierre’s arms away from her, and wanted to bite him with her snotty mouth. Pierre was seized by a sensation of terror and loathing, such as he had experienced at the touch of some little animal. But he made an effort over himself to keep from throwing down the child, and ran back with it to the large house. But it was impossible to run back the same way ; the girl Aniska was not there, and Pierre, with a sensation of pity and loathing, pressing to him as tenderly as possible the sobbing, wet girl, ran through the garden to find another exit.

XXXIV.

When Pierre, running through yards and alleys, at last reached with his charge the Gruzinski garden, at the corner of Povàrskaya Street, he at first did not recognize the place from which he had started for the child : it was so filled up with people and with household goods dragged out from the houses. Besides the Russian families, with their goods, who were seeking safety from the fire, there were also some French soldiers in various costumes. Pierre paid no attention to them. He hastened to find the family of the official, in order to return the daughter to her mother and go back to save some one else. Pierre felt that he had to do many things yet, and that he ought to do them at once. Having heated himself from the fire and the running, Pierre even more powerfully felt that sensation of youthfulness, animation, and determination, which had possessed him at the time he had run away to save the child. The girl had now quieted down, and, holding on to Pierre’s caftan with her little hands, sat in his arms and looked around like a wild little animal. Pierre now and then looked at her and smiled. It seemed to him that he saw something touchingly innocent in that frightened and sickly face.

Neither the official nor his wife was in the place where he had left them. Pierre walked with rapid steps among the people, looking into the faces of those he met. Accidentally he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family, which consisted of a handsome, ver)’ old man with an Eastern type of face, wearing a new, covered fur coat and new boots, an old woman of the same type, and a young woman. This very young woman appeared to Pierre the perfection of an Eastern beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched black eyebrows and long, exquisitely ruddy, beautiful, expressionless face. Amidst the scattered goods in the crowd on the square, she, in her rich velvet cloak and brightly coloured lilac kerchief, which covered her head, reminded one of a tender hothouse plant thrown out into the snow. She was sitting on bundles, a little behind the old woman, and with her immovable, large, black, oblong eyes, with their long lashes, looked upon the ground. She evidently knew her beauty and was afraid because of it. Her face startled Pierre, and he, in his hurry, passing along the fence, several times looked at her. When he reached the enclosure and did not find those he was looking for, he stopped and looked about him.

The figure of Pierre with a child in his arms was more startling than before, and a few Russian men and women collected about him.

” Have you lost any one, dear man ? Are you yourself a nobleman ? Whose child is it ? ” he was asked.

Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black cloak, who had been sitting there with her children, and asked whether they did not know where she had gone.

” This must be Anférovs’ child,” said an old deacon, turning to a pockmarked woman. ” The Lord have mercy upon us ! The Lord have mercy upon us ! ” he added, in his habitual bass.

” Indeed not Anférovs’ ! ” said the woman. ” The Anférovs left in the morning. This must be Märya Nikolaevna’s, or Ivanovna’s child.”

” He says a woman, and Marya Nikolaevna is a lady,” said a manorial servant.

“ Do you know her ? Long teeth, thin,” said Pierre.

” Precisely, it is Märya Nikoläevna. They went into the garden when the wolves came down here,” said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.

” 0 Lord, have mercy upon us ! ” the deacon added again.

“You go over there, they are there. It is she. She has been lamenting all the time,” the woman said again. ” It is she. This way ! ”

But Pierre paid no attention to the woman. He had been looking for some moments at what was going on within a few steps of him. He was gazing at the Armenian family and at two French soldiers, who had gone up to the Armenians. One of these soldiers, a small, wily man, was dressed in a blue mantle, which was girded with a rope. On his head he wore a nightcap, and his feet were bare. The other, who particularly attracted Pierre’s attention, was a tall, stooping, blond, lean man with slow motions and an idiotic expression on his face. He wore a frieze capote, blue pantaloons, and large, torn jack-boots. The little Frenchman, the one without shoes, in the blue mantle, walked up to the Armenians and, saying something, at once took hold of the old man’s feet, whereat the old man hurriedly began to take off his boots. The other, in the capote, stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian maiden, and, planting himself silently and with his hands in his pockets in front of her, kept gazing at her.

” Take, take the child,” said Pierre, giving the woman the child and speaking commandingly to her. ” Return her to them ! ” he almost shouted to the woman, putting the weeping child on the ground, and again looking at the Frenchmen and at the Armenian family. The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had taken off his second boot, and was striking both boots against each other. The old man was sobbing and saying something ; but Pierre saw this only in passing ; his whole attention was directed upon the Frenchman in the capote, who, softly swaying, had moved up to the young woman and, drawing his hands out of his pocket, had taken hold of her neck.

The beautiful Armenian woman remained sitting in the same immovable position with drooping, long lashes, as though she did not see, nor feel, what the soldier was doing to her.

While Pierre was running the few steps which separated him from the Frenchmen, the tall marauder in the capote was already pulling from her neck a necklace which she wore, and the young woman, grasping her neck with both her hands, cried in a piercing voice.

” Laissez cette femme ! ” Pierre cried, hoarsely, in a voice of fury, taking the tall, stooping soldier by his shoulder and hurling him away. The soldier fell down, got up, and ran away. But his companion, throwing away the boots, took out his sword and moved threateningly up toward Pierre.

” Voyons, pas de bêtises ! ” he shouted.

Pierre was in one of those transports of fury, when he did not remember anything, and when his strength was increased tenfold. He rushed up against the barefoot Frenchman and, before he had time to unsheath his sword, knocked him down and pounded him with his fists. There was heard the approving cry of the surrounding crowd, and at the same time a mounted patrol of French uhlans appeared around the corner. The uhlans rode up at a trot to Pierre and the Frenchman, and surrounded them. Pierre did not remember anything that followed. He remembered having beaten some one, and some one beating him, and that at last he felt that his arms were tied, and that a crowd of French soldiers was standing around him and searching his clothes.

“Il a un poignard, lieutenant,” were the first words which he understood.

“ Ah, une arme ! ” said the officer, turning to the barefoot soldier who was taken with Pierre.

” C’est Ion. Voies direz tout cela au conseil de guerre,” said the officer. And then, turning to Pierre, “Parlez-vous français, vous ? ”

Pierre looked around him -with blood-filled eyes and made no reply. His face must have looked very terrible, because the officer said something in a whisper, and four more uhlans separated from the command and stationed themselves on both sides of Pierre.

” Parlez-vous français ? ” the officer repeated the question, keeping at a safe distance from him. ” Faites venir V interprète”

From the rear rode forth a man of short stature, in the uniform of the Russian civil service. Pierre from his attire and speech immediately recognized in him a Frenchman from one of the Moscow shops.

” Il ria pas l’air d’un homme du peuple,” said the interpreter, looking at Pierre.

” Oh, oh ! ça m’a bien l’air ri un des incendiaires,” said the officer. ” Demandcz-lui ce gu’il est ! ” he added.

“You who are ?” asked the interpreter. ” You to authority must reply right,” he said.

“Je ne vous dirai pas qui je suis. Je suis votre prisonnier. Emmcncz-moi ! ” Pierre suddenly said in French.

“ Ah, ah ! ” the officer muttered, frowning. ” Marchons ! “

A crowd had gathered about the uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the pockmarked woman with the little girl. When the patrol started, she moved forward.

“ Where are they taking you to, my dear ? ” she said. ” The girl, what shall I do with the girl if she does not belong to them ? ” asked the woman.

“Qu’est-ce qu’elle veut, cette femme?” asked the officer.

Pierre was like a drunken man. His ecstatic condition

was enhanced at the sight of the little girl whom he had saved.

“Ce qu’elle dit ? ” he said. ” Elle m’apporte ma fille que je viens de sauver des flammes,” he said. ” Adieu ! ” and, not knowing himself how this aimless lie had escaped him, went along with a determined, solemn step between the Frenchmen.

The patrol of the French was one of those which had been sent out by Durosnel through the different streets of Moscow in order to put a stop to marauding and, especially, to catch the incendiaries, who, according to the general opinion held at that time by the higher French officers, were the cause of the fires. Making the round of several other streets, the patrol arrested five other suspicious Russians, one shopkeeper, two seminarists, a peasant, and a manorial servant, and a few marauders. But of all the suspects, Pierre seemed to be the most suspicious. When they were all brought for the night to a large house at the Zubov rampart, where the guard-house was, Pierre was incarcerated separately, under strict surveillance.

PART THE TWELFTH

I.

In the upper circles of St. Petersburg society there was just then going on a battle, more acrimonious than ever, between the parties of Rumyantsev, the French, Märya Feodorovna, the Tsesarévich, and others, and, as always, it was drowned by the trumpeting of the court drones. But the calm, luxurious St. Petersburg life, busying itself only with the apparitions and reflections of life, went on as of old ; and through the tenor of this life one had to make great efforts in order to recognize the danger and the serious state the Russian nation was in. There were the same court ceremonies and balls, the same French theatre, the same interests of the courts, the same interests of the service, and the same intrigues. Only in the very highest circles were efforts made to remind the people of the seriousness of the contemporary state of affairs. They told in a whisper of the entirely different conduct of the two empresses in these grave circumstances. Empress Marya Feodorovna, solicitous for the welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her patronage, had given orders about the transportation of all these institutions to Kazan, and their belongings had been

packed for a long time. On the contrary, with her characteristic Russian patriotism, Empress Elizavéta Aleksyéevna deigned to reply to the question what it would be her pleasure to command, that she could give no orders about affairs of State, as that belonged to the emperor ; but, so far as she was personally concerned, she deigned to say that she would be the last to leave St. Petersburg.

On August 26th, the very day of the battle of Borodind, Anna Pavlovna gave a soirée, the flower of which was to be the reading of a letter of the metropolitan, which he had written on the occasion of sending the emperor an image of St. Sergius. This epistle was regarded as a model of patriotic ecclesiastic eloquence. It was to be read by Prince Vasili himself, who had a reputation as a good reader. (He had read to the empress.) This art of reading consisted in rolling off the words in a loud singsong, between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, independently of their meaning, so that quite by chance the wail fell on some words, and the murmur on others. This reading, like all of Anna Pévlovna’s soirées, had a political significance. At this evening entertainment were to be several important personages, who were to be put to shame for attending the French theatre and to be stirred to patriotic fervour. Quite a number of people had already assembled, but Anna Pavlovna did not yet see in her parlour all those who were to be there, and so the reading was delayed, and, instead, she caused the conversation to become general.

The news of that day in St. Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhi. She had suddenly grown ill, had missed several meetings, of which she was the ornament, and it was rumoured that she did not receive any one, and that, instead of entrusting herself to the famous St. Petersburg doctors, who generally attended on her, she had employed an Italian physician, who was curing her by some new and unusual method.

All knew well that the disease of the charming countess was due to the inconvenience of marrying two men at once, and that the Italian’s cure consisted in removing this inconvenience, but in the presence of Anna Pavlovna nobody dared to think of it, and they even pretended not to know anything about it.

” On dit que la pauvre comtesse est très mal. Le médecin dit que c’est l’angine pectorale.”

” L’angine ? Oh, c’est une maladie terrible ! ”

“ On dit que les rivaux se sont reconciliés grâce à l’angine — ” The word ” angine ” was repeated with great pleasure.

” Le vieux comte est touchant à ce qu’on dit. Il a pleuré comme un enfant quand le médecin lui a dit que le cas était dangereux.”

” Oh, ce serait une perte terrible. C’est une femme ravissante.”

“Vous parlez de la pauvre comtesse” said Anna Pavlovna, coming up. ” J’ai envoyé savoir de ses nouvelles. On m’a dit qu’elle allait un peu mieux. Oh, sans doute, c’est la plus charmante femme du monde” said Anna Pavlovna, with a smile at her transport. ” Nous appartenons à des camps differents, mais cela ne m’empêche pas de l’estimer, comme elle le mérite. Elle est bien malheureuse” added Anna Pavlovna.

Imagining that with these words Anna Pdvlovna had slightly raised the curtain of mystery on the countess’s disease, a heedless young man took the liberty of expressing his surprise because the best physicians had not been called in, and the countess allowed herself to be cured by a charlatan, who might give her injurious remedies.

” Vos informations peuvent être meilleures que les miennes” Anna Pavlovna suddenly retorted with venom to the inexperienced young man, “mais je sais de bonne source que ce médecin est un homme très savant et très habile. C’est le médecin intime de la Eeine d’Espagne.”

Having thus annihilated the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned to Bilibin, who, in another circle, was talking about the Austrians. Having knit his brow, he was apparently getting ready to un wrinkle it, in order to say a ?not.

“ Je trouve que c’est charmant,” he said about a diplomatic paper, which referred to the Austrian flags taken by Wittgenstein, le héros de Pctropol (as he was called in St. Petersburg), which had been sent back to Vienna.

” How, how is this ? ” Anna Pavlovna turned to him, provoking a silence, so that they might hear his mot, which she knew already.

Bilibin repeated the identical words of the despatch composed by him as follows :

“L’Empereur renvoie les drapeaux Autrichiens” said Bilibin, ” drapeaux amis et égarés, qu’il a trouvés hors de la route” finished Bilibin, un wrinkling his brow.

” Charmant, charmant ! ” said Prince Vasili.

” C’est la route de Varsovie peut-être,” Prince Ippolit unexpectedly said, in a loud voice.

All looked back at him, wondering what it was he meant to say. Prince Ippolit himself gazed about him in merry surprise. He understood as little as the rest what the words uttered by him meant. During his diplomatic career he had observed more than once that words suddenly enunciated in this manner appeared very clever, and so he at all events said the words that happened to be at his tongue’s end. ” Maybe it will come out all right,” he thought, ” and if not, they will somehow fix it.” Indeed, just as an awkward silence had ensued, there entered that insufficiently patriotic person, whom Anna Pävlovna wanted to convert. Smiling, and threatening Ippolit with her fingers, she invited Prince Vasili to the table and, bringing him two candles and the manuscript, asked him to begin. All grew silent.

“Most August Tsar and Emperor!” Prince Vasili exclaimed, in a stern voice. He surveyed the audience, as though asking if there was any one present who objected to this ; but no one made any reply. ” Moscow, the first capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ,” he suddenly emphasized the word ” her,” “ just as a mother embracing her zealous sons, and through the rising mist, foreseeing the brilliant glory of thy power, sings in ecstasy, * Hosanna, blessed is He who comes!’” Prince Vasili pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.

Bilibin carefully examined his nails, and many were apparently intimidated, as though they asked themselves what their guilt consisted in. Anna Pävlovna in a whisper repeated the coming words, like an old woman saying the prayer of the communion, ” Let the impudent and bold Goliath — “

Prince Vasili continued :

” Let the impudent and bold Goliath, coming from the boundaries of France, carry death - dealing terrors to the confines of Russia ; the humble faith, this sling of the Russian David, will at once vanquish the head of his bloodthirsty pride. This image of St. Sergius, the ancient champion of our country’s weal, is presented to your Imperial Majesty. I regret that my enfeebled strength prevents my enjoying the sweet sight of you. I send ardent prayers to heaven, asking the Almighty to magnify the race of the just and to fulfil the pious wishes of your Majesty ! “

” Quelle force ! Quel style ! ” were heard the praises to the reader and the author.

Animated by this address, Anna Pavlovna’s guests for a long time talked of the state of the country, and made all kinds of conjectures about the issue of the battle which was to be fought in a few days.

” Vous verrez,” said Anna Pavlovna, ” that tomorrow, on the birthday of the emperor, we shall get some news. I have a good presentiment.”

II.

Anna Pavlovna’s presentiment was realized. On the following day, during the Te Deum in the palace, on the occasion of the emperor’s birthday, Prince Volkdnski was called out from church, and received a sealed letter from Prince Kutuzov. It was Kutuzov’s report, written on the day of the battle at Tatarinovo. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated one step ; that the French had lost a great many more men than the Russians ; and that he was reporting hurriedly from the field of battle, having still been unable to collect all the last data. Consequently it was a victory. And thus immediately, without leaving the church, a thanksgiving was read to the Creator for His aid and for the victory.

Anna Pavlovna’s presentiment was realized, and in the city there reigned all day a festive mood. Everybody recognized the victory as complete, and some went so far as to speak of the captivity of Napoleon himself, of his dethronement, and of the choice of a new head for France.

Removed from action, and amidst the conditions of court life, it was very hard for the events to be reflected in all their fulness and strength. Involuntarily general events group themselves about some special occurrence. Thus now the chief joy of the courtiers was due, not so much to the fact that we were victorious, as that the news of this victory reached us exactly on the day of the emperor’s birthday. It was like a successful surprise. In Kutuzov’s report mention was also made of the Russian losses, and among them were mentioned Tuchkdv, Bagratidn, Kutdysov. Even the sad part of the event involuntarily grouped itself, in the St. Petersburg society, about the one incident of Kutàysov’s death. All knew him ; the emperor loved him; he was young and interesting. On that day all met with the words :

” How wonderfully it all happened. During the very Te Deum. And what a loss ! — Kutäysov ! Oh, what a pity ! “

“What did I tell you about Kutuzov?” Prince Vasili now said, with the pride of a prophet. ” I have always maintained that he was the only one capable of vanquishing Napoleon.”

But on the following day no news was received from the army, and the public became agitated. The courtiers suffered from the anguish of uncertainty in which the emperor was.

” Imagine the position of the Tsar ! ” said the courtiers, and they no longer extolled, as two days before, but condemned, Kutuzov, who was the cause of the emperor’s anxiety. Prince Vasili on that day no longer bragged of his protégé Kutuzov, but kept silence whenever any one mentioned Kutuzov’s name. Besides, on the evening of that day everything seemed to combine in order to cast alarm and anxiety on the inhabitants of St. Petersburg : there was added a terrible bit of news. Countess Bezukhi had suddenly died from that dreadful disease, which it was pleasant to pronounce. Officially, in general society, all said that Countess Bezukhi died from a terrible attack of angine pectorale, but in intimate circles they told the details of how ” le médecin intime de la Reine d’Espagne ” had prescribed to Hélène small doses of a certain medicine to produce a certain effect ; and how Hélène, vexed because the old count suspected her and because her husband, to whom she had written (that miserable, immoral Pierre !), had not answered her, suddenly took an immense dose of the prescribed medicine and died in agony, before she could receive any aid. They said that Prince Vasili and the old count went for the Italian, but that the Italian showed them such notes from the unfortunate woman that he was at once released.

The general conversation centred on three sad events : the uncertainty of the emperor, the loss of Kutäysov, and the death of Hélène.

On the third day after Kutuzov’s report, a landed proprietor arrived in St. Petersburg from Moscow, and the news of the surrender of Moscow at once spread throughout the city. It was terrible ! What a dreadful position for the Tsar ! Kutuzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasili, during the visites de condoléance made him on the occasion of his daughter’s death, said of Kutuzov, whom he had praised so much before (it was pardonable for him, in his sorrow, to forget what he had said before), that nothing else could have been expected from a blind and corrupt old man. ” I only wonder how the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such a man.”

So long as this news was not yet official, it was possible to doubt it, but on the following day there came the following report from Rostopchin :

” An adjutant of Prince Kutuzov brought me a letter, in which he asks me for officers of police to lead the army out on the Ryazan road. He says that he is sorry to abandon Moscow. Emperor ! Kutuzov’s act decides the fate of the capital and of your empire. Russia will shudder when she hears of the abandonment of the city where is concentrated the grandeur of Russia, where lies the dust of your ancestors. I shall follow after the army. I have taken everything away, and I have only to weep for the fate of my country.”

Having received this communication, the emperor sent by Prince Volkdnski the following rescript to Kutuzov:

” Prince Mikhail Ilariénovich ! Since August 29th I have had no reports from you. In the meantime I have received, through Yarosldvl, the sad news from the commanderin-chief of Moscow that you have decided to go away with your army from Moscow. You can yourself imagine the effect this news had produced upon me, and your silence only increases my surprise. I send herewith AdjutantGeneral Prince Volkdnsld to find out from you the condition of the army and the causes which have led you to such a sad determination.”

III.

Nine days after the evacuation of Moscow, there arrived in St. Petersburg a messenger from Kutuzov with the official news of the abandonment of Moscow. This messenger was Michaud, who could not speak Russian, but ” quoique étranger, Russe de cœur et d’âme,” as he said of himself.

The emperor at once received him in his cabinet, in the palace on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign, and who could speak no Russian, nevertheless was very much disturbed when he appeared before ” Notre très gracieux Souverain ” (as he himself wrote), with the news of the conflagration of Moscow, ” dont les flammes éclairaient sa route.”

Though the source of M. Michaud’s chagrin ought to have been different from the one from which flowed the sorrow of the Russians, he had such a sad expression when he was ushered into the emperor’s cabinet that the emperor at once asked him :

“ M’apportez-vous de tristes nouvelles, colonel ?”

” Rien tristes, Sire,” replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh, ” l’abandon de Moscou.”

“ Aurait-on livré mon ancienne capitale sans se battre ? ” the emperor spoke rapidly, his face being flushed.

Michaud respectfully transmitted Kutuzov’s message, which was that it had been impossible to fight at the walls of Moscow, and that, since there was the choice of losing Moscow and the army, or only Moscow, the fieldmarshal had been compelled to choose the latter.

The emperor listened in silence, without looking at Michaud.

“ L’ennemi est-il entré en ville ? ” he asked.

” Oui, Sire, et elle est en cendres à l’heure qu’il est. Je lai laissée toute en flammesMichaud said, with determination; but, looking at the emperor, Michaud was frightened at what he had done.

The emperor began to breathe heavily and quickly ; his nether jaw quivered, and his beautiful blue eyes suddenly were veiled with tears.

But this lasted but a minute. The emperor suddenly frowned, as though rebuking himself for his weakness. And, raising his head, he turned to Michaud with a firm voice :

” Je vois, colonel, par tout ce qui arrive,” he said, ” que la Providence éxige de grands sacrifices de nous — Je suis prêt à me soumettre à toutes Ses volontés ; mais dites-moi, Michaud, comment avez-vous laissé l’armée, en voyant ainsi, sans coup férir, abandonner mon ancienne capitale ? N avez-vous pas aperçu du découragement ? “

Noticing the composure of his “très gracieux Souverain,” Michaud calmed down himself, but to the emperor’s direct and relevant question, which demanded a direct answer, he had not yet formulated a reply.

” Sire, me permettrez-vous de voies parler franchement en loyal militaire ? ” he said, to gain time.

” Colonel, je Véxige toujours,” said the emperor. ” Ne me cachez rien ! Je veux savoir absolument ce qu’il en est.”

“Sire!” said Michaud, with a fine, scarcely perceptible smile, having succeeded in preparing his answer in the form of a light and respectful jeu de mots. “ Sire, j’ai laissé toute l’armée depuis les chefs jusqu’au dernier soldat, sans exception, dans une crainte épouvantable, effrayante — ”

“ Comment ça ? ” sternly knitting his brow, the emperor interrupted him. ” Mes Russes se laisseront-ils abattre par le malheur ? Jamais — “

This was precisely what Michaud had been waiting for in order to introduce his play of words.

“Sire” he said, with a respectful playfulness of expression, ” ils craignent seulement que Votre Majesté par bonté de cœur ne se laisse persuader de faire la paix. Ils brûlent de combattre,” spoke the representative of the Russian nation, “ et de prouver à Votre Altesse par le sacrifice de leur vie, combien ils lui sont dévoués — “

” Ah ! ” the emperor said, with composure, and with a kindly gleam of his eyes, striking Michaud on his shoulder. ” Vous me tranquillisez, colonel.”

The emperor let his head fall and kept silence for awhile.

” Eh bien, retournez à Varmée” he said, straightening himself up to his full stature and turning to Michaud with a majestic gesture, ” ci dites à nos braves, dites à tous mes bons sujets partout où vous passerez, que quand je n’aurais plus qu’un soldat, je me mettrai, moi-même, à la tête de ma chère noblesse, de mes bons paysans, et fuserai ainsi jusqu’il la dernière ressource de mon empire. Il m’en offre encore plus que mes ennemis ne pensent,” said the emperor, becoming more and more animated. ” Mais si jamais il fut écrit dans les decrets de la Divine Providence” he said, raising his beautiful, gentle, feeling eyes to heaven, ” que ma dynastic dût cesser de régner sur le trône de mes ancêtres, alors, après avoir épuisé tous les moyens qui sont en mon pouvoir, je me laisserai croître la barbe jusqu’ ici” (the emperor pointed with his hand to his chest), ” et j’irai manger des pommes de terre avec le dernier de mes paysans plutôt, que de signer la honte de ma patrie et de ma chère nation, dont je sais apprécier les sacrifices ! “

Having uttered these words in an agitated voice, the emperor suddenly turned away, as though wishing to conceal from Michaud the tears which had come to his eyes, and walked to the other end of his cabinet. After standing there for a few moments, he returned to Michaud with long steps and pressed his arm below the elbow. The handsome, gentle face of the emperor was flushed, and his eyes burned with the gleam of determination and anger.

” Colonel Michaud, n’oubliez pas ce que je vous dis ici ! Peut-être qu’un jour nous nous le rappellerons avec plaisir — Napoléon ou moi,” said the emperor, touching his breast. “ Nous ne pouvons plus régner ensemble. J’ai appris à le connaître il ne me trompera plus — ” And the emperor frowned and kept silence.

Hearing these words, and seeing the expression of firm determination in the emperor’s eyes, Michaud, ” quoique étranger, mais Russe de cœur et d’âme,” felt himself, at that solemn moment “ entousiasmé par tout ce qu’il venait d’entendre ” (as he himself later said), and he in the following expressions gave vent to his feelings, as well as to the feelings of the Russian nation, of which he regarded himself as the representative.

” Sire,” he said, ” Votre Majesté signe dans ce moment la gloire de la nation et le salut de l’Europe.”

The emperor dismissed Michaud with an inclination of his head.

IV.

At the time when Russia was half-conquered, and the inhabitants of Moscow fled to distant provinces, and militia after militia was levied for the defence of the country, we, who did not live during that period, instinctively imagine that all the Russians, from great to small, were busy sacrificing themselves, saving the country, or weeping over its ruin. The stories and descriptions of that time all without exception speak only of selfsacrifice, love of country, despair, sorrow, and heroism on the part of the Russians. In reality it was not so. It only seems to us to have been so because we see of the past only its historical interest, and do not see all those personal, human interests which the people then had. And yet, in reality, those personal interests of the present are to such an extent more important than the common interests that one never feels (never notices even) the common interests behind them. The great majority of men at that time did not pay the least attention to the general course of events, but were guided only by their personal interests of the present. And it was these men who were the most useful factors of that time.

Those who tried to understand the common course of affairs and essayed by selfsacrifice and heroism to take part in it, were the most useless members of society ; they saw everything topsyturvy, and everything they did turned out to be useless and insipid, like the regiments of Pierre and of Mamdnov, which pillaged Russian villages,

like the lint picked by young ladies, which never reached the wounded, and so forth. Even those who were fond of philosophizing and expressing their sentiments, and discoursed of the contemporary state of Russia, bore, in their speeches, the imprint either of dissimulation and falsehood, or of useless animosity and condemnation of men who were accused of what no one could possibly be guilty of. In nothing is the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge so manifest as in historic events. Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and a man who plays any part in a historical event never comprehends its significance. If he attempts to grasp it, he is struck with sterility.

The significance of what was then taking place in Russia was the less observable the closer the relations men had with the event. In St. Petersburg and in the Governments which were remote from Moscow, ladies and men in the uniforms of the militia lamented Russia and the capital, and talked of selfsacrifice, and so forth ; but in the army, which retreated beyond Moscow, they hardly spoke or thought of Moscow, and, looking at its conflagration, no one swore to wreak vengeance on the French ; they thought only of the next four months’ pay, of the next resting-place, of Matréshka, the canteen-woman, and the like.

Nikolay Rostdv, without any set purpose of selfsacrifice, but accidentally, because the war had overtaken him while in service, was taking an intimate and continued interest in the defence of his country, and so looked without despair or gloomy conclusions at what was then taking place in Russia. If he had been asked what he thought of the condition of Russia, he would have answered that he had no time to think ; that for this purpose there were Kutuzov and others ; that he had heard that the regiments were being filled ; that, no doubt, they would be fighting for a long time yet ; and that in the present circumstances he would not be surprised if he received a regiment within two years.

For the very reason that he thus looked upon matters, he not only felt no regret at being deprived of the chance of taking part in the latest battle, when he received the news of his appointment to a mission to Voronezh to provide remounts for his division, but even experienced pleasure, which he did not conceal, and which his comrades understood quite well.

A few days previous to the battle of Borodino, Nikoldy received the necessary money and the papers, and, sending some hussars ahead of him, travelled post to Voronezh.

Only he who has experienced it, that is, who has passed several months without interruption in the atmosphere of a military, war life, can appreciate the joy which Nikolay experienced when he got beyond the region to which the troops reached with their foragings, transports of supplies, and hospitals; when, without soldiers, wagons, or dirty traces of the presence of a camp, he saw villages with peasants, manors, fields with herding cattle, post-stations with sleeping inspectors, he felt a joy as though he saw all for the first time. What most surprised and pleased him was the young healthy women, none of whom were courted by dozens of officers, and women who were glad and flattered to have the transient officer jest with them.

In the happiest frame of mind, Nikoldy arrived in the night at the hotel in Voronezh, where he ordered the things which he had missed for a long time in the army, and on the following day, having shaved himself clean and put on his long unworn parade uniform, went to present himself to the authorities.

The chief of the militia was a general in civil service, an old man, who evidently took pleasure in his military calling and rank. He received Nikolay in a surly manner (supposing that this was the proper way for a military man), and questioned him with an air of importance, as though he had a right to do so, and as though he, approving here and disapproving there, passed judgment on the general course of affairs.

From the chief of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor was a small, lively man, very kindly and simple. He indicated to Nikolay the studs where he could get horses, recommended to him a horse-dealer in the city and a landed proprietor twenty versts away, who had the best mounts, and promised him every cooperation.

” Are you the son of Count Ilya Andréevich ? My wife used to be great friends with your mother. We have Thursdays at home ; to-day is Thursday, — and I ask you kindly to call,” said the governor, dismissing him.

From the governor Nikolay hired a cart and, taking the sergeant-major with him, drove twenty versts to the stud of the landed proprietor. Everything, during this first part of his stay in Voronezh, was light and cheerful for Nikoläy, and everything, as generally is the case when a man is in a good humour, went well with him.

The landed proprietor, to whom Nikolay drove, was an old bachelor, a former cavalryman, who was a connoisseur in horseflesh, a hunter, the possessor of a rug-room, of a hundred-year-old mulled brandy, of old Hungarian wine, and of superb horses.

After two words Nikoldy bought of him for six thousand roubles seventeen stallions, to match with the show end of his remounts, as he said. Having dined and imbibed a little too much Hungarian wine, Rostov, after kissing the proprietor, with whom he had been talking ” thou,” drove back, in the merriest of moods, over a horrible road, constantly urging on the driver, in order to be in time for the governor’s soirée.

He changed his clothes, perfumed himself, soaked his head in cold water, and, though a little late, made his appearance at the governor’s with the ready phrase, ” Vaut mieux tard que jamais ! ”

It was not a ball, and nothing had been said about dancing ; but all knew that Katerina Petrovna would be playing waltzes and écossaises on the clavichord, and that they would dance, and so all, counting on this, arrived dressed in ball fashion.

Provincial life in 1812 was precisely such as it had always been, with this difference only, that things were livelier than usual on account of the presence of many wealthy families from Moscow, and that, as in everything which at that time was taking place in Russia, there could be observed a certain ” don’t give a snap ” recklessness, as also that the small talk, which is a necessity for men, and which formerly turned on the weather and on common acquaintances, now ran on Moscow, on the army, and on Napoleon.

The society which was gathered at the governor’s was the best Voronezh had.

There were very many ladies, several of them Nikolay’s Moscow acquaintances ; but of men there was none who could in any way rival the chevalier of St. George, the remounting hussar, and, at the same time, the good-natured and well-mannered Count Postév. Among the men was one captive Italian, an officer of the French army, and Nikolay felt that the presence of this prisoner only enhanced his importance as a Russian hero. He was something like a trophy. Nikoläy felt this, and it seemed to him that all looked in the same manner at the Italian, and Nikolay was kind to him, with dignity and reserve.

The moment Nikoldy entered with his hussar figure, spreading about him the odour of perfume and wine, and himself said and heard several times repeated the words, ” Vaut mieux tard que jamais ! ” he was surrounded. All eyes were directed upon him, and he felt at once that he entered into the position of a general favourite, appropriate enough for him in the province and always agreeable, but now, after the long deprivation, intoxicating him with pleasure. Not only at the stations, and inns, and in the rug-room of the landed proprietor had he received the flattering attention of the maids ; but here, at the soirée of the governor, there was (as it appeared to Nikoldy) an inexhaustible quantity of very young ladies and pretty maidens, who were impatiently waiting for Nikolkiy to turn his attention to them. The ladies and maidens coquetted with him, and the older people were planning from the first day to get him married, so as to settle this rogue of a hussar. Among these latter was the governor’s wife herself, who received Rostdv as a near relative and called him ” Nicolas ” and ” thou.”

Katerina Petrovna, indeed, began to play waltzes and écossaises, and they danced, when Nikolay still more charmed the provincial society by his agility. He surprised all with his peculiarly easy manner in dancing. Nikolay himself was somewhat surprised at his ease in dancing on that evening. He had never danced so in Moscow and would even have regarded such carelessness in dancing as indecent and ” mauvais genre ; ” but here he felt the necessity of startling them by something unusual, by something which they might regard as peculiar to the capital, but still unknown in the province.

During the whole evening Nikolay paid the greatest attention to a blue-eyed, plump, sweet-faced blonde, the wife of one of the Government officials. With that naïve conviction of sportive young ifien, that other people’s wives were made for them, Rostdv did not leave the side of that lady, and treated her husband in a friendly and somewhat plotting mannner, as if they knew, though they did not say it, that they, that is, Nikoldy and this man’s wife, would meet on intimate terms. The husband, however, did not seem to share Rostov’s conviction and tried to treat him sternly ; but Nikoldy’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless, that now and then the husband involuntarily submitted to Nikoldy’s merry mood. But toward evening, in measure as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the husband’s face grew sadder and more solemn, as though her animation was enough for two, so that his diminished as hers increased.

V.

Nikolay, with an unchanging smile on his countenance, slightly bending over in his chair, leaned close to the blonde and paid her mythological compliments.

Rapidly changing the position of his legs in his tightly fitting riding-pantaloons, spreading about him the odour of perfume, and admiring his lady and himself and the beautiful form of his legs under his closely fitting bootlegs, Nikolay told the blonde that he wanted to steal a lady in Voronezh.

“ What lady ? ”

“A charming, divine lady. Her eyes” (Nikolay looked at his interlocutrice) ” are blue, her teeth corals in whiteness,” he looked at her shoulders, “her figure that of Diana — ”

Her husband came up to them and gloomily asked his wife what they were talking about.

” Air, Nikita Ivanovich,” said NikolKy, rising politely. And, as though wishing that Nikita Ivdnovich should take part in his jokes, he began to communicate to him also his intention of stealing a blonde lady.

The husband smiled grimly, his wife merrily. The good wife of the governor went up to them with a disapproving glance.

“ Anna Iguätevna wants to see you, Nicolas,” she said, pronouncing ” Anna Ignätevna ” in such a tone that Rostov at once understood that she must be an important personage. “ Come, Nicolas ! You don’t mind my calling you that ? ”

” No, ma tante. Who is it ? ”

“ Anna Ignatevna Malvintsev. She has heard of you from her niece whom you have saved. Do you guess ? “

” Well, I have saved such a lot of them ! ” said Nikoldy.

” Her niece, Princess Bolkonski. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt. Oh, how you blush ! Well, how is it ? “

” Not at all, ma tante.”

” All right, all right ! How queer you are ! “

The governor’s wife led him up to a tall and very stout old woman in a blue toque, who had just finished her game of cards with the most distinguished people of the city. This was Madame Malvintsev, the aunt of Princess Marya by her mother, a rich childless widow, who had always lived at Voronezh. She was standing and squaring up her card account, when Rostov came up to her. She blinked sternly and cast a glance at him, and continued to scold the general who had won the game from her.

” Am very glad, my dear,” she said, extending her hand to him. ” Please to call ! “

Having said a few words about Princess Marya and her deceased father, whom she evidently did not like, and asked him what he knew of Prince Andréy, who apparently was not much more in her favour, the dignified old woman dismissed him, repeating her invitation to call on her.

Leaving Madame Malvintsev, Rostdv wanted to return to the dances, but the little wife of the governor put her chubby little hand on Nikolay’s sleeve and, saying that she wanted to speak to him, led him to the sofaroom, which those who happened to be there left in order not to incommode her.

“Do you know, mon cher” said the governor’s wife, with a serious expression on her small, kindly face, “ she is just the match for you. If you want me to, I will make the match for you.”

« Who, ma tante ? ” asked Nikoldy.

” The princess. Katerina Petrdvna says that it is Lili, but I say, no, it is the princess. Do you want me to ? I am sure your mother will be grateful to me. Really, she is a fine girl ! And she is by no means so homely ! “

” By no means,” Nikolay said, as though offended. ” I, ma tante, as is proper for a soldier, intrude nowhere and refuse nothing,” said Rostov, before thinking what it was he had said.

” So remember : it is no joke ! “

« What joke ? “

” Yes, yes,” said the wife of the governor, as though speaking to herself. ” Listen, mon cher, entre autres. Votes êtes trop assidu auprès de l’autre, la blonde. The husband is truly pitiful — ”

” Oh, no, we are friends,” Nikolay said, in the simplicity of liis heart : it did not even occur to him that such a jolly pastime for him could be the opposite of jolly to any one else.

“What a stupid thing I have told the governor’s wife ! ” Nikolay suddenly thought at supper. ” She will begin to make that match at once, and Sdnya ? ” When he was bidding the governor’s wife goodbye, and she, smiling once more, said to him, ” Well, so remember ! ” he took her to one side :

” Really, ma tante, to tell you the truth — ”

” What, what, my friend ? Come, let us sit down there !” ‘ I ■

Nikolay suddenly felt the desire and need of telling his intimate thoughts (such as he would not have told his mother, sister, friend) to this almost strange woman. When later he thought of this outburst of entirely unprovoked, inexplicable confession, which had very important consequences for him, it seemed to him (and it so seems

to all people) as though a stupid fellow had stumbled on a rhyme; and yet, this outburst of sincerity, together with other minor events, had for him, and for his whole family, enormous consequences.

” It is like this, ma tante. Maman has long been wishing to get me married to a rich girl ; but this thought of marrying for money’s sake is repulsive to me.”

” Oh, yes, I understand,” said the governor’s wife.

” But Princess Bolkonski is a different matter ; in the first place, I will tell you the truth. I like her very much ; she just suits me, and then, ever since I met her in those circumstances, she has been strangely on my mind : it is fate. Mamma, in particular, has long been thinking of this, but I somehow never met her before. During the time that my sister Natasha was the fiancée of her brother, I naturally could not think of marrying her. It seems to be my fate to meet her when Natasha’s marriage is not to come off, and then — Really, I have never told this to any one, and I never will. Only to you.”

The governor’s wife gratefully pressed his elbow.

” You know Sdnya, my cousin ? I love her, and I have promised to marry her, and — I will — So you see that she is out of the question,” Nikolay said, in embarrassment, and blushing.

” Man cher, mon cher, how you judge ! Sonya has not a thing, and you said yourself that your father’s affairs are in a bad shape. And your mamma? It will kill her. Then, if Sdnya is a girl with a heart, what kind of a life will it be for her ? Your mother is in despair, your affairs are in a bad shape — No, mon char, you and Sonya must understand this.”

Nikolay was silent. It pleased him to hear these deductions.

” Still, ma tante, this cannot be,” he said, with a sigh, after a moment’s silence. ” Besides, will the princess care for me enough to marry me ? And then again, she is now in mourning. How can we think of it now ? “

« Do you suppose I am going to get you married at once ? Il y a manière et manière,” said she.

” What a matchmaker you are, ma tante” said Nikolay, kissing her chubby hand.

VL

Upon arriving in Moscow, after her meeting with Rostov, Princess Mdrya had found there her nephew -with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andréy, who had laid out for them their route to Voronezh, to Aunt Malvintsev. The cares of the journey, the anxiety about her brother, the arrangement of life in the new house, the new faces, the education of her nephew, — all this had apparently drowned in Princess Mdrya’s soul that feeling of temptation which had tormented her during the illness and after the demise of her father, and especially after her meeting with Rostov. She was sad. The impression caused by the loss of her father, united in her mind with the ruin of Russia, now, after a month passed under conditions of peaceful life, weighed ever more strongly upon her. She was agitated : the thought of the perils to which her brother, who was the only near relative left to her, was subjected tormented her all the time. She was burdened with the education of her nephew, for winch she constantly felt herself incapacitated ; but in the depth of her soul there was peace with herself, and this flowed from the consciousness of having suppressed in herself every vestige of the personal dreams and hopes which were connected with the appearance of Rostov.

When, on the next day after her soirée, the governor’s wife went to see Madame Malvintsev, with whom she conversed about her plans (with the reserve that, although under present conditions there could be no question of a formal suit, the young people might be brought together, so as to give them a chance to get acquainted); and when, having received the aunt’s encouragement, the governor’s wife mentioned Rostov’s name in the hearing of Princess Marya, praising him and saying how he had blushed at the mention of the princess, Princess Marya experienced not a joyous, but a painful sensation : her inner peace no longer existed, and again there rose desires, doubts, rebukes, and hopes.

In the two days which passed between this announcement and Rostov’s call, Princess Marya kept thinking all the time how she ought to act toward him. Now she decided that she would not come out into the drawingroom when he came to call on her aunt ; now she thought that that would be rude after what he had done for her ; now it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor’s wife had some intentions in regard to Rostov and her (their glances and words seemed to confirm this supposition) ; now she thought that only she, with her corrupt mind, could think thus of them : they certainly could not have forgotten that in her position, when she had not yet taken off her mourning, such a suit would be insulting to her and to the memory of her father. Assuming that she would come out to see him, Princess Mdrya considered the words she would employ toward him, and which he would say to her, and these words now seemed to her to be undeservedly cold, and now to have too much significance. Most of all, she was afraid of that embarrassment which, she knew, would take possession of her and betray her the moment she saw him.

But when, on Sunday, after mass, the lackey announced in the drawingroom that Count Rostov had arrived, the princess showed no confusion ; only a faint blush appeared on her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled with a new, beaming light.

“ Have you seen him, aunty ? ” Princess Marya said, in a calm voice, herself wondering how it was she could be outwardly so calm and natural.

When Kostov entered the room, the princess for a moment lowered her head, as though to give the guest a chance to exchange greetings with her aunt, and then, just as Nikolay turned to her, she raised it and met his glance with her beaming eyes. With a motion full of dignity and grace, she rose with a joyous smile, extended to him her thin, tender hand, and spoke in a voice in which for the first time sounded new, feminine, chest tones. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawingroom, looked at Princess Marya in amazement. Herself a most skilful coquette, she could not have manœuvred better at the meeting with a man whom it was necessary to please.

” Either black is so becoming to her, or she has really grown prettier, and I have not noticed it. But, above all, that tact and grace ! ” thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.

If Princess Marya had been able to think at that moment, she would have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change which had taken place in her. From the moment she saw that dear, beloved face, a new power of life seemed to possess her and compelled her, against her will, to speak and act. Her face, from the moment Rostdv entered, was suddenly transformed. Just as the complicated, skilful, artistic work which at first had appeared coarse, dark, and senseless suddenly appears with unexpected and striking beauty on the walls of a painted and chiselled lamp, when the candle witliin is lighted, so was the face of Princess Mdrya suddenly transformed. All that pure, spiritual, inner work, to which she had devoted herself all her life, now for the first time came to the surface. All her inward, self-abasing labour, her suffering, her striving after good, her humility, love, self-renunciation, — all this now sparkled in those beaming eyes, in that gentle smile, — in every feature of her tender face.

Rostdv saw all this as clearly as though he knew her whole life. He felt that the being before him was something quite different, far better than all those whom he had met heretofore, and, above all, better than he himself.

The conversation was quite simple and insignificant. They talked of the war, involuntarily, like every one else, exaggerating their grief in respect to this event; they spoke of their last meeting, whereat Nikolay endeavoured to turn the conversation to another subject ; they talked of the kindly wife of the governor, of Nikolay’s relatives, and of those of Princess Marya.

Princess Marya did not talk of her brother and tried to change the subject when her aunt mentioned Andréy. Evidently she could speak feignedly about the misfortunes of Russia, but her brother was a subject which was too near to her heart, and she did not wish to speak lightly of him, and could not. Nikolay noticed that, just as he with unusual penetration observed all the shades of Princess Marya’s character, all of which confirmed his conviction that she was an entirely different and extraordinary being. Nikolay, just like Princess Marya, used to blush and become embarrassed when the princess had been mentioned to him and even when he had thought of her, but in her presence he was quite at his ease and spoke not what he had prepared, but what momentarily and appropriately occurred to him.

During Nikolay’s short visit, he, during a pause, as is always done when children are present, had recourse to Prince Andréy’s little son, whom he caressed and asked whether he wanted to be a hussar. He took the boy in his arms, began merrily to whirl him around, and looked back at Princess Marya. Her tender, happy, and timid glance watched her beloved boy in the arms of the man she loved. Nikoläy noticed this glance and, as though understanding its meaning, blushed for pleasure and began good-naturedly and merrily to kiss the boy.

Princess Märya did not go out in society on account of her mourning, and Nikoläy did not regard it as proper to call on her ; but the governor’s wife still continued her work of the matchmaking. She informed Rostov of the flattering remarks Princess Marya had made about him, and vice versa, and insisted that Rostdv should make his declaration to Princess Mtirya. For this purpose she arranged a meeting for the young people at the bishop’s after mass.

Although Rostdv told the governor’s wife that he would have no explanation with Princess Marya, he none the less promised he would be there.

Just as in Tilsit Rostov had not permitted himself to doubt in the good of that which had been acknowledged to be good by all, so now, after a short but sincere struggle between the attempt to arrange his life according to his reason and the humble submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and entrusted himself to the power which, he felt, was invincibly drawing him on. He knew that, after his promise to Sdnya, it would be what he called baseness to express his feelings to Princess Mdrya. And he knew that he would never commit a base act. At the same time he knew (he did not know it, but felt it in the depth of his heart) that, surrendering himself to the force of circumstances and to the people who guided him, he not only would not do anything bad, but, on the contrary, would perform something very, very important, something more important than anything else he had done in his life.

After his meeting with Princess Mär y a, his manner of life outwardly remained the same, but all his former pleasures lost their charm for him, and he frequently thought of Princess Mdrya ; but he never thought of her as he thought, without exception, of all the young ladies whom he met in society, and not as he for a long time had once thought ecstatically of Sduya. Of all the young ladies he, like almost any honourable young man, thought as of a possible future wife ; he applied to them, in his imagination, all the conditions of marital life, — white capote, wife at the samovar, wife’s carriage, children, mamma and papa, their relations to her, and so forth, and so forth, and these pictures of the future afforded him pleasure ; but when he thought of Princess Märya, whom they wanted him to marry, he was never able to represent to himself anything from his future marital state. Even though he tried to do so, it all turned out awkward and confused. He only felt nauseated.

VIL

The terrible news of the battle of Borodind, of our losses in killed and wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow were received in Voronezh in the middle of September. Having learned from the gazettes about the wound of her brother, and having no definite information about him, Princess Märya was getting ready to go to find him. So Nikolay heard, for he had not seen her.

When Rostov received the news of the battle of Boro-dinô and of the abandonment of Moscow, he did not exactly experience despair, animosity, or revenge, and similar feelings, but he was possessed by tedium and annoyance in Voronezh, and somehow felt ashamed and ill at ease. All the conversations he heard seemed feigned to him ; he did not know how to take it all, and he felt that only in the regiment would everything become clear to him again. He hastened to make his last purchases of horses, and frequently unjustly fiew up at his servant and sergeant-major.

A few days before Rostov’s departure, a Te Deum was to be celebrated in the cathedral on the occasion of a victory obtained by the Russian troops, and Nikolfiy went to the mass. He stood a short distance behind the governor, and, reflecting on the greatest variety of subjects, stood with official decorum through the whole service. When the Te Deum was over, the governor’s wife called him up to her.

« Have you seen the princess ? ” she said, indicating with her head a lady in black, who was standing behind the choir.

Nikoldy immediately recognized Princess Märya, not so much from her profile, which could be seen underneath her hat, as by that sensation of caution, fear, and pity, which at once took possession of him. Princess Märya, apparently absorbed in her thoughts, was making the last signs of the cross, before leaving church.

Nikolay looked at her face in surprise. It was the same he had seen before ; there was still in it that general expression of a delicate, inward, spiritual labour ; but now it was quite differently illuminated. There was on it a touching expression of grief, entreaty, and hope. As had happened before to Nikolay in her presence, he, without waiting for the advice of the governor’s wife to approach her, and without asking himself whether his addressing her here in church would be proper or not, walked over to her and told her that he had heard of her sorrow, and that he sympathized with her with all his heart. No sooner did she hear his voice than suddenly a bright light illuminated her countenance, accentuating at the same time her sorrow and her joy.

” I wanted to tell you, princess,” said Rostov, ” that if Prince Andréy Nikolaevich were not alive, the fact, he being a commander of a regiment, would have been at once announced in the gazettes.”

The princess looked at him without understanding his words, but rejoicing at the expression of sympathetic suffering which was on his face.

“ And I know from so many examples that a wound from a splinter” (the gazette said from a grenade) “is either immediately mortal, or, on the other hand, exceedingly light,” said Nikolay. ” You must hope for the best, and I am sure — “

Princess Marya interrupted him.

“ Oh, that would be so terr— ” she began, and, as her

agitation prevented her from finishing, she cast a graceful glance at him, and with a graceful motion of her head (as was everything she did in his presence) followed her aunt out.

On that evening Nikolay did not make any calls, but remained at home in order to settle certain accounts with the horse-dealers. When he got through, it was too late to go anywhere, but still too early to lie down, and so he for a long time paced the room all alone, reflecting on his life, which he rarely did.

Princess Mdrya had produced a pleasant impression upon him near Smolénsk. The fact that he had met her under such peculiar circumstances, and that his mother at one time had pointed to her as a rich match, had caused him to direct his especial attention to her. In Voronezh, the impression he received during his visit to her had been not only agreeable, but even powerful. Nikoldy had been struck by that peculiar, moral beauty which he at that time had observed in her. And still he was getting ready to leave, and it did not occur to him to regret that, in leaving Voronezh, he would be deprived of the opportunity of seeing the princess. But the meeting with Princess Marya in church, Nikoläy felt, had taken deeper root in his heart than he had foreseen, and deeper than he wished for his peace. That pale, tender, sorrowful face, that beaming glance, those soft, graceful movements, and, above all, that profound and gentle grief, which was expressed in all her features, agitated him and demanded his sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear seeing the expression of a higher, spiritual life (for this reason he did not like Prince Andréy), — he contemptuously called it philosophy, dreaminess ; but in Princess Mär y a he felt an irresistible charm in this very grief, which revealed to him the whole depth of that to him foreign spiritual world.

” She must be a fine girl ! Truly an angel ! ” he said to himself. ” Why am I not free ? Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya? ” And involuntarily there presented itself to him a comparison: the poverty in one and the wealth in the other of those spiritual gifts, which Nikolay did not possess, and which therefore he esteemed so highly. He essayed to represent to himself what would have been if he had been free, how he would have proposed to her, and she would have become his wife! No, he could not imagine it. He felt a nausea, and no clear images rose before him. With Sonya he had long ago formed a picture of the future, and it was all simple and clear, even because it was all based on reasoning, and he knew everything there was in Sonya; but he could not associate his future life with Princess Marya, because he did not understand her, but only loved her.

His reveries about Sdnya had a cheery, playful aspect ; while it was always hard and a little terrible to think of Princess Märya.

” How she prayed ! ” he happened to recall. « It was evident that her whole soul was in the prayer : it is that kind of prayer which moves mountains, and I am sure her prayer will be heard. Why do I not pray for what I need ? ” he thought. ” What do I need ? Freedom, rupture with Sonya. She told the truth,” he recalled the words of the governor’s wife. ” There will be nothing but misfortune if I marry her. A tangle, mamma’s grief — affairs — a tangle, a terrible tangle ! Really, I do not love her. I do not love her as I ought to. 0 God ! Lead me out of tills terrible, hopeless condition ! ” he suddenly began to pray. ” Yes, a prayer will move a mountain, but one must believe and pray differently from the way Natasha and I used to pray when we were children, asking snow to be changed into sugar, and running out into the yard to see whether this had actually happened. No, I am now not praying for trifles,” he said, placing his pipe in the corner, folding his hands, and standing up before the images. Touched by his memory of Princess Mdrya, he began to pray as he had not prayed for a long time. Tears were in his eyes and a lump in his throat, when Lavrushka entered the room with some kind of papers.

” Stupid ! What are you doing here, when nobody wants you ? ” said Nikolây, rapidly changing his position.

” From the governor,” Lavrushka said, in a sleepy voice. ” A courier has come with a letter for you.”

“ AU right, thank you. Now go ! “

Nikolay took the letter. It was from his mother ; another was from Sdnya. He recognized them by their handwritings. He had read but a few lines when his face grew pale, and his eyes dilated with fear and joy.

“ No, it is impossible !” he said aloud. Unable to sit in one place, he began to pace the room with the letter in his hand, reading it. He ran the letter through, then read it, once, a second time, and, raising his shoulders and swinging his arms, stopped in the middle of the room with open mouth and motionless eyes. What he had just been praying about, with the assurance that God would fulfil his prayer, was now realized ; but Nikoldy was surprised at this, as though it were something unusual, and as though he had never expected it, and as though his prayer having been fulfilled so soon proved that its fulfilment did not originate with God whom he had supplicated, but arose from a common accident.

That apparently inextricable knot, which had fettered Rostov’s freedom, was solved by this (as Nikoldy thought) unexpected, unprovoked letter from Sdnya. She wrote that the late unfortunate circumstances, the loss of nearly the entire property of the Rostdvs in Moscow, and the more than once expressed wishes of the countess that Nikoldy might marry Princess Bolkdnski, and the silence and coldness shown by him of late, — all this taken together compelled her to free him from his promises and to give him full liberty of action.

” It has caused me too much pain to think that I could be the cause of grief and discord in the family which has showered its benefactions on me,” she wrote, “and my love has for its only aim the happiness of those whom I love ; and so I implore you, Nicolas, to consider yourself free and to know that, in spite of everything, no one can love you more strongly than your Sdnya.”

Both letters were from Troitsa. The other letter was from the countess. Here were described the last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire and the ruin of all their property. Among other things, the countess wrote that Prince Andrey was travelling with them among the other wounded. His condition was very critical, but now the doctor said that there was more hope. She also wrote that Sdnya and Natasha tended upon him like nurses.

With this letter Nikolay on the following morning went to see Princess Marya. Neither Nikolay nor Princess Märya said a word about the meaning of the words, ” Natdsha tends upon him ; ” but, thanks to this letter, Nikoläy suddenly entered into close, almost family relations.

On the next day Rostdv saw Princess Marya off for Yaroslav, and in a few days himself left for the army.

VIII.

Sônya’s letter to Nikoläy, which was the realization of his prayer, had been written at Trôitsa. What had provoked it was this : The thought ok Nikoldy’s marrying a rich girl more and more took possession of the old countess. She knew that Sonya was the chief impediment to this, and so Sdnya’s life in the house of the countess had of late become harder and harder, especially since the receipt of Nikolay’s letter in which he described his meeting with Princess Marya in Bogucharovo. The countess did not let pass a single occasion for an offensive or cruel hint to Sdnya.

A few days before their departure from Moscow, the countess, unnerved and agitated by what was taking place, called Sdnya to her and, instead of rebuking her or making demands on her, implored her to repay all that had been done for her by sacrificing herself and breaking with Nikoldy.

” I shall not be calm until you promise me to do so.”

Sdnya wept hysterically and replied, through her sobs, that she would do everything and that she was ready for anything, but gave no direct promise. In her innermost soul she could not make up her mind to comply with the request. It was necessary to sacrifice herself for the happiness of the family which had brought her up and educated her. To sacrifice herself for the happiness of others was Sônya’s habit. Her position in the house was such that only on the road of sacrifice could she prove her worth, and she was used to and fond of selfsacrifice. But, heretofore, in all her acts of selfsacrifice, she had been joyfully conscious of enhancing, by such acts, her own worth in her own eyes and in those of others, and of becoming worthier of Nikolay, whom she loved more than any one in the world ; but now her sacrifice was to consist in renouncing what for her constituted the whole reward of the sacrifice, — the whole meaning of life. And so she for the first time in her life was embittered toward those people who had been kind to her in order to torment her the more painfully ; and she grew envious of Natasha, who had never experienced anything like it, who never had to make any sacrifices, and who caused others to sacrifice themselves for her, and yet was loved by all. And for the first time Sonya felt that from her quiet love for Nikolay there suddenly grew out a passion, which stood above rules and virtue and religion ; and, under the influence of this feeling, Sonya, involuntarily taught secretiveness by her life of dependence, answered the countess in general, indefinite terms, avoided conversations with her, and decided to wait for a meeting with Nikoläy, in order not to free him, but, on the contrary, for ever to bind him in that meeting.

The cares and horrors of the last days passed by the Rostdvs in Moscow drowned in Sdnya the gloomy thoughts that weighed upon her. She was glad to find salvation from them in practical activity. But when she discovered the presence of Prince Andréy in their house, a joyous and superstitious feeling that God did not want her to be separated from Nikoldy took possession of her, despite all the sincere pity which she felt both for him and for Natasha. She knew that Natäsha had loved no one but Prince Andréy, and that she still was in love with him. She knew that, brought together under such terrible circumstances, they would again love one another, and that then Nikoläy, on account of his blood-relationship to them, would not be able to marry Princess Marya. In spite of

all the terror of what had taken place in the last few days and during the first days of their journey, this feeling, this consciousness of the interference of Providence in her personal affairs, gave Sdnya pleasure.

At the Tréitsa Convent the Rostdvs made their first halt in their journey.

Three large rooms were reserved for the Rostdvs in the hostelry of the convent, and one of these was occupied by Prince Andréy. The wounded man felt much easier on that day. Natäsha was with him. In the adjoining room sat the count and the countess, respectfully conversing with the prior, who had come to see his old acquaintances and contributors. Sdnya was with them, and she was tormented by a curiosity to find out what Prince Andréy was talking about with Natäsha. She could hear the sound of their voices behind the door. The door of Prince Audrey’s room was opened. Natasha came out of it with an agitated face. She did not notice the monk who had risen to meet her and was drawing back the broad sleeve of his right arm, and walked over to Sdnya and took her hand.

“ Natasha, what is the matter ? Come here ! ” said the countess.

Natasha went up to receive the benediction, and the prior advised her to turn to God and His saint for aid.

Immediately after the prior withdrew, Natasha took the hand of her companion and went with her to an unoccupied room.

” Sonya, do you think he will live ? ” she said. ” Sdnya, how happy I am, and how unhappy at the same time! Sonya dear, everything is as of old. If he only lives ! He cannot — because, because — ” and Natäsha burst out into tears.

“ Yes, I knew it ! Thank God,” muttered Sénya. ” He will live ! ”

Sénya was not less agitated than her companion, by her fear and sorrow, and by her personal, unuttered thoughts. She sobbed as she kissed and consoled Natäsha. ” If he would only live ! ” she thought. After weeping, talking, and drying their tears, both companions went up to the door of Prince Andréy’s room. Natäsha cautiously opened the door and looked in. Sénya stood beside her near the half-open door.

Prince Andréy was lying high on three pillows. His pale face was calm and his eyes closed, and he could be seen breathing evenly.

” Oh, Natäsha! ” Sénya suddenly almost cried out, grasping the arm of her cousin and receding from the door.

” What ? What is it ? ” asked Natasha.

” It is that, that — ” said Sonya, with a pale face and trembling lips.

Natasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya toward the window, still failing to understand what Sonya was talking about.

” Do you remember,” Sonya said, with a frightened and solemn face, “ do you remember that time when I looked for you in the mirror ? In Otradnoe, at Christmas — Do you remember what I saw ? ”

” Yes, yes,” said Natäsha, opening her eyes wide and dimly recalling that Sonya had then said something about Prince Andréy, whom she saw in a lying posture.

” Do you remember ? ” continued Sonya. ” I saw it then, and said so to all, — to you and to Dunyasha. I saw him lying on the bed,” she said, making a gesture with the uplifted finger of her hand at every detail, “ and with his eyes shut, and with a rose-coloured quilt, and his hands crossed,” said Sonya, convincing herself, in proportion as she described the details she then saw, that she had seen them then. She had not seen anything then, and had said anything that came into her head ; but what she had concocted at that time appeared as real to her as any other recollection. She not only remembered that she had said then that he turned around and smiled at her, and was covered with something red, but she was firmly convinced that she had said and seen then that he was covered with a rose-coloured, yes, a rose-coloured quilt, and that his eyes were shut.

” Yes, yes, a rose-coloured quilt,” said Natasha, who seemed to recall herself that ” rose-coloured ” had been mentioned then, and iu this she saw the chief peculiarity and mystery of the prophecy.

” But what does it mean ? ” Natasha said, pensively.

” Oh, I do not know, — it is all so extraordinary,” said Sdnya, grasping her head.

A few minutes later Prince Andréy rang a bell, and Natasha went in to him ; while Sdnya, experiencing unusual agitation and meekness of spirit, remained at the window, to think over the strange facts that had happened.

On that day there was a chance of sending a letter to the army, and the countess wrote to her son.

” Sdnya,” said the countess, raising her head from the letter, as her niece passed by her, ” Sdnya, won’t you write to Nikolay ? ” she said, in a quiet, quivering voice, and in the glance of her fatigued eyes, looking above her glasses, Sdnya read everything the countess meant by those words. In this glance was expressed entreaty, and fear of a refusal, and shame at being compelled to ask her, and a readiness for an undying hatred in case of refusal.

Sdnya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.

” I will write, mamma,” she said.

Sdnya was touched, agitated, and meek of spirit from the effect of all that had happened ou that day, especially from the effect of that mysterious accomplishment of the divination, which she had just witnessed. Now that she knew that, on account of the renewal of Natdsha’s relations with Prince Andrey, Nikoldy could not marry Princess Mdrya, she was happy to feel the return of that mood of selfsacrifice in which she had been accustomed to live, and which gave her pleasure. With tears in her eyes and with the joyful consciousness of doing a magnanimous deed, she, several times interrupting her tears, which bedimmed her velvety black eyes, wrote that touching letter, the receipt of which so startled Nikolay.

IX.

At the guard-house, to which Pierre was led, the officer and the soldiers who took him there treated him hostilely, but at the same time with respect. In their relations to him could be observed a certain suspicion that he might be a very important personage, and hostility on account of their late personal conflict with him.

But when, on the next morning, the guard was relieved, Pierre noticed that for the new watch — both for the officers and the soldiers — he no longer had the meaning which he had had for those who had captured him. Indeed, in this tall, stout man in the caftan of a peasant, the guard of the next day did not see that living man who had had such a desperate fight with the marauder and with the soldiers of the patrol, and who had expressed himself so solemnly about having saved a child ; they saw in him nothing more than one of the seventeen Russians held for some reason by the order of the higher authorities. If there was anything peculiar in Pierre, it was his concentrated and pensive, not at all timid, aspect, and his French, in which language, to the surprise of the soldiers, he expressed himself well. And yet, Pierre was on that day put with the other suspects, because the special room which he had occupied was wanted by an officer.

All the Russians who were held with Pierre were men of the very lowest ranks. All of them, recognizing the gentleman in Pierre, kept aloof from him, the more so since he spoke French. Pierre in sadness listened to their derisive remarks about him.

On the following evening, Pierre learned that all the prisoners (no doubt, he among them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day, Pierre and the rest were taken to a house where sat a French general with a white moustache, two colonels, and other Frenchmen with ribbons on their arms. With that precision and definiteness which are supposed to surpass all human weaknesses, and winch are generally employed in relation to culprits, questions were addressed to Pierre, just as to the others, as to who he was, where he had been, for what purpose, and so forth.

These questions, by leaving out the essence of the vital matter and excluding the possibility of discovering this essence, like all questions put in courts of justice, had for their aim nothing but the indication of the groove along which the judges wished that the answers of the defendant should flow, so as to bring him to the desired end, that is, to self-accusation. The moment he began to say some-tiring which did not satisfy the end of the accusation, the groove was taken away and the water could flow where it wished. Besides, Pierre experienced the same that the defendant experiences in any court : perplexity at having all these questions put to him. He felt that this trick of supplying him with a groove was used only as a condescension or, as it were, as a token of civility. He knew that he was in the power of these men ; that power only had brought him there; that power only gave them the right to demand answers of him ; that the only purpose of this meeting consisted in his conviction. Therefore, since they possessed the power and had the desire to convict him, there was no need of the trick of questioning him and sitting in judgment over him. It was evident that all his answers must prove his guilt.

To the question what he had been doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied with some tragic air that he had been carrying to her parents a child, ” cju’il avait sauvé des flammes.”

Why had he fought with the marauder ? Pierre replied that he had been defending a woman; that it was the duty of any man to defend a woman to whom an insult was offered ; that —

He was stopped short : this was irrelevant. Why had he been in the yard of the burning house, where he had been seen by witnesses ? He replied that he had gone out to see what was going on in Moscow.

He was again stopped : he was not asked where he had been going, but why he had been near the fire. Who was he ? The first question was repeated to him, and to this he had replied that he would not tell. He said again that he could not tell.

” Write it down ! It is not good ! It is very bad ! ” the general with the white moustache and red face said to him.

On the fourth day the fires began on the Zubov Rampart.

Pierre was taken with thirteen others to the Crimea Ford, into a carriage-shed of a merchant house. Passing through the streets, Pierre choked from the smoke which seemed to be over the whole city. Fires could be seen on every side. Pierre at that time did not yet comprehend the significance of burning Moscow and looked with terror at these fires.

Pierre passed four more days in the carriage-shed of one of the houses near the Crimea Ford, and during this time he learned from the conversation of the French soldiers that all the prisoners were expecting any day the decision of the marshal. What marshal it was, Pierre could not find out from the soldiers. To them a marshal presented himself as a very high and somewhat mysterious link of power.

These first days, up to the 8th of September, when the prisoners were taken to a second trial, were the hardest for Pierre.

X.

On the 8th of September, the shed where the prisoners were was entered by a very important officer, to judge from the respect shown him by the guards. This officer, evidently from the staff, holding a list in his hands, called the names of all the Russians, denominating Pierre as ” celui qui ri avoue pas son nom” Casting an indifferent and indolent glance at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer of the guard to dress them and clean them up before taking them to the marshal. In an hour there arrived a company of soldiers, and Pierre with the thirteen others was taken to the Virgin Field. It was a clear, sunlit day after a rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not lodge in the streets, as it had on the day when Pierre had been led out from the guard-house of the Zubov Rampart ; the smoke rose in columns in the pure air. One could nowhere see the flame of the fires, but on every side rose columns of smoke, and all of Moscow, everything which Pierre could see, was one large burning mass. On every side could be seen devastated spots with standing fireplaces and chimneys, and now and then smoke-begrimed walls of stone houses. Pierre looked at the devastation and could not recognize familiar quarters of the city. Here and there he saw churches that had escaped destruction. The Kremlin was not ruined and shone white in the distance, with its towers and with its Ivän the Great. Near by brightly gleamed the cupola of the Monastery of the New Virgin, and from there proceeded the peculiarly sonorous sound of the bells. This ringing reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the holiday of the Virgin’s Nativity. There seemed to be no one to celebrate this holiday: everywhere was the destruction of fire, and of Russians one met but occasionally tattered, frightened men, who hid at the sight of the French.

It was evident that the Russian nest was destroyed and annihilated ; but in the destruction of the Russian order of life, Pierre unconsciously felt that an entirely new, a firm French order of things had established itself in this shattered nest. He felt this at the sight of the soldiers, who, walking briskly and merrily in regular ranks, were conveying him with the other criminals ; he felt it at the sight of some important French official in a two-horse carriage driven by a soldier, as it rushed past him ; he felt it in the merry sounds of the regimental music, which were borne to him from the left of the field ; and, more especially, he felt and comprehended it from that list which the officer who had arrived that morning had read in calling the roll of the prisoners. Pierre had been arrested by one set of soldiers and had been taken to this and to that place with a dozen other men ; one would think they might have forgotten him or have mistaken him for some one else. But no : his answers, which he had given at the inquest, returned to him under his appellation of ” celui qui n’avoue pas son nom.” And under this designation, which was terrible to Pierre, he was being led somewhere with the absolute assurance written in the faces of the guard that all the other prisoners and he himself were precisely those that they wanted, and that they were being led where they belonged. Pierre felt himself an insignificant chip which had fallen into the wheels of an unknown but regularly working machine.

Pierre and the other criminals were brought to the right side of the Virgin Field, in the neighbourhood of the monaster}’, to a large white house with an immense garden.

It was the house of Prince Shcherbdtov, which Pierre had frequented before, and in which now, as he learned from the soldiers’ conversation, was stationed the marshal, the Duke of Eckmühl.

They were brought up to the veranda, and were, one after another, led into the house. Pierre was the sixth to be taken in. Through a glass gallery, a vestibule, an antechamber, all familiar to Pierre, he was led into a long, low-studded cabinet, at the door of which stood an adjutant.

Davout was sitting at the end of the room, at a table, with his spectacles on his nose. Pierre went up close to him. Davout did not raise his eyes, evidently busy on some paper which was lying before him. Without raising his eyes, he asked him, “Qui ctes-vous ?”

Pierre was silent because he was not able to utter a word. Davout was for Pierre not merely a French general ; for him Davout was a man well known for his cruelty. Looking at the cold face of Davout, who, as a stern teacher, agreed for a time to be patient and wait for an answer, he felt that a second of hesitation could cost him his life ; but he did not know what to say. He could not make up his mind to say what he had said at his first inquest ; and it was perilous and a disgrace to give away his standing and position. Pierre was silent ; but, before he could make up his mind for anything, Davout raised his head, moved his glasses up on his brow, blinked with his eyes, and looked fixedly at Pierre.

“ I know this man,” he said, in a measured, cold voice, which was evidently calculated to frighten Pierre.

The drill, which had run up Pierre’s back, now held his head, as in a vise.

” Mon général, vous ne pouvez pas me connaître, je ne vous ai jamais vu — “

” C’est un espion russe,” Davout interrupted him, turning to another general who was in the room, and whom Pierre had not noticed.

Davout turned aside. With a sudden peal in his voice, Pierre uttered rapidly :

“ Non, monseigneur,” he said, suddenly recalling that Davout was a duke. ” Non, mo7iscigneur, vous n’avez pas pu me connaître. Je suis un officier militionnaire et je n’ai pas quitté Moscou.”

” Votre nom ? ” repeated Davout.

“ Besouhi.”

” Qu’est-ce qui me prouvera que vous ne mentez pas ?”

” Monseigneur,” Pierre exclaimed, not in a voice of offence, but of entreaty.

Davout raised his eyes and looked fixedly at Pierre. They looked at each other for a few seconds, and this glance saved Pierre. In this glance, in spite of all the conditions of war and judicial procedure, human relations were established between the two men. At this moment they both dimly passed through an endless number of sensations, and they understood that they were both children of humanity, — that they were brothers.

In his first glance Davout, who had barely raised his head from his list, on which human affairs and life were called off by numbers, had looked upon Pierre merely as a circumstance, and, without taking on his conscience a bad act, he would have ordered him shot ; but now he saw in him a man. He meditated for a moment.

“ Comment me prouverez-vouz la vérité de ce que vous me dites ? ” Davout said, coldly.

Pierre recalled Ramball and mentioned his regiment, his name, and the street where his house was.

” Vous n’etes pas ce que vous dites,” Davout said again.

Pierre began in a trembling, faltering voice to adduce proofs of the truth of his statements.

Just then an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.

Davout suddenly brightened up at the news which the adjutant had communicated to him, and began to button his coat. Apparently he entirely forgot about Pierre.

When the adjutant reminded him about the prisoner, he nodded with a frown in the direction of Pierre and said that he should be led away. Whither he was to be taken, Pierre did not know : whether back to the shed, or to the improvised place of execution on the Virgin Field, which his companions had pointed out to him in passing.

He turned his head around and saw that the adjutant repeated some question.

” Oui, sans dozite ! ” said Davout, but what this ” yes ” referred to Pierre did not know.

Pierre did not remember how long he had walked or whither he was taken. In a condition of absolute stupor, without seeing a thing about him, he kept moving his feet along with the rest, until all stopped, and he too. There was but one thought in Pierre’s head. It was this : Who, who had finally sentenced him to be executed ? Certainly not those people who had examined him at the inquest : of these not one wished to do it, nor was able to do it. It was not Davout, who had cast such a human look at him. One minute more, and Davout would have comprehended that they were doing wrong, but this minute was disturbed by the adjutant’s entering. That adjutant, evidently, did not wish him harm, but he might have kept away. Who, then, was it who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life, with all its recollections, strivings, hopes, and thoughts ? Who was doing it ? Pierre felt that it was nobody.

It was the order, the concurrence of circumstances.

It was a certain order that was killing him, Pierre, — depriving him of life and everything, annihilating him.

XI.

From the house of Prince Shcherbdtov the prisoners were led down the Virgin Field, to the left of the New Virgin Monastery, and were taken to a garden where stood a post. Beyond the post was a large ditch with freshly dug earth, and near it and the post a large mass of people stood in a semicircle. It consisted of a small number of Russians and a large number of Napoleonic soldiers, not in the ranks, — of Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, in a great variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post stood aligned French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets, gaiters, and shakos.

The criminals were placed in the order in which they were on the list (Pierre stood the sixth), and were taken up to the post. Suddenly several drums on either side were beaten, and Pierre felt that with this sound something was torn away from his soul. He lost the ability to think and to reflect. He could only see and hear. He had only one desire, and that was that the something terrible, which was to happen, should take place at once. Pierre looked at his companions and examined them.

The two men on the outer side were shaven convicts : one of them was tall and lean; the other — a black, shaggy, muscular man with a flattened nose. The third was a janitor, a man of about forty-five years of age, with streaks of gray in his hair and a plump, well-fed body. The fourth was a very handsome peasant with a long, blond beard and black eyes. The fifth was a workman of a factory, a sallow, lean lad, of about eighteen years of age, wearing a cloak.

Pierre heard the Frenchmen deliberating whether they were to shoot one or two at a time. ” Two at a time,” calmly and coolly replied the senior officer. There was a commotion in the ranks of the soldiers, and it was evident that all were hurrying, not as one hurries when something intelligible to everybody is to be performed, but as one hurries in order to get done with a necessary, but disagreeable and incomprehensible, piece of business.

A French official in a sash walked over to the right side of the row of criminals and read their sentence in Russian and in French.

Then four Frenchmen went up to the criminals and, at the officer’s indication, took the two convicts, who were standing at the outer edge. The convicts walked over to the post and stopped, and, while sacks were being brought, looked silently around, as a baited beast looks at the approaching hunter. One of them kept crossing himself ; the other rubbed his back and made with his lips a motion which resembled a smile. The soldiers fumbled with their hands and began to blindfold them, to put the sacks on them, and to bind them to the post.

Twelve soldiers with their guns walked with even, firm steps out of the ranks and stationed themselves within eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away in order not to see what was to happen. Suddenly he heard a crackling and rumbling, winch appeared to him louder than any peals of thunder, and he looked around. There was a smoke, and the Frenchmen with pale faces and trembling hands were doing something at the ditch.

Two others were taken up. These two looked with just such eyes at everybody, silently and vainly, with their eyes only imploring succour, and apparently not understanding and not believing what was going to happen. They could not believe it, because they alone could know what life was to them, and so they did not understand, nor believe, that they could be deprived of it.

Pierre did not want to see what was going on, and turned his face away ; but again a terrible explosion struck his ear, and, at the same time that he perceived the smoke, he saw blood and the pale, frightened faces of the Frenchmen again doing something at the post, — pushing one another with trembling hands. Breathing heavily, Pierre looked about him, as though to ask himself : ” What is this ? ” The same question was in all the eyes which met Pierre’s glance.

On all the Russian faces, on all the faces of the French soldiers and officers, on all without exception, he read the same terror and struggle which were in his heart.

” Tirailleurs du 86-nic, en avant ! ” some one shouted.

The fifth man, who was standing with Pierre, was led up by himself. Pierre did not understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought up only to witness the execution. He kept looking at what was going on, with ever increasing terror, without experiencing joy or peace. The fifth man was the factory hand in the cloak. The moment they touched him, he leaped aside in terror and took hold of Pierre (Pierre shuddered and tore himself away from him). The workman could not walk. He was dragged along by his arms, and he kept crying something. When he was brought up to the post, he suddenly grew silent. He seemed suddenly to comprehend. Whether he understood that it was in vain to cry, or that it was impossible that people should kill him, he stood up at the post waiting to be blindfolded with others, and like a wounded beast looked about him with sparkling eyes.

Pierre no longer had the strength to turn away and shut his eyes. His curiosity and agitation and those of the crowd reached the highest tension with tins fifth murder. This fifth man seemed to be as calm as the rest had been : he wrapped himself in his cloak and rubbed one bare foot with the other.

As they bandaged his eyes, he himself adjusted the knot on the back of his head, as it made him uncomfortable. Then, as he was placed against the bloodstained post, he leaned back, but as he did not feel comfortable in that posture, he pulled himself up and, putting his feet straight, calmly leaned against the post. Pierre did not take his eyes off him, and watched every smallest motion of his.

No doubt the command was given, and no doubt there was heard the discharge of eight guns. But no matter how much Pierre tried to recall it later, he had not heard the slightest sound of the fusilade. He saw only that the workman for some reason slipped down in the ropes ; that blood appeared in two spots; that the ropes themselves, from the weight of the limp body, were loosened ; and that the workman, letting his head droop in an unnatural manner and bending his legs, sat down on the ground. Pierre ran up to the post. No one held him back. The frightened, pale men were doing something about the workman. The nether jaw of an old mustachioed Frenchman was trembling, as he loosened the ropes. The body dropped. The soldiers awkwardly and hurriedly dragged it beyond the post and began to push it down into the ditch.

It was quite apparent that they all knew that they were criminals, who must as quickly as possible conceal the traces of their crimes.

Pierre looked in the ditch and saw that the workman was lying with his knees raised up to his head, one shoulder being higher than the other. This shoulder convulsively rose and fell in even measure. But the shovelfuls of earth were already falling on the whole body. One of the soldiers in anger and irritation called out to Pierre to go back. But Pierre did not understand him

and remained standing at the post, from which no one drove him away.

Wien the ditch was all filled up, a command was given. Pierre was taken back to his place, and the French troops, which bad been fronting the post on both sides, faced about and with measured steps began to march past the post. The twenty-four members of the firing party with their guns unloaded, who were standing within the circle, in a trot rejoined their companies as they walked by them.

Pierre now looked with senseless eyes at these men as they left the circle in pairs. All but one joined their ranks. One young soldier, with a deathly pale countenance, in a shako which had fallen on his back, and allowing his gun to droop, was still standing opposite the ditch, in the spot from which he had fired his gun. He tottered like one drunk, making now a few steps in front, and now back again, in order to sustain his falling body. An old soldier, an underofficer, ran out of the ranks and, grabbing the young fellow by the shoulder, drew him back into the ranks. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to scatter. All walked in silence with drooping heads.

” Ca leur apprendra à incendier,” said one of the Frenchmen.

Pierre looked around at the speaker and saw a soldier who was trying to find some consolation in what had been done, but was unable to do so. Without finishing his sentence, he waved his hand and walked on.

XII.

After the execution, Pierre was separated from the other prisoners and left all by himself in a small, polluted church.

Before evening an underofficer of the sentry and two other soldiers entered the church and informed Pierre that he was pardoned and now would take up his place in the barracks of the prisoners of war. Pierre rose and followed the soldiers. He was brought to booths constructed of halfburnt boards, logs, and shingles, and was taken inside one of them. In the darkness some twenty different men surrounded him. He looked at them and did not understand who these men were, what they were doing there, and what they wanted of him. He heard the words addressed to him, but made no deductions from them: he simply did not understand their significance. He replied to the questions put to him, but did not consider who was listening to him, or how his answers would be received. He looked at the faces and forms, and all of them seemed equally meaningless to him.

Ever since Pierre had seen that terrible murder committed by people who did not wish to do it, that spring which held everything together, and through which everything appeared to be living, suddenly seemed to be torn out of his soul, and everything collapsed into a heap of meaningless dirt. Though he was not conscious of it, this incident had destroyed his faith in the order of the world, in the human soul and in his own soul, and in God. Pierre had experienced this condition before, but never

with such force as now. Formerly, when Pierre was overcome by doubts of this kind, these doubts had his own guilt for their source; and then he felt, in his innermost heart, that from that despair and from those doubts his salvation lay in himself. But now he felt that it was not his guilt that was the cause of the world’s destruction in his eyes, and that nothing but meaningless ruins were left. He felt that it was not in his power to return to faith in life.

Around him, in the darkness, stood men : apparently there was something in him which amused them. He was being told something ; questions were asked him, and finally he was taken somewhere, and he found himself in the corner of the booth, side by side with some people who were conversing and laughing all around him.

” And so, my friends, that very prince who — ” (a voice spoke in the opposite corner of the booth, with special emphasis on the word ” who “).

Pierre sat in silence and motionless on some straw near the wall, and now opened and now closed his eyes. But, the moment his eyes were shut, he saw before him that terrible face of the factory hand, especially terrible in its simplicity, and the still more terrible, restless faces of the involuntary murderers. He again opened his eyes and senselessly looked around him in the darkness.

Beside him sat, bending over, a small man, of whose presence Pierre had become aware by the strong odour of perspiration which emanated from him at every motion of his. This man was doing something to his feet in the darkness, and, though Pierre did not see his face, he felt that the man was constantly gazing at him. Looking closely at him, Pierre made out that he was divesting himself of his foot-gear. Pierre was interested in the manner in which this was done.

Having unwound the laces with which one leg was wrapped, he carefully rolled up the strips and immediately started the same operation on the other leg, looking all the time at Pierre. While the one hand was hanging up the laces, the other was already beginning to unwind the laces of the second leg. Having in this manner carefully taken off his foot-wear with rounded, agile, uninterrupted motions, he hung it up on pegs driven into the wall above his head, drew out a pen-knife, cut something, clasped his knife, placed it under his head-rest, and, seating himself more comfortably, embraced his raised knees with his hands and gazed straight at Pierre. Pierre felt something pleasant, soothing, and rounded in these agile motions, in this well-arranged corner of his, even in the odour of the man, and looked at him, without taking his eyes away.

” Have you seen much misery, sir, eh ? ” the little man suddenly said. There was such an expression of kindliness and simplicity in the singsong voice of the man, that Pierre wanted to reply to him, but his jaw began to tremble, and he felt that tears were coming. Without giving Pierre a chance to give utterance to his embarrassment, the little man at once continued, with his pleasant voice :

” Oh, my friend, don’t worry ! ” he spoke with that tender chanting voice of kindness, in which old Russian women talk. “Don’t worry, my friend. An hour you suffer, an age you live! Yes, my friend! We manage to live here, thank God, without suffering insult. They are men themselves, and there are good and bad people among them,” he said, and, while still speaking, he with a flexible motion bent over his knees, got up, and, coughing, went away somewhere.

” I declare, you rogue, you have come back! ’’ Pierre heard the same kindly voice at the other end of the booth. ” You have come back, you rogue, you remember us ! All right, all right ! ” And the soldier pushed the dog away that sprang up to him, returned to his place,

and sat down again. In his hand there was something wrapped in a piece of paper.

” Eat this, sir ! ” he said, returning to his old respectful tone, and, opening up the paper, he handed Pierre a few baked potatoes. ” We had soup for dinner, and these potatoes are fine!”

Pierre had not eaten all day, and the odour of the potatoes seemed delicious to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.

« Well, how are they ? ” the soldier said, smiling, and taking a potato. “Do it like this!” He drew out his clasp-knife, cut the potato in his hand in two equal parts, sprinkled some salt on it from a small rag, and handed it to Pierre.

« The potatoes are fine,” he repeated. ” Eat them like this ! ”

It seemed to Pierre that he had never eaten anything so savoury.

” I am all right,” said Pierre, ” but why did they shoot those unfortunates ? The last was about twenty years old.”

” Hush, hush,” said the little man. ” It is sinful to mention — ” he swiftly added and, as though his words were always at his tongue’s end and escaped by accident, he continued : ” Sir, how is it you have remained in Moscow ? “

” I did not think they would be here so soon. I was left by accident,” said Pierre.

” How did they take you, friend ? Out of your house ? ”

“ No, I went to a fire, and there they arrested me and tried me as an incendiary.”

” Where there is a court, there is injustice,” interposed the little man.

” How long have you been here ?” asked Pierre, munching at his last potato.

“I ? Last Sunday they took me out of the hospital in Moscow.”

” Who are you, a soldier ? “

” A soldier of the Apsheron regiment. I was almost dead with a fever. We were not told anything. There were about twenty of us in the hospital. We had no suspicion of it.”

“Well, you feel lonesome here ?” asked Pierre.

” Of course I am, my friend. My name is Platdn, of the family of Karataevs,” he added, evidently in order to make it easier for Pierre to address him. ” They called me ‘ Little Falcon ‘ in the army. How can I help being lonesome, my friend ? Moscow is the mother of cities ! How can one help feeling lonesome looking at what is going on ! The worm gnaws at the cabbage, and himself perishes first, as the old men used to say,” he quickly added.

“ How, how did you say it ? ” asked Pierre.

“ I ? ” asked Karataev. “ I speak not my mind, but God’s judgment,” he said, thinking that he was repeating what he had said. He immediately continued: “Well, sir, have you any estates ? And a house ? And I suppose a full bowl ! A housewife ? And are your old parents alive ? ” he asked. Though Pierre did not see in the darkness, he felt that the soldier’s lips were curling with a reserved smile of kindness, as he asked these questions. Apparently he was grieved to hear that Pierre had no parents, especially no mother.

“ A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for reception, but there is no one sweeter than a mother ! ” he said. ” Well, and have you any children ? ” he continued to ask. Pierre’s negative answer apparently grieved him, and so he hastened to add : “ Well, you are still young, and God will grant you some. If you only live in peace — ”

“ What difference does it now make ? ” Pierre said, involuntarily.

” Oh, my dear man,” retorted Platon, “ never refuse the wallet or jail.” He seated himself more comfortably, cleared his throat, evidently preparing himself for a long

story. ” Yes, my friend, I was still living at home,” he began. ” We have a rieh estate, plenty of land, and the peasants live well, and our house, thanks to God, is prosperous. My father used to go out with six others to reap. We lived well. We were true Christians. It happened — ” and Platdn Karatdev told a long story of how he once went to somebody’s forest to take some wood, and of how he was caught, flogged, tried, and sent to the army. “ Well, my little falcon,” he said, in a voice which was changed through his smile, ” we thought it a misfortune, but it turned out a joy ! My brother would have had to go if it had not been for my sin. But my younger brother himself had five children, while I left only a wife behind. There was a girl, but God took her away before my going into the army. I went back on a leave of absence, and behold, they were living better than before. The barn-yard was full of cattle ; the women at home ; two brothers out earning money. Only Mikhdylo, the younger, was at home. Says my father : ‘ All my children are the same to me ; it hurts no matter what finger is bitten ; and if Platdn had not been shaven a soldier, Mikhaylo would have had to go.’ He called us all up, — would you believe it, — and placed us before the images. ‘ Mikhäylo,’ says he, ‘ come here and bow before him, and you, woman, and you, grandchildren, bow to him ! Do you understand ? ’ says he. — Yes, my friend ! Fate looks for her heads, and there we go on saying: This is bad, and this wrong. Our happiness, my friend, is like water in a drag-net : you pull at it and it swells, you drag it out, and there is nothing in it. Yes, sir.” And Platon changed his position on the straw.

After a moment’s silence, Platdn got up.

” Well, I suppose you want to sleep,” he said. He began at once to cross himself, saying all the time : ” Lord Jesus Christ, St. Nicholas ! Frola and Lavra, Lord Jesus Christ, St. Nicholas ! Frola and Lavra, Lord Jesus Christ — have pity on us and save us ! ” he concluded. Then he bowed to the ground, got up, sighed, and sat down on his straw. “ Yes, sir. 0 God, let me lie down as a little stone, and raise me as a white loaf ! ” he muttered, lying down and pulling the overcoat over him.

” What kind of a prayer did you say there ? ” asked Pierre.

” What ? ” said Platon (he was almost asleep). “ Prayer ? I prayed to God. Don’t you pray ? ”

” Yes, I do,” said Pierre. ” But what did you mean by Frola and Lavra ? ”

” Oh ! ” Platdn answered, hurriedly, ” it is the holiday of the horses. One has to pity the cattle, too,” said Karataev. ” I declare, the rogue is there, all rolled up ! Are you warm, daughter of a bitch ? ” he said, feeling the dog at his feet, and, turning around, immediately fell asleep.

Outside could be heard weeping and cries, and through the chinks of the booth fire was seen ; but within it was quiet and dark. Pierre could not sleep for a long time, and with open eyes lay in the darkness, listening to the even snoring of Platdn, who was lying near him, and he felt that the crushed world was stirring in his soul with a new beauty, on a new, imperturbable foundation.

XIII.

In the booth which Pierre occupied, and where he passed four weeks, there were twenty-three captive soldiers, three officers, and two officials.

Later on they all appeared to Pierre as in a mist, but Platon Karataev for ever remained in his soul as a strong, precious memory and the personification of everything Russian, good, and rounded. When on the following day, at break of day, Pierre saw his neighbour, the first impression of something round was verified completely: all of Platan’s figure, in his French mantle girded by a rope, in a cap and bast shoes, was round. His head was absolutely round ; his back, breast, shoulders, even his arms, which he carried as though all the time ready to embrace something, were rounded; his pleasing smile and large, blue, tender eyes were round.

Platon Karatdev must have been more than fifty, to judge from his stories of campaigns in which he had taken part as an old soldier. He did not know himself, nor could he in any way make out, how old he was ; but his dazzling white and sound teeth, which could be seen in two semicircles whenever he laughed (which he did often), were in good condition and uninjured ; there was not a gray hair in his beard and hair, and his whole body had the aspect of flexibility and especially of firmness and endurance.

His face, in spite of its small, round wrinkles, had an expression of innocence and youth ; his chanting voice was agreeable. But the chief peculiarity lay in his speech, which was direct and apposite. He evidently never thought of what he said or was about to say ; and so the rapidity and precision of his intonations were persuasive and incontrovertible.

His physical strength and agility during the first of his imprisonment were of such a character that he did not seem to know what fatigue and disease were. Every morning, upon rising, and when he lay down, he repeated the words, ” Let me, 0 Lord, lie down as a little stone and raise me as a white loaf!” In the morning, after rising, he always shrugged his shoulders and said, ” I lay down and rolled up, I rose and shook myself.” Indeed, he had only to lie down in order to fall at once asleep as a stone, and he had only to shake himself in order to go about his work without a minute’s loss, just as children take to playing the moment they get up. He could do everything, not very deftly, but not badly either. He baked, cooked, sewed, planed, cobbled boots. He was always busy and only at night took the liberty of indulging in conversations, of which he was fond, and in singing. He sang not as the singers sing, who know that they are being listened to, but as the birds, apparently because these sounds were as much a necessity to him as the need of stretching himself or taking a walk ; these sounds were always thin, tender, almost feminine and melancholy, and his face was very serious at such times.

When he was made a prisoner and allowed his beard to grow up, he apparently threw off that which was foreign to his nature, his military ways, and returned to his former, peasant manner of life.

” A soldier at leave wears his shirt outside his trousers,” he used to say. He spoke reluctantly of his soldier life, though he did not complain, and more than once repeated that he had never once been flogged during his whole service. When he told anything about himself, these stories obviously were drawn from his old and precious recollections of his ” Christian ” life, as he called his peasant existence. The proverbs, which filled his speech, were not the indecent, bold saws soldiers generally employ, but those popular maxims, which seem so insignificant when taken separately, but which, appropriately applied, suddenly assume the meaning of profound wisdom.

Frequently he said the very opposite of what he had said before, but both utterances were correct. He was fond of talking and talked well, adorning his speech with words of endearment and proverbs, which, so Pierre thought, he himself invented ; but the chief charm of his stories consisted in this, that in his speech the simplest events, frequently the same that Pierre saw without taking note of them, assumed a character of solemn purport. He was fond of listening to fairy-tales, which, without variation, one of the soldiers kept repeating, but more often he liked to hear stories from actual life. He smiled joyously as he listened to these, interposing a word here and there, and putting questions, the purpose of which was to elucidate to himself the propriety of what he was being told. Attachments, friendships, love, as Pierre understood these terms, Karataev had none ; but he loved and lived in peace with everything with which life brought him in contact, especially with man, — not with any particular man, but with all people who were before his eyes. He loved his shepherd dog, his companions, the Frenchmen, and Pierre, who was his neighbour ; but Pierre felt that Karatdev, in spite of all his kindliness toward him (by which he gave the proper acknowledgment to Pierre’s spiritual life), would not for a moment be grieved at parting from him. And Pierre began to experience the same feeling toward Karatdev.

Platdn Karatdev was to all the other prisoners a very common soldier ; he was called ” Little Falcon ” or ” Pla-tdsha ; ” they good-naturedly made fun of him, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he remained the same that he had presented himself during the first evening, — an inapproachable, round, and eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.

Platon knew nothing by heart but his prayer. When he began his speeches, he did not seem to know how he was going to finish them.

When Pierre, now and then puzzled by the meaning of his words, asked him to repeat them, Platdn could not recall what he had said a minute ago, just as he never was able to render his favourite song to Pierre in spoken words. In the song occurred the words ” my beloved,” ” the sweet little birch,” and ” I pine so much,” but when spoken and not sung these words seemed to him to have no meaning. He did not understand, and could not understand, the significance of words taken separately, out of the connected speech. Each word and each action of his was to him the manifestation of an unknown activity, which was his life. But his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate existence. It had a meaning only as a particle of the whole, of which he was constantly aware. His words and actions flowed from him as evenly, as peremptorily, and as directly as the odour emanates from the flower. He could understand neither the value nor the significance of an action or word taken separately.

XIV.

Having received the information from Nikoldy that her brother was with the Rostdvs at Yaroslav, Princess Marya, in spite of the dissuasion of her aunt, immediately got ready to depart, and to take her nephew along. She did not ask, nor did she wish to know, whether this was difficult or easy, possible or impossible ; this was her duty, not only to be herself near her brother who, possibly, was dying, but to do all in her power to have his son with her, and so she made her preparations for the departure. If Prince Andréy did not personally give her any news of himself, she explained it on the ground that he was too weak to write, or because he regarded the long journey as too laborious and too dangerous for her and for his son.

In a few days Princess Mdrya was ready to depart. Her carriages consisted of a coach, in which she had arrived in Voronezh, a calash, and a cart. With her travelled Mlle. Bourienne, her nephew with his tutor, an old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, a young lackey, and a Haiduk, whom her aunt gave her to take along.

It was impossible to journey directly toward Moscow, and the roundabout way which Princess Mdrya was compelled to take through Lipetsk, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long, on account of the impossibility of providing stage-horses at all stations, very difficult, and, in the neighbourhood where Frenchmen showed up now and then, very perilous.

During this difficult journey, Mlle. Bourienne, Desalles, and the servants of Princess Märya were surprised at her firmness and activity. She lay down later than the rest, and was the first to get up, and no difficulties could stop her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which urged on her travelling companions, she reached Yaroslav by the end of the second week.

During the last of her stay at Voronezh, Princess Marya had experienced the happiest time of her life. Her love for Rostdv no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled all her soul, became an indivisible part of her life, and she no longer fought against it. Of late she had convinced herself, — though she never clearly said so to herself in so many words, — that she was loved and that she loved. Of this she had become convinced during her last meeting with Nikoläy, when he came to inform her that her brother was with the Rostovs. Nikoldy had not given the least hint that now (in case of the convalescence of Prince Andréy) his former relations with Natasha might be renewed, but she saw by his face that he knew it, and that he thought so. And yet, his relations with her — cautious, gentle, tender — were not only not changed, but he seemed even to be glad that the possible marriage relationship permitted him to express his friendship for her more freely, as she thought. She knew that she loved for the first and the last time in her life, and she felt that she was loved, and was happy and calm in this respect.

This happiness of one of her spiritual sides not only did not interfere with her feeling the full force of her sorrow for her brother, but, on the contrary, tins spiritual calm in one direction made it possible for her to abandon herself fully to her feeling for her brother. This sentiment had been so strong in the first moments of her departure from Voronezh, that those who saw her off were convinced, as they looked at her exhausted, despairing face, that she would certainly fall ill on her journey; but the very difficulties and cares of the journey, which Princess Märya attended to with such vim, for the time being took her attention away from her grief and saved her strength.

As always happens during a journey, Princess Mdrya thought only of the travel, oblivious of what was its end. But, as she approached Yaroslav, and there began to rise before her imagination what awaited her, not in a few days, but that very evening, Princess Mdrya’s agitation reached its highest points.

When the Haiduk, who had been sent in advance to Yaroslav to find out where the Rostdvs were located and in what condition Prince Andréy was, met the coach at the barrier, he was terrified as he saw the princess’s frightfully pale face leaning out of the carriage window.

” I have found out everything, your Serenity ! The Bostovs are in the square, in the house of Merchant Bronnikov. It is not far, — on the Vdlga itself,” said the Haiduk.

Princess Marya cast a frightened and inquisitive glance at his face, wondering why he did not answer the chief question how her brother was. Mlle. Bourienne put that question for the princess.

” How is the prince ? ” she asked.

” His Serenity is in the same house with them.”

” Consequently he is alive,” thought the princess. She asked softly, ” How is he ? ”

“ The people say that he is in the same condition all the time.”

What was meant by ” in the same condition ” the princess did not ask, and, casting only a casual glance at sevenyear-old NikolKy, who was sitting in front of her and enjoying the sight of the city, she lowered her head and did not raise it again until the heavy coach, rumbling, jolting, and swaying, stopped somewhere. The steps of the carriage clanged as they were thrown down. The door was opened. On the left was water, — a broad river ; on the right was a porch ; on the porch stood people, — servants, and a ruddy girl with a black braid, who, as Princess Märya thought, smiled a feigned, disagreeable smile (it was Sdnya). The princess ran up the stairs ; the girl with the feigned smile said, ” This way, this way ! ” and the princess found herself in the antechamber in front of an old woman of an Eastern type, who was walking up to her with a disturbed expression on her face. This was the countess. She embraced Princess Märya and began to kiss her.

” Mon enfant,” she said, “je vous aime et vous connais depuis longtemps.”

In spite of all her agitation, Princess Marya understood that it was the countess, and that something ought to be said to her. Without knowing how, she muttered some civil words in French, in the same tone as those which the countess used to her, and then she asked how he was.

“The doctor says that there is no danger,” said the countess ; but, as she was saying this, she raised her eyes, and in this expression there was a contradiction to her words.

” Where is he ? May I see him, may I ? ” asked the princess.

” Immediately, princess, immediately, my friend. Is this his son?” she said, turning to little NikoMy, who was coming in with Desalles. “We shall all find room, — the house is large. Oh, what a charming boy ! “

The countess took the princess upstairs. Sdnya was talking with Mlle. Bourienne. The countess petted the boy. The old count entered the room, to greet the princess. He had changed very much since the princess had seen him the last time. Then he had been a brisk, merry, selfconfident old man ; now he looked a miserable man, all broken up. As he spoke to the princess, he kept looking around, as though to ask everybody whether he was doing right. After the destruction of Moscow and of his estate, he was put out of his beaten track, lost the consciousness of his dignity, and felt that he no longer had a place in life.

In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and of her annoyance at being entertained and hearing her nephew praised, while she had but the one desire of seeing him, the princess noticed everything which was taking place all about her, and felt the necessity of submitting for a time to this new order which she was now entering. She knew that it was all necessary, and though it was hard for her, she was not annoyed at them.

” This is my niece,” said the count, introducing Sonya. ” You do not know her, princess ? “

The princess turned to her and kissed her, trying to crush in her soul the incipient hostile feeling toward this girl. Still, it weighed upon her to see the mood of all those who surrounded her so different from what was in her soul.

“ Where is he ? ” she asked once more, turning to all.

” He is downstairs. Natasha is with him,” Sdnya replied, blushing. ” Somebody has gone down to see how he is. Are you not tired, princess ? ”

Tears of annoyance stood in the eyes of the princess. She turned away and wanted again to ask the countess which way she could go down to see him, when at the door were heard light, impulsive, almost merry footsteps. The princess looked around and saw Natdsha, who almost ran in, — that Natâsha who, at the former meeting in Moscow, had so displeased her.

The princess had barely had time to look into the face of this Natasha, when she understood that she was her sincere companion in misfortune, and therefore her friend. She rushed up to her and, embracing her, wept on her shoulder.

The moment NatKsha, who had been sitting at Prince Andréy’s bedside, learned about the arrival of Princess Marya, she softly left his room with those rapid footsteps, which to Marya had appeared indicative of joy, and ran up to her.

On her agitated countenance there was but one expression as she ran into the room, — an expression of love, of illimitable love for him, for her, for everything that was near to the man she loved, an expression of pity and suffering for others, and of an impassioned desire to devote herself entirely to the succour of these people. It was evident that at that moment there was not a thought of herself, of her relations to him, in Natasha’s soul.

Sensitive Princess Marya comprehended all this from her first look at Natasha’s face, and so she wept on her shoulder with the enjoyment of grief.

” Let us go, let us go to him, Marie,” said Natasha, leading her into another room.

Princess Marya raised her face, dried her tears, and turned to Natasha. She felt that from her she would find out everything.

” How —” she began her question, but suddenly stopped. She felt that questions could neither be put nor answered with words. Natasha’s face and eyes were to tell everything more clearly and more profoundly.

Natdsha looked at her, but, it seemed, was in dread and doubt whether she had better tell her all she knew, or not; she seemed to feel that before those beaming eyes which penetrated the very depth of her heart it was not possible to tell all the truth, as she saw it. Natasha’s lip suddenly quivered ; ugly wrinkles formed around her mouth, and she sobbed out loud and covered her face with her hands.

Princess Mdrya understood everything.

But she still hoped and asked in words, in which she had no faith :

” How is his wound ? In what condition is he in general ? ”

“You — you — will see him,” was all Natàsha was able to say.

They sat for awhile downstairs near his room, in order to stop weeping first and enter his room with composed faces. ” How has the whole illness proceeded ? When did he feel worst ? When did it happen ? ” asked Princess Marya.

Natdsha told her that at first there was danger from Iiis feverish condition and from the suffering, but that at Troitsa it passed, and the doctor now was afraid only of gangrene setting in. But even this danger was passing. When they arrived at Yarosldv the wound began to fester (Natasha knew everything in regard to suppuration, etc.), and the doctor said that the suppuration might pass favourably. Then he fell into a fever. The doctor said that the fever was not so dangerous. ” But two days ago,” began Natasha, “ this suddenly happened — ” She kept back her sobs. ” I do not know why, but you will see for yourself how he looks.”

« Is he very feeble ? Is he thin ? ” asked the princess.

” Not that, but something worse. You will see. Oh, Marie, he is too good, he cannot, cannot live because — ”

XV.

When Natasha opened the door with a characteristic movement, in order to let the princess pass first, Princess Marya already felt the sobs ready to issue from her throat. No matter how much she had prepared herself and now tried to calm herself, she knew that it was not in her power to see him without tears.

Princess Märya understood what she meant by the words, ” It happened to him two days ago.” She comprehended that it meant that he suddenly became of a softer mood, and that this softness and tenderness were signs of the approaching death. As she walked over to the door, she saw in her imagination Andréy’s face as she had known it in his childhood, that tender, meek, gentle face, which he so seldom showed, and which therefore always affected her so strongly. She knew that he would speak soft, gentle words to her, such as her father had spoken to her before his death, and that she would not be able to bear them and would burst out into sobs. But, sooner or later, it had to be, and she entered the room. The sobs rose higher and higher in her throat as she with her nearsighted eyes more and more clearly discerned his form and sought for his features. Then she saw his face, and their glances met.

He was lying on a divan, bedded on pillows, wearing a squirrel-fur morninggown. He was thin and pale. One lean, translucently white hand held a handkerchief, while with his other he, softly moving his fingers, touched the scanty stubbles of his unshaven moustache. His eyes were directed toward the entering women.

Upon seeing his face and meeting his glance, Princess Mérya suddenly tempered the rapidity of her walk and felt that her tears were suddenly dried up and her sobs stopped. As she caught the expression of his face and glance, she suddenly became timid and felt guilty.

” What is my guilt ? ” she asked herself. ” Because you live, and think of the living, while I — ” his cold, stern look said to her.

In the deep glance, which looked not outwardly but inwardly, there was almost hostility, as he slowly surveyed his sister and Natdsha.

He and his sister kissed each other’s hands, as was their custom.

” Good morning, Marie, how did you get here ? ” he said, in a voice which was as even and strange as his glance. If he had screamed a desperate scream, the cry would not have surprised Princess Marya more than the sound of this voice. ” Have you brought Nikoldy, too ? ” he said, just as evenly and slowly, and with an apparent effort of recollection.

” How is your health now ? ” said Princess Mdrya, herself wondering at what she was saying.

” That, my dear, you must ask the doctor,” he replied, and, evidently making another effort to be kind, he said with his mouth only (obviously he was not thinking of what he spoke) :

” Merci, chère amie, d’etre venue.”

Princess Mdrya pressed his hand. He barely frowned at the pressure. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She understood what it was that had happened to him two days before. In his words and tone, especially in his glance, — that cold, almost hostile glance, — was felt that estrangement from everything worldly which is so terrible to a living man. He evidently comprehended matters of life with difficulty ; at the same time one felt that he did not comprehend these things, not because he was deprived of the power of understanding, but because he understood something different, sometliing which the living did not and could not understand, and which absorbed all his attention.

” Yes, fate has brought us strangely together ! ” he said, interrupting the silence, and pointing to Natasha. ” She has been tending on me all the time.”

Princess Mdrya listened, but did not comprehend what he was saying. He, sensitive, gentle Prince Andréy, how could he say that in the presence of her he had loved and who had loved him ? If he thought of the possibility of living, he would not say this in such a cold and offensive tone. If he did not know that he was going to die, how could he help pitying her ? How could he say it in her presence ? There could be but one explanation to it : it was, that it made no difference to him, and it made no difference because something else, something more important, was revealed to him.

The conversation was cold and incoherent, and was interrupted every minute.

” Marie travelled through Byazan,” said Natasha. Prince Andréy did not notice that she called Ins sister Marie. And it was only in using tins word before him that Natasha herself became aware of using it.

” Well ? ” he asked.

” She was told that all of Moscow was burned completely, that — “

Natasha stopped : it was impossible to continue. He was evidently making an effort to listen, but could not.

” Yes, they say it burned,” he said. ” It is a pity,” and he began to gaze in front of him, absently stroking Ins moustache.

” Marie, so you met Count Nikolay ? ” Prince Andréy suddenly said, evidently wishing to say something pleasant. “ He wrote that he took a great liking to you,” he continued, Simply and calmly, evidently unable to comprehend

the complex meaning his words had for living beings. “ It would be very well if you, too, took a liking to him — if you married,” he added a little more rapidly, as though rejoiced at the words which he had been looking for for some time and had finally found.

Princess Marya heard his words, but they had no other meaning for her except to prove how far he now was from everything living.

” What is the use of talking about me ? ” she said, calmly, casting a glance at Natäsha.

Conscious of this look, Natasha did not glance at her. Again all were silent.

“ André, you want — ” Princess Marya suddenly said, with a trembling voice, “ you want to see your son ? He has been talking about you all the time.”

Prince Andréy now for the first time gave a scarcely perceptible smile, but Princess Marya, who knew his face so well, saw in terror that it was not a smile of joy, nor of tenderness for his son, but of soft, meek derision at Princess Märya’s final attempt, as she thought, at bringing him back to his senses.

” Yes, I shall be glad to see him. Is he well ? “

When Nikoläy was brought to Prince Andréy, and, frightened, looked at his father and did not weep, because no one else wept, Prince Andréy kissed him and was obviously at a loss what to say to him.

When the boy was taken away again, Princess Märya once more walked over to her brother and, unable to restrain herself any longer, burst out into tears.

He looked fixedly at her.

” Are you weeping on account of my son ? ” he asked.

Princess Märya, weeping, gave an affirmative nod with her head.

“ Marie, you know the Cos— ” but he suddenly grew silent.

” What are you saying ? “

” Nothing. You must not weep here,” he said, looking at her with the same cold glance.

When Princess Märya began to weep, he understood that she was weeping because his son would be left without a father. Making a great effort over himself, he tried to return to life, and he transferred himself to their point of view.

” Yes, it must seem pitiful to them ! ” he thought. ” But how simple it all is ! “

“The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, but your heavenly Father f cede th them,” he said to himself, and wanted to say the same to Princess Märya, ” but no, they will understand it in their own way, — they will not understand it ! They cannot understand that all the feelings which they value so much, — all, all our thoughts, — which seem so important to us, are not necessary. We cannot understand each other ! ” and he kept silence.

Prince Andréy’s little son was seven years old. He could hardly read, and he knew nothing. After that day he acquired much knowledge, observation, and experience ; but, if he had even then possessed all those qualities which he later acquired, he could not have understood the whole significance of the scene, which he had observed between his father, Princess Märya, and Natäsha, better or more profoundly than he understood it then. He understood everything and, without weeping, left the room, silently walked over to Natäsha, who followed him out, and timidly looked at her with his pensive and beautiful eyes. His raised ruby upper lip quivered, and he leaned his head down to her and burst out weeping.

From that day on he avoided Desalles and the countess, who caressed him, and either sat alone, or timidly went up to Princess Märya or to Natäsha, to whom, it seemed,

he took a greater liking than to his aunt, and softly and timidly made up to them.

Upon leaving Prince Andréy, Princess Mdrya fully comprehended what Natasha’s face was telling her. She no longer said anything to Natäsha about the hope of saving his life. She took turns with her at his divan, and did not weep, but constantly prayed and turned her soul to that Eternal and Incomprehensible One, whose presence was so manifest over the dying man.

XVI.

Prince Andréy not only knew that he was going to die, but he also felt that he was dying, that he was halfdead already. He experienced the consciousness of an estrangement from everything worldly and of a joyous and strange facility of existence. Without hurrying or becoming agitated, he waited for what was in store for him. That threatening, eternal, unknown, and remote something, the presence of which he had always felt during his whole life, now was near to him, and, — on account of that strange facility of existence which he experienced, — was almost comprehensible and palpable to him.

Formerly he had been afraid of the end. He had twice experienced that terrible and tormenting feeling of the terror of death, the end, but now he did not understand it.

The first time he had experienced that sensation when the grenade whirled in front of him like a top, and he looked at the field, the bushes, and the sky, and knew that death was before him. “When he awoke after having received the wound, and when in his soul, as though freed from the trammelling fetters of life, there immediately budded the flower of an eternal, free love, which was independent of this life, he no longer was afraid of death, and did not think of it.

The more he, in those lonesome hours of his suffering and half-delirium, which he passed after being wounded,

reflected on the new, freshly revealed principle of eternal love, the more he, without knowing it, renounced all earthly existence. To love everything and everybody, always to sacrifice himself for love, meant to him never to love and not to live this earthly life. The more he brooded on this principle of love, the more he renounced life, and the more completely he destroyed that terrible barrier which stands without love between life and death. When he, during tins early time, thought of his imminent death, he said to himself : ” Well, what of it ? So much the better.”

But after that night at Mytishchi, when in his semidelirium appeared the one he had wanted so much, and he, pressing her hand to his lips, wept quiet tears of joy, the love for that woman imperceptibly stole into his heart and called him back to life, and he was assailed by joyful and agitating thoughts. As he recalled that minute at the ambulance where he had seen Kurdgin, be no longer could return to that feeling: he was tormented by the question whether he was alive or not; but he did not dare to ask it.

His illness went on in its physical order, but that which Nat ds ha had called ” this happened to him” had taken place two days before the arrival of Princess Mdrya. It was that last, moral struggle between life and death, in winch death had carried away the victory. It was the unexpected consciousness of his still clinging to life, which presented itself in his love for Natdsha, and the last vanquished attack of terror before the unknown.

It was in the evening. As always after noon, he was in a slightly feverish state, and his ideas were quite clear. Sdnya was sitting at the table. He was dozing. Suddenly he was seized by a sensation of happiness.

” Ah, she has come in ! ” he thought.

Indeed, in Sdnya’s place sat Natdsha, who had just come in with inaudible steps.

Ever since she had begun to tend on him, he had experienced that physical sensation of nearness. She was sitting on a chair, sidewise toward him, screening from him the candle-light, and knitting a stocking. (She had learned to knit since she had heard Prince Andrdy say that no one could so well tend on the sick as old nurses who knitted stockings, and that there was something soothing in the knitting of a stocking.) Her thin fingers swiftly moved the knitting-needles, which now and then struck against each other, and he could clearly see the pensive profile of her drooping face. She made a motion, — the ball had rolled down on the floor. She shuddered, looked at him, and, shielding the candle with her hand, bent with a cautious, flexible, and precise motion, picked up the ball, and sat back in her old position.

He looked at her without stirring, and he saw that after her motion she ought to draw a deep breath, but she did not dare to do so and only gasped cautiously. In the Trditsa monastery they had spoken of their past, and he had told her that, if he should remain alive, he would eternally thank God for bis wound, which had brought them together again; but since that time he had never again mentioned the future.

” Could it be, or not ? ” he now thought, looking at her and listening to the light steel sound of the needles. ” Is it possible fate has brought us so strangely together only that I should die ? Is it possible the truth of life has been revealed to me only that I may live in falsehood ? I love her more than anything in the world. But what am I to do, since I love her ? ” he said to himself, and he suddenly uttered a groan, — a habit he had acquired during his suffering.

When Natdsha heard this sound, she put down the stocking, bent closer down to him, and suddenly, when she noticed his luminous eyes, walked over to him with light footsteps and bent over him.

” Are you not asleep ? “

” Ko, I have been looking at you for a long time ; I felt your presence as soon as you entered. No one but you gives me that soft quiet — of the world to come. I feel so much like weeping for joy.”

Natasha moved up closer to him. Her face beamed with a transport of joy.

” Natasha, I love you too much. More than anything in the world.”

” And I ? ” She turned away for a moment. ” But why too much ? ” she asked.

“ Why too much ? Well, what do you think, how do you feel in truth, in full truth, — shall I live ? How does it seem to you ? ”

” I am sure ! I am sure ! ” Natasha almost shouted, taking both his hands with an impassioned motion.

He kept silence.

” How good it would be ! ” And he took her hand and kissed it.

Natasha was happy and agitated ; and she remembered at once that that ought not to be, — that he needed calm.

” But you have not slept,” she said, suppressing her joy. ” Try to fall asleep, please ! “

He let her hand go, giving it first a pressure, and she returned to the candle and seated herself in her former place. Twice she looked back at him, and his lustrous eyes met her glance. She set herself a task on the stocking, saying to herself that she would not look back until it was all finished.

And, indeed, soon after he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He slept but a short time, and suddenly woke in a cold perspiration and in agitation.

As he fell asleep he thought of what he had been thinking all that time, — of life and death. He felt himself nearer to it.

” Love ? What is love ? ” he thought.

Once more it is pressed from without. The last, preternatural effort is made in vain, and both halves of the door open noiselessly. It enters, and it is Death. And Prince Andréy is dead.

But at the same moment that he dies, he recalls that he is asleep, and at the same moment that he dies, he makes a last effort and awakens.

” Yes, it was Death. I am dead, — I am awake. Yes, death is awakening,” and his soul was suddenly illuminated, and the curtain which heretofore had hidden the unknown from him was raised before his mental vision. He felt, as it were, the liberation of a power that had held him fast, and that peculiar ease, which after that never left him again.

When, waking in his cold perspiration, he moved on his divan, Natasha walked over to him and asked him what the matter was with him. He made no reply and looked at her with a strange glance, without understanding what she was saying.

It was this that had happened to him two days before the arrival of Princess Mdrya. From that day on, the doctor said, the exhausting fever assumed a malignant character, but Natdsha was not interested in what the doctor said : she had seen those terrible, no longer doubtful, moral signs.

From that day on there began for Prince Andréy, together with the waking from sleep, the waking from life. And, in comparison with the duration of life, it did not seem to him to be slower than is the waking from a dream in comparison with the duration of a dream.

There was nothing terrible or sharply defined in this comparatively slow awakening.

His last days and hours passed in the usual and simple manner, and Princess Mdrya and Natdsha, who did not leave him, felt it. They did not weep, nor become convulsed with sobs, and, during his last day, they were conscious, not of tending on him (he existed no longer, — he had left them), but on the nearest reminder of him, on his body. The feelings of both of them were so strong that the external, terrible side of death did not affect them, and they did not find it necessary to spur their grief. They did not weep, either in his presence or when they were away from him, and they never spoke of him to one another. They felt that they could not express in words what they understood.

They both of them saw that he was sinking away from them deeper and deeper, slowly and calmly, to that unknown place, and they knew that it had to be, and that it was well.

He confessed, and received the communion, and all came to bid him farewell. When his son was brought to him, he put his lips to him and turned away, not because he was oppressed or felt pity (Princess Marya and Natdsha understood it), but because he supposed that this was all that was expected of him ; when he was told to bless him, he complied with the demand and looked around, as though asking whether there was something else for him to do.

Princess Marya and Natdsha were present when the last convulsions of the body took place, as the spirit was leaving it.

” Is it ended ? ” said Princess Mdrya, after his body had been lying for some minutes motionless and cold. Natdsha went up, looked at his lifeless eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them, and did not kiss them, but put her lips to that which was the nearest reminiscence of him.

” Whither has he gone ? Where is he now ? ”

When the body was dressed and washed, and lay in the coffin, all came up to him to bid him farewell, and all wept.

His little son wept from anguish and perplexity, which

tore his heart asunder. The countess and Sonya wept from pity for Natdsha, and because he was no more. The old count wept because he felt that soon he, too, would have to take that terrible step.

Natasha and Princess Marya also wept, but they did not weep from their personal grief ; they wept from that sensation of reverent awe which held possession of their souls before the consciousness of that simple and solemn mystery of death, which had taken place before them.

PART THE THIRTEENTH

I.

The totality of causes of phenomena is inaccessible to human understanding, but the necessity of finding causes is innate in the human soul. The human mind, without entering into the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, each separate one of which may appear as a cause, grasps at the first, most likely approximation and says, ” Here is a cause ! ” In historical events (in which the actions of men are the subject of observation) the most primitive approximation is found in the will of the gods, and later in the will of those men who occupy the most prominent historic place, — the heroes of history. But it is enough for any one to penetrate the essence of a historical event, that is, the activity of the whole mass of men who take part in the event, in order to become convinced that the will of the historical hero by no means guides the acts of the masses, but that he, on the contrary, is constantly guided by them. It would seem that it made no difference whether the significance of a historical event is supposed to be one thing rather than another. But between a man who says that the nations of the West went against the East because Napoleon wanted them to, and a man who says that that took place because it had to happen, there is the same difference that existed between people who asserted that the earth stood firm and the planets moved around it, and those

who said that they did not know what the earth held on to, but that they knew that there were laws which guided its motion and that of the other planets. There are no causes of a historical event, and there can be none, except the only cause of all causes. But there are laws which guide the events, and these are partly unknown, and partly guessed at. The discovery of these laws will be possible only when we absolutely refrain from trying to find the causes in the will of one man, just as the discovery of the motion of the planets became possible only when people abandoned the conception of the stability of the earth.

After the battle of Borodind, after the occupation of Moscow by the enemy, and after its burning, the most important episode of the war of 1812, in the opinion of the historians, is that of the movement of the Russian army from the Ryazan road to the Kaluga road and to the camp of Tarutino, — the so-called flank march beyond the Krasnaya Pakhrd. The historians ascribe the glory of this ingenious exploit to various persons, and are disputing to whom it actually belongs. Even the foreign historians, including the French, acknowledge the genius of the Russian generals, when they speak of this flank march. But it is very difficult to see why the military writers, and with them everybody else, assume that this flank march was a very clever invention of some person, and that it was this which saved Russia and caused the ruin of Napoleon. In the first place, it is very hard to comprehend wherein lies the genius and cleverness of this motion, for it did not take great mental acumen to guess that the best position for an army (when it is not attacked) is where there is plenty of provisions. And any stupid, thirteen-year-old boy might have guessed without difficulty that in 1812 the most advantageous position for the army, after its retreat from Moscow, was on the Kaluga road. So, in the first place, it is impossible to see by what ratiocinations the historians have come to see something profound in this manœuvre. In the second place, it is still more difficult to see in what way the historians find that this manœuvre led to the salvation of the Russians and to the destruction of the French, for this flank march, in connection with other preceding, accompanying, and subsequent circumstances, might have turned out to the ruin of the Russian and the salvation of the French army. If, from the time that this motion began, the position of the Russian army commenced to improve, it does not follow that this motion was the cause of it.

This flank march not only could bring no advantages, but might have ruined the Russian army, if there had not been a coincidence of other conditions. What would have happened if Moscow had not burned ? If Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained in inaction ? If the Russian army, taking the advice of Bénigsen and of Barclay, had given battle at Kräsnaya Pakhrä ? What would have happened if Napoleon had later, upon reaching Tarutino, attacked the Russians with only one-tenth of that energy which he had displayed at the attack of Smolénsk ? What would have happened if the French had marched against St. Petersburg ? Under any of these conditions the salutariness of the flank march might have passed into a calamity.

In the third place, the most incomprehensible thing is this, that men who study history purposely do not wish to see that the flank march cannot be ascribed to any one man ; that nobody ever foresaw it ; that the manœuvre, just like the retreat at Fili, never presented itself to the contemporaries in its entirety, but step after step, event after event, moment after moment, as it proceeded from an endless number of the most varied conditions, and only then presented itself in its entirety, when it was an accomplished fact.

At the council at Fili the predominant idea with the Russian authorities was the self-evident retreat along a straight line backward, that is, along the Nizhni-Ndvgorod road. The proof of this is found in the fact that the majority of votes at this council was given in the sense, and, above everything else, in the well-known conversation which the commanderin-chief had after the council with Lanskdy, who was in charge of the commissariat. Lanskdy reported to the commanderin-chief that the provisions for the army were collected mainly along the Okd, in the Governments of Tula and Kazän, and that, in case of a retreat toward Nizhni-Novgorod, the commissary stores would be separated from the army by the large river Okä, across which the transportation in the first part of -winter would be impossible. This was the first sign of the necessary deviation from the straight path in the direction of Nizhni-Novgorod, which before had seemed so natural. The army took a more southerly direction, along the Ryazan road, thus remaining nearer to the commissary stores. Later on the inaction of the French, who had lost sight of the Russian army, the cares of the defence of the Tula stud, and, above all, the advantages of keeping closer to the stores, caused the army to keep still more to the south, on the Tula road. Passing by a desperate movement beyond Fakhra on the Tula road, the military leaders of the Russian army thought of remaining near Poddisk, and the Tarutino position was not even thought of ; but an endless number of circumstances, and the reappearance of the French troops, which before that had entirely lost sight of the Russians, and the plans of a battle, and, above all, the abundance of provisions in Kaluga, compelled the army to deflect still more toward the south and to pass to the centre of the roads of provisions, from the Tula to the Kaluga road, to Tarutino. Just as it is impossible to reply to the question when Moscow was abandoned, so it is impossible to say when and by whom it was decided to go over to Tarutino. Only when the troops arrived at Tarutino on account of an endless number of differential forces, people began to assure themselves that it was precisely this that they had wished and foreseen long before.

II.

The famous flank march consisted in nothing but this : the Russian army, retreating in a straight line, in reverse order to the invasion, deflected from the straight direction, after the advance movement of the French had stopped, and, seeing no pursuit behind it, naturally leaned toward that direction where there was an abundance of supplies.

If we were to imagine, not ingenious leaders at the head of the Russian army, but only the army without leaders, this army would not have been able to do anything but take the road back to Moscow, describing a large arc in the direction of the country where the supplies were most abundant, and the land most fertile.

The shifting from the Nizhni-Novgorod to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was so natural that the very marauders of the Russian army ran in the same direction, and that the request came from St. Petersburg for Kutuzov to transfer his army in the same direction. In Tarutino Kutuzov received almost a reprimand from the emperor for having taken the army to the Ryazan road, and there was pointed out to him the very position opposite the Kaluga road, which he had already occupied when the emperor’s letter reached him.

The ball of the Russian army, which rolled off in the direction of the impact given it during the whole campaign, and at the battle of Borodino, assumed the position which was natural to it, when the force of the impact was destroyed and it received no new stroke.

Kutuzov’s deserts did not consist in some ingenious strategic manoeuvre, as they call it, but in that he was the only one to grasp the meaning of the event in its accomplishment. He was the only one who even then understood the inaction of the French army ; he alone continued to assert that the battle of Borodind was a victory ; he, who, it seemed, in his position as commanderin-chief, ought to have been provoked to advance, used all the forces at his command to keep the Russian army from useless battles.

The wounded beast at Borodind lay somewhere where the fleeing hunter had left him ; but the hunter did not know whether he was alive, whether he was strong, or whether he only pretended to be. Suddenly the groan of that beast was heard.

The groan of this wounded beast of the French army, which betrayed its ruin, was the despatch of Lauriston to Kutuzov’s camp to sue for peace.

Napoleon, with his conviction that not that was good which really was good, but that which seemed so to him, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, which made no sense.

“Monsieur le Prince Koutouzovhe wrote, “j’envoie près de vous un de mes aides de camp généraux pour vous entretenir de plusieurs objets intéressants. Je désire que Votre Altesse ajoute foi à ce qu’il lui dira, surtout lorsqu’il exprimera les sentiments d’estime et de particulière considération que j ai depuis longtemps pour sa personne. Cette lettre n’étant à autre fin, je prie Dieu, Monsieur le Prince Koutouzov, qu’il vous ait en Sa sainte et digne garde.

” Moscou, le 30 octobre, 1812.

“Signé: Napoléon.”

“Je serais maudit par la postérité si l’on me regardait comme le premier moteur d’un axeomodement quelconque. Tel est l’esprit actuel de ma nation,” replied Kutuzov, continuing to use all his strength to keep the army from advancing.

o

During the month of the pillaging of the French army in Moscow and of the calm waiting of the Russian army at Tarutino there took place a change in the relations of the forces of the two armies (both in spirit and numerical strength), as the result of which the preponderance turned out to be on the side of the Russians. Although the condition of the French army and its numerical strength were unknown to the Russians, the necessity of an advance movement became manifest in an endless number of signs, the moment the relations had changed. Such signs were : the despatch of Lauriston ; and the abundance of supplies at Tarutino ; and the news coming from every side about the inaction and disorder of the French ; and the filling up of our troops by new recruits ; and the good weather; and the prolonged rest of the Russian soldiers; and the impatience, which generally is rife in an army after such a rest, to do the work for which it is gathered ; and the curiosity as to what was going on in the French army, which had so long been lost sight of ; and * the boldness with which the Russian outposts slunk by the French who were stationed in the neighbourhood of Tarutino; and the news of the easy victories obtained over the French by the Russian peasants and partisans; and the envy created by this ; and the feeling of revenge, which lay at the bottom of every man so long as there were any Frenchmen left in Moscow ; and, above everything else, the indistinct suspicion in the soul of each soldier that the relations of the forces now were changed and were preeminently in our favour. The essential relation of the forces was changed, and an advance became a necessity. And immediately, just as surely as the chimes begin to strike and play when the hand has described a whole circle, the intensified motion, the buzz and play of the chimes, were reflected in the highest spheres, in conformity with the essential change of the forces.

III.

The Russian army was directed by Kutuzov and his staff, and by the emperor from St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, even before the news was received of the abandonment of Moscow, a detailed plan of the whole war was composed and sent to Kutuzov for his guidance. Although this plan was made on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands, it was approved by the staff and was to be executed. But Kutuzov wrote that the dispositions made at a distance were hard to carry out. And so, to solve the difficulties, new instructions and new men were sent, and these were to watch his actions and report them to the emperor.

Besides, the whole staff was now changed in the Russian army. The places of Bagration, who had been killed, and of Barclay, who left in a dudgeon, were taken by others. They discussed in all seriousness what would be best : to put A–- in the place of B–-, and B–- in the

place of D–—, or, on the contrary, D–— in the place

of A–-, and so forth, as though anything but A–-’s

and B–-’s pleasure could depend on what was done.

In the army of the staff, on account of the hostile relations between Kutuzov and his chief of the staff, Bénigsen, and on account of the presence of the emperor’s trusty persons, and of those changes, there was going on a complex game of parties : A–-was undermining B–-,

D–- was undermining S–-, and so forth, in all

possible permutations and combinations. With all this undermining, the object of the intrigues generally was that military affair, which all these men imagined they were directing ; but this military affair went on in spite of them, just as it had to go on, that is, never coinciding with what the men concocted, but flowing from the essential relation of the masses. All these intrigues, crossing and recrossing each other, represented in the highest spheres a true reflection of what had to happen.

” Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich,” the emperor wrote on the 2d of October, in a letter received by him only after the battle of Tarutino. “Since the 2d of September, Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports are of the 20th, and during all this time you have not only undertaken nothing against the enemy, and for the liberation of our ancient capital, but, according to your last reports, you have even been retreating. Serpukhov is already occupied by a detachment of the enemy, and Tula, with its famous stud, so necessary for the army, is in danger. From the reports of General Wintzingerode, I see that a corps of the enemy, ten thousand strong, is moving up on the St. Petersburg road. Another, numbering several thousand, is moving toward Dmitrov. A third has advanced on the Vladimir road. A fourth, of a considerable force, is stationed between Ruza and Mozhdysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the 25th. When it appears from all this information that the enemy has broken up his forces into strong detachments, when Napoleon is still in Moscow with his Guard, can it be possible that the forces of the enemy confronting you are so considerable that they do not allow you to act on the offensive ? On the contrary, it may be assumed with certainty that he is pursuing you with detachments, or, at best, with a corps which is much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It seems that you, making use of these circumstances, might advantageously attack the weaker enemy and destroy him, or, at the least, compel him to retreat, and retain in our hands a considerable part of the Governments now occupied by the enemy, and in this manner avert the danger from Tula and our other interior cities. You will be responsible if the enemy is enabled to detach a considerable corps against St. Petersburg for the purpose of threatening the capital, in which but a small number of troops could remain, since, acting with determination and energy, with the army entrusted to you, you possess all the means for averting this new misfortune. Remember that you still owe an answer to the offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have had experience of my readiness to reward you. This readiness will not weaken in me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal, firmness, and success which your intelligence, your military talents, and the bravery of the troops under your command entitle us to expect of you.”

But while this letter, which proved that the essential relation of the forces had had time to be reflected in St. Petersburg, was on its way, Kutuzov no longer could restrain the army under his command from offensive action, and a battle had already been given.

On October 2d Cossack Shapovdlov, scouring the woods, killed a hare with his gun and wounded another. Trying to find the wounded hare, Shapovdlov strayed far into the woods and stumbled on the left flank of Murat’s army, which was standing without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly told his companions that he almost was caught by the French. The ensign, who heard the story, told it to his commander.

The Cossack was called up ; the Cossack commanders wanted to make use of the opportunity for getting away the French horses, but one of the chiefs, who was acquainted with the highest ranks of the army, communicated the fact to a general of the staff. Of late the state of affairs in the staff of the army had been strained to the highest point. Ermolov, who had come several days before to see Bénigsen, implored the latter to use his

influence with the commanderin-chief to have an attack made.

” If I did not know you, I should think that you do not wish what you ask for. All I have to do is to give his Most Serene Highness advice, in order to have him do the very opposite,” replied Bénigsen.

The information brought by the Cossacks and confirmed by scouts proved the final maturity of the event. The strained spring was relaxed, the clock began to buzz, and the chimes started playing. In spite of his presumed power, his intelligence, experience, and knowledge of men, Kutuzov, taking into consideration the note from Bénigsen, who sent personal reports to the emperor, and the unanimous wish of all the generals, and the presumable desire of the emperor, and the information of the Cossacks, no longer was able to keep back the inevitable motion, and gave the order for what he considered useless and hurtful, — he blessed the accomplished fact.

IV.

Bénigsen’s note and the information furnished by the Cossacks about the unprotected left flank of the French army were only the last signs proving the necessity of giving the command to attack, and the attack was ordered for October 5th.

In the morning of the 4th Kutuzov signed the disposition. Toll read it to Ermdlov, proposing to him that he should make all the other arrangements.

” All right, all right ! I am busy now,” said Ermolov, as he left the room. The disposition, which had been composed by Toll, was a very good one. Just as with the disposition of the battle of Austerlitz, it said, though this one was not composed in German : ” Die erste Colonne marschirt to such and such a place, die zweite Colonne marschirt to such and such a place,” and so forth. And all these columns arrived on paper at the appointed time at the proper place and destroyed the enemy. Everything was beautifully provided for, as is the case with all dispositions, and, as happens with all dispositions, not one column arrived at its place in proper time.

When the disposition was prepared in the due number of copies, an officer was called up and sent to Ermdlov to hand him the papers for execution. The young officer of the chevalier guards, Kutuzov’s orderly, satisfied with the importance of the message entrusted to him, repaired to Ermdlov’s quarters.

” He is not here,” replied Ermdlov’s servant. The officer of the chevalier guards went to the general with whom Ermdlov frequently passed his time.

” Not here, and the general is out, too.”

The officer of the chevalier guards mounted his horse and went to another place.

” Not here, — he has left.”

« They will yet make me responsible for the delay ! How annoying ! ” thought the officer. He made the round of the whole camp. Some said that they had seen Ermdlov pass by with two generals ; others said that he was, no doubt, at home. The officer ate no dinner and continued his search until six in the evening. Ermdlov was not to be found, and no one knew where he was. The officer hurriedly took a bite with a comrade of his and rode on to the vanguard to see Miloràdovich. Miloràdovich was not at home, but he was told that Milorddovich was at a ball at General Kikin’s, and that, no doubt, Ermdlov was there, too.

” Where is that ? “

” Over there, in Échkino,” said an officer of Cossacks, pointing to a distant manor.

” There, beyond the cordon? “

” Two of our regiments have been sent out there to the cordon. There is a terrible carousal going on there. Two bands of music, three choirs of singers.”

The officer rode to Échkino, which was beyond the cordon. Even while a distance away from the house, he could hear the unisonous, merry sounds of a soldier dancing-song.

“ I-in the fields — i-in the fields !” he heard the words of the song, accompanied by a whistling sound and the theorbo, now and then drowned by a shout of voices. The officer felt merry at these sounds, but at the same time he felt as though he were guilty for not having communicated the important message for so long a time. It was nine o’clock. He dismounted and went on the veranda of the large manor, which had been left unharmed, and which was midway between the Russian and the French troops. In the buffet-room and the antechamber lackeys were busy with the wines and food. Beneath the windows stood the singers. The officer was taken into the room, and he suddenly saw all the most distinguished generals of the army, among them the tall, striking figure of Ermolov. The coats of all the generals were unbuttoned ; their animated faces were red, and they laughed loud, standing in a semicircle. In the middle of the parlour, a handsome, undersized general, with a red face, was briskly and nimbly dancing the national jig.

“ Ha, ha, ha ! Fine, Nikolay Ivdnovich ! Ha, ha, ha ! ” The officer felt that, by entering now with an important order, he was doubly guilty, and he wanted to wait ; but one of the generals saw him and, recognizing him, told Ermolov about him. Ermdlov, with frowning face, went up to the officer and, having received his report, took the paper, without saying a word to him.

“ You think his departure was accidental ?” a staff comrade said that evening about Ermdlov to the officer of the chevalier guards. ” This is all a trick. Just to plague Konovnitsyn. You will see a mess tomorrow!”

V.

Decrepit Kutuzov had himself wakened early the next morning. He prayed, dressed himself, and with the disagreeable consciousness of being compelled to guide a battle of which he did not approve, seated himself in his carriage and left Letashévka, which was about five versts back of Tarutino, for the place where the attacking columns were to be assembled. As Kutuzov drove along, he kept falling asleep and waking up, and listening to hear whether there was any fusilade on the right, where the action ought to have begun. But everything was still quiet. Day was just breaking on a damp, gloomy autumn morning. Upon approaching Tarutino, Kutuzov noticed some cavalrymen leading horses to water across the road on which his carriage was travelling. Kutuzov gazed at them, stopped the carriage, and asked them to what regiment they belonged. The cavalrymen belonged to the column which ought to have been long ago far ahead, at ambush. “Perhaps a mistake,” thought the old commanderin-chief. But, upon driving on, Kutuzov saw some regiments of infantry, their guns stacked, the soldiers in drawers at their mess, or carrying wood. An officer was called up. The officer reported that no order to advance had been given.

“Not gi—” began Kutuzov, but immediately grew silent and sent for the senior officer. Kutuzov climbed out of his carriage and, lowering his head, breathing heavily, and waiting in silence, kept walking to and fro. When Eichen, the officer of the general staff, who had been sent for, arrived, Kutuzov grew purple, not because this officer was the cause of the blunder, but because he was a worthy object on whom to vent Iris anger. And trembling and gasping, the old man flew into that state of rage so common to him, when he used to writhe on the ground with frenzy, and advanced toward Eichen, threatening him with his hands, shouting, and discharging a storm of abusive words. Another, Captain Brozin, who accidentally turned up, suffered the same fate, though he was not guilty of anything.

“ What canaille is this ? I shall have you shot ! Scoundrels ! ” he cried hoarsely, swaying his arms and tottering. He suffered physically. He, the commanderin-chief, his Most Serene Higlmess, who was assured by every one that no one in Russia had ever had so much power as he, was placed in this situation, — was ridiculed before the whole army. “ In vain have I been praying for the success of the day ! In vain have I passed a sleepless night in considering everything ! ” he thought of himself. “ When I was a mere boy of an officer, no one dared to make such fun of me— But now ! ” He suffered physical pain as though from a corporal punishment, and could not help giving vent to this pain in cries of rage; but soon his strength gave way, and, looking around and feeling that he had said much which was not good, he seated himself in his carriage and silently rode away.

His spent rage did not return again, and he weakly blinked with Iris eyes, as he listened to the justifications and the words of defence and the prayers of Bénigsen, Konovnftsyn, and Toll (Ermolov did not appear before him until the next day) that this unsuccessful attack be made on the following day. And Kutuzov was again obliged to give his assent.

VI.

On the following day the troops had assembled since evening in the appointed places and advanced in the night. It was an autumnal night with dark lilac clouds, but without rain. The earth was damp, but there was no mud, and the troops marched noiselessly ; one could hear only the clanging of the artillery. The soldiers were forbidden to speak aloud, smoke their pipes, strike fire ; the horses were kept from neighing. The mysteriousness of the undertaking enhanced its attractiveness. The men marched merrily. A few of the columns stopped, stacked their guns, and lay down on the cold ground, thinking that they had arrived at their destination ; others again (the majority) marched through the whole night and evidently took up wrong positions.

Count Orlév-Denîsov, with his Cossacks (the most insignificant of all the detachments), was the only one which struck the right place and arrived in time. This detachment stopped at the very edge of the forest, near a path leading from the village of Stromflova to Dmitrovskoe.

Count Orldv was wakened before daybreak. A deserter from the French army was brought in. It was a Polish underofficer of Poniatdwski’s corps. He explained in Polish that he had deserted because he had been slighted in the service, that he ought long ago to have been an officer, that he was braver than the rest, and had deserted them in order to punish them. He said that Murat was sleeping within a verst of them, and that if they would give him a convoy of one hundred men, he would take him alive. Count Orlév-Denîsov took counsel with his comrades. The proposition was too enticing to be rejected. All volunteered to go, and all advised making the trial. After many discussions and considerations, Major-General Grékov decided to follow the underofficer with two regiments of Cossacks.

” Remember,” Count Orlov-Denisov said to the underofficer as he dismissed him, “if you have lied, I shall have you hanged like a dog ; but if you have told the truth, you get one hundred ducats.”

The underofficer mounted with a determined look, without replying to these words, and rode off with Grékov, who got ready quickly. They disappeared in the woods. Count Orlov, shivering from the freshness of the chilly morning and agitated by what he had undertaken on his own responsibility, after seeing Grékov off, went out of the forest and began to look at the camp of the enemy, which glimmered in the light of the incipient morning and of the smouldering fires. Our columns were to appear on the right of Count Orlév-Denfsov, along an open slope. Count Orldv gazed in that direction ; but, although they should have been visible in the distance, they were not to be seen. In the French camp, as it seemed to Count Orlov-Denisov, and especially from what his sharp-eyed adjutant told him, they were beginning to stir.

” Oh, really, they are too late,” said Count Orlév, as he glanced at the camp. Suddenly, as frequently happens when the man in whom we have trusted is no longer before us, it became quite clear to him that the underofficer was a cheat, that he had lied and would only spoil the whole business of the attack by the absence of the two regiments which he would lead God knew where. How could it be possible to capture the commanderin-chief out of such a mass of troops ?

“ Really, he is lying, that rascal ! ” said the count.

“ We can make him come back,” said one of the officers of the suite, feeliug, like Count Orlôv-Denisov, a distrust of the undertaking, as he looked at the camp.

“ Really, what do you think ? Shall I leave them, or not ? “

” Do you order them to be turned back ? “

« Turn them back, turn them back ‘ ” Count Orlôv suddenly said, with determination, as he looked at his watch. ” It will be late. It is quite light already.”

The adjutant galloped into the woods after Grékov. When Grékov returned, Count Orlôv-Denîsov, agitated by this change of plan, and by his vain waiting for the columns of infantry, winch had not yet made their appearance, and by the proximity of the enemy (all the men of his detachment felt the same), decided to attack. He commanded in a whisper, ” To horse ! ” They took up their proper positions ; they crossed themselves — “ God be with you ! ”

” Hurrah ! ” they shouted in the forest, and one company after another, as though pouring out of a sack, the Cossacks Hew merrily across the brook to the camp, charging with their lances.

One desperate, frightened cry from the first Frenchman who saw the Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and half asleep, threw away the cannon, the guns, and the horses, and ran in all directions.

If the Cossacks had pursued the French, without paying any attention to what was behind them and all around them, they would have taken Murat and everything else. This was precisely what the chiefs wanted. But it was impossible to make the Cossacks budge, when they got to the booty and to the prisoners. No one paid attention to the words of command. There were taken fifteen hundred prisoners, thirty-eight pieces of ordnance, Hags, and, what was most important to the Cossacks, horses, saddles, blankets, and all kinds of articles. All this had to be attended to, the prisoners manacled, the cannon hauled away, the booty divided ; and they had to shout and fight among themselves : all this the Cossacks did.

The French, no longer pursued, ■ came to their senses, gathered in commands, and began to shoot. Orlôv-Denî-sov was still waiting for the columns and did not dare to advance.

In the meantime, according to the disposition, ” die erste Colonne marschirt,” and so forth, the infantry troops of the belated columns, commanded by Bénigsen and guided by Toll, proceeded as was intended and, as always is the case, arrived somewhere, only not where they had to be. As always happens, the men, who had started in a cheerful mood, began to stop ; there were heard expressions of dissatisfaction and there was a consciousness of confusion, and they commenced to move backward. Adjutants and generals came galloping up, and they shouted, grew angry, quarrelled, said that the troops were going wrong and were late, cursed somebody, and so forth, and finally all gave everything up and continued to march, merely to be a-going. ” We shall get to some place ! ” And they did get there, only not where it was intended ; some of them did get to the right place, only they came too late, so that they were useless and stood there to be shot at. Toll, who in this battle played the rôle of Weyrother at Austerlitz, industriously galloped from place to place, only to find that everything was topsyturvy. Thus he came upon Bagovüt’s corps in the forest, when it was daylight and the corps ought long ago to have joined Orlôv-Denîsov. Agitated and aggrieved at the failure, and presuming that some one was to blame for it, Toll galloped up to the commander of the corps, whom he began to reprimand sternly, saying that he ought to be shot for it. Bagovut, an old, calm, fighting general, himself exhausted by the stops, the tangle, and the contradictions, to everybody’s surprise, quite contrary to his character, flew into a rage and said a lot of unpleasant things to Toll.

” I will take lessons from nobody, and I know how to die with my soldiers as well as anybody,” he said. He went ahead with one division.

Upon arriving in an open plain, under the fire of the French troops, agitated and brave Bagovut, without considering whether it was useful or useless for him to take part in the action, with one division went ahead and took his soldiers under fire. Danger, bullets, balls, was what he needed in his furious mood. One of the very first bullets killed him, while the following bullets killed a large number of his soldiers. His division stood for some time uselessly under fire.

VII.

In the meantime another column was to have attacked the French from the front, but with this column was Kutuzov. He knew full well that nothing but confusion could result from this battle, which was begun against his will, and so he held the troops back as much as he could. He did not move.

Kutuzov was riding in silence on his gray horse, answering indolently to the proposition that he should begin the attack.

« You have the attack at your tongue’s end, but you do not see that we do not know how to make complex manoeuvres,” he said to Miloràdovich, who was begging to advance.

” They did not know how to take Murat alive in the morning and to get to their destination in time ; but now there is nothing to do,” he told another.

When Kutuzov was informed that in the rear of the French, where, according to the reports of the Cossacks, there had been nobody before, there were now two battalions of Poles, he looked askance at Ermdlov (he had not exchanged a word with him since the day before).

” All beg us to make the attack, and all kinds of projects are offered, but the moment we want to proceed to business, we find that nothing is ready, and the enemy, advised in time, takes the proper measures.”

Ermolov blinked and smiled slightly, as he heard these words. He saw that the storm had passed for him, and that Kutuzov would stop with this hint.

” He is amusing himself at my expense,” Ermdlov said, softly, giving Raévski, who was standing near him, a hit with his knee.

Soon after, Ermdlov moved forward to Kutuzov and respectfully reported to him :

” The time has not been lost, your Serenity, and the enemy has not got away. Do you command me to attack ? Else the Guard will not see any smoke.”

Kutuzov said nothing, but when he was informed that Murat’s troops were retreating, he ordered an attack ; but at every hundred steps they stopped for three-quarters of an hour.

The whole battle consisted only in what Orldv-Dem-sov’s Cossacks had done ; the other troops had only lost several hundred men for nothing.

In consequence of this battle, Kutuzov received a diamond decoration ; Bénigsen received diamonds and one hundred thousand roubles in money; the others,too, were rewarded according to their ranks, and after this battle new changes were made in the staff.

” Tins is the way everything is done with us, topsyturvy ‘ ” the Russian officers and generals said after the battle of Tarutino, just as they say now, to let us know that some stupid fellow has done everything upside down, but that they would have done it quite differently. But people who speak in this manner either do not know what they are talking about, or purposely deceive themselves. Every battle — those of Tarutino, Borodind, and Austerlitz — takes place quite differently from what its managers suppose that it should. This is an essential condition.

An endless number of free forces (for nowhere is a man freer than during a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the direction of a battle, and this direction can never be predicted in advance and never coincides in direction with any one force.

When many variously directed forces act simultaneously upon a body, the direction of the motion cannot coincide with a single one of these forces, but there will always be a mean, shortest direction, what in mechanics is called the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.

If we find in the descriptions of the historians, especially the French, that wars and battles are carried on according to a prearranged plan, the only conclusion at which we may arrive from that fact is that their descriptions are false.

The battle of Tarutino evidently did not accomplish the aim which Toll had had in view, and which was, to take the troops into action according to the order prescribed by the disposition ; nor what Count Orlov had intended, to capture Murat ; nor the aim of instantaneously destroying the whole corps, which Bénigsen and other persons might have wished; nor the aim of the officer who wanted to get into action in order to distinguish himself ; nor of the Cossack who wanted to obtain more booty than he already had, and so forth. But if the aim was to accomplish that which actually took place and which then was the common wish of all the Russians (to expel the French from Russia and to destroy their troops), it is quite clear that the battle of Tanitino, on account of its very inconsistencies, was precisely what was needed at this period of the campaign. It is difficult and even impossible to imagine a more favourable outcome of this battle. With the least labour and the least possible loss, in spite of the greatest confusion, the greatest results of the whole campaign were obtained ; a change was made from a retreat to an attack ; the weakness of the French was made manifest, and that push was given to the Napoleonic army, for which it had been waiting, in order to begin its flight.

VIII.

Napoleon enters Moscow «after the brilliant battle “de la Noskowa ; ” there can be no doubt as to the victory, for the field of battle was left to the French. The Russians retreat and give up the capital. Moscow, filled with supplies, arms, projectiles, and untold wealth, is in Napoleon’s hands. The Russian army, half as strong as the French, for a whole month makes no attempt at attacking him. Napoleon’s position is <a most brilliant one. To come down with double strength on the remnants of the Russian army, and to destroy it ; to obtain an advantageous peace, or, in case of a refusal, to make a menacing move against St. Petersburg ; even in case of failure, to fall back on Smolensk or Vflna, or to remain in Moscow ; in short, to maintain that brilliant position in which the French army then was, — it does not seem that it needed any special genius. In order to do all this, the simplest and easiest thing possible would have sufficed, and this was : not to allow the troops to pillage ; to prepare winter clothing, of which an abundance could have been found in Moscow for the whole army ; and methodically to collect all the supplies for the army, of which, according to the statements of the French historians, there was enough in Moscow to last for half a year. Napoleon, this greatest of all geniuses, who, according to the statements of the historians, had the power to control his army, did none of those things.

He not only did nothing of the kind, but, on the contrary, used all his power in order to select from all the possible means of action the one which was most insipid and most ruinous. Of all that Napoleon might have done, — to winter in Moscow ; to march on St. Petersburg, on Nizhni-Novgorod, back again, to the north or south, by the road which Kutuzov took later, or anything else we might think of, — it would be difficult to imagine anything more stupid and perilous, as the consequences have actually shown, than what Napoleon did, when he remained in Moscow until October, allowing the soldiers to loot the city ; when he then, after wavering, left a garrison in Moscow and went away from the city, marched toward Kutfi-zov, did not begin a battle, marched to the right, and reached Maly Yaroslàvets; when, without taking his chance of making his way through, he did not proceed on the road taken by Kutuzov, but went back to Mozhdysk over the ruined Smolénsk road. Let the most expert strategists, imagining that it was Napoleon’s aim to cause the ruin of his army, invent another course of action which could with greater certainty and independently of what the Russian army undertook have caused so complete a destruction of the French army, as was done by Napoleon !

Napoleon, the genius, did it. But it would be unjust to say that Napoleon destroyed his army because it was this that he wanted, or because he was stupid, just as it would be incorrect to say that Napoleon took lus army to Moscow because he wanted it, and because he was very clever and a great genius.

In either case, his personal activity, which had no greater effect than the activity of any soldier, merely coincided with those laws according to which the phenomenon was taking place.

The historians present to us Napoleon’s powers as having become enfeebled in Moscow, because the results did not justify Napoleon’s activity, but that is false. Just as before, and as later, in the year 1813, he then used all his mental powers in order to do the best he knew for his army. His activity at this time is not less amazing than it had been in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not know for sure to what extent his activity in Egypt, where forty centuries looked down upon his grandeur, gave evidence of genius, because these great exploits have been described to us only by the French. We cannot with certainty judge of his genius in Austria and in Prussia, because we must draw our information from French and German sources, and the inconceivable surrender of whole corps without battle and of fortresses without being besieged must lead the Germans to assume his genius as the only explanation of the war which was waged in Germany. But we, thank God, have no reason to recognize his genius in order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the matter iu a straightforward and simple manner, and we will not yield that right.

His activity in Moscow is as amazing and as ingenious as anywhere. Orders after orders and plans after plans issue from him from the time he enters Moscow until he leaves it. The absence of the inhabitants and of the deputation, and the conflagration of Moscow itself, do not appal him. He does not leave out of sight the welfare of his army, or the actions of the enemy, or the welfare of the nations of Russia, or the direction of the affairs in Paris, or the diplomatic combinations by which to secure the conditions of the peace.

IX.

In military affairs, Napoleon, immediately after entering Moscow, enjoins General Sébastiani to watch the movements of the Russian army, sends out whole corps along different routes, and orders Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he gives careful orders about fortifying the Kremlin ; then he makes a most ingenious plan for a future campaign over the whole map of Russia. In diplomatic affairs, Napoleon sends for robbed and tattered Captain Yakovlev, who does not know how to get out of Moscow, gives him a detailed account of his whole politics and magnanimity, and, writing a letter to Emperor Alexander, in which he regards it as his duty to inform his friend and brother that Rostopchm has not managed things well in Moscow, sends him to St. Petersburg. Then he just as carefully expounds his views and his magnanimity to Tutolmin and sends this old man also to St. Petersburg to negotiate a peace.

In matters of law, he, immediately after the fires have begun, orders the culprits to be found out and executed, and that rascal Rostopchm receives his punishment by having his houses burnt down.

In matters of administration, Moscow is granted a constitution. A municipality is established, and the following proclamation is made :

” Inhabitants of Moscow!

” Your misfortunes are cruel, but his Majesty the emperor and king wants to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he punishes disobedience and crime. Severe measures have been taken to stop disorder and reestablish public security. A paternal administration, the members of which are chosen from among your own number, will form your municipality or city government. This will watch over you, over your needs, over your interests. Its members will be distinguished by a red sash which they will wear over their shoulder, and the mayor of the city will, in addition, have a white belt. But, except for the time during which he exercises his duty, he will have only a red ribbon around his left arm.

” The city police is established on its old basis, and through its activity the best order already prevails. The government has appointed two commissaries-general, or chiefs of police, and twenty commissaries, or captains of wards, who are stationed in all the wards of the city. You will recognize them by a white ribbon which they will wear on their left arm. Several churches of various denominations are open, and divine service is held in them without hindrance. Your fellow citizens are daily returning to their homes, and orders have been given that they should receive there the succour and protection which are due to their misfortune. These are the measures which the government has taken to reestablish order and alleviate your situation ; but, to be successful, it is necessary for you to unite your efforts with those of the government, to forget, if possible, the misfortunes which you have suffered, to abandon yourself to the hope of a less cruel fate, to be assured that inevitable and disgraceful death awaits those who will lay hands on your persons and such of your possessions as are left to you, and, finally, to have no doubt that these possessions will be preserved, for such is the will of the greatest and justest of all monarchs. Soldiers and inhabitants, of whatsoever nationality ! Reestablish public confidence, the source of a country’s happiness, live like brothers, afford each other aid and protection, unite in order to overthrow the designs of the ill-intentioned, obey the military and civil authorities, and your tears will soon cease flowing ! “

In matters of the subsistence of the army, Napoleon orders all his troops to come in succession to Moscow ” à la maraude,” in order to supply themselves with provisions, so that the army might be provided for the future.

In matters of religion, Napoleon commands that the popes be brought back, and that divine service be reestablished in the churches.

In matters of commerce, and for the sake of providing the subsistence for the army, he has them placard the following —

PROCLAMATION

” You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and labourers, whom misfortunes have removed from the city, and you, scattered agriculturists, whom an ill-founded terror still retains in the fields, listen ! Quiet is returning to this capital, and order is being reestablished in it. Your compatriots boldly come out from their places of hiding, seeing that they are respected. Every act of violence, committed against them and their property, is forthwith punished. His Majesty the emperor and king protects them and considers none of you as his enemies, except those who disobey his orders. He wants to put a stop to your misfortunes and to return you to your homes and families. Respond, then, to his beneficent intentions, and come to us without any danger ! Inhabitants, return with confidence to your habitations ! You will soon find means for satisfying your wants ! Artisans and industrious workers ! Come back to your trades ! Your homes, your shops, patrols of safety are awaiting you, and for your work you will receive the pay that is due you ! And, finally, you peasants, come out of the forests, where you have concealed yourself in terror, return without fear to your huts, with the full assurance that you shall find protection ! Stores have been established in the city, where the peasants may bring their surplus provisions and the products of the soil. The government has taken the following measures in order to ensure their free sale: (1) Beginning with this date, the peasants, the agriculturists, and those who live in the environs of Moscow may, without any danger, bring to the city their provisions, whatever they be, and take them to the two stores in Mokhoväya Street and in Hunter’s Bow. (2) These provisions shall be bought of them at the price agreed upon by seller and purchaser ; but if the seller does not receive the just price demanded by him, the seller shall have the right to take them back to his village, in doing which no one is in any way to hinder him. (3) Every Sunday and Wednesday are appointed as great market-days ; and for this purpose a sufficient number of troops shall be stationed every Tuesday and Saturday on the highways, at such a distance from the city as to serve as a protection to the caravans. (4) Similar measures shall be taken to ensure the safe return of the peasants with their carts and horses. (5) Means shall immediately be found to reestablish the usual fairs. Inhabitants of the city and of the villages, and you, labourers and artisans, of whatever nationality ! You are called to execute the paternal intentions of his Majesty the emperor and king, and to cooperate with him for the common good ! Bring your respect and confidence to his feet, and hasten to unite with us ! “

For the sake of raising the spirit of the army and of the nation, reviews were constantly held, and rewards distributed. The emperor rode through the city and consoled the inhabitants, and, in spite of all his preoccupation with matters of state, he himself visited the theatres which were established by his command.

In matters of charitableness, the best virtue of crownbearers, Napoleon did everything that depended on him. On the charitable institutions he had them write, ” Maison de ma Mère” uniting in this act his tender filial sentiment with the grandeur of the monarch’s virtue. He visited the Foundling House and, allowing the orphans, saved by him, to kiss his white hands, he spoke graciously with Tutolmm. Then, according to Thiers’s eloquent words, he ordered that his French troops be paid with the Russian counterfeits manufactured by him. ” Relevant l’emploi de ces moyens par un acte diyne de lui et de l’armée française, il fit distribuer des secours aux incendiés. Mais les vivres étant trop précieux pozcr être donnés à des étrangers la plupart ennemis, Napoléon aima mieux leur fournir de l’argent afin qu’ils se fournissent au dehors, et il leur fit distribuer des roubles papiers.”

In matters of army discipline, there were constantly issued orders about severe punishments for infractions in the service and about stopping pillage.

X.

Strange to say, however, all these measures, cares, and plans, which were by no means worse than other edicts in similar cases, did not touch the essence of the matter, but, like the hands of a watch, separated from the mechanism, they moved arbitrarily and aimlessly, without catching in the wheels.

In military matters, the ingenious plan of the campaign, of which Thiers says, ” Que son génie ri avait jamais rien imagine de plus profond, de plus habile et de plus admirable,” and in regard to which Thiers, entering into a polemic with Mr. Fain, proves that the authorship of this ingenious plan must be referred to the 15th, and not to the 4th of October, never could have been executed, and it never was, because it had nothing in common with reality. The fortification of the Kremlin, for which it was necessary to take down ” la Mosquée,” as Napoleon called the Church of Basil the Blessed, proved entirely useless. The mining of the Kremlin only helped the emperor to blow up the Kremlin when he left Moscow, that is, to beat the floor against which the child had hurt himself. The pursuit after the Russian army, which so baffled Napoleon, presented an unheard-of phenomenon. The French generals lost the Russian army, which was sixty thousand men strong, and, according to Thiers’s words, only thanks to Murat’s skill and, it seems, genius, did they succeed in finding this Russian army of sixty thousand men, like a needle in a haystack.

In matters of diplomacy, all the proofs which Napoleon gave of his magnanimity and justice, both before Tutolmm and before Yakovlev, who was mainly concerned about finding a mantle and a cart, were fruitless : Alexander did not receive these ambassadors and made no reply to their embassy

In matters of law, after the execution of the supposed incendiaries, the other half of Moscow was consumed by fire.

In matters of administration, the establishment of the municipality did not stop the pillaging and was of use to but a few persons, who took part in this municipal government and who, under pretext of maintaining order, pillaged Moscow, or protected their possessions against pillage.

In matters of religion, the thing which worked so easily in Egypt, where he visited the mosques, here brought no results. Two or three priests, who were found in Moscow, tried to do Napoleon’s will, but a French soldier boxed the ears of one of them during divine service, and this is what a French official reported about the other : ” Le prêtre, que f avais découvert et invité à recommencer à dire la messe, a nettoyé et fermé Véglise. Cette nuit on est venu de nouveau enfoncer les portes, casser les cadenas, déchirer les livres et commettre d’azitres désordres.”

In matters of commerce, no response was made to the proclamation to the industrious artisans and to all the peasants. There were no industrious artisans, and the peasants caught those commissaries who ventured too far away with this proclamation, and killed them.

In matters of the amusements for the people and for the army, he was just as unsuccessful. The theatres, which were established in the Kremlin and in Poznya-kdv’s house, were soon closed because the actors and actresses were robbed.

His charitableness, too, brought no desired results. The counterfeits and the genuine paper money filled Moscow and had no value. The French, who were collecting booty, wanted nothing but gold. Not only the counterfeit assignats, which Napoleon so graciously dispensed to the unfortunates, had no value, but even silver was given away below its value in exchange for gold.

But the most striking phenomenon of the impotence of the highest orders at that time was the attempt which Napoleon made to stop pillaging and reestablish discipline.

This is what the military authorities reported :

” Pillaging continues in the city, in spite of the orders to the contrary. Order has not yet been established, and there is not a single merchant who is trafficking in a legal manner. Only the sutlers sell things, and those are looted property.”

” La partie de mon arrondissement continue à être en proie au pillage des soldats du 3-me corps, qui, non contents d’arracher aux malheureux réfugies dans des souterrains le peu qui leur reste, ont meme la férocité de les blesser à coups de sabre, comme fen ai ru plusieurs exemples.

“ Rien de nouveau, outre que les soldats se permettent de voler et de piller. (9 octobre.)

” Le vol et le pillage contimient. Il y a une bande de voleurs dans notre district qu’il faudra faire arrêter par de fortes gardes. (11 octobre.)”

“The emperor is exceedingly dissatisfied because, in spite of the severity of his orders to stop pillaging, one sees constantly detachments of marauding soldiers of the Guard returning to the Kremlin. In the old Guard the disorders and the pillaging were renewed last night on a larger scale than ever, and still continue. The emperor sees with regret that the soldiers of the élite, chosen to guard his person and called to give examples of submission, extend their disobedience so far as to break open the cellars and magazines which are intended for the army; others have lowered themselves to such an extent as to disobey the sentinels and the officers of the guard, cursing them and even striking them.”

“ Le grand maréchal du palais se plaint vivement,” wrote the governor, ” que malgré les défenses réitérées, les soldats continuent à faire leurs besoins dans toutes les cours et meme jusque sorts les fenêtres de l’Empereur.”

This army, like a disbanded herd, tramping under foot the provender which might have saved it from starvation, fell to pieces and perished with every new day of its sojourn in Moscow.

But it did not move.

It ran only when it was suddenly seized by a panic fear, caused by the capture of the convoys on the Smolénsk road and by the news of the battle of Tarutino. This same news of the battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by Napoleon at a review, provoked in him the desire to punish the Russians, as Thiers says, and he gave the order to leave Moscow, which the whole army demanded.

Leaving the city, the soldiers took along with them all their pillage. Napoleon himself took with him his special ” trésor.” When Napoleon saw the baggage which impeded the march of the army, he became frightened, says Thiers. But, with his experience of war, he did not give orders to burn the superfluous carts, as he had done with the carts of the marshal, when he came up to Moscow ; he looked at the carriages and coaches which the soldiers drove, and said that it was very nice, and that these carriages could later be used for the supplies, the sick, and the wounded.

The situation of the whole army was like the situation of a wounded beast which feels its end and does not know what it is doing. To study the clever manœuvres and aims of Napoleon and of his army is the same as to study the meaning of the last leaps and convulsions of a mortally wounded beast. Very frequently the wounded beast, hearing a noise, rushes forward toward the shot of the hunter, runs to and fro, and hastens its own end.

Precisely the same was Napoleon doing under the pressure of his whole army. The noise of the battle of Tarutino scared the beast, and it rushed toward the hunter’s shot, reached the hunter, turned back again, and finally, like any beast, ran back over the most disadvantageous, most dangerous path, over the old, familiar track.

Napoleon, who presents himself to us as the leader of this whole movement (just as the savages imagine that the figure carved on the prow is the force which guides the ship), was, during all this period of his activity, like a child who holds on to the straps inside a carriage and imagines that he is driving.

XL

On October 6th, Pierre left the shed early in the morning, and, upon returning, stopped at the door to play with a long-bodied, lilac-coloured little dog on short, crooked legs, which was circling around him. This dog was living in their booth, passing the nights with Karatäev; now and then it went somewhere into the city, and again came back. It had evidently never belonged to any one, and even now it was nobody’s and had no name. The Frenchmen called it “Azor,” the soldier who told fairy-tales named it ” Femgalka,” while Karataev and others named it ” Gray ” and occasionally ” Flabby.” The fact that it did not belong to any one, and the absence of a name and even of any particular breed, or of a definite colour, did not in the least embarrass the lilac-coloured dog. Its shaggy tail towered firm and round in the shape of a panache ; its crooked legs served it so well that frequently, as though disdaining the use of all four legs, it raised one hind leg and very swiftly and nimbly ran on three. Everything was a subject of joy to the dog. Now it whined for joy, rolling on its back; now it basked in the sun with a pensive and important look ; now it played with a chip or a blade of straw.

Pierre’s garments now consisted of a dirty, torn shirt, the only remnant of his former apparel, of a pair of soldier’s pantaloons, tied with strings at the ankles, by Kara-tâev’s advice, to keep him warm, of a caftan, and of a peasant cap. Pierre had during this time changed very much physically. He no longer looked stout, though he

still had that aspect of solidity and strength which was a characteristic of his family. A beard and moustache covered the lower part of his face; his long, uncut, dishevelled hair, filled with vermin, curled in the form of a cap. The expression of his eyes was firm, calm, and animated, such as it had never been before. His former passivity, which found its expression even in his look, now gave way to an energy which was ready for action and for resistance. His feet were bare.

He was looking down the field, over which on that morning carts and men on horseback were passing, or into the distance beyond the river, or at the dog, which pretended that it meant to bite him in earnest, or at his bare feet, which he took delight in putting in various positions while moving his stout, dirty toes. Every time he looked at his bare feet, a smile of self-satisfied animation played on his face. The sight of these bare feet reminded him of everything he had passed through and come to comprehend during that time, and this reminder was agreeable to him.

The weather had for several days been calm and clear, with light frosts in the morning ; it was what is called “women’s summer.”

In the sun the air was warm, and this warmth, with the bracing freshness of the morning frost, which was still perceptible in the air, was exceedingly pleasant.

On everything, on distant and on near objects, lay that magic crystal gleam which is to be seen only at this time of autumn. In the distance one saw the Sparrow Hills, with a village, a church, and a large white house. The bared trees, the sand, the stones, the roofs of the houses, the green steeple of the church, and the corners of the distant house, — all this stood out with unnatural clearness, cut with sharp hues against the transparent horizon. In the foreground could be seen the familiar ruins of a halfburnt manor, occupied by the French, with dark green clumps of lilacs which were growing in an enclosure. Even this devastated and polluted house, which in gloomy weather offered a repulsive aspect, now, in the bright, motionless splendour, looked soothingly beautiful.

A French corporal, his coat unbuttoned, his nightcap on his head and a short pipe between his teeth, came around the corner of the booth. He gave Pierre a friendly wink, and walked over to him.

” Quel soleil, hein ? Monsieur Kir il” thus all the Frenchmen called him, ” on dirait le printempsAnd the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre the pipe, though Pierre always refused it.

” Si Von marchait par un temps comme celui-là,” he began.

Pierre asked him what the news was in regard to the departure, and the corporal told him that nearly all the troops were on the march, and that on that day the order would be promulgated in reference to the prisoners. In the booth in which Pierre was, one of the soldiers, Soko-16v by name, was mortally ill, and Pierre said to the corporal that something ought to be done with him. The corporal told Pierre to be tranquil on this point, that there were movable and permanent hospitals ; that an order would soon be issued in reference to the sick ; and that, in general, everything which could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.

” Et puis, M. Kiril, vous nV avez qu’à dire un mot au capitaine, vous savez. Oh, c’est un … qui n’oublie jamais rien. Dites azc capitaine quand il fera sa tournée, il fera tout pour vous — “

The captain of whom the corporal was speaking used to chat a great deal with Pierre, and was very kind to him.

” Vois-tu, St. Thomas, qu’il me disait l’autre jour : ‘ Kiril c’cst un homme qui a de Vinstruction, qui parle français ; c’est un seigneur russe, qui a eu des malheurs, mais c’est un homme.’ Et il s’y entend le… . S’il demande quelque chose, qu’il me dise, il n’y a pas de refus. Quand on a fait scs études, voyez-vous, on aime l’instruction et les gens comme il faut. C’est pour vous que je dis cela, M. Kiril. Dans l’affaire de l’autre jour si ce n’était grâce à vous, ça aurait fini mal.”

And, chatting awhile longer, the corporal went away. The affair which had happened a few days before, and which the corporal referred to, was a fight between the prisoners and the French, in which Pierre had succeeded in pacifying his companions. Several of the prisoners had seen Pierre talking with the corporal, and so they at once asked him what the Frenchman had said. Just as Pierre was telling his companions what the corporal knew of the evacuation, a lean, sallow, ragged French soldier walked over to the door of the booth. Raising his fingers with a quick and timid motion to his brow, in sign of greeting, he turned to Pierre with the question whether solcher ” Platoche,” to whom he had given some material with which to make him a shirt, was living in that booth.

A week before the Frenchmen had received leather and cloth, and so they distributed this material to the prisoners, who were to make them boots and shirts.

” It is ready, it is ready, my little falcon ! ” said Karataev, coming out with a carefully folded shirt.

On account of the warmth and to be more comfortable, Karatdev wore nothing but his drawers and a ragged shirt, which was as black as earth. His hair was tied with a piece of linden bast, in the manner in which artisans wear it, and his round face looked rounder and milder still.

« Agreement is the own brother of business. I said it would be done by Friday, and so it is,” said Platdn, smiling, and unfolding the shirt which he had made.

The Frenchman looked restlessly around and, as though overcoming his doubt, rapidly threw down his uniform and put on the shirt. Under his coat there was no shirt, but over his naked, yellow, lean body there was a long, soiled, silk waistcoat with a flower design. The Frenchman was evidently afraid that the prisoners, who were looking on, would laugh at him, and so he hurried to put his head through the shirt. Not one of the prisoners said a word.

” You see it fits you nicely,” said Platdn, pulling the shirt in place.

The Frenchman put his head and arms through, without lifting his eyes, looked at his shirt, and examined the seam.

“ Well, my little falcon, this is not a sewing-shop, and we have not the proper tools, and, you know, without an instrument you can’t kill even a louse,” said Platdn, smiling a round smile and evidently taking delight in his own work.

” C’est lien, c’est bien, merci, mais vouz devez avoir de la toile de restef said the Frenchman.

“ It will be better yet when you wear it on your body,” said Karatdev, continuing to enjoy his production. ” It will be nice and comfortable — “

« Merci, merci, mon vieux, le reste — ” repeated the Frenchman, smiling, and giving Karatdev an assignat, ” mais le reste — ”

Pierre saw that Platdn did not want to understand what the Frenchman was saying, and looked at them, without interfering. Karatdev thanked him for the money and continued to admire his work. The Frenchman insisted on getting back the remnant, and asked Pierre to translate what he was saying.

” What does he want the remnants for ? ” said Karataev. ” They would make fine leg-rags for us. Well, take them ! ” And Karataev suddenly, with a changed and saddened face, took a roll of remnants out of his bosom

and, without looking at the Frenchman, handed it to him. “ Bah ! ” said Karat dev, stepping back.

The Frenchman looked at the cloth, mused awhile, looked interrogatively at Pierre, and, as though Pierre’s glance had told him something, turned to him :

“Platoche dites donc, Platoche ! ” the Frenchman suddenly said, in a squeaky voice, his face flushing. “Gardez pour vous” he said, giving him the pieces. He turned around and walked away.

” I declare,” said Karataev, shaking his head. ” They say that the French are infidels, but they, too, have souls. The old men used to say : ‘ A sweaty hand gives, a dry hand does not.’ He himself has not a thing, but he has given me something.” Karataev smiled a pensive smile and, looking at the pieces, kept silence for some time. “ They will make fine leg-rags, my friend ! ” he said, returning to the booth.

XII.

Four weeks passed from the time Pierre had been made a prisoner. Although the French had proposed to transfer him from the soldiers’ booth to that of the officers, he remained in the one he had entered the first day.

In the devastated and burnt city Pierre experienced almost the extreme limit of privation which a man can endure; but, thanks to his strong constitution and his health, of which he had not been conscious before, and especially thanks to the fact that these privations accumulated so insensibly that it was impossible to tell when they began, he bore his fate not only lightly, but even with pleasure. It was during this very time that he acquired that calm and that self-content, for which he had been in vain striving before. He had for a long time in his life been searching in various directions for that calm and peace with himself, for that which had so struck him in the soldiers in the battle of Borodino, — he had sought for it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the distractions of worldly life, in wine, in the heroic exploit of selfsacrifice, in the romantic love for Natasha ; he had searched for it by means of reason, and all this searching and all his attempts had failed him. And now that he was not thinking of it, he received that calm and peace with himself through the terror of death, through privations, and through what he comprehended in Karatdev. Those terrible minutes which he had experienced during the execution seemed to have washed away for ever from his imagination and memory those agitating thoughts and

feelings which heretofore had appeared to him so important. He did not even think of Russia, or of the war, or of politics, or of Napoleon. It was apparent to him that all that did not concern him, that he was not called, and therefore could not judge of all that. ” Russia and season have no reason,” he repeated Karatäev’s words, and they soothed him strangely. His intention of killing Napoleon and his calculations of the cabalistic numbers and the beast of the Apocalypse now seemed incomprehensible and even ridiculous to him. His fury against his wife and his apprehension lest his name be besmirched now seemed to him not only insignificant, but even amusing. What was it to him that his wife was somewhere leading a life which pleased her ? What difference did it make to any one, especially to him, if people found out that the name of their prisoner was Count Bezukhi ?

He now frequently recalled his conversation with Prince Andréy and fully agreed with him, only he understood Prince Audrey’s idea in a little different way. Prince Andréy had thought and said that happiness was only negative, but he had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony, as though, in saying this, he had enunciated another thought, which was that all our innate tendencies toward a positive happiness were put in us in order not to gratify us and to torment us. But Pierre recognized its justice without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering, the gratification of needs, and, consequently, the freedom of choosing one’s occupations, that is, one’s manner of life, now presented themselves to Pierre as unquestionably the highest human happiness. It was here and now that Pierre for the first time fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when hungry, of drinking when thirsty, of sleeping when sleepy, of getting warm when cold, of talking with a man when he felt like talking to a man and listening to his voice. The gratification of needs, — good food, cleanliness, freedom, — now that he was deprived of all of them, seemed to Pierre complete happiness, and the choice of occupations, that is, life, when the choice was so limited, appeared to him such an easy thing, that he forgot that the superabundance of the comforts of life annihilates all the happiness of gratifying one’s needs, and that a great freedom in the choice of occupations, that freedom winch in his life was given him by his education, wealth, and position in society, made the choice of occupations insolubly difficult, and annihilated the very need and possibility of occupation.

All of Pierre’s dreams now turned on the time when he should be free. And yet, later on, and during the rest of his life, Pierre thought and spoke with delight of this month of planning, of those irrevocable, strong, and joyous sensations, and, above all, of that full mental calm, that complete inward freedom, which he had experienced at that time.

When, on the first day, he rose early in the morning, went out of the booth at daybreak, and saw at first the darkling cupolas and the crosses of the New Virgin Monastery, the frosted dew on the dusty grass, the slopes of the Sparrow Hills, and the wooded shore winding above the river and disappearing in the lilac distance ; when he felt the touch of the fresh air and heard the sounds of the jackdaws flying from Moscow across the fields ; and when later a spray of light suddenly burst from the east and the edge of the sun majestically swam out from behind a cloud, and the cupolas, and the crosses, and the dew, and the vista, and the river, — everything played in a joyous light, — he felt a new, unfamiliar feeling of joy, of life, and fortitude.

And this feeling not only did not abandon him during the whole time of his captivity, but, on the contrary, increased in him in proportion as his situation grew more oppressive.

This feeling — of preparedness for everything, of moral adaptiveness — was sustained still more in Pierre by that high opinion which his comrades formed about him soon after his entrance into the booth. Pierre, with his knowledge of languages, with that respect which the Frenchmen showed him, with his simplicity which caused him to give away everything asked of him (he received an officer’s allowance of three roubles a week), with his strength which he showed to the soldiers, when he pressed nails into the walls of the booth, with his meekness of which he gave evidence in his treatment of his comrades, with that to them inconceivable ability to sit motionless and think, without doing anything, presented himself to the soldiers as a somewhat mysterious and higher being. The very qualities which in that other world, in which he had lived before, had been oppressive if not injurious to him, — his strength, his disregard of the comforts of life, his absent-mindedness, his simplicity, — here, among these people, gave him the position almost of a hero. He felt that this view of him put him under obligations.

XIII.

On the night from the 6th to the 7th of October began the movement of the departing Frenchmen : the kitchens and booths were broken up ; the carts were packed ; the troops and the baggage began to move.

At seven o’clock in the morning a convoy of Frenchmen, in marching trim, in their shakos, with their guns, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, were standing before the booths, and a lively French conversation, interlarded with curses, ran down the whole line.

In the booth all were ready, dressed, girded, and booted, and waiting for the command to march. The sick soldier Sokoldv, pale, emaciated, with blue circles under his eyes, was sitting in his place all alone, without his shoes and undressed, and with eyes bulging out on account of his leanness, was looking interrogatively at his companions, who paid no attention to him, and groaning with a low, even wail. It was evident that it was not so much his suffering, — he had the bloody flux, — as the fear and pain of being left alone which made him groan so.

Pierre, wearing a pair of shoes which Karatdev had made for him out of matting, which a Frenchman had brought to mend his soles with, and girded with a rope, went up to the sick man and squatted down before him.

“ Well, Sokolov, they are leaving now ! They have a hospital here. Maybe you will fare better than we,” said Pierre.

” 0 Lord ! 0 death ! 0 Lord ! ” the soldier groaned louder.

“ I will ask them at once,” said Pierre, and, rising, he went up to the door of the booth. Just as he reached it, the corporal, who the day before had offered a pipe to him, came up with two soldiers. The corporal and the soldiers were in marching trim, with their knapsacks and shakos with buttoned chin-straps, winch changed their familiar faces.

The corporal was walking toward the door in order to lock it, by order of his superiors. The prisoners were to be counted before being dismissed.

” Caporal, que fera-t-on du malade ? ” began Pierre ; but, just as he was saying this, he had his doubts whether it was the corporal he knew, or some other man, for he looked so transformed. Besides, as Pierre was saying this, the roll of drums was suddenly heard on two sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre’s words and, uttering a meaningless curse, slammed the door to. The booth was merged in semidarkness ; the drums pealed on two sides, drowning the sick man’s groans.

” There it is ! Again ! ” Pierre said to himself, and an involuntary chill ran down his back. In the corporal’s changed face, in the stirring and deafening peal of the drums, Pierre recognized that mysterious, brutal power, which caused men against their will to kill their like, that power, the effect of which he bad seen during the execution. It was useless to fear, to try to avoid that power, to turn with entreaties or admonitions to the men who served as its tools. Pierre knew this. It was necessary to wait and suffer. Pierre did not again go up to the suffering man, and did not look back at him. He stood, frowning and in silence, at the door of the booth.

When the door of the booth was opened, and the prisoners, like a flock of sheep, crushing each other, crowded in the entrance, Pierre made his way through them and went up to that captain who, according to the corporal’s words, was prepared to do anything for him. The captain, too, was in marching outfit, and his cold face displayed the same “it,” which Pierre had discovered in the words of the corporal and in the peal of the drums.

“ Filez, filez,” said the captain, with a scowl, and glancing at the captives as they crowded past him. Pierre knew that his attempt would be fruitless, but still he went up to him.

” Eh lien, qu’cst-ce qu’il ya?” the officer said, as though not recognizing him.

Pierre told him about the sick soldier.

” Il pourra marcher, que diable ! ” said the captain.

“ Filez, filez,” he kept repeating, without looking at Pierre.

“Mais non, il a Vagonie” began Pierre.

” Voulez-vous bien — ” the captain shouted, with an angry frown.

” Dram da da dam, dam dam,” the drums rolled on. And Pierre knew that the mysterious power had taken complete possession of the men, and that now it was useless to say anything else.

The captive officers were separated from the soldiers and ordered to go ahead. There were about thirty officers, Pierre among them, and about three hundred soldiers.

The captive officers, who were let out from the other booths, were all strangers to Pierre ; they were all of them better dressed than he, and looked at him, in his strange foot-gear, with mistrust and aloofness. Not far from Pierre walked a stout major, in a Kazdn cloak, girded with a towel ; his face was puffed up and sallow, and he looked cross ; he evidently enjoyed the general respect of his comrades. One hand with a tobacco-pouch was stuck in the bosom of his cloak, while with the other he supported a long pipe. Puffing and blowing, the major grumbled and was cross at everybody because it seemed to him that all were pushing him, and that all were hurrying to get somewhere,. when there was no reason for such a hurry, and that all were surprised, when there was nothing to be surprised at. Another, a small-statured, lean officer, talked to everybody, making guesses at where they were going to be taken, and how far they would manage to march on that day. An official, in felt boots and a uniform of the commissariat, ran about from one side to another, looking at devastated Moscow, and loudly proclaiming his observations about what had burned down, and what this or that part of Moscow was. A third officer, of Polish extraction, as evidenced by his accent, was having a discussion with the official of the commissariat, proving to him that he was mistaken in the determination of the wards.

” What are you quarrelling about ? ” the major said, angrily. ” Whether it is St. Nicholas, or St. Blasius, what difference does it make ? You see that everything is burnt, and that is the end of it. Why are you pushing there? Haven’t you enough space?” he turned angrily to the one who was walking behind, and was not pushing him at all.

« Oh, oh, oh ! What they have done ! ” could be heard the voices of the prisoners on either side, as they beheld the devastation. “The Transmoskvä, and Zubovo, and in the Kremlin ! Look, half of it is gone. I told you that the whole of the Transmoskva was burnt, and so it is.”

” Now you know what has burned, so what is the use of talking ? ” said the major.

Marching through Khamdvniki (one of the few intact wards of Moscow), past a church, the whole throng of captives suddenly pressed to one side, and exclamations of terror and disgust were heard.

” What scoundrels ! Infidels ! He is dead, yes, dead ! They have smeared him with something.”

Pierre, too, moved up toward the church, near which was that which had called forth the exclamations, and dimly discerned something leaning against the enclosure of the church. From the words of his companions, who could see better, he learned that it was the corpse of a man stood up against the enclosure and having his face smeared with soot.

” Marchez, sacré nom — Filez — trente mille diables ! ” were heard the curses of the guards, and the French soldiers, with new rage, scattered with their swords the throng of prisoners looking at the dead man.

XIV.

The captives walked all alone through the alleys of Khamdvniki, accompanied only by their guards and by carts and wagons, which belonged to the soldiers of the convoy, and followed them ; but, when they reached the stores of provision, they fell in with an immense artillery train in motion, mixed with a number of private vehicles.

At the bridge all stopped, waiting for those who were in front to move on. On the bridge the prisoners could see endless rows of other trains moving in front and in the rear. On the right, where the Kaluga road turned past Neskuchnoe, disappearing in the distance, marched endless rows of troops and trains. Those were the soldiers of Beauharnais’s corps, who had had an early start ; behind them, along the river bank and over the Stone Bridge, advanced Ney’s troops and baggage.

Davout’s troops, to which the prisoners were attached, went through the Crimea Ford and were partly already on Kaluga Street. But the baggagetrains were so extended that Beauharnais’s last carts had not yet left Moscow to get on Kaluga Street, when the van of Ney’s troops had already passed the Great Ordynka.

After getting past the Crimea Ford, the prisoners moved a few steps at a time, then stopped, then moved again, and on all sides carriages and men crowded more and more. Having taken more than an hour to get over the few hundred steps which separate the bridge from Kaluga Street, and reached the square where the Transmoskvd streets meet with Kaluga Street, the prisoners, pressed together into a compact mass, stopped and stood several hours at a cross-road. On every side could be heard, like the din of the sea, the incessant rumble of wheels and tramp of feet, and incessant, angry cries and curses. Pierre was jammed against the wall of a halfburnt house, and he stood listening to the sound, which in his imagination blended with the sounds of the drums.

A few captive officers climbed on the wall of the halfburnt house, near which Pierre was standing, in order to get a better view.

” What a lot of people ! Oh, what a lot ! Even on the cannon ! Look, what a mass of furs ! ” they said. ” I declare, the miscreants have looted every tiling— Do you see the one in the rear, on the cart? Why, upon my word, that is taken from an image ! — These must be Germans. And our peasants, upon my word! — Oh, what rascals ! — He is so loaded he can hardly walk ! Why, they have taken even cabs along ! — See him sit there on the boxes ! 0 Lord ! — They are fighting!— Hit him, that is right!— We shall not get through until evening ! — Look, look ! that must be Napoleon himself. See what horses ! Monograms with a crown — This is a transportable house — He has lost a sack and does not see it— Again a fight— The woman with the baby is not at all bad— Of course, they will let you through ! — See, there is no end to it — Russian girls, upon my word, Russian girls. How comfortably they are seated in the carriage ! “

Again the wave of a general curiosity, as at the church in Khamdvniki, washed all the prisoners to the road, and Pierre, thanks to his tall stature, could see above the heads of the others what it was that so attracted the curiosity of the prisoners. In three carriages, mingled among the caissons, travelled some women, who, sitting close to each other, decked in bright colours, and painted, were shouting something in squeaky voices.

From the moment that Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious power, nothing had seemed strange or terrible to him : neither the corpse which had been smeared with soot for amusement, nor these women who were hurrying somewhere, nor the devastation of Moscow. Everything Pierre now saw produced hardly any impression upon him, — as though his soul, preparing itself for a difficult battle, refused to accept impressions which might weaken it.

The women passed by. After them came again carts, soldiers, wagons, soldiers, powder-carts, carriages, soldiers, caissons, soldiers, now and then women.

Pierre did not see the men in particular, but only their motion.

All these men and horses seemed to be driven by some invisible power. All of them sailed, during the hour that Pierre observed them, out of all kinds of streets, actuated by the one desire to pass by as quickly as possible ; all of them grew angry and began to fight, whenever they came in contact with others ; their white teeth grinned, their brows were knit, curses were exchanged, and on all the faces was the same dashing and determined and cruelly cold expression, which in the morning had startled Pierre in the corporal’s face when the drum sounded.

It was only toward evening that the chief of the convoy collected his command and with cries and curses pushed his way into the train, and the prisoners, surrounded on every side, walked out on the Kaluga road.

They marched very fast, without resting, and stopped only when the sun was beginning to set. The wagons crowded up against each other, and the men began to prepare themselves for the night. All looked cross and dissatisfied. For a long time one could hear on every side curses, angry cries, and fights. A carriage, which had been driving behind the convoy, ran into one of the guards’ carts, and punctured it with the shaft. Several soldiers ran up to the cart from all sides ; some of them struck the heads of the horses in the carriage, turning them aside, and others fought among themselves, and Pierre saw that a German was badly wounded by a swordthrust at his head.

It looked as though all these people, now that they had stopped in the middle of the field in the chill twilight of an autumn evening, experienced the same feeling of a disagreeable waking from the haste and impulsive motion which had taken possession of them at their start. When they stopped they seemed to realize that it was still unknown whither they were moving and that in this motion there would be many hardships.

At this halt the guards treated the prisoners even worse than when they had started. Now for the first time was horseflesh given to the prisoners as food.

From the officers to the last soldier there could be seen in each of them, as it were, a personal resentment against each of the prisoners, which unexpectedly took the place of the former friendly relations.

This resentment increased when, in counting the prisoners, it turned out that during the disturbance of the departure from Moscow a Russian soldier, who had pretended to be suffering from a pain in his stomach, had run away. Pierre saw a Frenchman beating a Russian soldier for having strayed too far from the road, and heard the captain, his friend, reprimanding the underofficer for the flight of the Russian soldier, and threatening him with a court martial. To the underofficer’s defence that the soldier was ill and could not walk, the officer remarked that the order was to shoot those that fell behind. Pierre felt that that fatal power which had crushed him during the execution, and which had remained intangible during his captivity, now again took possession of his existence. He felt terribly ; but he knew that in proportion to the efforts which the fatal power was making to crush him, there grew up and fortified itself in his soul the power of life which was independent of it.

Pierre ate for his supper a soup made of rye flour with horseflesh, and chatted with his companions.

Neither Pierre nor any of his companions talked of what they had seen in Moscow, or of the rudeness of the French treatment of them, or of the order to shoot them, of which they had been informed : as though to resist their less fortunate situation, they all were animated and merry. They spoke of their personal recollections and of funny incidents during the campaign, and avoided talking of their present condition.

The sun had set long ago. Bright stars were lighted here and there in the heavens ; the red glow of the rising new moon, resembling the glow of a conflagration, spread over the horizon, and the immense red ball seemed to quiver strangely in the grayish mist. It was growing light. The evening was past, but night had not yet begun. Pierre went away from his new companions and walked over to the other side of the road, among the campfires where, he was told, stood the captive soldiers. He wanted to talk with them. On his way a French sentinel stopped him and ordered him back.

Pierre returned, but not to the campfire where his companions were, but to an unhitched cart, where no one was. Crossing his legs under him and lowering his head, he sat down on the cold earth, near a wheel of the cart, and for a long time sat there motionless, absorbed in thought. More than an hour passed. No one disturbed him. Suddenly he burst out into his noisy, good-natured laugh, which was so loud that people on all sides looked around in surprise, in order to see where that strange, lonely laugh came from.

” Ha, ha, ha ! ” laughed Pierre. And he said loudly to himself : ” The soldier did not let me go. They caught me, and locked me up. They keep me in captivity. Whom ? Me ? Me — my immortal soul ! Ha, ha, ha ! Ha, ha, ha ! ” he laughed, with tears appearing in his eyes.

A man got up to see what that strange, lonely man was laughing about. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, walked a little away from the curious fellow, and looked about him.

The immense, endless bivouac, which awhile before had been alive with the crackling of the campfires and the chatting of the men, was dying down ; the red fires went out and grew pale. High in the bright heavens stood the full moon. The woods and fields, invisible before beyond the camp, now were clearly defined in the distance. And beyond these forests and fields could be seen the bright, quivering, endless vista, calling Pierre to itself. He glanced at the heavens, into the depth of the receding, scintillating stars.

” All this is mine ! All this is within me, and all this is I ! ” thought Pierre. ” And all this they have caught and placed in a booth which is fenced in by boards ! “

He smiled, and went to lie down to sleep near his companions.

XV.

In the first days of October, a messenger came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon, in which proposals of peace were made. This letter was falsely dated from Moscow, though at that time Napoleon was far ahead on the Old Kaluga road, not far in advance of Kutuzov. Kutuzov replied just as he had replied to the first letter brought by Lauriston: he said that there could be no question of peace.

Soon after, the news was received from the partisan detachment of Ddrokhov, who was operating to the left of Tarutino, that French troops had appeared at Fominskoe ; that these troops consisted of Broussier’s division ; and that this division, separated from the rest, could easily be destroyed. The soldiers and officers again demanded au action. The generals of the staff, stirred up by the memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, insisted that Kutuzov should carry out Ddrokhov’s proposition. Kutuzov did not regard an attack as necessary. Something intermediate took place, as was natural: to Fominskoe was sent a small detachment, which was to attack Broussier.

By a strange coincidence, this mission, a most difficult and important one, as was proven by the consequences, was entrusted to Ddkhturov, that same modest little Ddkhturov whom no one has described to us as composing plans of battles, flying before regiments, throwing crosses upon the batteries, and so forth, whom all considered and called undecided and impenetrable, — the same Ddkhturov, whom, in all the battles of the Russians with the French, from Austerlitz to the year 1813, we find everywhere in the lead where the situation is serious. At Austerlitz he is the last to remain at the Augezd dam, gathering the regiments, and saving what one can, when all are running and perishing, and not a general is left in the rearguard. Sick with a fever, he goes with an army of twenty thousand to defend Smolensk, against the whole French army. In Smolensk, he has barely fallen asleep at the Malakhov gate, in a paroxysm of fever, when he is wakened by the cannonade directed against the city, and the city holds out a whole day. At the battle of Borodiuk, when Bagration is killed and the troops of our left Hank are struck down in the proportion of nine to one, and the whole force of the French artillery is directed upon it, no one but this undecided and impenetrable Dokhturov is sent there, and Kutuzov hastens to correct his blunder, which was the having sent somebody else there. And little, quiet Ddkhturov goes there, and Borodino is the greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to us in verse and in prose, but of Ddkhturov there is hardly a word.

Again Ddkhturov is sent, this time to Fominskoe, and from there to Mdly Yarosldvets, where the last battle with the French has taken place, and where apparently the ruin of the French begins, and again many geniuses and heroes are described to us for this period of the campaign, but not a word is said of Ddkhturov, or only a little, and that in doubtful terms. This very silence regarding Ddkhturov more obviously than anything else proves his high deserts.

Naturally a man who does not understand the structure of a machine, seeing it in action, imagines that the most important part of it is that chip which accidentally got into it, and, interfering with its course, whisks about in it. A man who does not know the.structure of the machine cannot understand that not this chip, which is only in the

way and interfering with the work, but a small cog-wheel, which turns inaudibly, is one of the essential parts of the machine.

On October 10th, when Ddkhturov had marched halfway toward Fominskoe and stopped in the village of Aristovo, preparing himself to carry out precisely the order given to him, the whole French army, in its convulsive movement reaching Murat’s position in order, as it seemed, to give battle, suddenly without any cause turned to the left on the new Kaluga road and began to enter Fominskoe, where formerly stood only Broussier’s detachment. Under Ddkhturov’s command there were at that time, besides Ddrokhov, two small detachments of Figner and Seslavin.

On the evening of October 11th, Seslavin came to the authorities at Aristovo with a captured French guardsman. The captive said that the troops that on that day entered Fommskoe were the vanguard of the whole large army ; that Napoleon was there ; that the army had left Moscow five days before. On the same evening a manorial servant, who came from Bdrovsk, said that he had seen an immense army enter the town. The Cossacks of Ddrokhov’s detachment reported that they had seen the French Guard on the way to Bdrovsk. From all these reports it became evident that where they had expected to find one division, there was now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction, along the old Kaluga road. Ddkhturov did not wish to undertake anything, as it was not clear to him now what his duty consisted in. He had been ordered to attack Fominskoe ; but where Broussier was before, there was now the whole French army. Ermdlov wanted to use his own judgment, but Ddkhturov insisted that he had to have an order from his Most Serene Highness. It was decided to send a report to the staff.

For this was chosen an intelligent officer, Bolkhovitinov, who, besides delivering the written report, was to explain the state of affairs by word of mouth. At midnight Bolkhovitinov received the letter and his oral message, and galloped away to headquarters, accompanied by Cossacks and relay horses.

XVI.

It was a dark, warm autumn night. It had been raining for four days. Twice changing his horses and galloping thirty versts over a muddy road in an hour and a half, Bolkhovitinov arrived at Letashévka by two o’clock. Dismounting at a hut, on the wicker fence of which was the sign, ” Headquarters,” and leaving his horse, he went into the dark vestibule.

” The general of the day ! Something very important ! ” he said to some one who was snoring in the darkness of the vestibule.

” He has been very ill since last evening, — hasn’t slept for three nights,” was heard the voice of a servant, defending his master. ” You had better wake up the captain.”

” Very important, from General Ddkhturov,” said Bolkhovitinov, as he entered, groping, through an open door. The servant went ahead and began to wake somebody.

“ Your Honour, your Honour, a courier ! ”

« What, what ? From whom ? ” said some one’s sleepy voice.

” From Ddkhturov and from Aleksyéy Petrdvich. Napoleon is at Fominskoe,” said Bolkhovitinov, who in the darkness did not see the one who was questioning him, but judged from the sound of the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn.

The wakened man yawned and stretched himself.

“ I do not like to wake him,” he said, feeling for something. ” He is quite ill ! Maybe it is only a rumour.”

“ Here is the report,” said Bolkhovitinov. ” I am commanded to hand it immediately to the general of the day.”

” Wait, I will strike a light. Where, accursed one, do you always put it away ? ” said the man, stretching himself, and talking to the servant. It was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn’s adjutant. “ I have it, I have it,” he added.

The servant struck the fire, and Shcherbinin groped for the candle.

” Oh, rogues ! ” he said, in disgust.

In the light of the sparks, Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin with the candle and in the front corner another sleeping man. This was Konovnitsyn.

When the matches and tinder burnt, at first with a blue and then with a red flame, Shcherbinin lighted a tallow dip, from the candlestick of which ran down cockroaches that had been nibbling at it, and surveyed the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was covered with mud which he was smearing over his face in an attempt to wipe it.

“ Who is reporting ? ” asked Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.

“The information is reliable,” said Bolkhovitinov. ” Captives, and the Cossacks, and the spies, — all report the same.”

“There is nothing else to do but to wake him,” said Shcherbinin, rising and going up to a man in a nightcap, covered with a mantle.

“ Peter Petrovich ! ” he said. Konovnitsyn did not stir. “ To headquarters ! ” he said, with a smile, knowing that these words would certainly wake him. Indeed, the head in the nightcap at once raised itself. On Konovnitsyn’s handsome, firm face, with its feverishly inflamed cheeks, there was left for a moment the expression of dreams remote from reality, but he suddenly shook himself : his face assumed its usual calm and firm expression.

“What is it? From whom?” he asked, leisurely, blinking from the light. Listening to the officer’s report, Konovnitsyn broke the seal of the envelope and read the letter. He had hardly finished reading it, when he put Ins feet with their woollen stockings down on the earth floor and began to put on his boots. Then he took off his nightcap and, having combed his hair, donned a military cap.

” How long did it take you to get here ? Let us go to his Most Serene Highness ! “

Konovnitsyn immediately saw that the news was of prime importance, and that there was no time to lose. He did not ask himself whether it was good or bad. That did not interest him. On the whole matter of the war he did not look with his reason, with his intellect, but with something else. In his soul was a profound, unuttered conviction that everything would be well, but that he ought not to believe it, and still less talk of it, but should always be doing his duty. And he attended to his duties, giving all his strength to them. Peter Petrdvich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, counted merely for propriety’s sake among the so-called heroes of the year 1812,— among such as Barclay, Baévski, Ermdlov, Pldtov, Milorddovich, — like Dokhturov, enjoyed the reputation of being a man of extremely limited ability and information, and, like Dokhturov, never made any projects of battles, but always was in the thickest of everything. He always slept with open doors, so long as he was general of the day, and ordered all the messengers to wake him ; he was under fire in every battle, so that Kutuzov had to reprimand him for it and was afraid to send him with messages ; and, like Ddkhturov, he was one of the invisible cog-wheels which, without creaking or whirring, form the most essential part of the machine.

Coming out of the hut into the dark, damp night, Konovnitsyn frowned, partly from the greater headache which he was feeling, and partly from the unpleasant thought of how this whole nest of influential staffofficers would be stirred by this news, especially Bénigsen, who had been at swords’ points with Kutuzov ever since the battle of Tarutino; how they would propose, debate, order, make changes ! The presentiment of all this was unpleasant to him, though he knew that it could not be otherwise.

Indeed, Toll, to whom he went, on his way, to report the new piece of news, immediately began to expound his views to the general who was staying with him, but Konovnitsyn, who listened in silence and with an expression of fatigue, reminded him that it was time to go to his Most Serene Highness.

XVII.

Kutûzov, like all old men, did not sleep much at night.

In the daytime he frequently dozed off ; but at night he lay undressed on his bed, seldom sleeping, and always thinking.

He was lying thus on his bed, leaning his heavy, large, disfigured head on his chubby hand, and thinking, while peering into the darkness with his one eye.

Ever since Bénigsen, who corresponded with the emperor, and who had more influence than anybody else on the staff, had been avoiding him, he had been calmer in so far as they would not compel him with his troops to take part again in useless offensive actions. The lesson of the battle of Tarutino and of the preceding day, so painfully memorable to him, would also, he thought, have its effect.

” They ought to understand that we can only lose by acting offensively. Patience and time are my heroes ! ” thought Kutuzov. He knew that an apple ought not to be plucked so long as it was green. It would fall down by itself when it was ripe ; but by picking it green, you only spoil the apple and the tree, and set your teeth on edge. He knew, like an experienced hunter, that the game was wounded, and wounded as only the Russian force could wound, but it was not yet a settled question whether mortally, or not. Now, from Lauriston’s and Berthemi’s embassies and from the reports of the partisans, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal ; but he still needed proofs, — he had to wait.

” They want to run and see how they have killed him. Wait ! You will see ! All they want is manœuvres and attacks ! ” he thought. ” What for ? To distinguish themselves. As though there was any pleasure in fighting ! They are like children from whom you can’t make out how things happened, because they all want to prove that they know how to fight. But this is another matter.

” What ingenious manœuvres they propose to me ! They imagine that because they have guessed two or three incidents ” (he was thinking of the general plan sent him from St. Petersburg), ” they have invented them all. There is no end to these I “

The unsettled question whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was mortal or not had been hanging over Kutuzov’s head for a month. On the one hand the French had occupied Moscow ; on the other Kutuzov felt unquestionably, with all his being, that that terrible blow, in which he with all Russians had strained his last strength, must be death-dealing. But, in any case, proofs were wanted, and he had been waiting for them for a month, and the more time passed, the more he grew impatient. Lying on his bed during his sleepless nights, he did the same that all the young generals were doing, the same for which he had been upbraiding them. He was considering all possible eventualities, just as.the younger men did, but with this difference, that he built nothing on these suppositions, and that he saw, not two or three of them, but thousands. The longer he thought, the more there were of them. He considered all kinds of movements on the part of the Napoleonic army, in its entirety and in parts, — to St. Petersburg, toward him, to outflank him ; he considered (and of this he was most afraid) the possibility of Napoleon’s fighting him •with his own weapons, by remaining in Moscow and waiting for him. Kutuzov even considered the retreat of Napoleon’s army to Medyn and Yukhnov; but the one thing which he could not have foreseen was what

had actually taken place, — that senseless, convulsive vehemence of Napoleon’s army during the first eleven days after leaving Moscow, — that vehemence which made that possible which Kutuzov at that time did not yet dare to think of, — the complete annihilation of the French. Ddrokhov’s report about Broussier’s division, the news brought by the partisans about the calamity of Napoleon’s army, the rumours of the preparations for leaving Moscow, — everything confirmed the supposition that the French army was beaten and getting ready to ilee ; but all that was only a supposition which might be of importance to the younger men, and not to Kutuzov. He, with his experience of sixty years, knew what weight was to be attached to rumours ; how people who wished for a certain thing were likely to group all information so as to make it confirm the desired fact, and how, in such cases, the contradictory is gladly left out of consideration. And the more Kutuzov wished it, the less he permitted himself to believe it. This question occupied all his mental powers. Everything else was for him only a habitual performance of the vital functions. Such habitual performance and submission to the vital functions were his conversations with the men of the staff, his letters to Madame de Staël, which he wrote from Tarutino, the reading of novels, the distribution of rewards, the correspondence with St. Petersburg, and so forth. But the destruction of the French, which he alone had foreseen, was Iris only ardent desire.

In the night of October 11th he was lying down, leaning on his arm, and thinking of this.

There was a stir in the adjoining room, and the footsteps of Toll, Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov were heard.

” Oh, there, who is it ? Come in, come in ! What is the news?” the fieldmarshal called out to them.

While the lackey lighted a candle, Toll told him the contents of the despatch.

« Who brought it ? ” asked Kutuzov, with a face which startled Toll by its cold austerity, when the candle was lighted.

” There can be no doubt, your Serenity ! ”

” Call him in, call him in ! “

Kutuzov was sitting on his bed, one of his legs hanging down, while his large abdomen lay with its whole weight against the other, bent leg. He blinked with his intact eye, in order to get a better look at the messenger, as though he wanted to read in his features that which interested him.

” Tell me, tell me, my friend ! ” he said to Bolkhovitinov, in his calm, old man’s voice, closing up his shirt which was open on his bosom. ” Come, come nearer ! What kind of news have you brought me, eh ? Napoleon has left Moscow ? Really, eh ? ”

Bolkhovitinov told him everything in detail, as he had been ordered.

” Talk, talk faster, — do not torment me ! ” Kutuzov interrupted him.

Bolkhovitinov finished his recital and kept silence, waiting for orders. Toll began to say something, but Kutuzov interrupted him. He wanted to say something, but he suddenly ‘blinked and frowned ; he waved his hand to Toll and turned in the other direction, toward the “ fair ” corner of the hut, where hung the black images.

” 0 Lord, my Creator ! Thou hast heard my prayer ! ” he said, in a trembling voice, folding his hands. ” Russia is saved ! I thank Thee, 0 Lord ! ”

And he wept.

XVIII.

From that time on to the end of the campaign Kutuzov’s whole activity consists only in restraining his army, by means of his power and by ruses and prayers, from useless advances, manoeuvres, and conflicts with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov goes to Mäly Yaroslävets, but Kutuzov delays his whole army and gives the order to clear Kaluga, as a retreat beyond it appears to him as a great probability.

Kutuzov retreats all the time, but the enemy, not waiting for him to retreat, runs in the opposite direction.

Napoleon’s historians describe to us his ingenious manoeuvres against Tarutino and Maly Yaroslävets and make their reflections on what would have happened if Napoleon had succeeded in penetrating the rich southern Governments.

But, leaving out of consideration the fact that there was nothing to hinder Napoleon from proceeding to these southern Governments (since the Russian army gave him the right of way), the historians forget that Napoleon’s army could not have been saved by anything because it bore in itself the inevitable conditions of ruin. How could this army, which had found such rich supplies in Moscow without being able to retain them, but, instead, had tramped them under foot, and which, after arriving at Smolensk, looted supplies without making use of them, — how could tins army have expected to improve matters in the Government of Kaluga, which was inhabited by the same kind of Russians that were found in Moscow, who possessed the same tendency to destroy everything they set? fire to ?

The army could not have done better anywhere. Ever since the battle of Borodino and the pillage of Moscow, it bore in itself, so to speak, the chemical conditions of dissolution.

The men of what once had been an army were running with their leaders, without knowing whither, wishing (from Napoleon down to the last soldier) for one thing only : personally to get disentangled as quickly as possible from that inextricable situation of which they were all dimly conscious.

When, therefore, at the council of war at Maly Yaroslavets the generals pretended to be deliberating and expressed their various opinions, the simple idea of the good-natured soldier, Mouton, who, in saying that they ought to get away as soon as possible, merely gave expression to what all felt, closed the mouths of all, and no one, not even Napoleon, could say anything against this self-evident truth.

But, although all knew that they must go away, there was still left the consciousness of shame that they must run, and so an external push was necessary to overcome that shame. This push came in due time. It was that which the French call ” le Hourra de VEmpereur.”

On the day following the council, Napoleon, pretending that he wanted to review the troops and the field of the past and future battles, rode out early in the morning, accompanied by his suite of marshal’s and an escort, down through the centre of his lines. Some Cossacks, who were prowling around in search of booty, stumbled on the emperor himself, and almost made him a prisoner. What saved Napoleon this time, was the very thing that ruined the French army : it was the booty, for which the Cossacks made here, as at Tarutino, thus allowing the

men to escape. They paid no attention to Napoleon and pursued their prey, and Napoleon got away.

When ” les enfants du Don ” came so near catching the emperor in the midst of his own army, it became quite clear that there was nothing to be done but run as fast as possible on the nearest familiar road. Napoleon, with his paunch of forty years’ standing, no longer felt in himself his former agility and boldness, and he took the hint. Under the influence of the terror which the Cossacks had caused him, he at once agreed with Mouton, and gave, as the historians say, the order to retreat along the Smolénsk road.

The fact that Napoleon agreed with Mouton and that the troops retreated does not prove that he ordered it, but that the forces which were acting on the whole army, in the sense of directing it on the Mozhdysk road, acted simultaneously upon Napoleon.

XIX.

When a man is in motion, he always tries to invent an aim for this motion. In order to walk a thousand versts, a man must imagine that there is something good at the end of those one thousand versts. One must have an idea of the promised land, in order to have the strength to move.

The promised land for the French during the invasion had been Moscow ; during their retreat it was their own country. But their country was too far away, and a man who starts out to walk one thousand versts must necessarily say to himself that to-day, after marching forty versts, he will arrive at a place of rest, and for the first day’s march this place veils the final goal, and all wishes and hopes are centred upon it. The tendencies which are expressed in an individual are always magnified in a throng.

For the Frenchmen who started back on the old Smolénsk road, the final goal of their country was too far removed, and the nearer goal, the one on which centred all the desires and hopes, increasing in enormous proportion in the crowd, was Smolénsk. Not that people knew that in Smolénsk there were many supplies and fresh troops, not that they had been told so (on the contrary, the higher officers and Napoleon himself knew that there were no supplies there), but because this alone could give them strength to move on and bear their present privations, — both those who knew, and those who did not

know, deceived themselves alike and tended toward Smolensk as their promised laud.

Upon reaching the highway, the French with surprising energy and unheard-of rapidity ran toward their fictitious goal. Besides this cause of their general impetus, which bound the masses of the French into one whole and gave them a certain measure of energy, there was still another cause which bound them together. This cause was their numbers. The enormous mass itself, as in the physical law of attraction, attracted the separate human atoms. They moved with their mass of one hundred thousand like a whole kingdom.

Each man of them wished for but one thing, — to surrender himself into captivity, — to be freed of all the terrors and misfortunes. But, on the one hand, the force of the general tendency toward Smolénsk drew each one of them in the same direction ; on the other, it was impossible for a corps to surrender to a company, and, although the French used every available opportunity to separate from one another and, when the least decent pretext offered itself, to surrender themselves, these pretexts did not always exist. Their very numbers and the rapidity of their motion in serried ranks deprived them of this possibility, and made it difficult and even impossible for the Russians to arrest this motion, toward which the full energy of the French mass was directed.

A lump of snow cannot be thawed at once. There exists a certain limit of time, before which no amount of heat can do it. On the contrary, the greater the heat, the more compact will the unthawed snow be.

None of the Russian military leaders but Kutuzov understood this fact. When the direction of the flight of the French army along the Smolénsk road became well defined, there began to take place that which Konovmtsyn had foreseen on the night of October 11th. All the higher officers of the army wanted to distinguish themselves, to cut off, overtake, capture, overthrow the French, and all demanded a forward movement.

Kutuzov used every power at his command (this power is very small with a commanderin-chief) in order to counteract the forward movement.

He could not tell them what we are saying now: ” What use is there in giving battle and barring their way, in losing our own men, and in the inhuman slaughter of the unfortunates ? What use is there in this, since on the road from Moscow to Vyazma one-third of that army has melted away without battle ? ” He told them, drawing on his old man’s wisdom which they could comprehend, about the golden bridge, and they laughed at him, calumniated him, and tore him, and showed their bravado over the dead beast.

At Vyäzma, Ermélov, Milorädovich, Platov, and others, being in proximity to the French, could not restrain themselves from the desire to cut off and overthrow two French corps. Instead of reporting to Kutuzov their intention, they sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.

And no matter how much Kutuzov tried to hold back the troops, they attacked the enemy, trying to bar his way. The regiments of infantry, they say, went with music and drum-beats to the attack, and they killed and lost thousands of men.

But they did not cut off or overthrow any one. The French army, becoming more compact under danger, continued, melting evenly, on its fatal march toward Smolénsk.

PART THE FOURTEENTH

I.

The battle of Borodino, with the consequent occupation of Moscow, and the flight of the French, without new battles, is one of the most instructive phenomena of history.

All the historians agree that the external activity of kingdoms and nations, in their conflicts, is expressed by wars ; that, in consequence of the greater or lesser military successes, the political strength of kingdoms and nations is directly increased or diminished.

However strange the historical descriptions are of how a king or emperor, having quarrelled with another emperor or king, collected an army, waged war on his enemy, obtained a victory, killed three, five, ten thousand men, and, as the result of it, conquered a kingdom and a whole nation of several millions; however incomprehensible it may be why the defeat of one army, of one hundredth part of all the forces of a nation, may have caused the nation to submit, — all the facts of history (in so far as they are known to us) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser successes of the army of one nation against the army of another are the causes or, at least, the essential signs of the increase or diminution of the strength of the nations. The army has obtained a victory, and immediately the rights of the conquering nation are increased to the detriment of the conquered

nation. The army has been defeated, and immediately the nation loses its rights in proportion to its defeat, and completely submits after a complete defeat.

So it has been (according to history) from the most remote times up to the present. All the wars of Napoleon serve as a confirmation of this rule. In proportion as the Austrian troops are defeated, Austria loses her rights, and the rights and the strength of France are increased. The victory of the French at Jena and Auerstädt destroys the independent existence of Prussia.

But suddenly, in 1812, the French obtained a victory near Moscow, Moscow was taken, and thereupon, without any new battles, it was not Russia that ceased to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand men, and then Napoleonic France. It is impossible to stretch the facts so as to fit history, by saying that the battlefield of Borodind was left to the Russians, and that after Moscow there were battles which destroyed Napoleon’s army.

After the French victory at Borodind, there was not a single general battle, not even a single important engagement, and the French army ceased to exist. What does it mean ? If this were an example from the history of China, we could say that it was not a historical phenomenon (the loophole of the historians, when something does not fit their measure) ; if we had before us a conflict of short duration, in which small numbers of troops took part, we might regard this phenomenon as exceptional ; but this event took place under the eyes of our fathers, for whom the question of their country’s life or death was being decided, and this war was one of the greatest of all known wars.

The period of the campaign of 1812, from the battle of Borodind to the expulsion of the French, has proved that a battle won is not only no cause of conquest, but not even a permanent sign of conquest, — it has proved that the force which decides the fate of nations does not lie in the conquerors, not even in armies and battles, but in something else.

The French historians, in describing the position of the French army before its departure from Moscow, affirm that everything in the great army was in order, except the cavalry, the artillery, and the baggage, and except for the fact that there was no forage for the horses and the cattle. Nothing could have helped this calamity, because the peasants of the surrounding country burned their hay and did not give any to the French.

A battle won did not produce the customary results, because peasants Karp and Vlas, after the evacuation of Moscow by the French, drove their carts to the city to loot it, and in general displayed no personal heroic sentiments, and because the endless number of such peasants did not haul hay to Moscow, though offered good money for it, but burned it.

Let us imagine two men who come out to fight a duel with swords, according to all the rules of the art of fencing : the fencing has lasted a considerable time ; suddenly one of the opponents feels himself wounded : seeing that the thing is not a joke, but that his life is at stake, he throws away his sword and picks up the first club he can find and begins to wield it. But let us imagine that this opponent, who has so sensibly used the best and simplest means for obtaining his end, is at the same time animated by the traditions of chivalry, wants to conceal the actual occurrences, and insists that he has been victorious according to all the rules of fencing. We can see what a tangle and confusion would ensue from such a description of the duel !

The French were the duellist who demands that the fight is to take place according to the rules of the art ; the Russians were the opponent who throws away the sword and takes up the club ; the historians who have written

about this event are the people who try to explain everything according to the laws of fencing.

With the conflagration of Smolénsk began a war which does not fit in with any of the older traditions of wars. The burning of cities and villages, the retreating after battles, the blow given at Borodind and again a retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizing of transports, the partisan war, — all these were departures from the rules.

Napoleon was conscious of it, and, ever since he had stopped in Moscow in a regular fencing attitude, and, instead of the opponent’s sword, had seen a club raised over him, he had never stopped complaining to Kutuzov and to Emperor Alexander because the war was not waged according to all the rules (as though there existed certain rules about killing people). In spite of the complaints of the French about the non-observance of the rules, and in spite of the fact that the Russians in the higher spheres of life felt ashamed to be fighting with a club, but preferred to stand in position according to the rules ” en quarte ” or ” en tierce” to make a skilful ” prime ” thrust, and so forth, — the club of the national war rose in all its menacing and majestic strength and, without asking about anybody’s tastes or rules, with stupid simplicity, but with telling force, rose blindly, fell, and nailed down the Frenchmen until the whole invasion was crushed.

Hail to the nation, which does not, like the French in 1813, salute according to all the rules of the art and, turning its sword with the hilt toward the magnanimous victor, gracefully and politely hand it to him, and which, in moments of trial, does not ask by what rules others have been guided in similar cases, but with simplicity and ease raises the first club it finds and belabours its enemy with it, until in its soul the feeling of insult and revenge is changed to contempt and pity !

II.

One of the most palpable and most advantageous departures from the so-called rules of war is the action of isolated people against men clinging to a compact mass. Such actions always make their appearance in a war when it assumes a national character. They consist in dispersing into small groups, instead of fighting mass against mass, in attacking singly, and immediately running away, as soon as they are attacked by large forces, and then again attacking when an opportunity offers itself. This the guerillas did in Spain ; this the mountaineers did in the Caucasus; this the Russians did in 1812.

Such a war has been called partisan, and it has been assumed that this appellation explains its meaning. But such a war does not fit in with any rules ; it is in direct opposition to the well-known and unerring rule of military tactics. This rule says that the aggressor must concentrate his troops in order to be stronger than his opponent at the moment of attack.

The partisan war (which has always been successful, as history proves) is directly opposed to this rule.

This contradiction is due to the fact that military science assumes that the strength of the troops is identical with their numbers. Military science says that the more troops, the greater the force. Les gros bataillons ont toujours raison.

Saying this, military science resembles the kind of mechanics that, considering forces only in relation to their

masses, says that forces are equal or unequal because their masses are equal or unequal.

Force (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and rapidity.

In military affairs, the force of the troops is also the product of mass and something else, some unknown x.

Military science, seeing in history an endless number of examples in which the mass of the troops does not coincide with its force, and in which small detachments vanquish large ones, dimly acknowledges the existence of this unknown factor and tries to find it, — now in the geometric structure, now in the equipment, and most frequently so, in the genius of the generals. But the substitution of all these values of the factor does not furnish any results which are in conformity with the historic facts.

But, in order to discover the real value of this x, it is only necessary to abandon the false view, which has established itself in favour of heroes, about the efficacy of the dispositions of the superior commanders during a war.

This x is the spirit of the troops, that is, the greater or lesser desire to fight and subject themselves to dangers on the part of all the men composing the army, quite independently of the fact whether they are fighting under the command of a genius or not, whether in three or two lines, whether with clubs or with guns that shoot thirty times a minute. The men who have the greatest desire to fight will always place themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.

The spirit of the army is the factor which, multiplied by the mass, will give force for its product. It is the problem of science to define and express the meaning of the spirit of the army, of that unknown factor.

The problem is possible only when we stop arbitrarily substituting, instead of the value of the whole x, those conditions under which force manifests itself, such as the

but in reality split up into small units, because the spirit was raised to such an extent that separate individuals attacked the French without orders, and did not need any compulsion in order to subject themselves to labours and dangers.

III.

The so-called partisan war began with the enemy’s entrance into Smolénsk.

Before the partisan war was officially accepted by our government, thousands of men of the hostile army — straggling marauders, foragers — had been destroyed by the Cossacks and peasants, who struck down these men with as little remorse as dogs bite to death a mad dog that runs in among them. Denis Davidov was the first who with his Russian sense comprehended the value of that terrible club which, without asking for the rules of military art, destroyed the French, and to him belongs the honour of the first step to legalize this method of warfare.

On August 24th the first partisan detachment of Davÿdov was organized, and soon after other detachments were formed. The farther the campaign proceeded, the greater became the number of these detachments.

The partisans destroyed the great army in parts. They picked up all the falling leaves which dropped down from the dried-up tree of the French army, and now and then they shook the tree itself. In October, while the French were running to Smolénsk, there were hundreds of these parties of various sizes and characters. There were parties that adopted all the methods of armies, with infantry, artillery, staffs, and the comforts of life ; there were Cossack detachments of cavalry only ; there were small groups of peasants and landed proprietors, on foot and on horseback, unknown to any one. There was a

sexton who was the leader of a party, and he captured several hundreds a month ; and there was an elder’s wife, Vasilisa by name, who struck down hundreds of Frenchmen.

In the last days of October the partisan war was in full blast. That first period of the war was past, when the partisans, themselves surprised at their audacity, were afraid of being caught any moment and surrounded by the French and, without unsaddling their horses and hardly getting down from their mounts, hid in the forests, expecting to be pursued at any moment. Now the war was defined : it was quite clear now what could be done against the French, and what not. Now only the commanders of detachments, who, with their staffs, kept, according to the rule, away from the French, regarded many things as impossible. But the petty partisan leaders, who had long ago gone to work and had seen the French at close range, considered that possible of which the commanders of the large detachments did not dare to think ; and the Cossacks and peasants, who slunk in among the French, now regarded everything as possible.

On October 22d, Denisov, who was one of the partisans, gave, with his party, full play to his partisan passion. He had been on the march since early morning, making his way through the forests which skirted the highway, watching a large French transport of cavalry belongings and Russian prisoners. It was separated from the rest of the troops and was moving toward Smolénsk under heavy protection, as had been learned from spies and from captives. The news about this transport had been brought not only to Denisov and to Dôlokhov (also a partisan with a small party), who was marching close to Denisov, but also to the commanders of large detachments with their staffs: all knew of it and, as Denisov said, whetted their teeth for it. Two of these large detachment chiefs,— one of them a Pole, the other a German, — almost at the same time sent Denisov an invitation to join them, in order to attack the transports.

” No, my friend, I have whiskers myself,” said Denisov, as he read these missives, and he wrote to the German that, in spite of his hearty desire to serve under the leadership of so brave and famous a general, he was obliged to forego that pleasure because he had already entered under the command of the Polish general. To the Polish general he wrote the same, informing him that he had already taken service under the German.

Having disposed of the matter in this fashion, Denisov intended, without reporting to the higher authorities, to attack and capture this transport, by joining his small forces with those of Ddlokhov. The transport was on October 22d proceeding from the village of Mikulino to the village of Shämshevo. On the left of the road, from Mikulino to Shämshevo, were dense forests which in places came down to the very road, and in other places receded a verst or more from the road. Through these forests Denisov rode with his party the whole day, now penetrating to its depth, now riding out to the clearings, and never letting the moving Frenchmen out of sight. Early in the morning the Cossacks of Denisov’s party had captured two wagons with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud near Mikulino, where the forest came down to the road, and had taken it into the woods. Since then the party had not, until evening, attacked the transport, but kept a sharp lookout upon its movement. The point was to let it calmly reach Shämshevo, without frightening the Frenchmen; there he would unite with Dolokhov, who was to come for a consultation in the evening to the guard-house in the forest, about a verst from the village, and at daybreak they would fall upon them, like snow upon the head, and strike down and capture all at once.

Behind them, within two versts of Mikulino, where the forest skirted the road, six Cossacks were left, and they were to report at once, as soon as new French columns were sighted.

Beyond Shdmshevo, Ddlokhov was similarly to investigate the road, in order to ascertain at what distance other French troops were to be seen. With the transport fifteen hundred men were supposed to march. Denisov had two hundred men, and Ddlokhov probably as many. But the numerical superiority did not frighten Denisov. There was one thing he still had to know, and that was, what kind of troops they were : for this purpose Denisov had to capture a “ foreigner,” that is a man from the hostile column. During the morning attack on the wagons the thing had been done in such a hurry that the French carters were all killed, and they captured only a drummer boy who had fallen behind and was unable to tell them anything definite about what kind of troops were in the column.

To attack a second time Denisov regarded as dangerous, lest he should stir up the whole column, and so he sent ahead to Shamshevo peasant Tikhon Shcherbdtov, who was with his party, to capture, if possible, at least one of the French quartermasters who had preceded the column.

IV.

It was a warm, drizzly autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both of the colour of turbid water. Now a mist seemed to descend, and now fell large drops of a slanting rain.

Denisov rode a thoroughbred, lean horse, with drawn sides. He wore a felt mantle and a lambskin cap, from which water came down in runlets. Like his horse, which held his head sidewise and dropped his ears, he frowned under the influence of the slanting rain and looked restlessly into the distance. His emaciated face, which was overgrown with a thick, short black beard, looked angry.

Beside Denisov, also in felt mantle and lambskin cap, astride on a well-fed, large Don horse, rode a captain of Cossacks, Denisov’s colabourer.

Captain Lovayski the Third was tall, as flat as a plank, white-faced, blond, with narrow, bright little eyes and a calm and self-satisfied expression in his face and whole bearing. Though one could not tell wherein consisted the peculiarity of the horse and the rider, it was evident, from one glance at the captain and at Denisov, that Denisov was wet and felt uncomfortable, — that Denisov was a man who had mounted his horse ; whereas, looking at the captain of Cossacks, it was apparent that he was as comfortable and satisfied as ever, and that he was not a man who had seated himself on a horse, but that, with his mount, he formed one being of double the force.

A little in front of them walked the guide, a peasant in a gray caftan and white cap. He was wet through and through.

A little distance behind them, seated on a lean, thin Kirghiz pony with an immense tail and mane and bleeding lips, rode a young officer in a blue French mantle.

At their side rode a hussar, carrying behind him, on the crupper of his horse, a French boy in a torn French uniform and blue cap. The boy held on to the hussar with his hands, which were red from cold, moved Iris bare feet about, trying to warm them, and, raising his eyebrows, looked about him in surprise. It was the drummer boy who had been captured in the morning.

Behind them, over the narrow, rain-washed, rutted forest path, rode, in files of three and four, first the hussars, and then the Cossacks, some of them in felt mantles, others in French cloaks, or with blankets over their heads. The chestnut and bay horses looked black in the rain which was streaming down from them. The necks of the horses, with their rain-soaked manes, looked strangely thin. An evaporation rose from their bodies. The wearing apparel, the saddles, the reins, — everything was wet, slippery, and limp, like the earth and the fallen leaves with which the path was covered. The men sat humping themselves, trying not to stir, so as to warm up the water which had streamed down to their skins, and not to admit the fresh cold water, which was running under the seats of their pantaloons and under their knees, and behind their necks. In the middle of the extended Cossack file, two wagons drawn by French horses and by Cossack horses harnessed with their saddles on rumbled over stumps and twigs, and plashed in the water-filled ruts of the road.

Denisov’s horse, in the attempt to avoid a puddle in the road, drew to one side and pushed his knee against a tree.

” Oh, devil ! ” Denisov exclaimed, angrily, and, showing his teeth, two or three times struck his horse with his whip, bespattering himself and his companions with mud. Denisov was out of sorts, from the rain and from hunger (no one had eaten anything since morning), and, above everything else, because no news had yet been brought from Dolokhov, and the man sent to capture a foreigner had not yet returned.

” There will hardly present itself another such an opportunity as to-day to attack the transport. It is too risky for me to attack it alone, and if I put it off to another day, some one of the greater partisans will snap it up under my nose,” thought Denisov, constantly looking ahead, in the hope of seeing a messenger from Dolokhov.

As he rode out on a clearing, where one could see a long way to the right, Denisov stopped.

” Some one is riding there,” he said.

The captain looked in the direction pointed out to him by Denisov.

” There are two of them, an officer and a Cossack ; but it is not presumable that it should be the colonel himself,” said the captain, who was fond of using words that were unknown to the Cossacks.

The riders descended a hill and disappeared from view ; a few minutes later they again appeared. In front, an officer rode at a weary gallop, urging his horse on with his whip, — he was dishevelled, wet to his skin, and his pantaloons had crumpled over his knees. Behind him raced a Cossack, standing in his stirrups. This officer, a very young boy, with a broad, ruddy face and quick, merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov and handed him a wet envelope.

« From the general,” said the officer. ” Pardon me for giving it to you so wet.”

Denisov frowned, took the envelope, and broke the seal.

“ They kept saying that it was dangerous,” said the officer, turning to the captain of Cossacks while Denisov

was reading the communication. “Still, Komardv” (he pointed to the Cossack) ” and I got ready. We had two pist— What is this ? ” he asked, as he noticed the French drummer, “ a captive ? Have you already been in a battle ? May I speak with him ? “

” Rostdv ! Pétya ! ” Denisov shouted, after running the letter through. ” Why did you not say at once who you were ? ” and Denisov turned around and, smiling, extended his hand to the officer.

This officer was Pétya Rostov.

During his whole ride Pétya had been preparing himself to appear in proper form before Denisov, like a grown-up and an officer, without hinting his former acquaintance with him. But the moment Denisov smiled at him, Pétya beamed, blushed for joy, and forgot the official tone for which he had been preparing himself. He began to tell how he had ridden past the French, and how happy he was to have been sent on such a mission, and how he had been in a battle at Vydzma, and how a hussar had distinguished himself there.

“Well, I am glad to see you,” Denisov interrupted him, and his face assumed its former careworn expression.

” Mikhail Feoklitich,” he turned to the captain, ” this is again from that German. He serves under him.” And Denisov told the captain of Cossacks that the letter just brought to him contained a renewal of the invitation from the German general to join him in an attack on the transport. ” If we do not take it by tomorrow, he will snap it up under our noses,” he concluded.

While Denisov was talking with the captain, Pétya, embarrassed by Denisov’s cold tone, and assuming that the cause of it was the condition of his pantaloons, under his mantle, so as not to be seen, fixed his pantaloons which had crept up on him, and endeavoured to look as martial as possible.

” Will there be any order from your Honour ? ” he said to Denisov, putting his hand to his visor, and again returning to the adjutant-and-general game, for which he had prepared himself, “ or shall I remain here, with your Honour ? “

“An order?” Denisov said, meditatively. “Can you stay with me until tomorrow ? “

” Oh, if you please ! May I ? ” exclaimed Pétya.

“What was your order from the general? Were you to return at once ? ” asked Denisov.

Pétya blushed.

” He gave me no order, and so may I ?” he said interrogatively.

“ All right,” said Denisov. And, turning to his subordinates, he gave orders for the party to march to their appointed place of rest, near the guard-house in the woods, and for the officer on the Kirghiz pony (this officer played the part of adjutant) to go to find Dolokhov and to discover where he was, and whether he would come in the evening. Denisov himself intended to ride, with the captain and Pétya, to the edge of the woods, winch opened up on Shamshevo, in order to get a glimpse at the position of the French, which was to be attacked on the following day.

“ Well, long-beard,” he turned to the peasant guide, “ take us to Shamshevo ! “

Denisov, Pétya, and the captain, accompanied by a few Cossacks and the hussar who carried the captive with him, rode to the left, through a ravine, toward the edge of the forest.

V.

The rain had stopped, and only a mist was settling down, and drops fell from the branches of trees. Denisov, the captain, and Pétya rode silently back of the peasant in the long cap, who, stepping noiselessly with his out-toeing, bast-covered feet over the stumps and wet leaves, led them to the clearing.

Upon reaching the slope of a hill, the peasant stopped, looked around, and walked over toward a thin wall of trees. He stopped near a large oak-tree that had not yet shed its leaves, and mysteriously beckoned to the riders to come to him.

Denisov and Pétya rode up. From the place where the peasant stood could be seen the Frenchmen. Immediately beyond the forest a field of summer rye descended in a semicircle. On the right, beyond a steep ravine, could be seen a small village and a small manor with dilapidated roofs. In this village, and in the manor, and along the whole mound, in the garden, at the well and pond, and along the whole road from the bridge to the village, not more than fifteen hundred feet away, masses of people could be discerned in the surging mist. Their un-Russian calls to the horses pulling the carts up-hill and their shouts to each other could be heard clearly.

” Bring me the captive ! ” Denisov said, softly, without taking his eyes off the Frenchmen.

A Cossack dismounted, took the boy down, and with him went up to Denisov. The boy stuck his chilled hands in his pockets and, raising his eyebrows, looked in a frightened way at Denisov. In spite of his evident desire to tell everything he knew, he became mixed in his answers and only confirmed everything Denisov asked him about. Denisov frowned, turned away from him, and addressed the captain, to whom he communicated his observations.

Pétya turned his head about with a rapid motion, looking now at the drummer, now at Denisov, now at the captain, and now at the Frenchmen in the village and on the road, trying not to omit anything that might be of importance.

” Whether Délokhov will come or not, we must take it ! Eh ? ” said Denisov, with a merry sparkle in his eyes.

” It is a favourable locality,” said the captain.

” We will send the infantry through the lowland, through the swamp,” continued Denisov. “They will creep up to the garden. You will ride up from there with your Cossacks,” Denisov pointed to the forest beyond the village, “ and I from there, with my hussars. And at a given signal — “

” It will be impossible to go through the ravine, — it is boggy there,” said the captain. “The horses will stick there ; we shall have to go more to the left — ”

Just as they were speaking thus in a low tone of voice, a shot cracked below in the ravine near the pond ; a puff of smoke appeared, then a second shot, and one could hear the merry shout of hundreds of Frenchmen who were on the slope of the hill. In the first moment, Denisov and the captain drew back. They stood so near that it seemed to them that they were the cause of these shots and exclamations. But they had no reference to them. Down below, through the swamps, a man in red was running. It was evident that the Frenchmen were shooting and shouting at him.

“ Why, that is our Tikhon ! ” said the captain.

“ It is he, truly he ! ”

” What a rogue ! ” said Denisov.

” He will get away from them ! ” the captain said, blinking.

The man whom they called Tikhon ran up to a brook, splashed into it so that he sent up a spray of water, and, disappearing for a moment, crawled out with his hands and feet all black, and ran forward. The Frenchmen who had been running after him stopped.

” He is too quick for them ! ” said the captain.

” What a rascal ! ” Denisov said, in the same tone of annoyance. “ What has he been doing all this time ? “

“ Who is this ? ” asked Pétya.

” It is our scout, — I sent him out to take a foreigner.”

” Oh, yes,” said Pétya, who had been shaking Ins head from the time Denisov began to speak, as if he understood everything, though he had positively not made out a word.

Tikhon Shcherbätov was one of the most important men of the party. He was a peasant of the village of Pokrovskoe, near Gzhat. When, in the beginning of his activity, Denisov arrived at Pokrovskoe and, as usual, called up the elder, to find out what was known about the French, the elder replied, as all elders did, as though to escape any responsibility, that he had absolutely no knowledge of them. But when Denisov explained to him that it was his purpose to kill the French, and asked him whether any Frenchmen had wandered that way, the elder replied that the may-roadcrs had indeed been there, but that Tikhon Shcherbatov was the only one in the village who had attended to that. Denisov sent for Tikhon, praised him for his activity, and said something in the hearing of the elder about the loyalty to Tsar and country and the hatred against the French, which every son of the country ought to foster.

” We are not harming the French,” said Tikhon, who evidently was frightened by Denisov’s words. “We have just had a little fun with the boys. It is so, we have stricken down a dozen or two of the may-roaders, but otherwise we have done no harm.” When Denisov on the following day left Pokrévskoe, entirely forgetting that peasant, he was informed that Tikhon had joined the party and begged to be permitted to stay with it. Denisov gave him this permission.

Tikhon, who at first attended to the menial labour of making the campfires, bringing water, flaying dead horses, and so forth, soon evinced a great liking and ability for the partisan warfare. He went out every night after booty, and every time brought back with him French apparel and weapons, and, when ordered to do so, fetched captives. Denisov freed him from work, took him along on scouting tours, and enlisted him among the Cossacks.

Tikhon did not like to ride and always walked, without ever falling behind the cavalry. His arms consisted of a musketoon, which he wore more chiefly for fun, a pike, and an axe, which he wielded as a wolf uses his teeth, with which he with equal nimbleness picks out fleas from his hair and crushes bones. Tikhon with equal precision split logs by striking them with his axe swung at full force, or carved small pegs and spoons with it, by holding it by the head. In Denisov’s party he occupied a special, exclusive place. When something very difficult or nasty had to be done, — such as to push a cart out of the mud with the shoulder, pull a horse out of a bog by its tail, skin a horse, slink in among the French, walk fifty versts a day, all pointed, smiling, to Tikhon.

“ It will not hurt that devil, — he is as strong as a horse!” they said of him.

Once a Frenchman, whom he was trying to capture, fired his pistol at him, and wounded him in the soft part of his back. This wound, which Tikhon cured by the application of vodka, internally and externally, was

the subject of much merriment in the detachment, and Tikhon readily submitted to the jokes.

” Well, my friend, won’t you do it again ? Has it soured you ? ” the Cossacks said laughingly to him, and Tikhon purposely writhed and made faces, pretending to be angry, and cursed the French with the funniest kind of curses. This incident had such an effect that Tikhon, after having received the wound, rarely brought in prisoners.

Tikhon was the most useful and the bravest man in the party. No one discovered more chances for attacks, and no one took more French prisoners, or killed more Frenchmen ; and so he was the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars, and cheerfully fell in with that tone. Now Tikhon had been sent by Denisov to Shamshevo to take a foreigner. But, either because he was not satisfied with one Frenchman, or because he had slept through the night, he in the daytime crept through the bushes, into the very midst of the French, where, as Denisov saw, he was discovered by them.

VI.

After talking a little while with the captain about the attack of the next day, which now, as he looked at the French near by, Denisov seemed definitely to have decided upon, he turned his horse around and rode back.

” No, my dear, let us go and dry ourselves,” he said to Pétya.

As they reached the guard-house in the forest, Denisov stopped and looked into the woods. Between the trees, strutting with long, light steps on long legs, and dangling his arms, could be seen a man in a jacket, in bast shoes, and in a Kazan cap, with a gun over his shoulder and an axe in his belt. When he noticed Denisov, he hurriedly threw something into the bushes and, taking off his wet cap with the loosely hanging flaps, walked over to his chief. It was Tikhon. His pockmarked and wrinkled face with its small, narrow eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He raised his head high and looked fixedly at Denisov, as though restraining a laugh.

” Where have you been ? ” asked Denisov.

” “Where have I been ? I went to get Frenchmen,” Tikhon answered, boldly and hurriedly, in his hoarse, singsong bass.

” Why did you go for them in the daytime ? Beast ! Why did you not get one ? ”

” I did get one,” said Tikhon.

” Where is he ? ”

” I took him early in the morning,” continued Tikhon, spreading wider bis flat, out-toeing, bast-covered feet, “and

led him into the forest. I saw he was no good, so I thought I would go aud get a likelier fellow.”

” I thought the rascal would do so,” Denisov said to the captain. ” Why did you not bring him ? “

” What is the use of bringing him ? ” Tikhon angrily interrupted him, “ he is no good. Don’t I know what kind of fellows you need ? “

“ What a beast ! Well ? “

” I went to fetch another,” continued Tikhon, ” crept up like this into the forest, and lay down.” Tikhon suddenly slid down on his belly, to show how he did it. “ One of them turned up,” he continued. ” I grabbed him like this.” Tikhon leaped up with a quick, lithe motion. ” ‘ Come,’ says I, ‘ to the colonel ! ‘ How he yelled ! There were four of them. They rushed up against me with their little swords. I went for them with the axe, like this : ‘ What is the matter with you ? — Christ be with you ! ‘ ” exclaimed Tikhon, swinging his arms, frowning threateningly, and arching his breast.

“ We saw from a hill how you cut stick across puddles,” said the captain, narrowing his glistening eyes.

Pétya felt very much like laughing, but he saw that everybody was restraining himself from bursting out. He swiftly transferred his eyes from Tikhon’s face to that of the captain and of Denisov, without understanding what it all meant.

“Don’t act the fool,” said Denisov, angrily clearing his throat. “ Why did you not bring the first fellow ? ”

Tikhon began to scratch his back with one hand, and his head with the other, and suddenly his whole mouth was stretched out in a stupid, beaming smile, which disclosed the lack of a tooth. Denisov smiled, and Pétya burst into a merry laugh, in which Tikhon himself joined.

“ Why, he was not quite the thing,” said Tikhon. ” His clothes were no good, so why should I bring him ? And he was such a rough fellow, your Honour. 11,’ says he, ‘ am myself the son of a jineral, and,’ says he, ‘ I will not go ! ‘ ”

” What a beast ! ” said Denisov. “ I had to question him.”

” I have questioned him myself,” said Tikhon. “ Says he : ‘ I know nothing. There are many of us, but they are no good,’ says he. ‘ Nothing but names. Shout at them,’ says he, ‘ and you will have them all ! ’ ” concluded Tikhon, looking merrily and with determination into Denisov’s eyes.

” I will give you a hundred hot strokes, so you will stop making such a fool of yourself ! ” Denisov said, sternly.

” What is the use of being so angry ? ” said Tikhon. “Haven’t I seen your Frenchmen? Let it grow dark, and I will fetch you three of them, if you wish.”

“ Come, let us go ! ” said Denisov, and, frowning angrily, he rode up to the guard-house in silence.

Tikhon went back, and Pétya heard the Cossacks laugh with him and at him because of some boots which he had thrown into the bushes.

When the laughter had passed, which had taken possession of him at Tikhon’s words and smile, and Pétya for a moment realized that this Tikhon had killed a man, he felt ill at ease. He looked back at the captive drummer boy, and something pinched him at his heart. But this embarrassment lasted only a minute. He felt the necessity of raising his head higher, of looking more cheerful, and of questioning the captain, with an important look, about the undertaking of the next day, so that he might not be unworthy of the company in which he was.

The officer who had been sent out met Denisov on his way, and informed him that Dolokhov would soon arrive himself, and that everything on his side was favourable.

Denisov suddenly grew merry and called up Pétya.

” Tell me all about yourself,” he said.

VIL

After leaving his relatives, and departing from Moscow, Pétya had joined his regiment and soon after had been made an orderly to the general who was commanding a large detachment. Ever since his promotion to the rank of an officer, and especially since he had taken part in an active engagement in the battle of Vyâzma, Pétya had been in a constantly agitated happy state because he now was a grown man, and in a transport of haste not to miss a single opportunity of real heroism. He was very happy with what he had seen and experienced in the army, but, at the same time, it seemed to him that where he was not the real thing was going on, the heroic deeds. And so he was continually hurrying to get where he was not.

When, on October 21st, the general expressed his ■wish to send some one to Denisov’s detachment, Pétya begged so pitifully to be sent, that the general could not refuse him. But recalling his senseless act at Vydzma, where he, instead of travelling by the road to his destination, had galloped into the French cordon and had twice discharged his pistol, the general, sending him away, gave him explicit orders not to take part in any action of . Denisov’s. It was for this that Pétya had blushed so and become so confused when Denisov had asked him whether he could stay. Before reaching the clearing in the forest, Pétya had fully expected to carry out his orders strictly and return at once. But when he saw the French and Tikhon, and heard that they certainly would attack in the night, he with the rapidity with which young men pass from one view to another decided that the general, whom heretofore he had been respecting, was a good-for-nothing German, that Denisov was a hero, and so was the captain of Cossacks, and Tikhon, and that it would be a shame for him to leave them at such a grave moment.

It was getting dark when Denisov, Pétya, and the captain reached the guard-house. In the semidarkness could be seen the horses with their saddles, the Cossacks, and the hussars, who were fixing the little tents and (that the French might not see the smoke) fanning a strong fire in a ravine. In the vestibule of a small hut a Cossack, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, was chopping up some mutton. In the hut were three officers of Denisov’s party, making a table out of a door. Pétya took off his wet clothes, giving them to a soldier to dry, and immediately began to help the officers to prepare the dinner.

In ten minutes the table was ready and covered with a napkin. On it was some vddka, rum in a bottle, white bread, and a roast leg of mutton with salt.

Pétya sat at the table with the officers, and with his hands, over which the fat ran, tore off pieces of the succulent, fragrant mutton. He was in a childishly ecstatic condition of tender love for all people, and was convinced that everybody reciprocated his feeling.

“ So what do you say, Vasili Fédorovich,” he turned to Denisov, ” may I stay a day with you ? ” And without waiting for a reply, he said to himself : ” I was ordered to find out, and so I will — Only you must let me into the . thickest— I do not want any rewards— I want to get — ” Pétya clenched his teeth and looked around, with an upward nod of his head, and waving his hand.

” Into the thickest — ” Denisov repeated, smiling.

« Please do give me a command, let me command ! ” Pétya continued. ” It will not cost you anything ! Oh, you want the knife ? ” he turned to an officer who wanted

to cut off a piece of mutton. And he handed him his clasp-knife.

The officer praised the knife.

” Keep it ! I have many more,” Pétya said, blushing. “ 0 Lord ! I almost forgot,” he suddenly exclaimed. ” I have some superb raisins, you know, without stones. We have a new sutler, and he has such nice things ! I bought ten pounds. I am used to eating something sweet. Do you want some ? ” And Pétya ran to his Cossack and brought back the wallets, in which were about five pound of raisins. ” Eat, gentlemen ! Eat them ! “

” Maybe you need a coffee-pot ? ” he turned to the captain. ” I have bought a superb coffee-pot of our sutler ! He has such nice things ! And he is so honest ! That is a great deal. I will send it to you, by all means. Maybe your flints are giving out, — such things happen. I took some with me, — I have here ” — he pointed to the wallets — “one hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Take as many as you need, if you please, — take them all ! ” And suddenly, as though frightened at having chatted too much, he stopped, and blushed.

He tried to recall whether he had not committed some other foolish act. In passing in review the impressions of the day, he suddenly thought of the French drummer boy. ” We are comfortable, but how does he feel ? What have they done with him ? Have they fed him ? Have they not abused him?” he thought. But, recalling that he had just exaggerated about the flints, he kept sil cnc6.

« It would not hurt to ask,” he thought. ” They will simply say that I am myself a boy, and so have taken pity on a boy. I will show them tomorrow the kind of a boy I am ! Will it be a disgrace if I ask ? ” thought Pétya. ” What do I care ? ” and blushing and watching the officers to see whether there would be any derision in their faces, he said :

” May I call in the boy that you have captured ? and give him something to eat ? Maybe — “

“Yes, poor boy,” said Denisov, who evidently found nothing reprehensible in his question. “ Call him in ! His name is Vincent Bosse. Call him in ! “

“ I will call him,” said Pétya.

“ Do, do ! Poor boy ! ” repeated Denisov.

Pétya was standing at the door when Denisov was saying this. Pétya crawled through between the officers and walked up to Denisov.

“ Permit me to kiss you, my dear ! ” he said. “ Oh, how fine ! How nice of you ! ” And, having kissed Denisov, he ran out-of-doors.

“ Bosse ! Vincent ! ” exclaimed Pétya, standing at the door.

“Whom do you want, sir?” asked a voice in the darkness.

Pétya said that he wanted the French boy who had been captured that day.

“ Oh, Vesénni ? ” said a Cossack.

His name, “Vincent,” the Cossacks had changed to “ Vesénni,” and the peasants and soldiers to “ Visénya.” In either transformation, this derivation from the Russian word meaning “ spring ” fitted with the idea of the lad’s youth.

“ He has been warming himself at the fire. Oh, Visénya ! Visénya ! - Vesénni ! ” were heard the voices and the laughter running down the line in the darkness. “ He is a clever lad,” said a hussar, who was standing near Pétya. “ We have fed him : he was dreadfully hungry !”

Footsteps were heard through the darkness, and, plashing his bare feet in the mud, the drummer boy walked over to the door.

“ Ah, c’est vous ! ” said Pétya. ” Voulez-vous manger ? N’ayez pas peur, on ne vous fera pas de mal,” he added,

timidly, and kindly touching his arm. ” Entrez, entrez ! “

“ Merci, monsieur,” replied the drummer, in a trembling, almost childish voice, as he was cleaning his dirty feet against the threshold.

Pétya wanted to say many things to him, but he did not dare to. He stood near him, in the vestibule, restlessly moving his feet. Then he took his hand in the darkness and pressed it.

” Entrez, entrez ! ” he repeated, in a tender voice.

” Oh, what could I do for him ? ” Pétya said to himself. Opening the door, he let him pass first.

When the drummer boy entered the hut, Pétya sat down at a distance from him, regarding it as below his dignity to pay any attention to him. He kept fingering his money in his pocket and was wondering whether it would not be a disgrace to give it to the drummer.

VIII.

From the drummer, to whom, by Denisov’s command, védka and mutton were given, and whom Denisov ordered to be clad in a Russian caftan and left with the party, and not sent away with the prisoners, Pétya’s attention was distracted by Ddlokhov’s arrival. Pétya had heard in the army many tales about Dolokhov’s extraordinary bravery and cruelty toward the French, and so Pétya, from the time that Ddlokhov entered the room, did not take his eyes off him, and tried to look more dashing, with an upward jerk of his head, so as not to be unworthy of even such company as Délokhov.

Dolokhov’s appearance startled Pétya by its simplicity.

Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, and over his breast hung an image of Nicholas the Miracle-worker, and in the manner of his speech and in all his ways could be seen the peculiarity of his position. Ddlokhov, on the contrary, who in Moscow had worn a Persian costume, now had the appearance of a well-dressed officer of the Guard. His face was shaven clean ; he wore a wadded coat of the Guard, with the cross of St. George in the buttonhole, and his simple cap sat straight on his head. He took his wet felt mantle off in the corner, and, without greeting any one, walked over to Denisov, whom he at once began to question about the affair in hand. Denisov told him of the designs which the large detachments had on this transport, and about Pétya’s message, and of how he had replied to both generals. Then Denisov told

him everything he knew of the position of the French detachment.

” That is so ; but we must know what kind of troops they are, and how many,” said Dolokhov. ” We shall have to ride down and find out. We cannot go into this without knowing exactly how many there are of them. I like to do things with precision. Which of you gentlemen will ride with me into their camp ? I have a uniform with me.”

“ I, I — I will go with you ! ” exclaimed Pétya.

” You have no business to go,” said Denisov, turning to Dolokhov, « and I will certainly not let him go.”

” Well, I declare ’ ” cried Pétya. ” Why can’t I go ? “

” Limply because there is no sense in it.”

“No, pardon me, because—because — I will go, and that is all. Will you take me ? ” he turned to Ddlokhov.

“Why not?” Dolokhov replied, absently, gazing at the French drummer.

“How long has tins fine fellow been with you?” he asked Denisov.

“ We captured him to-day, but he does not know anything. I am keeping him.”

“ Well, and what do you do with the rest ? ” asked Délokhov.

“ “What do I do with them ? I send them away under receipt,” Denisov exclaimed, his face suddenly becoming flushed. “And I can boldly say that I have not a man on my conscience. It is much easier to send thirty, or three hundred, men under convoy to the city than, I will say it straight out, to pollute a soldier’s honour.”

“ It is well enough for this young count of sixteen years to say such gentle things,” Ddlokhov said, with a cold smile, ” but for you it is time to stop it.”

“ Why, I do not say anything ! I only say that I will go with you by all means,” Petya said, timidly.

“ It is time, my friend, for us to abandon these mawkish sentiments,” continued Ddlokhov, as though it gave him special pleasure to speak of this subject which irritated Denisov. “But why did you keep this one?” he said, with a shake of his head. ” Because you pity him ? We know about your receipts ! You send away one hundred men, and about thirty will reach there. The rest will starve or be killed. So it is best not to take any at all ! ”

The captain blinked with his bright eyes, approvingly shaking his head.

“ This is not a matter for discussion. I will not have it on my conscience. You say they will die. Very well, so long as I am not the cause of it.”

Dolokhov laughed out loud.

“ Who has kept them from catching me twenty times ? And if they do, — you, with your chivalry, and I will alike be hung up on an aspen-tree.” He was silent for awhile. “Still, we must go to work. Send me my Cossack with the pack ! I have two French uniforms. Well, will you go with me ? ” he asked Pétya.

“ I ? Yes, yes, by all means,” Pétya cried, blushing almost to tears, and looking at Denisov.

While Dolokhov and Denisov had been discussing what was to be done with the captives, Pétya again felt ill at ease ; he did not grasp the full meaning of what they were saying. “If well-known grown people speak thus, it must be all right,” he thought. “ Above everything else, Denisov must not imagine that I am going to obey him, that he can command me. I will by all means ride down to the French camp. If he can, I can, too ! ”

To all the supplications of Denisov not to go, Pétya replied that he, too, was in the habit of doing everything with precision, and not at haphazard, and that he never thought of danger.

” Because, you must confess, if we do not know exactly

how many there are, the lives of hundreds may depend on it, and here we are alone, and besides, I want it very much, and I will go by all means, so do not detain me,” he said, ” it will only be worse — “

IX.

Petya and Dolokhov put on the French uniforms, and rode down to the clearing from which Denisov had been looking at the French camp. Coming out of the woods in complete darkness, they descended into a ravine. When they reached the lowlands, Dolokhov told the Cossacks who accompanied him to wait there, and himself rode at a rapid trot down the road, toward a bridge. Pétya, his heart sinking in him from agitation, was riding by his side.

” If we get caught, I will not give myself up alive, — I have a pistol,” whispered Pétya.

” Don’t speak in Russian ! ” Dolokhov quickly whispered to him, and at the same moment was heard the call of ” Qui vive ” and the click of a gun.

The blood rushed to Pétya’s face, and he grasped the pistol.

” Lanciers du 6-me,” said Ddlokhov, neither reining in his horse, nor going at a more rapid gait.

The black figure of a sentinel was standing on the bridge.

” Mot d’ordre ? “

Délokhov checked his horse and rode on at a slow pace.

” Dites donc, le colonel Gérard est ici ? ” he said.

” Mot d’ordre,” the sentinel said, without replying, and barring his way.

” Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le mot d’ordre — ” Dolokhov suddenly

shouted in a passion, riding up toward the sentinel. “ Ji vous demande si le colonel est ici”

And, without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who stepped aside, Ddlokhov rode up the hill at a slow pace.

On noticing a black shadow of a man crossing the road, Ddlokhov stopped him and asked him where the commander and the officers were. This man, with a sack over his shoulder, — a soldier, — stopped, walked over to Ddlokhov’s horse, and, touching it with his hand, in a simple and friendly manner told him that the commander and the officers were higher up on the hill, on the right, in the yard of the farm (thus they called the manorial estate).

Riding along the road, on both sides of which French conversation could be heard at the campfires, Ddlokhov turned into the yard of the estate. After he had passed the gate, he dismounted and walked over to a large brightly burning campfire, around which, speaking loudly, sat several men. At the edge of the fire something was cooking in a small kettle, and a soldier in a large cap and blue mantle, brightly illuminated by the fire, was kneeling down and stirring the contents with a ramrod.

” Oh, c’est un dur à cuire,” said one of the officers who were sitting in the shade, on the opposite side of the fire.

“Il les fera marcher, les lapins ! ” another said, with a laugh.

Both grew silent and looked into the darkness, from which proceeded the sound of Ddlokhov’s and Pétya’s steps, as they approached the fire with their horses.

” Bon jour, messieurs ! ” Dolokhov spoke loudly and distinctly.

The officers began to stir in the shadow of the campfire, and a tall officer, with a long neck, walked around the fire and went up to Ddlokhov.

“ C’est vous, Clément ? ” he said. ” D’où, diable ! ” but he did not finish his sentence, when he saw his mistake. He frowned slightly and greeted Ddlokhov as a stranger, asking him what he could do for him. Dolokhov told him that he and his companion were trying to catch up with their regiment and, turning to all in general, he asked them whether they knew anything about the sixth regiment. No one knew anything; it seemed to Pétya that the officers looked with hostility and suspicion at him and at Dolokhov. For a few seconds all were silent.

” Si vous comptez sur la soupe de soir, vous venez trop tard,” a voice said, with a repressed laugh, from behind the campfire.

Dolokhov replied that they had had their supper and that they had to ride on at once.

He gave the horses to the soldier who was stirring the kettle, and squatted down at the fire by the side of the officer with the long neck. This officer did not take his eyes away from Ddlokhov, and repeated the question to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov made no reply, as though he had not heard the question, and, lighting a short French pipe, which he drew out of his pocket, asked the officer how safe the road ahead was from Cossacks.

“Les brigands sont partout” replied an officer from behind the fire.

Dolokhov said that the Cossacks were dangerous only to such stragglers as he and his companion were, but that they, no doubt, would not dare to attack large detachments. This last he added in an interrogative tone. No one made a reply.

” Now he will leave,” Pétya thought all the time, standing at the fire and listening to his conversation.

But Ddlokhov again took up the interrupted conversation and began to ask directly how many men there were in the battalion, how many battalions, and how many prisoners. When he asked about the Russian prisoners, who were in the detachment, Dolokhov said :

” La vilaine affaire de trainer ces cadavres après soi. Vaudrait mieux fusiller cette canaille” and he laughed loud such a strange laugh that Pétya was sure the Frenchmen would immediately recognize the deception, and took a step back from the fire. No one made any reply to Délokhov’s words and laughter, and the French officer who could not be seen (he had wrapped himself up in his mantle and was lying down) raised himself and whispered something to his companion. Délokhov rose and called the soldier with the horses.

” Will the horses be given or not ? ” thought Pétya, instinctively walking over to Dolokhov.

The horses were brought.

” Bon jour, messieurs ! ” said Dolokhov.

Pétya wanted to say ” bonsoir” but could not speak. The officers said something in a whisper to one another. Dolokhov took a long time in mounting, for his horse would not stand still ; then he rode at a walk through the gate. Pétya was riding beside him, dying to look back, but not daring to do so, in order to see whether the Frenchmen were running after them.

Upon reaching the road, Dolokhov did not ride back to the field, but along the village. He stopped in one place to listen.

” Do you hear ? ” he said.

Pétya recognized the sounds of Russian voices and saw at the campfires the dark figures of Russian prisoners. They descended the hill, down to the bridge, and passed the sentinel, who, without saying a word, gloomily walked up and down the bridge. They rode back to the ravine where the Cossacks were waiting for them.

” Now, good night ! Tell Denisov to be ready at daybreak, after the first shot is fired,” said Délokhov. He was on the point of leaving, but Pétya seized his arm.

” Really,” he cried, ” you are such a hero ! Oh, how nice, how superb ! How I love you ! “

” All right, all right ! ” said Délokhov, but Pétya still held him, and Ddlokhov saw in the darkness that Pétya was bending down toward him. He wanted to kiss him. Délokhov kissed him, laughed, and, turning his horse around, disappeared in the darkness.

X.

On returning to the guard-house, Pétya found Denisov in the vestibule. Denisov was waiting for him, in agitation, unrest, and annoyance at having permitted Pétya to go.

” Thank God ! ” he exclaimed. ” Thank God ! ” he repeated, as he hstened to Pétya’s enthusiastic story. ” The devdl take it, I could not sleep on account of you ! ” said Denisov. “Thank God! Now lie down to sleep! Let us have a nap before morning ! “

“Yes — no — ” said Pétya. “I do not feel like sleeping yet. I know myself too well : if I fall asleep, all is ended. Besides, I am in the habit of not sleeping before a battle.”

Pétya sat awhile in the hut, joyfully thinking over all the details of his ride, and vividly imagining what would happen on the morrow. Then, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out.

It was still quite dark outside. The rain had stopped, but the drops were still falling from the trees. Near the guard-house could be seen the black forms of the Cossack tents and of the horses tied together. Beyond the hut he made out two wagons, near which stood some horses, and in the ravine the red fire was burning low. Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep : here and there could be heard, together with the sound of the falling rain-drops and of the horses’ chewing near by, the low, almost whispering voices of the men.

Pétya stepped out of the vestibule, looked around in the darkness, and walked over to the wagons. Some one was snoring underneath them, while around them stood saddled horses, munching oats. Pétya recognized in the darkness his horse, which he called Karabàkh, though it was not an Arabian, but a Little-Russian horse, and he went up to it.

” Well, Karabakh, tomorrow we shall see an action,” he said, putting his mouth to its nostril and kissing it.

“ Well, sir, are you not asleep ? ” asked the Cossack who was sitting under one wagon.

“ No. Oh, is not your name Likhachév ? Do you know, Likhachév, I have just come back. We went down to the Frenchmen.” And Pétya gave the Cossack a detailed account of his ride ; he also told him why they went there, and why he regarded it as better to risk one’s life than to do things at haphazard.

” It would do you good to take a nap,” said the Cossack.

“ No, I am used to this,” replied Pétya. “ Are the flints in your pistols in good condition yet ? If not, I have brought some with me. Don’t you need any ? Take some ! ”

The Cossack moved out from underneath the wagon, so as to get a better view of Pétya.

“ I am used to doing things with precision,” said Pétya. ” There are people who do things as they come, without preparation, and then they regret it. I do not like that.”

“ That is so,” said the Cossack.

“ Another thing, my dear ! Please whet my sword for me : it is dull — ” but Pétya was afraid to tell an untruth, for it had never been in use yet. “ Can you do it for me ? ”

” Yes, certainly.”

Likhachév rose and rummaged in the pack, and soon Pétya heard the martial sound of the steel and the whetstone. He climbed on the wagon and sat down on the edge of it. The Cossack whetted the sword under .the wagon.

” Well, are the good fellows all asleep ? ” asked Pétya.

” Some are, and some not.”

“ Well, and what is the boy doing ? “

“Who, Vesénni ? He is sleeping in the vestibule. Fear makes him sleep well. He was glad to lie down.”

Pétya was silent for a long time, listening to the sounds. In the darkness footsteps were heard, and a black figure appeared.

” What are you whetting? ” said the man, coming up to the wagon.

” A gentleman’s sword.”

“ That is good,” said the man, who to Pétya seemed to be a hussar. “ Was the cup left with you ? “

” It is near the wheel.”

The hussar took the cup.

” I suppose it is not long to daylight,” he said, yawning, and went away.

Pétya ought to have known that he was in the woods, in Denisov’s party, a verst from the road ; that he was sitting on a wagon which had been captured from the French, and near which the horses were tied together; that underneath him was sitting Cossack Likhachév, whetting his sword ; that the black spot on the right was the guard-house, and the bright, red spot down below, in the ravine, — the glowing campfire ; that the man who came for the cup was a hussar who wanted to drink. But he knew nothing of this, and did not want to know of it. He was in a magic kingdom, where there was nothing resembling reality. The large black spot might indeed be the guard-house, but just as likely it was a cave that led into the bowels of the earth. The red spot might be fire, and again, it might be the eye of an enormous monster. Very likely he was now sitting on a wagon, but more likely still he was not on a wagon, but on a terribly high tower, from which, if he were to fall, he would fly toward earth for a whole day, a whole month, — he would fly and fly and would never reach the earth. Maybe simple Cossack Likhachév was sitting under the wagon, and again it might be the best, the bravest, most wonderful, most excellent man in the world, whom no one knew. Maybe it was indeed a hussar that went to get a drink in the ravine, and maybe he just vanished from view, vanished altogether, and never existed.

No matter what Pétya might have seen now, he would not have been surprised. He was in the magic kingdom, in which everything was possible.

He looked at the sky. The sky was as fairy like as the earth. It was clearing off, and the clouds scudded over the tops of the trees, as though disclosing the stars. Now it seemed that the sky was clearing off, and that the black, clear sky became visible. Then again it seemed that these black spots were clouds. Now it seemed that the heaven was high, high above the head ; and now the heaven descended so low that it could be touched with the hand.

Pétya began to shut his eyes and to sway to and fro.

Drops fell. Men talked in a whisper. Horses neighed and fought with each other. Some one snored.

” Ozhig-zhig, ozhig-zhig,” wailed the sword in whetting, and suddenly Pétya heard a concordant choir of music playing some unknown, solemn hymn. Pétya was musical like Natäsha, and more so than Nikolay, but he had never studied music, and so the airs that came to him were especially new and attractive to him. The music played more and more audibly. The tune spread out, and passed from one instrument to another. It turned into what is called a fugue, though Pétya did not have the slightest conception of what a fugue was. Every instrument, now resembling a violin, and now a horn, — but better and purer than either violin or horn, — every instrument played its part and, before finishing its air, blended with another instrument, which began almost the same, and with a third, and a fourth, and all blended into one

and again scattered, and again blended, now into something solemn and ecclesiastic, and now into something brilliant and victorious.

” Yes, it is only a dream,” Pétya said to himself, lurching forward. ” It is in my ears. And maybe it is my music. Well, again ! Let her go, my music ! Well !”

He closed his eyes. And from every side, as though from afar, sounds quivered, began to run together, to scatter, to blend, and again to unite into the same sweet and solemn hymn. ” Oh, how charming ! As much as I want, and as I want ! ” Pétya said to himself. He tried to direct this enormous choir of instruments.

” Softer, softer, — die down now ! ” And the sounds obeyed him. ” Now fuller, merrier ! More, more joyful yet ! ” And from an unknown depth rose more powerful, triumphant sounds. ” Voices, join in ! ” Pétya commanded. And at first men’s voices, and then women’s voices, were heard from afar. The voices rose in an even triumphant effort. Pétya felt terror and joy as he listened to their unusual beauty.

With the triumphant, victorious march was blended a song, and the drops dropped, and zhig-zhig-zhig whined the sword, and again the horses quarrelled and neighed, without disturbing the choir, but joining it.

Pétya did not know how long it had lasted : he enjoyed the sensation, all the time marvelled at his enjoyment, and was sorry that there was no one to communicate it to. Likhachév’s kind voice woke him.

” It is done, your Honour ! It will do for two Frenchmen ! “

Pétya woke up.

” Day is breaking, truly it is ! ” he shouted.

The horses, hitherto invisible, could now be seen down to their tails, and through the bared branches glinted the misty light. Pétya shook himself, drew a rouble from his pocket and gave it to Likhachév, swung his sword to try it, and put it back into the sheath. The Cossacks untied the horses and fastened the girths.

“ Here is the commander,” said Likhachév.

Denisov came out of the guard-house and, calling up Pétya, gave the order to get ready.

XL

The horses were picked out in the semidarkness ; the girths were tightened, and the men went to their commands. Denisov was standing near the guard-house, giving his last orders. The infantry of the party, plashing with a hundred feet, walked ahead on the road and soon disappeared between the trees in the mist which comes before daybreak. The captain gave some command to the Cossacks. Pétya held his horse by the bridle, waiting in impatience for the command to mount. His face, which he had washed with cold water, and his eyes especially, burned like fire ; a chill ran down his back, and his whole body quivered rapidly and evenly.

“Well, is everything of yours ready?” asked Denisov. ” Let us have the horses ! “

The horses were brought. Denisov grew angry with the Cossack because the girths were weak ; after scolding him he mounted. Pétya took hold of the stirrup. His horse, as usual, wanted to bite his leg, but Pétya, without feeling his weight, quickly jumped into the saddle and, looking back at the hussars behind him, who had started in the darkness, rode up to Denisov.

” Vasili Fédorovich, will you give me a command ? Please, for God’s sake — ” he said.

Denisov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s existence. He looked back at him.

” I ask this much of you,” he said, sternly, ” to obey me and not to push yourself forward.”

During the whole ride, Denisov did not speak a word to Pétya, and rode on in silence. When they reached the edge of the forest, it was already getting light in the fields. Denisov said something in a whisper to the captain, and the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denisov. When they had all gone by, Denisov touched his horse and rode downhill. The horses fell down on their haunches and slid down into the ravine with their riders. Pétya was riding by Denisov’s side. The chill kept growing stronger and stronger in his whole body. It grew lighter and lighter, and only the mist concealed the distant objects. After reaching the bottom and looking around, Denisov nodded to a Cossack who was standing near him.

” The signal ! ” he said. The Cossack raised his hand and a shot was fired. And at the same moment was heard the tramp of horses galloping in front, and shouts on all sides, and again shots were fired.

At the very moment that the first sounds of the tramping and the shouting were heard, Pétya, striking his horse and giving it the reins, galloped ahead, without listening to Denisov, who was calling him. It seemed to Pétya that the very minute the shot was fired it grew as light as in the middle of the day. He galloped to the bridge. In front of him, along the road, raced the Cossacks. On the bridge he ran against a Cossack who had fallen behind, and rode on again. In front, some men, — no doubt Frenchmen, — were running from the right side of the road to the left. One of them fell down into the mud under the feet of Pétya’s horse.

At a hut Cossacks were crowding together and doing something. From the middle of the throng rose a terrible cry. Pétya galloped up to it, and the first thing he saw was the pale face of a Frenchman, with a trembling nether jaw, holding on to the wood of the lance which was directed against him.

” Hurrah ! Boys — our men — ” shouted Pétya, and, giving his excited horse the reins, he galloped on along the road.

In front shots were heard. Cossacks, hussars, and tattered Russian prisoners, running from both sides of the road, were all shouting in loud, discordant voices. A dashing, hatless Frenchman, with a red, frowning face, dressed in a blue mantle, was defending himself against the hussars with his bayonet. As Pétya came up, the Frenchman had already fallen. ” Again too late ! ” it flashed through Pétya’s head, and he rode on to where he heard frequent shots. The fusilade took place in the yard of the estate where he had been the night before with Dolokhov. The Frenchmen entrenched themselves there behind the wicker fence, in the dense undergrowth of the garden, and shot at the Cossacks who were crowding at the gate. Riding up to the gate, Pétya saw D61o-khov in the smoke : his face looked pale and green, and he was shouting to his men. ” Outflank them ! Wait for the infantry ! ” he cried as Pétya rode up to him.

” To wait ? Hurrah ! ” cried Pétya, and, without waiting a minute, he galloped up to the place from which proceeded the shots, and where the powder smoke was getting denser and denser. A volley was heard ; bullets whistled past, and plashed against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov rode after Pétya through the gate. The Frenchmen, in the quivering dense smoke, either threw away their arms and ran out of the bushes toward the Cossacks, or rushed downhill toward the pond. Pétya raced on his horse down the manor yard, and, instead of holding his reins, strangely and swiftly waved both his arms, and more and more fell from his saddle toward one side. The horse ran up against a campfire burning low in the morning light, and stopped short, and Pétya fell heavily on the wet ground. The Cossacks saw his arms and his leg jerk rapidly, though his head did not move. A bullet had pierced his head.

Having parleyed with the senior French officer, who had come out from behind the house -with a handkerchief on his sword, and had announced that they surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who was lying motionless, with outstretched arms.

” Done for,” he said, frowning. He walked up toward Denisov, who was riding through the gate.

” Killed ? ” cried Denisov, who had seen from afar the familiar, unquestionably lifeless position of Pétya’s body.

“ Done for,” repeated Dolokhov, as though the enunciation of this word gave him pleasure, and he quickly walked over to the prisoners whom the precipitous Cossacks were surrounding. ” We will not take any ! ” he shouted to Denisov.

Denisov made no reply. He rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with trembling hands turned toward him Pétya’s bloodstained and mud-bespattered face, which was already grown pale.

” I am used to something sweet. Superb raisins, take them all ! ” he recalled his words. The Cossacks looked back in surprise at the sounds resembling the barking of a dog with which Denisov quickly turned around, walked over to the fence, and took hold of it.

Pierre Bezukhi was among the number of Russian prisoners set free by Denisov and Délokhov.

XII.

No new order was issued by the French authorities concerning the party of captives, among whom was Pierre, during the whole time of the retreat from Moscow. This party on October 22d was no longer with those troops and baggagetrains with which it had left Moscow. Half of the train with hardtack, which followed them the first few days, was captured by the Cossacks, while the other half preceded them ; of all the cavalrymen on foot, who had walked in front, not one was left ; they all disappeared. The artillery, which during the first days’ marches could be seen ahead, was now replaced by the immense baggagetrains of Marshal Junot, under an escort of Westphalians. Behind the prisoners travelled a train of cavalry belongings.

From Vydzma on, the French troops, which before had marched in three columns, walked in one mass. The disorder, the first signs of which had been observed by Pierre at the first resting-place after leaving Moscow, now reached the highest point.

The road over which they marched was covered on both sides with dead horses ; ragged men, who had fallen behind from various commands, now joined the marching column, and now left it.

False alarms were given several times during the march, and the soldiers of the convoy raised their guns, fired, and ran headlong, crushing one another ; then again assembled and cursed each other for the groundless terror.

The three masses that were marching together, the cavalry stores, the band of prisoners, and Junot’s baggage, — all that still formed something separate and distinct, but even they melted away rapidly.

In the cavalry-train, in which there had been at first 120 wagons, now only sixty were left; the others had been captured, or were abandoned. From Junot’s train, too, several carts were abandoned or captured. Three carts were looted by straggling soldiers from Davout’s corps. From the conversation of the Germans, Pierre learned that more guards were given to this train than to the prisoners, and that one of their companions, a German soldier, had been shot by command of the marshal himself because a silver spoon belonging to the marshal was found about his person.

Of the three masses the one of the prisoners had melted away most. Out of the 330 men that had left Moscow less than one hundred were still on the march. The prisoners were more troublesome to the soldiers of the convoy than the saddles of the cavalry stores and Junot’s baggage. They could see that the saddles and Junot’s spoons might be good for something, but why cold, hungry soldiers should stand on guard and watch just such cold, hungry Russians, who died and fell behind, and whom they were ordered to shoot, was incomprehensible to them, and the duty was even repulsive. The guards, as though fearing in the sad state they themselves were in to abandon themselves to their innate feeling of pity for the prisoners, and thus to make their own condition worse, treated them with peculiar harshness.

In Dorogobuzh the prisoners were locked up in a stable, while the soldiers of the convoy went away to loot their own stores ; a few of the captive soldiers dug under the wall and ran away, but were caught by the French and shot.

The order which had been introduced in starting from Moscow in respect to the captive officers, who were to

march separately from the soldiers, had long ago been disregarded ; all those who could walk went together, and Pierre since the third day’s rest had joined Karatäev and his lilac-coloured bow-legged dog, which had selected Karataev for its master.

On the third day after leaving Moscow, Karataev again fell ill with the fever, which had brought him to the Moscow hospital, and in proportion as Karatäev grew weaker, Pierre kept more and more aloof from him. Pierre did not know why, but ever since Karataev grew feeble, he had had to make an effort over himself to walk up to him. And when he did walk over to him and heard the low wail with which Karataev lay down at the halting-places, and smelled the strong evaporations which emanated from the sick man, he walked a distance away from him and did not think of him.

In his captivity, in the booth, Pierre had learned, not through reason, but with his whole being, that man is created for happiness, that happiness lies within him, in the gratification of Ins natural, human needs, and that the whole misfortune comes not from deprivation, but from superabundance ; during the last three weeks of his march, he came to learn a new, consoling truth, — namely, that in this world there is nothing terrible. He learned that as there is no condition in the world in which man can be happy and completely free, so there is none in which he is unhappy and not free. He learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and that this limit is very near ; that the man who suffered because on his couch of roses a single leaf was folded suffered as much as he did now, falling asleep on the bare, damp earth, chilling one side of his body, and warming the other; that when he used to put on his tight dancing shoes, he suffered just as much as now, when he was walking entirely barefoot (his foot-gear had fallen to pieces), and with his feet all blistered. He learned that when he had married, of his own will, as he had thought, he had not been freer than he was now when they locked him up for the night in a stable.

Of everything which he later called suffering, but of which at that time’ he hardly was conscious, the worst were his bare, chafed, callous feet. (The horseflesh was savoury and nourishing ; the saltpetre flavour of the powder, which was used instead of salt, was even agreeable; the cold was not intense, and in daytime, during the march, he always felt warm, while at night he had a campfire; the vermin that ate him up warmed his body.) The one thing that troubled him at first was his feet.

After the second day’s march he examined his sores at the campfire and thought that it would be impossible for him to step on his feet again ; but when all rose he limped along, and later, when he warmed himself up, he marched .without pain, though at night his feet looked more terrible. But he did not glance at them, and thought of something different.

Pierre now for the first time understood the whole power of a man’s vitality and the saving power of transferred attention, which is inherent in man, and resembles that safety-valve in steam-boilers, which allows the superfluous steam to escape, the moment its density rises above a certain norm.

He did not see nor hear them shoot the prisoners who fell behind, though more than a hundred had perished in this manner. He did not think of Karataev, who was getting weaker from day to day and evidently would soon suffer the same fate. Still less did he think of himself. The more difficult his position became, the more terrible his future was, the more independent of that position in which he was were the joyous and soothing thoughts, reminiscences, and representations that occurred to him.

XIII.

On the 22d, at noon, Pierre was marching up-hill along a muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the unevenness of the way. Now and then he glanced at the familiar crowd that surrounded him, and again at his feet. Both were equally his, and familiar to him. Lilaccoloured, bow-legged Gray ran merrily at one side of the road, occasionally giving evidence of his agility and contentment by raising one hind leg and jumping about on three legs, and then again rushing on all fours and barking against the crows that were sitting on the carcasses. Gray was happier and sleeker than he had been in Moscow. On all sides lay the flesh of all kinds of animals, human and equine, in all stages of decomposition ; the marching men did not permit the wolves to make for them, and so Gray had enough to eat.

It had been drizzling since morning, and it looked as though it would stop at any moment, and the sky would clear off, when after a short stop the rain began to fall more heavily. The rain-soaked road did not absorb any more water, and streamlets ran along the ruts.

Pierre kept looking to either side, counting his steps by threes, and bending his fingers. Turning to the rain, he said, mentally : ” Go ahead, go ahead ! Let us have more of it ! “

He thought he was not thinking of anything; but, somewhere in the depth of him his soul was thinking an important and consoling thought. This thought was a refined spiritual essence from his conversation with Karataev on the previous night.

The night before, Pierre, chilled at the fire which had gone out, rose and went over to the nearest campfire, which was still aglow. There sat Platon, covering his head with his mantle, as with a cassock, and telling the soldiers, in his brisk and agreeable, but weak and sickly voice, a story which was familiar to Pierre. It was past midnight. It was the time when Karatdev generally revived from his attack of fever and was unusually animated. As Pierre walked over to the campfire and heard Platdn’s feeble, sickly voice, and saw his pitiful face, brightly lighted up by the fire, he was suddenly stung to the quick. He became frightened at his compassion for this man and wanted to go away, but there was no other fire, and so Pierre sat down, trying not to look at Platdn.

” Well, how is your health ? ” he asked.

” My health ? If you complain of your illness, God will give you no death,” said Karatdev, immediately returning to his story.

” And so, my friend,” continued Platon, with a smile on his lean, pale face, and with a peculiar, joyful sparkle in his eyes. ” So, my friend — ”

Pierre knew this story well, for Karataev had told it to him five or six times, each time with a peculiar, joyous feeling. And yet, though he knew it well, he now listened to it as to something new, and the quiet enthusiasm which Karataev evidently experienced in telling it was communicated to Pierre. It was the story of an old merchant, who had lived in the fear of God with his family, and once went with his companion, a rich merchant, to the fair of St. Macarius.

Having stopped at a tavern, the two merchants fell asleep, and on the following morning the merchant’s companion was found with • his throat cut, and robbed. A bloodstained knife was found under the pillow of the

old merchant. He was tried, punished with the knout, and, having his nostrils pulled out, ” as is proper,” said KaraUev, ” was sent to hard labour.”

” And so, my friends ” (it was at this point that Pierre came up to Karataev), ” ten years or more passed after this affair. The old man lives at bard labour. He submits, as is proper, and does no one any harm. All he does is to ask God to send him death. Very well. And it happened that the convicts gathered at night, just as you and I are gathered now, and the old man was with them. And they began to converse about why each suffered, and in what he was guilty toward God. They began to tell : one had killed a man, another two men ; one had committed arson, another was simply a vagrant, had done nothing. They began to ask the old man : ‘ Why are you suffering, grandfather ? ’ ‘I, my dear friends,’ says he, < am suffering for my own sins and for other people’s sins. I have neither killed, nor taken other men’s property, but have given to mendicants. I, my dear friends, am a merchant: I had great wealth. It was so and so,’ says he. And he told them the whole thing as it had happened. ‘ I,’ says he, ‘ have no care for myself. God has sought me out. But I am sorry for my wife and my children.’ And the old man began to weep. There happened to be in that company the very man who had killed the merchant. ‘ Where, grandfather, did it happen ? ’ says he. * When, in what month ? ’ and he asked every detail. His heart pained him. And he walked over to the old man and — plump ! — fell down before his feet. * You are suffering for my sake, old man ! ’ says he. ‘ I am telling the truth, boys ! He is being tormented for nothing, without any guilt. It is I who did this deed and placed the knife under the sleeping man’s head. Forgive me, grandfather, for Christ’s sake ! ’ ”

Karatdev kept silence, smiling joyously, looking at the fire, and fixing a stick in it.

” Says the old man : ‘ God will forgive you, but we,’ says he, ‘ are all sinful before God. I am suffering for my own sins,’ he wept bitter tears. What do you think, my little falcon ? ” said Karatdev, growing brighter and brighter, and beaming with a smile of transport. ” What do you think, my little falcon ? This murderer confessed to the authorities. ‘ I,’ says he, ‘ have killed six men ’ (he was a great malefactor), ‘ but I am most sorry for the old man. Let him not suffer for me ! ’ He confessed : they wrote his confession down, and sent a paper as was proper. It was a distant place, and between trials and examinations, and writing up a lot of papers, much time passed. It was brought before the Tsar. And so there came the Tsar’s ukase to let out the merchant, and to reward him as much as was decreed. The paper came, and they began to look for the old man. Where was the old man that suffered without having committed any crime ? A paper has come from the Tsar. They began to look for him.” Karataev’s lower jaw quivered. ” But God had pardoned him already, — he was dead. Yes, my little falcon,” finished Karatdev. He for a long time looked ahead of him, smiling in silence.

Not the story itself, but its mysterious sense, that joy of transport which shone on Karatdev’s face while he was telling it, the mysterious meaning of this joy, was what now dimly and joyously filled Pierre’s soul.

XIV.

” A vos places / ” suddenly was heard a shout. Among the prisoners and the guards took place a joyful confusion, as though in expectancy of something happy and solemn. On all sides could be heard words of command, and, on the left, trotting past the prisoners, appeared well-dressed cavalrymen, riding fine horses. On all the faces there was an expression of tension, such as people show when superior officers are near. The prisoners assembled in a solid mass, and they were pushed off the road. The guards drew up.

” E Empereur, VEmpereur ! Le maréchal ! Le duc ! ” And the well-fed Guards had barely passed, when a carriage drawn by gray horses in tandem rumbled by. Pierre just caught a glimpse of the calm, handsome, fat, white face of a man in a three-cornered hat. It was one of the marshals. The marshal’s glance was directed at Pierre’s tall, noticeable figure, and in the expression with which the marshal frowned and turned his face away, Pierre thought be saw compassion and a desire to conceal it.

The general who was in charge of the cavalry stores, a man with a red, frightened face, riding his lean horse, galloped behind the carriage. Several officers came together, and the soldiers surrounded them. All had agitated, tense faces.

” Qu’est-cc qu’il a dit ? Quécst-ce qu’il a dit ? ” was the question Pierre heard them ask.

During the marshal’s visit, the prisoners assembled in a mass, and Pierre saw Karatdev, whom he had not seen that day. He was sitting, in his miserable mantle, leaning against a birch-tree. In his face there gleamed, in addition to the joyous humility, which had appeared the night before during his recital about the suffering of the innocent merchant, another expression of calm solemnity.

Karatdev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes, now veiled by tears, and apparently beckoned to him, as though he wanted to say something to him. But Pierre felt terribly. He acted as though he had not noticed Karataev’s glance, and hastened away.

When the prisoners again started, Pierre looked back. Karatäev was sitting at the edge of the road, against the birch-tree, and two Frenchmen were talking near him. Pierre did not look back again. He went limping uphill.

Behind him, in the spot where Karataev had been sitting, a shot was heard. Pierre heard it clearly, but just as it was fired, he recalled that he had not yet finished the calculation, which he bad begun before the arrival of the marshal, of bow many days’ marches were still left to Smolensk. He began to count. The two French soldiers, one of whom was holding the smoking gun in his hand, ran past Pierre. They were both pale, and in the expression of their faces — one of them looked timidly at Pierre — there was something resembling that which he had seen in the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier, and he recalled that two days before this soldier had burnt his shirt while drying it at the fire, and that all had laughed at him.

The dog began to whine near the place where Karatäev had been sitting. ” How stupid ! What is it whining about ? ” thought Pierre.

The captive soldiers, too, who were marching with Pierre did not look back at the place from which the shot was fired, nor did they pay any attention to the dog’s whining ; but a stem expression lay on all the faces.

XV.

The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage stopped in the village of Shämshevo. All were gathered about the campfires. Pierre went up to one, ate a horseflesh roast, lay down with his back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept the same sleep as at Mozhaysk, after Borodino.

Again the events of the day mingled with his dreams, and again some one, he himself or some one else, expressed certain thoughts to him, nay, the same thoughts as at Mozhäysk.

“ Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves, and this motion is God. And while there is life, there is the enjoyment of the self-consciousness of the Divinity. To love life is to love God. It is most difficult and most blissful to love this life during suffering, during unmerited suffering.

” Karataev ! ” Pierre thought.

And suddenly there appeared before him, as though alive, his meek old teacher who in Switzerland had taught him geography. ” Wait ! ” said the old man. And he showed Pierre a sphere. This sphere was a living, quivering ball without dimensions. The whole surface of the globe consisted of densely compressed drops. And these drops moved, permuted, and blended, or divided and multiplied. Every drop tended to spread and take up as much space as possible, but other drops, having the same tendency, compressed it, or destroyed it, or blended with it.

« This is life ! ” said the old teacher.

” How simple and how clear ! ” thought Pierre. ” Why did I not know it before ? “

” In the middle is God, and every drop tends to spread, in order to reflect him in the greatest possible dimensions. And it grows, and blends, and is compressed and annihilated at the surface, goes into the depth, and again swims out. There is Karataev, — he has spread out, and is gone. Vous avez compris, mon enfant ? ” asked the teacher.

” Vous avez compris, sacré nom ? ” a voice was heard, and Pierre awoke.

He raised himself and sat up. At the fire squatted a Frenchman, who had just pushed aside a Russian soldier, and was roasting a piece of meat on a ramrod. The muscular, hirsute, red arms had the sleeves rolled up, and his short fingers nimbly turned the ramrod. His cinnamoncoloured, gloomy face, with its overhanging eyebrows, could be clearly seen in the light of the coals.

” Ca lui est bien egal,” he growled, quickly turning to a ’soldier who was standing behind him. ” Brigand ! Va ! ” And the soldier, turning his ramrod, looked gloomily at Pierre. Pierre turned away and looked at the shadow. A Russian prisoner, the one that the Frenchman had pushed aside, was sitting at the fire and patting something. Upon looking more closely Pierre recognized the lilac-coloured little dog, which, wagging its tail, was sitting near the soldier.

” Oh, you have come ? ” said Pierre. ” And Plat— ” he began, but did not finish his sentence. In his imagination simultaneously rose, blending with each other, the memory of the glance which Platdn, sitting under the tree, had cast upon him ; of the shot which he had heard there ; of the whining of the dog ; of the criminal faces of the two Frenchmen who ran past him ; of the smoking gun in the hand of one of them ; of Karataev’s absence at the halting-place, — and he was ready to comprehend that Karataev was killed, but at the identical moment in his soul arose, God knows how, the recollection of an evening passed by him with a Polish beauty, in the summer, on the balcony of his Kiev house. And so, after all, without uniting the recollections of the day or making any deductions, Pierre closed his eyes, and the picture of a summer day mingled with the recollection of bathing, and of the liquid, quivering sphere, and he dropped somewhere into the water, which passed over his head.

Before sunrise he was wakened by loud, frequent volleys and shouts. Frenchmen ran past Pierre.

” Les cosaques ! ” one of them cried, and a minute later a crowd of Russian faces surrounded Pierre.

Pierre could not for a long time understand what was happening. On all sides he heard his companions sob from joy.

“ Brothers ! Dearest ! ” the old soldiers cried, weeping, and embracing the Cossacks and the hussars. The hussars and the Cossacks surrounded the prisoners and hurriedly offered them garments, and boots, and bread. Pierre sobbed, sitting among them, and was unable to utter a word ; he embraced the first soldier who passed near him and, weeping, kissed him.

Ddlokhov was standing at the gate of the ruined house, allowing the disarmed throng of Frenchmen to pass by him. The Frenchmen, agitated by all that had happened, were conversing loudly with each other; but as they walked by Dolokhov, who lightly switched his boots with his whip, and looked at them with his cold, glassy eyes, wliich portended no good, their conversation stopped. On the other side stood Ddlokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and marking each hundred with a piece of chalk on the gate.

” How many are there ? ” Ddlokhov asked the Cossack.

« The second hundred,” replied the Cossack.

« Filez, filez,” said Ddlokhov, who had learned this expression from the French. As his eyes met the glances of the prisoners who were walking past, they betrayed a cruel sparkle.

Denisov, holding his cap in his hand, was walking with a saddened face behind some Cossacks who were carrying the body of Pétya Rostov to a grave dug in the garden.

XVI.

Beginning with October 28th, when the frosts began, the flight of the French assumed a more tragical character of freezing or roasting to death at the campfires, while the emperor, the kings, and the dukes travelled in fur coats in carriages ; but, in reality, the process of the flight and of the decomposition of the French army had not changed in the least.

From Moscow to Vyazma, out of an army of seventy-three thousand, without counting the Guard (which did nothing during the whole war but pillage), out of the French army of seventy-three thousand men only thirty-six thousand were left (not more than five thousand had fallen out as the result of battles). This is the first member of the progression, from which the succeeding members can be figured out with mathematical exactness. The French army melted away in the same proportion from Moscow to Vydzma, from Vyäzma to Smolénsk, from Smolensk to the Berézina, from the Berézina to Vflna, independently of the greater or lesser degree of cold, pursuit, barring of the way, and all other conditions taken singly. After Vyäzma the French troops were huddled together into one mass, instead of marching in three columns, and thus proceeded to the end. Berthier wrote to his emperor (we know how far the chiefs depart from the truth when they describe the condition of an army). He wrote:

” I deem it my duty to inform your Majesty of the state of your troops in the different corps of the army, which I have observed in the last two or three days in various places. They are almost disbanded. The number of soldiers who follow their standards is at most in the proportion of one to four in all the regiments ; the others march by themselves in every direction, on their own account, in the hope of finding subsistence and escaping discipline. In general, they regard Smolénsk as the place where they will rest. During the last few days it has been observed that the soldiers throw away their cartouches and their arms. In this state of affairs, the interests of your Majesty’s service demand, whatever its ulterior ends, that the army be rallied at Smolénsk by beginning to free it from the non-combatants, such as dismounted men, useless baggage, and artillery, which is no longer in proper proportion to the active forces. In addition to a few days of rest, subsistence must be provided to the soldiers, who are exhausted from hunger and fatigue ; many have died in the last few days on the road and in the bivouacs. This state of affairs is getting worse and worse and gives rise to the apprehension that, if measures are not taken at once, we shall lose control of the troops in a combat. — November 9th, at thirty versts from Smolénsk.”

Rolling into Smolénsk, which presented itself to them as the promised land, the Frenchmen killed each other for the provisions, looted their own magazines, and, when everything was pillaged, ran ahead.

All marched, not knowing themselves whither or wherefore. Least of all did that genius, Napoleon, know, for no one commanded him. None the less he and those who surrounded him observed their old habits : wrote orders, letters, reports, orders of the day, called each other, “Sire, Mon Cousin, Prince d’Eckinühl, Boi de Naples,” and so forth. But the orders and reports were only on paper ; nothing was carried out according to them, because nothing could be carried out, and, in spite of

calling each other “ Highness, Majesty, and Cousins,” they all felt that they were miserable people, who had done much evil, for which they now had to pay. And, although they pretended to be caring for the army, they were each one of them thinking only of how they could get away the quickest, and save themselves.

XVII.

The actions of the Russian and the French armies during the reverse campaign from Moscow to the Nyéman resemble the game of blind man’s buff, when two of the players are blindfolded and one of them now and then rings a bell to inform the one who catches of his whereabouts. At first he rings, because he is not afraid of the enemy ; but when he gets into a tight place, he tries to step softly and run away from him, but, instead, runs straight into his hands.

At first the Napoleonic army gave signs of its whereabouts, — this was during its first period of moving along the Kaluga road ; but later, when it reached the Smolensk road, it ran, holding down the clapper of the bell, and, when it thought that it was running away, it fell straight into the hands of the Russians.

With the rapidity with which the French were fleeing and the Russians pursuing them, and on account of the exhaustion of the horses, the chief means for learning approximately the position of the enemy — cavalry reconnaissances — did not exist. Besides, on account. of the rapid and frequent changes of positions of both armies, the information, such as it was, could never arrive in time. If the information was received on the 2d that the army of the enemy had been in such and such a place on the 1st, it had made two days’ marches by the 3d, when anything could be undertaken, and already occupied a different position.

One army ran, the other was in pursuit. From Smolénsk several roads were open to the French ; and, it would seeui that, having remained there four days, the French might have found out where the enemy was, made some advantageous combinations, and undertaken something new. But, after a four days’ rest, their crowds again started to run, not to the right, nor to the left, but, without any manœuvres or considerations, over the old and worst possible road, toward Krdsnoe and Orsha,— over the beaten track.

Expecting the enemy from behind, and not in front of them, the Frenchmen ran, stretched out and separated from each other over a space of a twenty-four hours’ march. In front ran the emperor ; then, the kings ; then, the dukes. The Russian army, thinking that Napoleon would turn to the right, toward the Dnieper, which was the only sensible thing for him to do, itself turned to the right and came out on the highway near Krdsnoe. And here, as in the game of blind man’s buff, the Frenchmen stumbled on the vanguard. Suddenly seeing the enemy, the French became confused, stopped in the suddenness of their fright, then started to run, abandoning their companions behind them. Here, as though passing between the lines of Russian troops, marched for three days in succession the separate parts of the French army, first the viceroys, then Davout, and finally Ney. They all of them abandoned one another, threw away all their baggage, their artillery, half of their people, and ran, making at night a semicircle around the Russians.

Ney, who was marching last, because (in spite of their miserable plight, or, perhaps, for this very reason, they wanted to strike the floor against which they had hurt themselves) he had been busy demolishing the walls of Smolensk, which had done no one any harm, — Ney, who was marching last with his corps of ten thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men, having abandoned his men and all the cannon, and having stealthily, in the night, made his way through the woods and across the Dnieper.

From Orsha they ran on along the road to Vflna, again playing blind man’s buff with the pursuing army. At the Berézina they again became confused ; many were drowned ; many surrendered ; but those who crossed the river, ran ahead. Their chief commander put on a fur coat and, seating himself in a sleigh, raced away, abandoning his comrades. They who could, drove away; who could not, surrendered or died.

XVIII.

It would seem that in this campaign of the flight of the French, when they did all they could in order to prepare their ruin, when not in one movement of this mass, from its turning on the Kaluga road up to the flight of the chief from the army, was there the slighest sense, — it would seem that during this period of the campaign it would be impossible for the historians who ascribe the actions of the masses to the will of one man to describe this retreat in such a sense. But no. Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon’s orders and his profound plans, — the manœuvres by which the army was guided, — and the ingenious orders of his marshals.

The retreat from Mäly Yaroslavets, when the road into a fertile country was left to him, and when that parallel road was open, over which later Kutuzov pursued him, the useless retreat over a devastated road is explained to us by various ingenious combinations. With similar ingenious combinations is described Napoleon’s retreat from Smolensk to Orshd. Then is described his heroism at Krdsnoe, where, they say, he prepared himself to accept battle and personally to take the command, as he walked with a birch stick and said :

” J’ai assez fait ï .Empereur, — il est temps de faire le général ! ”

In spite of this, he soon started running again, leaving to their fate the dismembered parts of his army, which were behind him.

Then they describe to us the magnanimity of the marshals, especially of Ney, — the magnanimity, which consisted in making his way at night through the woods and across the Dnieper, and reaching Orsha without the flags, or artillery, or nine-tenths of the army.

Finally, the last departure of the great emperor from the heroic army is presented to us by the historians as something grand and ingenious. Even this last act of his flight, which in human language is called the lowest stage of baseness, which even a child learns to abhor, even this act is justified by the historians.

When it is no longer possible to stretch farther the elastic threads of historic considerations, when the action most obviously contradicts that which all humanity calls good and even just, there appears with the historians the saving clause about grandeur. Grandeur, as it were, excludes the possibility of a measure of good and bad. For the great man there is no bad. There is no horror of which the great man can be accused.

” C’est grand!” say the historians, and then there is no longer the conception of good and bad, but only of “//rand’’and not “ grand.” What is “ grand” is good, what is not ” grand ” is bad. ” Grand,” according to their conceptions, is the attribute of certain animals called by them ” heroes.” And thus Napoleon, escaping homewards in a warm fur coat, running away, not only from his perishing comrades, but (as they assert) from men whom he has brought there, feels ” que c’est grand,” and his soul is at peace.

” Du sublime ” (he saw something sublime in himself) ” au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas,” he said. And the whole world has been repeating : “ Sublime ! Grand ! Napoléon le grand ! Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas.”

And it does not occur to any one that the recognition of grandeur which is not measured by the measure of goodness and badness is only the recognition of one’s own insignificance and immeasurable smallness.

For us, with the measure of the good and the bad, given to us by Christ, there is no such tiling as the immeasurable. And there is no grandeur where there is no simplicity, no good, and no truth.

XIX.

What Russian, reading the description of the last period of the campaign of 1812, has not experienced a painful, annoying feeling of unsatisfied desire and perplexity ! Who has not asked himself : why were not all the French captured and destroyed, since all three armies surrounded them in superior numbers ; since the disbanded Frenchmen, starving and freezing, surrendered in large groups ; and since (as history tells us) the aim of the Russians consisted precisely in arresting, cutting off, and capturing all the French ?

How is it that the Russian army, which, weaker in numbers than the French, gave battle at Borodino, did not attain its aim, when it surrounded the French on three sides, and when its purpose was to capture them ? Is it possible the French were so far superior to us that we, with overwhelming forces and surrounding them, were unable to beat them ? How could it have happened ?

History (what is called so), replying to these questions, says that this was due to the fact that Kutuzov, and T<5r-masov, and Chichagov, and so and so, did not make such and such manœuvres.

But why did they not make all these manœuvres ? Why, if they were to blame for not obtaining the purpose in view, were they not tried and sentenced ? But, even if we admit that Kutuzov and Chichagdv, and so forth, were the cause of the Russian failure, it still remains incomprehensible why, even under the conditions under which

the Russian troops were at Kràsnoe and the Berézina (in either case the Russians had superior forces), the French army was not captured with its marshals, its kings, and its emperor, since this was the purpose of the Russians.

To explain this strange phenomenon (as the Russian military historians do) by saying that Kutuzov impeded this attack is irrelevant, because we know that Kutuzov’s will was unable to restrain the army from attacking at Vydzma and Tarutino.

Why was the Russian army, which with inferior forces had obtained a victory at Borodind over the enemy in his full force, vanquished by the disbanded French troops at Krdsnoe and at the Berézina, though it now had superior forces ?

If it was the aim of the Russians to cut off and capture Napoleon and the marshals, and this aim was never attained, and even all the attempts at attaining this end were every time frustrated in the most disgraceful manner possible, then the last period of the campaign is quite correctly represented by the French as consisting of a series of victories, and quite incorrectly by the Russian historians as victorious for the Russians.

The Russian military historians, insomuch as logic is obligatory for them, involuntarily come to this conclusion, and, in spite of the lyrical exaltation about valour and loyalty, and so forth, they must involuntarily acknowledge that the retreat of the French from Moscow was a series of victories for Napoleon and of defeats for Kutuzov.

But, leaving entirely aside our national vanity, we feel that this conclusion bears in itself a contradiction, since a series of victories has brought them to complete ruin, while a series of defeats for the Russians has brought them to the complete annihilation of the enemy and the liberation of their country;

The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians, who study the event from the letters of kings and generals, from reports, plans, etc., assume for the latter part of the campaign of 1812 a non-existent, false purpose of cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and troops.

There never was such an aim, and there could not have been, because it had no sense, and its realization was absolutely impossible.

This aim had no sense, in the first place, because Napoleon’s disorganized army was fleeing at full speed from Russia, that is, was doing that which each Russian might have wished. Why, then, should various operations have been performed on the French who were running as fast as they could ?

In the second place, it was senseless to get into the way of men whose whole energy was directed toward flight.

Thirdly, it was senseless to lose the Russian troops for the purpose of destroying the French troops, which, without any external causes, were melting down in such proportion that, without barring their way, they were not able to take across the border more than they actually took across in December, that is, one-hundredth part of all their men.

Fourthly, it was senseless to wish to capture the emperor, the kings, the dukes, — men whose captivity would have hampered the actions of the Russians exceedingly, as the most skilful diplomatists of the time (J. Maistre and others) have pointed out. Still more senseless was the desire to capture a French corps when our own troops had melted to half their numbers by the time they reached Krasnoe, when to each corps of prisoners a division of guards would have to be attached, and when our own soldiers did not always receive sufficient provisions, and such of the prisoners as had already been taken were starving.

The whole deep-laid plan about cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his army was like that plan of the gardener who, driving out of his garden the cow which has tramped over his beds, runs up to the gate and begins to strike the cow on her head. All that could be said in justification of the gardener would be that he was very angry. But this could not have been said of the authors of the project because they did not suffer from the ruined beds.

But the cutting off of Napoleon with his army was not only senseless, — it was impossible.

It was impossible, in the first place, because, as is seen from experience, the movement of columns on a territory of five versts in one battle never coincides with the plans, and because, therefore, the probability that Chichagov, Kutuzov, and Wittgenstein should meet in time at an appointed place was so insignificant as to be an impossibility ; thus thought Kutuzov, who, in receiving the plan, remarked that diversions on great extents of territory do not bring the desired results.

In the second place, it was impossible because, in order to paralyze the power of inertia with which Napoleon’s army was retreating, incomparably larger troops would have been needed than what the Russians actually possessed.

Thirdly, it was impossible because the military word ” to cut off ” has no sense whatever. We can cut off a piece of bread, but not an army. To cut off an army, to bar its way, is quite impossible, because there are always places around about to go by, and there is the night during which nothing is seen, a fact of which the learned military writers could convince themselves from the examples of Krdsnoe and of Borodind. It is impossible to capture any one, unless the one who is to be captured agrees to it, just as it is impossible to catch a swallow, though one may take it when it settles down on the hand. One may capture any one who surrenders, as the Germans were captured, according to the rules of strategy and tactics. But the French troops quite naturally found this disadvantageous, since starvation and cold awaited them alike in captivity and in flight.

Fourthly, and chiefly, this was impossible because never, since the world has existed, has a war been waged under more terrible conditions than was the war of 1812, and the Russian troops in pursuing the Frenchmen strained all their strength and could not have done more, without annihilating themselves.

In the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Kräsnoe there fell out fifty thousand men in sick and stragglers, that is, a number equal to the population of a large provincial town. Half the people fell out of the army without battles.

And it is of this period of the campaign, when the troops, without boots or fur coats, with insufficient provisions, without vodka, sleep in the snow at fifteen degrees Réaumur below zero; when the days are only seven or eight hours long, and the rest is night, during which there can be no influence of discipline ; when men are not introduced into the sphere of death for a few hours, as in battles, but for months in succession live struggling all the time against death from freezing and starvation ; when in a month half the army perishes, — it is of this period of the campaign that the historians tell us that Miloràdovich ought to have made a flank march to such and such a place, and Tdrmasov was to have been here, and Chichagdv ought to have moved there (moved more than knee-deep in snow), and that so and so overthrew and cut off, and so forth, and so forth.

The Russians, half of whom had died, did all that could have been done and ought to have been done in order to obtain the aim worthy of the nation, and are not to blame because other Russians who sat in warm rooms proposed to do the impossible.

All this strange and now incomprehensible contradiction between the fact and the historical description arises from this, that the historians, who wrote of this event, wrote a history of the fair sentiments and words of various generals, and not a history of the event.

They are most interested in the words of Miloradovich, in the rewards which such and such a general received, and in their conceptions ; but the question about the fifty thousand men who were left in the hospitals and in the graves does not even interest them, because it cannot be submitted to investigation.

And yet, it suffices to turn away from the study of reports and general plans, and try to understand the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a direct, immediate part in the event, and all seemingly insoluble questions suddenly, with unusual ease and simplicity, find an indubitable solution.

The aim of cutting off Napoleon with his army never existed, except in the imagination of a dozen men. It could not have existed because it was senseless, and its realization was impossible.

The nation had but one aim, and that was, to clear the country from the invasion. This aim was reached, in the first place by itself, because the French fled, and so this motion ought not to have been retarded. In the second place, this aim was attained by the action of the national war which was destroying the French, and thirdly, because a large Russian army was following up the French, ready to use force in case the motion of the French should have been arrested.

The Russian army had to act like a goad on a fleeing animal. And the experienced driver knew that the most advantageous thing to do was to keep the goad in a threatening attitude, and not to strike the fleeing animal on the head.

PART THE FIFTEENTH

I.

When a man sees a dying animal, terror takes possession of him : what he is himself, his essence, is palpably being destroyed before him, — it ceases to exist. But when the dying being is a man, a beloved man, then, in addition to the feeling of horror experienced before the destruction of life, there is the sensation of rupture and of a spiritual wound which, like a physical wound, sometimes kills, sometimes heals over, but always pains and recoils from an external, irritating touch.

After the death of Prince Andréy, NaUsha and Princess Marya were alike conscious of this. Stooping morally and closing their eyes against the threatening, overhanging cloud of death, they did not dare to look into the face of life. They cautiously concealed their open wounds from any offensive, painful contact. Everything, — a carriage driving rapidly along the street, the thought of dinner, the maid’s question about a garment to be got ready, or, even more, a word of insincere, feeble sympathy, painfully irritated the wound, seemed to be an insult, and impaired that necessary quiet, when both of them tried to listen to that terrible, stern chorus still resonant in their imagination, and kept them from looking into those mysterious distances which for a moment presented themselves to their view.

Only when the two were together did they not feel

offended or pained. They spoke little to one another. When they talked at all, they mentioned the most insignificant subjects. Both equally avoided referring to matters that had anything to do with the future.

To acknowledge the possibility of a future seemed to them an insult of his memory. With still greater caution did they avoid in their conversations anything that might refer to the deceased man. It seemed to them that what they had passed through and had suffered could not be expressed in words. It seemed to them that any mention of the details of his life impaired the grandeur and sacredness of the mystery which had taken place before their eyes.

The constant reserve of speech, the careful avoidance of anything that might lead up to him, — all this stopping short on the border of what could not be referred to, brought out more clearly and more definitely before their imagination what they felt.

But a full, unalloyed grief is as impossible as a full, unalloyed joy. Princess Märya, in her position as independent mistress of her fate, and as guardian and educator of her nephew, was the first to be called out by life from that world of grief, in which she had lived the first two weeks. She received letters from relatives, which had to be answered ; the room in which her nephew was placed was damp, and he began to cough. Alpdtych arrived in Yarosläv with reports about the state of affairs, and with the proposition that she should go to Moscow and settle in the Vzdvizhenka house, which was intact and demanded only insignificant repairs. Life did not stop, and it was necessary to live. No matter how hard it was for Princess Märya to issue from that world of solitary contemplation, in which she had been living until then ; no matter how sorry she was to leave Natdsha alone, the cares of life demanded her attention, and she instinctively surrendered herself to them. She examined the accounts with Alpätych, counselled with Desalles about her nephew, and made preparations and gave orders for her departure to Moscow.

Natasha remained alone and avoided Princess Märya, while she was getting ready to leave.

Princess Marya begged the countess to let Natésha go with her to Moscow, and both the parents readily consented to this proposition, because they noticed that their daughter’s strength was failing more and more, and because they supposed that the change of place and the assistance from the Moscow physicians might be helpful to her.

” I will not go anywhere,” replied Natasha, when this proposition was made to her. ” Please leave me alone ! ” she said, running out of the room and with difficulty restraining her tears, not so much of grief, as of annoyance and anger.

After she felt herself abandoned by Princess Marya, and all alone in her grief, she passed most of the time in her room, sitting with her feet in the corner of the divan, tearing something up, or twitching her thin, strained fingers, and fixing her stubborn, motionless glance on whatever her eyes fell upon. This solitude exhausted and tormented her, but was necessary for her. The moment some one came in to see her, she rose rapidly, changed her position and expression of face, and took up a book or some sewing, apparently waiting with impatience for those to leave who were disturbing her.

It seemed to her that she was on the point of grasping and penetrating that on which her mental vision was directed with a terrible question that was above her strength.

In the end of the month of December, thin, pale Natasha, wearing a black woollen dress, and having her hair carelessly braided and tied in a tuft, was sitting with her feet in the corner of the divan, nervously crumpling and letting out the ends of her belt, and looking at the corner of the door.

She was gazing where he had gone, at the other side of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never thought before, which formerly had appeared so distant and improbable to her, now was nearer, more comprehensible, more her own, than this side of life, in which everything was either emptiness and devastation, or suffering and insult. She was looking there where she knew he was ; but she could not see him any other than he had been here. She saw him such as he had been at Mytishchi, at Trditsa, in Yarosldv.

She saw his face, heard his voice, and repeated his words and her own, which she had said to him, and occasionally invented new words for him and for herself, such as might have been uttered by them.

There he lay in the armchair, in his velvet coat, leaning bis head on his thin, pale arm. His breast was terribly low, and his shoulders were raised. His lips were firmly set, his eyes sparkling, and on his pale forehead leaped and disappeared a wrinkle. One of his legs barely trembled. Natasha knew that he was struggling with an agonizing pain. ” What is this pain ? Why the pain ? What does he feel ? How does it pain him?” thought Natdsha. He noticed her fixed glance, raised his eyes, and, without smiling, began to speak.

” One thing is terrible,” he said, “ and that is to bind yourself for ever with a suffering being. It is an eternal torment.” And he looked at her with an inquisitive glance. Natäsha, as was always the case, answered him before she had had time to think of what she was going to reply ; she said :

” This cannot last so ; this will not be, — you will be well, completely well ! “

She now saw anew and lived over everything she had experienced then. She recalled his protracted, sad, stern glance at these words, and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in this protracted glance.

“ I admitted,” Natdsha now said to herself, ” that it would be terrible if he should always be a sufferer. I then said it because I meant that it would be terrible for him, but he understood it differently. He thought that it would be terrible for me. At that time he still wanted to live and was afraid of death. It was so stupid and so rude of me. I did not have that in my mind. I was thinking of something quite different. If I had said what I was thinking of, I should have said that I did not care if he were in the agony of death all the time before my eyes, for I should have been more happy than I am now. Now — there is nothing and nobody.” And again he repeated to her those words ; but now she answered him differently in her imagination. She stopped him and said : ” It is terrible for you, but not for me. You ought to know that without you I have nothing in life, and to suffer with you is the greatest happiness for me.” And he took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed it on that terrible evening, four days before his death. And in her imagination she spoke to him with other, tender words, which she might have uttered then, and which she was saying now : ” I love you ! — You — I love, I love — ” she said, convulsively compressing her hands and clenching her teeth in a desperate effort.

And she was seized by a sweet sorrow, and tears stood in her eyes ; but suddenly she asked herself : ” To whom do I say it? Where is he now ? ” And again everything was veiled in dry, harsh doubt, and again she strained and knit her brow and looked there where he was. And now, now, she thought, she penetrated the mystery. But just as it seemed to her that the incomprehensible was being revealed to her, a loud rattling of the door-handle startled her. Maid Dunyäsha quickly

entered the room, with a frightened expression on her face, oblivious of her surroundings.

” Please to come to your papa, at once,” said Dunyäsha, with peculiar animation. ” A misfortune, about Pétya Ilich — a letter.” she said, sobbing.

II.

In addition to her feeling of aloofness from all people, Natasha at that time experienced a special feeling of aloofness from all the members of her family. All her near relatives, her father, her mother, Sonya, were so familiar, so trite to her, that all their words and sentiments seemed to her to be as an insult to that world in which she had been living of late, and she was not only indifferent, but even looked inimically at them. She heard Dunyasha’s words about Pétya Ihch and about the misfortune, but did not understand her.

” What misfortune can it be ? Everything is with them as of old,” Natäsha said, mentally.

As she entered the parlour, her father was quickly leaving the apartment of the countess. His face was wrinkled and wet with tears. Evidently he had run out of that room in order to give vent to his sobs. On seeing Natasha, he waved his arms in despair and burst forth into convulsive, agonizing sobs, which disfigured his round, soft face.

“Pe— Pétya— Go, go, she — is calling — ” and, sobbing like a child and tottering on his weakened legs, he walked over to a chair and, almost falling down on it, covered his face with his hands.

Suddenly something like an electric current passed through Natasha’s body. Something gave her a terrible blow in the heart. She felt a terrible pain : it was as though something had been torn off in her, and she were dying. But in the wake of the pain she suddenly experienced a liberation from the pressure of life which was upon her. When she saw her father and heard behind the door the terrible, harsh cry of her mother, she immediately forgot herself and her grief. She ran up to her father, but he impotently waved his hand and pointed to her mother’s door. Princess Mdrya was pale and her ^nether jaw trembled as she came out of the door and, taking Natasha’s hand, began to talk to her. Natasha neither heard nor saw her. She entered through the door with rapid steps, stopped for a moment, as if struggling with herself, and ran up to her mother.

The countess lay in an armchair in a strange and awkward position, and was striking her head against the wall. Sonya and the girls held her arms.

“ Natäsha, I want Natasha ! ” cried the countess. “It is not true — He is lying — Natâsha ! ” she cried, pushing away those who were around her. ” Away from me, all of you ! It is a lie ! They have killed him ! Ha, ha, ha! It is a lie!”

Natdsha put a knee on the chair, bent over her mother, embraced her, raised her with sudden force, turned her toward herself, and pressed close to her.

” Mother ! Darling ! I am here, my dear ! Mamma,” she whispered to her, without a second’s cessation.

She did not let her mother out of her arms, tenderly struggled with her, asked for pillows and for water, unlaced her clothes, and tore her dress off.

” My dear, darling ! Mamma, darling,” she kept whispering to her, kissing her head, hands, and face, and feeling her tears coursing down in streams and tickling her nose and cheeks.

The countess pressed her daughter’s hand, closed her eyes, and grew silent for a moment. Then she suddenly rose with unwonted rapidity, looked senselessly about her, and, noticing Natâsha, began with all her strength to squeeze her head. Then she turned her face, which was wrinkled from pain, toward her, and for a long time gazed into it.

“ Natäsha, you love me,” she said, in a soft, confidential whisper. “ Natdsha, you will not deceive me? You will tell me the whole truth ? ”

Natdsha looked at her with eyes filled with tears, and in her face there was only an entreaty of forgiveness and of love.

“My darling mother,” she repeated, straining all the powers of her love in order to take off the surplus of the grief which was oppressing her.

And again, in an impotent struggle with reality, the mother, refusing to believe that she could be living while her beloved boy, who was in the flower of life, was dead, sought safety from reality in the world of madness.

Natasha did not remember how the day passed, and the night, and the following day, and the following night. She did not sleep, nor did she leave her mother. Natäsha’s love, persistent and patient, not as an explanation, nor as a consolation, but as an invitation to life, seemed all the time to surround the countess. On the third night the countess calmed down for a few minutes, and Natäsha closed her eyes, leaning her head on the arm of the chair. The bed creaked, and Natäsha opened her eyes. The countess was sitting on her bed and talking softly.

“ How glad I am you have come ! You are tired. Do you want some tea ? ”

Natasha walked over to her.

“ You look so much more handsome and manly !” continued the countess, taking her daughter’s hand.

“ Mamma, what are you saying ? “

“ Natäsha, he is no more ! ”

And, embracing her daughter, the countess began for the first time to weep.

III.

Princess Marya put off her departure. Sdnya and the count tried to take Natasha’s place, but could not. They saw that Natäsha was the only one to keep the mother from insane despair. Natäsha lived for three weeks uninterruptedly with her mother, slept in the chair in her room, fed her, and incessantly talked with her, because her tender, caressing voice soothed the countess.

The mother’s spiritual wound could not heal. Pétya’s death tore half her life away. A month after receiving the news of his death, which had found her a fresh-looking and sturdy woman of fifty, she came out of her room a halfdead old woman who did not take interest in life. But the wound which half-killed the countess called Natäsha back to life.

A spiritual wound, which is caused by the ulceration of the spiritual body, in no way differs from a physical wound. However strange it may seem, a spiritual wound, like a physical wound, heals from within by an expelling force of life, long after it has cicatrized and its edges have met.

Even thus Natäsha’s wound healed up. She thought that her life was ended. But suddenly her love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life — love — was still active in her. Love awoke, and life awoke.

The last days of Prince Andréy had bound Natäsha and Princess Märya together. The new calamity brought them together still closer. Princess Märya postponed her departure, and during the last three weeks had waited on Natäsha, as on a sick child. The last weeks which Natäsha had passed in her mother’s room had affected her physical strength.

Noticing in the middle of the day that Natäsha was shaking as though in a fever, Princess Märya took her to her own room and put her down on her bed. Natäsha lay down, but when Princess Märya pulled down the blinds and was on the point of going away, Natäsha called her back.

” I do not feel like sleeping. Marie, sit down by me ! “

” You are tired, — try to fall asleep ! “

” No, no ! Why did you take me away ? She will ask for me.”

” She is much better. She talked so well to-day,” said Princess Märya.

Natäsha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned Princess Märya’s face.

” Does she resemble him ? ” thought Natäsha. ” Yes and no. But she is a strange, new, unfamiliar, peculiar being, and she loves me. What is there on her soul ? Everything good. But how ? How does she think ? How does she regard me ? Yes, she is beautiful.”

” Marie,” she said, timidly drawing her hand to her. ” Marie, don’t think that I am bad ! No ? Marie, my dear, how I love you ! Let us be great friends ! “

And Natasha, embracing her, began to kiss Princess Märya’s face and hands. Princess Märya was ashamed and glad of this manifestation of Natäsha’s feelings.

From that day on there was established that impassioned and tender friendship between Princess Märya and Natäsha, which is to be found only among women. They constantly kissed each other, spoke gentle words to one another, and passed most of their time together. If one went out, the other was uneasy and tried to join her. Together they felt more at peace than when each was left alone. Between them grew up something stronger than friendship : it was the exclusive feeling of the possibility of living only in the presence of one another.

Now and then they were silent for hours at a time ; occasionally, while lying in their beds, they began to talk, and kept up the conversation until morning. Princess Märya told of her childhood, of her mother, her father, her dreams; and Natasha, who formerly used to turn away with calm indifference from this life of devotion and submission, from the poetry of Christian selfsacrifice, now, feeling herself united in love with Princess Marya, began to love also Princess Marya’s past, and comprehended her formerly unintelligible side of life. She did not expect to apply that submission and selfsacrifice to her own life, because she was in the habit of seeking for other joys, but she comprehended and loved in another this virtue, which before she had not understood. To Princess Mfirya, too, listening to the stories of Natfisha’s childhood and first youth, was disclosed her previously incomprehensible side of life, — a faith in life, in the enjoyment of life.

They still refrained from speaking of him, in order not to impair by words that elevation of feeling which they thought was in them, and this silence slowly had the effect of making them forget him, however little they believed this.

Natdsha grew thinner and paler, and became physically so feeble that all kept talking of her health, and this gave her pleasure. But occasionally she was seized not only by the terror of death, but also by the terror of disease, weakness, loss of beauty, and she involuntarily examined her bare arm, marvelling at its leanness, or looked in the morning in the mirror at her long-drawn, as she thought, pitiful face. It seemed to her that it had to be so, and yet terror and sadness overcame her.

One day she walked rapidly upstairs and gasped heavily. She immediately thought of something she could do downstairs, and from there again ran up, trying her strength and watching herself.

Another time she called up Dunydsha, and her voice faltered. She called her a second time, though she heard her steps, — she called her with that chest tone with winch she sang, and listened to it.

She did not know it, and would not have believed it, but under what to her seemed to be an impenetrable layer of mud which covered her soul, already sprouted the thin, tender blades of grass, which were to take root and soon to cover her crushing grief with their vital runners, so that it would become unnoticeable and invisible. The wound was healing from within.

In the last days of January Princess Marya left for Moscow, and the count insisted that Natasha should go with her, in order to consult the physicians.

IV.

After the conflict at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to restrain his armies from the desire to overthrow, cut off, and so forth, the further movement of the fleeing Frenchmen and of the Russians in their pursuit, as far as Kräsnoe, took place without battles. The flight was so precipitous that the Russian army, running after the French, could not keep up with it, that the cavalry and artillery horses were worn out, and that the information about the movements of the French was always unreliable.

The soldiers of the Russian troops were so exhausted by this incessant motion, of as much as forty versts a day, that they were unable to proceed any faster.

In order to understand the degree of the exhaustion of the Russian army, it is sufficient to consider the fact that, having lost not more than five thousand men in wounded and killed during the whole time of the march from Tarutino, nor more than one hundred in prisoners, the Russian army, which had left Tarutino numbering one hundred thousand, arrived at Kräsnoe with no more than fifty thousand men.

The rapid motion of the Russians in pursuit of the French had the same destructive effect upon it as the flight of the French army. The only difference was that the Russian army moved voluntarily, without the menace of destruction, which was hanging over the French army, and that the straggling sick French soldiers remained in

260 the hands of the Russians, while the Russian stragglers were at home. The chief cause of the diminution of Napoleon’s army lay in the rapidity of motion, and an indisputable proof of it is found in the corresponding diminution of the Russian troops.

Kutuzov’s whole activity, as evidenced at Tarutino and Vyazma, was directed, — in so far as it lay in his power, — not to arrest this motion, which was so disastrous for the French (as they wanted to in St. Petersburg, and as Russian generals in the army demanded), but to cooperate with it, and to make the movements of his own troops as easy as possible.

But, as soon as the exhaustion of the troops and the enormous losses, due to the rapidity of motion, manifested themselves, another cause presented itself to Kutuzov for retarding the movement of the troops and for waiting. The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The path over which the French army travelled was unknown ; therefore, the more our troops followed on its heels, the greater were the distances which they marched. Only by following at a certain distance was it possible to intercept the zigzags which the French army was making, and so march the least possible distance. All the skilful manœuvres which the generals proposed were expressed in the transposition of the troops, the increase of the day’s marches, whereas the only sensible aim was to diminish these marches.. And Kutuzov’s whole activity was directed toward this one aim, during the whole campaign, from Moscow to Vilna, — and it was not accidental and temporary, but so consistent that he did not once change it.

Kutuzov knew, not by reasoning or through science, but with his whole Russian being, — what every Russian soldier felt, as well, — that the French were vanquished, that the enemy was fleeing, and that it was necessary to see them out ; at the same time he felt, just as the soldiers did, the whole difficulty of this campaign, which,

on account of the rapidity of motion and the unfavourable season, was quite unusual.

But the generals, especially those of foreign extraction, who wished to distinguish themselves, to startle somebody, to capture a duke or a king for some reason, — these generals thought that now, when all battles were preposterous and criminal, was the proper time for giving battle and conquering somebody. Kutuzov only shrugged his shoulders when, one after another, they presented to him projects of manoeuvres with those ill-clad, half-starved soldiers who, in one month, without battles, had melted to half their numbers, and who, under the most favourable conditions of a continuous flight, had to cross, before reaching the border, an extent of territory which was twice as large as what they had already traversed.

This tendency to distinguish themselves and make evolutions, to overthrow and cut off, manifested itself with particular vigour whenever the Russian troops stumbled on the French army.

Thus it happened at Kräsnoe, where they expected to find one of the three columns of the French, and stumbled on Napoleon himself with sixteen thousand men. In spite of all the means used by Kutuzov in order to free himself from this disastrous conflict and to save his troops, the slaughter of the scattered French bands indulged in by the exhausted men of the Russian army at Kräsnoe lasted for three days.

Toll wrote a disposition, ” Die erste Colonne marschirt,” and so forth. And, as usual, things were not done at all according to the disposition. Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg fired at the fugitive Frenchmen from a hill, and demanded reinforcements, which did not arrive. The French in the night ran around the Russians, scattered, concealed themselves in the woods, and made their way ahead as best they could.

Milorädovich, who said that he did not want to know a thing about the commissariat of the detachment, which could never be found when it was wanted, Milorddovich, “ chevalier sans peur et sans reprocheas he called himself, and a great lover of conversations with Frenchmen, kept sending messengers of truce, asking for surrender, lost time, and did not do what he was commanded to do.

” I make you a present of this column, boys ! ” he said, riding up to the troops and indicating the Frenchmen to the cavalry. And the cavalrymen, urging on their fagged horses with their spurs and swords, after the greatest effort, rode up at a trot to the column given them as a present, that is, to a crowd of frostbitten, chilled, hungry Frenchmen ; and the column threw down their arms and surrendered, a thing which the Frenchmen had long been desirous of doing.

At Kräsnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, hundreds of cannon, a certain stick, called the ” marshal’s bâton,” and they quarrelled as to who distinguished himself there, and were satisfied with the battle, but very sorry not to have captured Napoleon, or at least some hero or marshal, and they reproached each other for this, but especially they reproached Kutuzov.

These men, carried away by their passions, were only the blind executors of the saddest law of necessity ; but they regarded themselves as heroes, and imagined that what they did was most worthy and most noble. They accused Kutuzov and said that he had been keeping them from the beginning of the campaign from vanquishing Napoleon ; that he thought only of the gratification of his passions, and did not wish to leave the Linen Factory because he was comfortable there ; that he had arrested the motion at Kräsnoe because, having learned of Napoleon’s presence, he became confused ; that it might be assumed that he was in conspiracy with Napoleon, and bought by him,1 and so forth, and so forth.

1 Wilson’s Memoirs. —Author’s Note.

Not only the contemporaries who were carried away by their passions said that of him ; even posterity and history have found Napoleon to he ” grand,” and Kutuzov is declared by the foreigners to have been an old, wily, corrupt, weak courtier, and by Russians, something indefinite,— a doll whose only use lay in his Russian name.

V.

In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was directly accused of blunders. The emperor was dissatisfied with him. And in a history written lately by the order of his august Majesty it is said that Kutuzov was a wily, lying courtier, who was afraid of the name of Napoleon, and by his mistakes at Kräsnoe and at the Berézina deprived the Russian troops of glory, — of a complete victory over the French.1

Such is the fate, not of great men, not of 11 grands hommes” whom the Russian mind does not recognize, but of those rare, always even men who, divining the will of Providence, submit their personal will to it. The hatred and aversion of the masses punish these men for having grasped the highest laws.

For the Russian historians, — it is a strange and terrible thing to say, — Napoleon, that most insignificant tool of history, who nowhere and never, not even in exile, displayed human dignity, Napoleon is the subject of enthusiasm and transport, — he is ” grand.” But Kutuzov, the man who, from the beginning to the end of his activity in 1812, from Borodin 6 to Vilna, was not untrue to himself, in a single act or word, and who manifests the rare historical example of self-renunciation and of the consciousness in the present of the future significance of an event, — Kutuzov appears to them as something indefinite

1 Bogdandvich’s “ History of the Year 1812” : The characterization of Kutûzov, and the reflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Kräsnoe. —Author’s Note.

and pitiable, and, speaking of Kutuzov in 1812, they always seem to feel a little ashamed.

And yet, it is difficult to think of a historical person whose activity was so unchangeably and so constantly directed toward one purpose. It is difficult to imagine a worthier purpose and one which better coincides with the will of the whole nation. Still more difficult is it to find another example in history where the aim placed before himself by the historical person has been so fully attained as the aim toward the attainment of which Kutuzov’s whole activity was directed in 1812.

Kutuzov did not speak of the forty centuries that looked down from the pyramids, of the sacrifices which he was making for his country, of what he intended to accomplish or already had accomplished : he said in general nothing about himself, played no rôle, always appeared as a most simple and ordinary man, and said the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Staël, read novels, loved the company of beautiful women, jested with the generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted the people who wanted to prove anything to him. When Count Bostopchin galloped up to Kutuzov on the Yauza Bridge to tell him that he was the cause of the ruin of Moscow, saying, ” But you have promised not to abandon Moscow without giving battle ! ” Kutuzov replied, « I will not abandon it without Giving battle,” although Moscow was already abandoned. When Arakchéev, sent to him by the emperor, arrived and said that Ermdlov ought to be appointed chief of artillery, Kutuzov replied, ” I said so myself awhile ago,” though a little while ago he had said something quite different. What difference did it make to him, who alone then understood the whole grand meaning of the event, amidst the senseless crowd that surrounded him, — what difference did it make to him whether Count Bostopchin would refer the calamity of Moscow to him, or to himself ?

Still less could he be interested in who should be appointed chief of artillery.

Not only in these cases, but continuously, did this old man, who, through his experience of life had arrived at the conviction that ideas, and the words which serve as the vehicle of their expression, are not the prime movers of men, utter quite senseless words, the first that occurred to him.

But this same man, who took so little account of his words, never, in all his activity, uttered a word which was not in conformity with his only aim, toward the attainment of which he marched during the whole war. Apparently against his will, and with the oppressive consciousness that he would not be understood, he expressed his thoughts more than once, in all kinds of circumstances. Beginning with the battle of Borodino, where his dissensions with his surroundings began, he said that the battle of Borodino was a victory, and he repeated it orally and in his reports, up to his very death. It was he alone who said that the loss of Moscow was not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston’s proposal of peace, he answered that there could be no peace because that was the will of the people ; during the retreat of the French he alone said that all our manœuvres were useless ; that everything would be done better of its own accord than we were able to do it ; that a golden bridge must be given to the enemy ; that the battles of Tarutino, of Vyazma, and of Krdsnoe were equally unnecessary ; that we ought to arrive at the border with something ; that he would not give up one Russian for ten Frenchmen.

And he alone, that courtier, as he is represented to us, — the man who lies to Arakchéev for the purpose of pleasing the emperor, — he alone, that courtier, says in Vilna, thus gaining the emperor’s disfavour, that a further war abroad was both harmful and useless.

But words alone would not prove that he then compte—

hended the meaning of the event. His actions — all without the least exception — are directed to the same triple purpose: (1) to strain all his strength for the purpose of conflicts with the French ; (2) to conquer them ; and (3) to drive them out of Russia, alleviating as much as possible the suffering of the people and of the army.

He, the cunctator Kutuzov, whose device was ” patience and time,” the enemy of decisive actions, gives the battle of Borodino, circuinstancing the preparations for it with unexampled solemnity. He, that Kutuzov who at the battle of Austerlitz had said, before it was begun, that it would be lost, at Borodind, in spite of the assurance of the generals that the battle was lost, in spite of the unheard-of example in history that after a battle won the army has to retreat, he alone, in opposition to all, affirms to the day of his death that the battle of Borodind was a victory. He alone, during the whole time of the retreat, insists that battles ought not to be given, that they are useless, that no new war ought to be begun, and that the border is not to be crossed.

It is now easy to understand the significance of the event, if a mass of aims which existed in the heads of a dozen men are not applied to the activity, because the whole event with its consequences lies before us.

But how could that old man, all alone in opposition to the opinion of everybody, have divined so correctly the meaning of the national importance of the event, so that he did not change his opinion once during his whole activity ?

The source of that extraordinary power of foresight in the phenomena which were evolving themselves lay in that national feeling which he bore in himself in all its purity and strength.

Only the recognition of that sentiment in him could have made the people in such a strange manner, against the will of the emperor, select him, the old man in disfavour, as the representative of the national war. And only this sentiment placed him on that highest human eminence, from which he, the commanderin-chief, directed all his forces, not to kill and destroy men, but to save and pity them.

This simple, modest, and therefore truly majestic figure could not be cast in that false mould of the European hero who is supposed to guide men, such as history has invented him.

For a valet there is no great man, because a valet has his own conception of greatness.

VL

The 5th of November was the first day of the so-called battle of Krdsnoe. Late in the afternoon, when, after many disputes and blunders by the generals, who took up their positions in the wrong places, and after the adjutants had been sent out with counter-commands, when it became quite evident that the enemy was fleeing everywhere and that there could be and would be no battle, Kutuzov rode out of Krâsnoe and went to Ddbroe, whither the headquarters had been transferred on that day.

It was a clear, frosty day. Kutuzov, accompanied by an immense suite of generals, who were dissatisfied with him and who kept whispering behind him, rode on his fat, white horse to Ddbroe. Along the whole road parties of French prisoners taken on that day (seven thousand were taken on that day) crowded and warmed themselves at the campfires. Not very far from Dobroe, an immense mass of ragged prisoners, wrapped and bandaged with anything they could find, kept talking as they stood on the road near a long row of unhitched French ordnance. At the approach of the commanderin-chief the conversation died down, and all eyes were directed upon Kutuzov, who, wearing his white, red-rimmed cap and wadded uniform, which was humped up over his stooping shoulders, was slowly moving down the road. One of the generals reported to Kutuzov where the guns and the prisoners had been taken.

Kutuzov seemed to be preoccupied with something, and did not hear the general’s words. He halfclosed his eyes in dissatisfaction, and fixedly gazed at the figures of the prisoners, who presented a peculiarly pitiful appearance. The greater part of the French soldiers were disfigured by frozen noses and cheeks, and nearly all of them had red, swollen, purulent eyes.

One group of Frenchmen was standing close to the road, and two soldiers — the face of one of them was covered with frostbites — were tearing with their hands a piece of raw meat. There was something terrible and beastly in that fleeting glance which they cast at the riders, and in that resentful glance with which the soldier with the frostbites, having gazed at Kutuzov, immediately turned away and continued his work.

Kutuzov for a long time looked fixedly at these two soldiers ; he frowned even more, halfclosed his eyes, and pensively shook his head. In another place he noticed a Russian soldier who, laughing and patting a Frenchman on the shoulder, was speaking kindly to him. Kutuzov again shook his head, with the same expression on his face.

“What are you saying?” he asked the general, who continued to report, and who directed the attention of the commanderin-chief to the captured French flags, which were standing in front of the Preobrazhénski regiment.

“ Oh, the flags ! ” said Kutuzov, evidently with difficulty tearing himself away from the subject which interested him. He looked absently about him. Thousands of eyes were directed upon him from every side, waiting for his word.

He stopped in front of the Preobrazhénski regiment, drew a deep sigh, and closed his eyes. Some one in the suite beckoned to the soldiers who were holding the flags to come up and plant the flagpoles around the commanderin-chief. Kutuzov kept silence for a few seconds and evidently reluctantly submitted to the necessity of his

position, raised his head and began to speak. Groups of officers surrounded him. He carefully surveyed the circle of the officers and recognized a few of them.

” I thank you all ! ” he said, turning to the soldiers and again to the officers. In the quiet which reigned about him could be distinctly heard his slowly enunciated words : ” I thank you all for your laborious and faithful service. It is a complete victory, and Russia will not forget you. Glory to you for ever! “

He looked around him in silence.

” Rend down, bend down his head ! ” he said to a soldier who was holding a French eagle which he accidentally had lowered before a flag of the Preobrazhénski regiment. ” Lower, lower, like that ! Hurrah, boys ! ” he said, with a rapid motion of his chin, turning to the soldiers.

” Hurrah, rah, rah ! ” roared thousands of voices.

While the soldiers were shouting, Kutuzov, bending down on his saddle, inclined his head, and his eye beamed with a meek, almost derisive sparkle.

” That’s it, boys,” he said, when the voices died down.

Suddenly his voice and the expression of his face changed: the commanderin-chief stopped speaking, and there spoke a simple old man, who apparently wanted to communicate something most important to his comrades.

In the throng of officers and in the ranks of the soldiers there was a stir, in order to hear more clearly what he was going to say now :

” Listen, friends ! I know it is hard for you, but what is to be done? Have a little patience, — only a short time is left. We shall see the guest out, and then we shall rest. Your Tsar will not forget you for your service. It is hard for you, but you are at least at home ; but see what they have come to!” he said, pointing to the prisoners. “They are worse than the lowest beggars. As long as they were powerful, we did not pity them, but now we may be compassionate toward them. They, too, are human beings. Am I right, boys ? “

He looked around him, and in the stubborn, respectfully perplexed glances directed at him he read assent to his words : his face grew brighter and brighter from a meek old man’s smile, which produced star-shaped wrinkles in the corners of his lips and eyes. He was silent for a moment and lowered his head as though in perplexity.

“ To tell the truth, who sent for them ? Serves them right, those––—,” he suddenly said, raising his head.

And, swinging his whip, he rode away at a gallop, for the first time during the campaign, from the soldiers, who were merrily laughing and shouting, “hurrah,” while breaking ranks.

The words which Kutuzov had said had hardly been understood by the troops. No one would have been able to give , the contents of the fieldmarshal’s speech, which at first was solemn, and at the end good-natured ; but the essential meaning of this speech had not only been grasped, but the very feeling of majestic solemnity in conjunction with compassion toward the enemy and consciousness of right, expressed in that very old man’s good-natured curse, — that feeling lay in the soul of every soldier and was expressed by a joyous, long-sustained shout. When, after that, one of the generals turned to the commanderin-chief with the question whether he did not wish the carriage to be driven up, Kutuzov, in replying, suddenly burst out into sobs, as though strongly agitated.

VIL

On October 8th, the last day of the battle of Kräsnoe, it was already dark when the troops returned to the place of their bivouac. The whole day had been calm and frosty, with a fall of light snow; toward evening it cleared up. The starry dark-lilac sky could be seen through the snowflakes, and the frost became more intense.

The musketeer regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand men strong, now, with a force of nine hundred men, was one of the first to return to the appointed place of the bivouac, in the village on the highway. The quartermasters, who met the regiment, informed the soldiers that all the huts were occupied by sick and dead Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and the staffs. There was only one hut unoccupied, and that was for the commander of the regiment.

The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the village and at the outskirt of the village stacked arms on the highway.

Like an immense, multiple animal, the regiment began to prepare its lair and food. A part of the soldiers scattered, knee-deep, in the birch forest, which was on the right from the village, and immediately were heard the blows with axes and swords, the crackling of breaking branches, and merry voices ; another part was busy near the centre of the regimental carts and of the horses standing in a group, taking out kettles and hardtack, and feeding the horses ; a third party scattered through the village, building booths for the officers of the staff, picking out the dead bodies of the French that were lying in the huts, and carrying off planks, dry wood, and the straw from the thatches for the campfires, and wicker fences for protection.

About fifteen soldiers were back of the huts at the edge of the village, with a merry shout swinging the high wicker wall of a shed, from which the thatch had already been removed.

” All at once, heave ! ” were heard the voices, and in the darkness of the night the immense snow-drifted sheet of the wicker wall swayed with a frosty crackling. The lower posts creaked offener and offener, and finally the wall fell down, with the soldiers who were pressing against it. There resounded a loud, coarsely joyous shout and laughter.

“ Take two at a time ! Let me have the jack ! That’s it. Where are you going ? “

” Now, all at once ! Wait, boys ! With a song ! ”

All grew silent, and a soft, velvety voice started a song. At the end of the third stanza, with the end of the last sound, twenty voices shouted together : ” Oo, oo, oo ! She goes ! All together ! Heave, boys ! ” But, in spite of the united effort, the wall did not stir much, and in the silence which ensued could be heard heavy gasping.

” Oh, there, men of the sixth company ! Devils ! Give us a lift ! We will do you a turn some day.”

About twenty men of the sixth company, who were walking to the village, joined those who were dragging the wall ; and the wickerwork, about thirty-five feet in length and seven feet in width, bending and pressing against and cutting the shoulders of the gasping men, moved down the village street.

” Move on ! — There, he has fallen — Why do you stop ? That’s it ! “

Merry, hideous curses followed each other.

“ What are you doing there ? ” suddenly was heard the commanding voice of a soldier, running up against the men with the wicker wall. ” Gentlemen are here ! In the hut is the general himself, and you, devils, what are you about ? I will teach you ! ” shouted the corporal, and, swinging his arm, he came down with all his might on the back of the soldier nearest to him. ” Can’t you do it with less noise ? “

The soldiers grew silent. The one who was struck by the corporal groaned and wiped off his face, which the corporal had made bleed by striking it against the wicker wall.

“ I declare the devil fights ! He has made my mug bleed ! ” he said, in a timid whisper, when the corporal had left.

” Don’t you like it ? ” said a laughing voice. And tempering the sounds of their voices, the soldiers moved on. When they got beyond the village, they again spoke out loud, interlarding their conversation with the same aimless curses.

In the hut, past which the soldiers had gone, were gathered the superior officers, and at tea they discussed in an animated manner the deeds of the past day and the manœuvres for the next. It was proposed to make a flank march to the left, to cut off the viceroy, and to capture him.

When the soldiers brought the wicker wall, the kitchen fires were already lighted on all sides. The wood crackled, the snow melted, and the black shadows of the soldiers flitted to and fro over the whole extent of space where the snow was tramped down.

Axes and swords were at work everywhere. Everything was done without any command. Wood was gathered up for the night; the tents of the superior officers were made warm ; the kettles were boiling, and the guns and the ammunition were put in order.

The wicker wall, which the eighth company brought up, was placed in a semicircle on the north side and fastened with forked sticks, and before it a campfire was made. The tattoo was beat, roll was called, and the soldiers ate their supper and lay down around the fires for the night, — one to mend his boots, another to smoke his pipe, a third, sitting all naked, to scorch the vermin.

VIII.

One would think that in those almost inexpressibly grave conditions of existence, in which the Russian soldiers then were, — without warm boots, without sheepskin fur coats, without a roof overhead, in the snow at eighteen degrees Réaumur below zero, and even without a full supply of provisions, which did not always reach the army in time, — the soldiers ought to have presented a very sad and dismal spectacle.

On the contrary, never, under the best material conditions, did the army present a merrier and more animated spectacle. It was due to the fact that every day the army rejected all those who began to sink in spirits or in physical strength. Everything physically or morally feeble had long ago fallen out : there was left only the flower of the army, as regards the power of the soul and body.

With the eighth company, which had protected itself by the wicker wall, were gathered the largest crowd. Two corporals sat down with them, and their campfire burned brightest of any. They demanded that those who shared the privilege of sitting around the fire should bring their armfuls of wood.

” Oh, Makyéev, what has become of you, son of a–-?

Are you lost, or have the wolves eaten you up ? Bring some wood ! ” shouted a red-faced, red-haired soldier, blinking and halfclosing his eyes from the smoke, but still not moving away from the fire. ” And you, crow, go and bring us some wood! ” this soldier turned to another. The red-haired man was not an underofficer or corporal, but a strong and healthy soldier, and so he ordered those about who were weaker than he. A lean little soldier, with a sharp nose, whom they had called ” crow,” humbly rose and went to carry out the command ; but just then the thin, handsome figure of a young soldier carrying some billets of wood stepped into the light of the fire.

” Give it here ! That’s fine ! “

The wood was broken up and pressed down ; they fanned the fire with their mouths and the skirts of their mantles, and the flame hissed and crackled. The soldiers moved up and Lighted their pipes. The young, handsome soldier who had fetched the wood stood up with his arms akimbo and began rapidly and nimbly to stamp the ground with his frosted feet.

” Oh, mother, the dew is cold but fair, and the musketeer — ” he sang, as though hiccoughing at each syllable of the song.

” Say, your soles are coming off ! ” shouted the red-haired soldier, noticing that the dancer’s sole was loose. ” Stop your dancing ! “

The dancer stopped, tore off the loose piece of leather and cast it into the fire.

” That’s so, my friend,” he said, sitting down and taking out of his knapsack a piece of French blue cloth, with which he began to wrap his leg. ” I have worn out a pair,” he added, stretching his leg out to the fire.

“ Soon they will let us have new ones. They say, when we kill them all off, we shall get a double allowance of material.”

” I declare, son of a–— Petrov has fallen behind, all

the same,” said the corporal.

” I noticed him long ago,” said another.

” Well, the little soldier — “

” In the third company, they say, they missed nine men yesterday.”

“ Well, what do you want them to do when their feet are frostbitten ? “

” What nonsense! ” said the corporal.

” I)o you want the same to happen to you ? ” said an old soldier, turning reproachfully to the one who spoke of the frostbitten feet.

” What do you think ? ” the sharp-nosed soldier, whom they had called ” crow,” suddenly rising from the fire, said in a squeaky and quivering voice. ” He who is sleek will get thin ; and who is thin will die. Take me, for example ! I have no more strength,” he suddenly said, with determination, turning to the corporal. ” Have me sent to the hospital : my bones are breaking terribly ; I shall fall behind, anyway — ”

” That will do, that will do ! ” the corporal said, calmly.

The soldier grew silent, and the conversation was taken up again.

” What a lot of Frenchmen have been captured to-day ! But not on one of them was there a decent pair of boots ! ” one of the soldiers started the conversation.

« The Cossacks have taken them. We were cleaning a hut for the colonel and carrying them out. It is a pity to look at them, boys!” said the dancer. “We turned them around, and one of them, would you believe it, was alive: he kept jabbering in his language.”

” They are a clean lot, boys,” said the first. ” He was white, — as white as a birch ; and there are nice ones among them, you might say noblemen.”

” Why, of course ! They have been gathered from all conditions of life.”

” They know nothing of our language,” the dancer said, with a smile of doubt. “ I asked him to what Crown he belonged, and he kept jabbering away in his tongue. They are a fine lot ! ”

“ No, this is wonderful, my friends,” continued the one who admired their whiteness, ” the peasants at Mozhäysk said that when they began to take away the killed where the battle had been, they had been lying there for at least a month. Well, those Frenchmen, they say, were as white as paper and clean, and there was not as much smell to them as to a puff of powder smoke.”

” Well, was it from the cold ? ” asked one of them.

“ How clever ! From the cold ! It was hot then. If it were from the cold, our men would not be stinking either. But they say that when you come up to one of our men, they are all rotten and worm-eaten. They say they have to wrap kerchiefs about their heads and drag them away turning their faces aside, and then they can’t do it. But the French, they say, are as white as paper ; they do not smell as much as a puff of powder smoke.”

All kept silence.

” It must be from the food,” said the corporal, ” for they have been eating gentlemen’s food.”

Nobody retorted to this.

“A peasant told me at Mozhéysk, where the battle was, that they were driven together from ten villages, and that they hauled away the dead for twenty days, and did not take away all. The wolves, he said — “

“Yes, that was a real battle,” said the old soldier. ” That battle is worth while to mention ; but everything since that has been nothing but a torture to the people.”

” That’s right, uncle ! The other day we ran up to them ; but we did not get a chance at them : they just threw away their guns in a lively fashion, and got down on their knees. ‘ Pardon,’ they said. That’s what they did. They say that Platov captured Poleon twice. He did not know the charm. He took him and took him, but Poleon turned into a bird in his hand and fiew away. And there is no sense in killing him.”

“ What a liar you are, Kiselev, upon my word.”

“ It is no lie, but the gospel truth.”

” If I had anything to do with it, I would catch him and bury him in the ground, and ram him down with an aspen stick. He has made such a lot of people perish.”

“ We shall make an end of him, anyway, and he will stop coming to us,” the old soldier said, yawning.

The conversation slackened, and the soldiers began to lie down for the night.

« Look at the stars ! How they burn ! You may say the women have laid out the linen to be bleached,” said a soldier, looking admiringly at the milky way.

” Boys, this means that we shall have good crops next year.”

” We need some more wood.”

” I am warming up my back, but my belly is freezing. How funny ! “

” 0 Lord! “

“ Don’t push that way ! Is this fire just for you ? I declare, he has spread himself ! “

Through the silence that ensued one could hear the snoring of several men who had fallen asleep; others were turning around and warming themselves, now and then exchanging a few words. From a distant campfire, about one hundred paces away, proceeded friendly, merry laughter.

“ How they are roaring in the fifth company,” said a soldier. ” What a riot of people are there ! “

A soldier got up and went over to the fifth company.

” They are having a lot of fun,” said he, upon returning. ” Two Frenchmen have joined them. One is all frozen, and the other is such a dashing fellow ! He is singing songs to them.”

” Oh, oh ! Let us go and see ! “

Several soldiers went up to the fifth company.

IX.

The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. An immense fire burned brightly in the middle of the snow, lighting up the boughs of the trees, which were heavy with hoarfrost.

In the middle of the night the soldiers of the fifth company heard steps over the snow in the forest and the crashing of branches.

“ Boys, it is a bear ! ” said a soldier.

All raised their heads. They listened, and out of the forest there stepped into the light of the fire two strangely dressed human beings holding on to each other.

Those were two Frenchmen who had concealed themselves in the woods. They spoke hoarsely in an unintelligible language to the soldiers, and walked over to the fire. One of them was a little taller than the other. He wore an officer’s cap, and seemed to be very feeble. As he reached the fire, he wanted to sit down, but fell upon the ground. The other, a small, thick-set soldier, his cheeks wrapped in a kerchief, looked stronger. He raised his companion and, pointing to his mouth, said something. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen, put the weak man on a mantle, and brought soup and vddka for the two.

The feeble French officer was Ramball ; the one with his cheeks bandaged was his servant Morel.

After Morel had drunk the vodka and eaten a little kettle full of soup, he suddenly became morbidly jolly, and without cessation talked to the soldiers, who did not understand him. Ramball refused the food ; he lay silently on his elbow at the fire, and looked with meaningless red eyes at the Russian soldiers. Now and then he uttered a protracted groan, and again grew silent. Morel pointed to his shoulders to give the soldiers to understand that he was an officer, and that he ought to be warmed up. A Russian officer, who came up to the fire, sent some one to the colonel, to ask him whether he would not take the French officer to his room, to get him warm. When the messenger returned with the information that the colonel wanted the officer to be sent to him, Ramball was told to go there. He rose and wanted to walk, but tottered, and would have fallen, if a soldier standing near by had not supported him.

” What ? You do not want to ?” a soldier said, winking derisively, as he turned to Ramball.

” Oh, fool ! Aren’t you ashamed ? You are a lout, yes, a lout ! ” the jesting soldier was reproached on every side.

Ramball was surrounded ; two men picked him up on their arms, held him, and carried him to the hut. Ramball embraced the soldiers’ necks and, when he was carried away, said, pitifully :

” Oh, mes braves, oh, mes bons, mes bons amis ! Voilà des hommes ! Oh, mes braves, mes bons amis ! ” bending, like a child, his head down on the shoulder of one of the soldiers.

Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place, surrounded by the soldiers.

Morel, an undersized, thick-set Frenchman, with inflamed, tearful eyes, his head wrapped in woman fashion with a kerchief over his cap, wore a woman’s short fur coat. He was evidently under the influence of the liquor, as he embraced a soldier who was sitting near him, and in a hoarse and broken voice sang a French song. The soldiers held their sides, looking at him.

” All right, all right, teach me the song ! I am quick at learning. How ? ” said the jester and singer, whom Morel was embracing.

” Vive Henri Quatre ! Vive ce roi vaillant ! ” sang Morel, blinking. ” Ce diable à quatre — “

“Vivarika! Vif seruvaru ! Sidiablaka — ” repeated the soldier, waving his arm and really catching the air.

“ That’s great. Ho, ho, ho, ho ! ” a coarse, merry laugh was heard on every side. Morel frowned and laughed himself.

” Keep it up, more, more ! “

“ Qui eut le triple talent, De boire, de battre, Et d’être un vert galant —

” It sounds fine, I must say ! Come now, Zaletäev ! “

” Kiu,” Zaletäev spoke, with difficulty, ” kiu-u-u — ” he drew out the word, carefully rounding his lips, ” le trip talah de boo de bah i detrah vah galah,” he sang out.

” It is great ! He is a fine Frenchman ! Oh, ho, ho, ho ! Well, do you want something more to eat ? “

” Give him some more soup ! It takes quite awhile for a hungry man to fill himself.”

They gave him more soup, and Morel, laughing, started on his third little kettle. Joyful smiles were on all the faces of the young soldiers, who were looking at Morel. The old soldiers, who regarded it as improper to busy themselves with such trifles, were lying on the other side of the fire; occasionally they raised themselves on their elbows, to look smilingly at Morel.

“They, too, are human beings,” said one of them, rolling himself up in his mantle. “Wormwood, too, grows on its root.”

“ Oh, 0 Lord, 0 Lord ! How beautiful the stars are ! It means more frost ! ”

And all grew silent.

The stars seemed to know that no one would see them now : they began to play in the black heavens, now flaming up, now going out, now quivering ; they were whispering with one another about something joyous and mysterious.

X.

The French troops melted evenly in a mathematically correct progression. That crossing of the Berézina, of which so much has been written, was only one of those intermediate stages of the destruction of the French army, and not at all a decisive episode of the war. If so much has been written about the Berézina, this is due, on the French side, to the fact that on the broken bridge of the Berézina the calamities endured by the French army, of an even tenor before, here suddenly grouped themselves about one moment, — into one tragic spectacle, of which all have preserved a memory. But on the side of the Russians so much has been written and said about the Berézina, because, at a distance away from the theatre of the war, at St. Petersburg, a plan (by the same Pfuel) had been prepared to catch Napoleon in a strategic trap on the Berézina River. All were convinced that everything would happen exactly as mentioned in the plan, and so they insisted that it was the crossing of the Berézina, and nothing else, that caused the ruin of the French. In reality the results of the passage of the Berézina were much less disastrous for the French, in the loss of ordnance and prisoners, than Kräsnoe, as the figures show.

The only significance of the passage of the Berézina lies in the fact that this passage gave a palpable and indisputable proof of the falseness of all the plans of cutting off, and the correctness of the only possible mode of action, that demanded by Kutuzov and by the whole mass of the army, — which was that of merely pursuing the enemy.

The crowd of Frenchmen ran with an ever increasing rapidity, with all its energy directed toward attaining the goal. It ran like a wounded animal, and it could not stop on its way. This was proved, not so much by the manner of the passage, as by the movement on the bridges. When the bridges were destroyed, the disarmed soldiers, the Moscow citizens, the women with their children, who were in the baggagetrain of the French, did not surrender, but, under the influence of the power of inertia, ran forward into the boats and the frozen water.

This precipitation was sensible. The condition of the fugitives and of the pursuers was equally bad. While remaining with their own, each in the calamity counted on the assistance of his companion, on a definite place among his own. In surrendering to the Russians, he was still in the same calamitous state, but stood on a lower stage as regards the gratification of his vital needs. The French did not have to have any definite information about the position of the captives with whom the Russians did not know what to do, in spite of all the desire of the Russians to save them, and who died of starvation and cold. The most compassionate Russian chiefs and lovers of the French, the Frenchmen in Russian service, could do nothing for the prisoners. The Frenchmen perished from the calamity in which the Russian army was. It was impossible to take the food and the clothing away from the hungry, necessary soldiers, in order to give them not to the harmful, nor hated, nor guilty, but simply to the useless Frenchmen. A few did so ; but these were the exception.

Behind, was certain perdition ; in front, was hope. The ships had been burned ; there was no other hope but in common flight, and to this common flight all the forces of the French were directed.

The farther the French ran, the more pitiable their last remnants were, especially after the passage of the Berézina, on which the greatest hopes had been based, on account of the St. Petersburg plan, and the more did the passions become kindled in the Russian chiefs, who accused one another and especially Kutuzov. Assuming that the failure of the Berézina plan from St. Petersburg would be referred to him, the dissatisfaction with him, the aversion for him, and the derision in which he was held, expressed themselves more and more strongly. The derision and aversion, naturally, assumed a respectful form, so that Kutuzov could not even ask what he was being accused of. They did not speak seriously with him ; in reporting to him and asking his decisions, they looked as though they were carrying out a sad rite, and behind his back they constantly winked to each other and at every step tried to deceive him.

It was acknowledged by all these men, even for the very reason that they could not understand him, that there was no use in talking to the old man ; that he would never comprehend the profundity of their plans ; that he would reply to them with his phrases (they thought that they were nothing but phrases) about the golden bridge, about its not being right that they should reach foreign countries with a crowd of vagabonds, and so forth. They had heard all that from him. And everything he said, for example, about having to wait for the supplies, and about the soldiers being without boots, was so simple, while what they proposed was so clever and so complicated, that it was evident to them that he was stupid and old, and that they were enslaved military geniuses.

Especially after the juncture of the armies of the brilliant admiral and hero of St. Petersburg, Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their highest limits. Kutuzov saw it, and, sighing, only shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the Berézina, did he grow angfry, when he wrote to Bénigsen, who reported individually to the emperor, the following letter:

” On account of your ill health, I ask your Excellency after the receipt of this letter to repair to Kaluga, where you will wait for further orders and for the pleasure of his Imperial Majesty.”

But soon after the despatch of Bénigsen, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who had guided the beginning of the campaign, and who had been put aside by Kutuzov, arrived in the army. Now the grand duke informed Kutuzov of the emperor’s dissatisfaction with the weak successes of our troops and with the slowness of motion. The emperor himself intended to visit the army in a few days.

The old man, as experienced in court affairs as in military matters, that same Kutuzov, who in August of that year had been chosen commanderin-chief against the will of the emperor, who had removed the Tsarévich and the grand duke from the army, who, by dint of his power, contrary to the wish of the emperor, had decreed the abandonment of Moscow, — that Kutuzov now saw at once that his time was coming to an end, that he had played his rôle, and that he no longer possessed his power. It was not merely from his relations with the court that he understood this. On the one hand he saw that the military affair, in which he had been playing a part, was ended, and he felt that his mission was fulfilled. On the other hand, he at the same time began to feel physical lassitude in his old body and the necessity of a physical rest.

On November 29th Kutuzov entered Vflna, —his good Vflna, as he said (twice during his service Kutuzov had been governor of Vflna). In the rich, intact Vflna, Kutuzov found, not only the comforts of life of which he had been deprived for so long a time, but also his old friends and memories. And suddenly turning away from all the cares of war and State, he was absorbed in the even, habitual tenor of life, so far as the passions winch bubbled around him permitted him to be, as though what was going on and still was to happen in the historical world had no reference to him.

Chichagdv, one of the most impassioned cutters-off and overthrowers, Chichagdv, who at first wanted to make a diversion into Greece, and then into Warsaw, but under no consideration wanted to go where he was sent, Chichagdv, known for his bold speech to the emperor, Chichagov, who regarded Kutuzov as.having received favours from him because, having been sent in the year 1811 to conclude a peace with Turkey despite Kutuzov, and having discovered that the peace had already been concluded, he acknowledged to the emperor that the honour of having reestablished peace belonged to Kutuzov, — this same Chichagdv was the first who met Kutuzov in Vflna at the castle, where Kutuzov was to stop. Chichagdv wore the half-uniform of the marines and his hanger when, holding his cap under his arm, he handed Kutuzov the report of the troops and the keys of the city. That contemptuously respectful relation of the younger men to the doting old man was most clearly expressed in the whole bearing of Chichagdv, who already knew the accusations which were to be brought against Kutuzov.

While talking with Chichagov, Kutuzov said to him, among other things, that his carriages with the dishes, which had been captured at Borisov, were intact and would be returned to him.

” C ’est pour me dire que je n’ai sur quoi manger. Je puis, au contraire, voies fournir de tout dans le cas meme où vous voudriez donner des dîners,” Chichagdv said, flying up, wishing to prove to him with every word that he was right, and, therefore, assuming that Kutuzov was preoccupied with the same tiling.

Kutuzov smiled his fine, penetrating smile and, shrugging his shoulders, replied :

” Ce n’est que pour vous dire ce que je vous dis.”

Kutuzov left the greater part of the troops iu Vilna, contrary to the emperor’s wish. During this stay in Vilna, he broke down completely and became physically feeble, so those said who were about him. He attended reluctantly to army matters, left everything to his generals, and, waiting for the emperor, abandoned himself to the distractions of life.

XL

On December 7th the emperor left St. Petersburg with Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkdnski, Arakchéev, and others. On December 11th he arrived in Vilna, where he at once drove to the castle in his road sleigh. At the castle, in spite of the severe frost, stood about one hundred generals and officers of the staff, in full parade uniform, and a guard of honour of the Seménovski regiment.

A courier, galloping up to the castle on a sweaty troyka, in advance of the emperor, shouted, ” He is coming ! ” Konovnitsyn rushed into the vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the small porter’s room.

A minute later the stout, tall figure of the old man, in full parade uniform, with all his regalia covering his breast, and his abdomen girded with a sash, in a waddling gait walked out on the porch. Kutuzov put on his hat, took his gloves into his hands, and, with difficulty stepping sidewise, descended the steps. In his hand he held a report which was to be handed to the emperor.

A bustle, a whispering, another troyka racing past, and all eyes were directed toward the* sleigh, in which already could be seen the figure of the emperor and of Volkdnski.

In spite of having been accustomed to this for fifty years, the old general was physically affected by it ; he hurriedly fingered himself all over, adjusted his hat, and, as the emperor, lifting his eyes to him, left the sleigh, took courage and pulled himself together, handed the emperor the report, and began to speak in his even, insinuating voice.

The emperor measured Kutuzov from head to foot with a rapid glance and frowned for a moment, but immediately overcame his feeling, walked over to him, and, extending his arms, embraced the old general Kutuzov again received his old, customary impression, which was the more intense now on account of his secret thought, and so this embrace affected him as usual, and he burst into a sob.

The emperor greeted the officers and the Seménovski guard, and, once more pressing the old man’s hand, went with him into the castle.

When the emperor was left all alone with the fieldmarshal, he expressed to him his dissatisfaction with the slowness of the pursuit, with the blunders at Kràsnoe and at the Berézina, and communicated to him his plans for the future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no retort and no observations. On his face was the same humble and meaningless expression, with which he seven years before had received the emperor’s commands on the field of Austerlitz.

When Kutuzov left the cabinet and with his heavy, lurching gait and drooping head walked through the parlour, some one’s voice stopped him.

“ Your Serenity !”

Kutuzov raised his head and for a long time looked into the eyes of Count Tolstdy, who, with some little thing on a silver dish, was standing before him. Kutuzov did not seem to comprehend what it was they wanted of him.

Suddenly he seemed to recall something. A barely perceptible smile flashed over his puffy face, and, bending low and with an expression of respect, he took the object on his dish. It was the Cross of St. George of the first degree.

XII.

On the following day the fieldmarshal gave a dinner and a ball, which the emperor honoured with his presence. Kutuzov had received the Cross of St. George of the first degree. The emperor showed him the highest honours, but everybody knew the emperor’s dissatisfaction with the fieldmarshal. Proprieties were preserved, and the emperor gave the first example in this; but everybody knew that the old man was guilty and good for nothing. When, at the ball, Kutuzov, following his old habit of the days of Catherine, ordered the captured flags to be laid down before the feet of the emperor as he entered the hall, the emperor frowned and uttered some words, among which some pretended to have heard the words, ” Old comedian ! ”

The emperor’s dissatisfaction with Kutuzov was intensified at Vflna, especially because Kutuzov would not, or could not, understand the significance of the future campaign.

When, on the following day, the emperor said to the assembled officers, ” You have saved not only Russia, but also Europe,’’ all knew that the war was not ended.

Kutuzov was the only one who refused to understand it, and who openly expressed his opinion that a new war could not improve the situation of Russia and increase her glory, but that, on the contrary, it could make worse her condition and lower that highest pinnacle of glory, upon which, in his opinion, Russia was now standing. He tried to prove to the emperor the impossibility of levying a new army, spoke of the grave condition of the population, of the possibility of failures, and so forth.

Being in such a mood, the fieldmarshal naturally presented himself only as an obstacle in the impending war.

In order to avoid a conflict with the old man, there presented itself an issue, which was, as at Austerlitz and as in the beginning of the campaign under Barclay, to take away from underneath the commanderin-chief, without troubling him, or announcing the fact to him, that soil of power on which he was standing, and transferring the power to the emperor himself.

For this purpose the staff was slowly reorganized, and all the essential power of Kutuzov’s staff was reduced and transferred to the emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn, Ermdlov received other appointments. All said aloud that the fieldmarshal had grown very feeble and out of health.

Tie had to be feeble, in order that his place could be transferred to his successor. And, indeed, his health was failing.

Just as Kutuzov naturally, simply, and successively had come from Turkey to the Treasury in St. Petersburg, in order to levy the militia, and then was transferred to the army, when he was indispensable, so now, when Kutuzov’s rôle was finished, there appeared in his place just as naturally, successively, and simply a new, peremptory factor.

The war of 1812, in addition to its national character, so dear to every Russian heart, was to have another, a European significance.

The movement of the nations from the West to the East was to be followed by a movement of the nations from the East to the West, and for this new war a new factor was needed, — one that had different qualities and views from those possessed by Kutuzov, and was moved by different sentiments.

In order to move the nations from the East to the West and to reestablish the borders of the nations, Alexander I. was as necessary as Kutuzov had been for the salvation and glory of Russia.

Kutuzov did not comprehend what was meant by the words “ Europe, equilibrium, Napoleon.” He could not understand it. For the representative of the Russian nation, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia, freed and placed on the highest level of its glory, to a Russian as a Russian, there was nothing left to do. For the representative of the national war nothing was left but death. And he died.

XIII.

As is often the case, Pierre felt the whole weight of his physical privations and of his strain, experienced by him in captivity, only when these privations and the strain were all over. After his liberation from captivity, he arrived in Orél ; but, on the third day, as he was getting ready to go to Kiev, he grew ill, and thus remained for three months in Orél. He suffered from a bilious fever, as the physicians said. He did not get well, although the doctors cured him, bled him, and made him drink all kinds of medicines.

Everything which happened to Pierre after his liberation and up to his falling ill left almost no impression on him. He remembered only gray, misty, now rainy, now snowy weather, an inner physical tedium, a pain in his legs and in his side ; he remembered the general impression of men’s misfortunes and sufferings; he remembered the troublesome curiosity of the officers and generals who asked him all kinds of questions, his own endeavour to find a carriage and horses, and, above all, his inability to think and feel, which had taken possession of him at that time. On the day of his release he had seen the body of Pétya Posté v. On the same day he learned that Prince Andréy had been alive a month after the battle of Borodiné, and had but lately died in Yarosldv, in the house of the Posté vs. On the same day, Denisov, who had given Pierre this information, among other things had mentioned the death of Hélène, thinking that Pierre had learned of it before. All that had appeared merely strange to him. He had felt that he could not grasp the significance of all this information. He had then had the one care of getting away as fast as possible from those places, where people killed each other, and going to some quiet place of refuge, where he might come to his senses, be rested, and reflect on all those strange and new things winch he had learned during that time. But the moment he arrived in Orél, he fell ill. When he recovered from Ins illness, he found himself surrounded by Ins two servants, Terénti and Väska, who had come from Moscow, and by the elder princess, who, living in Eléts, on Pierre’s estate, and learning of his release and illness, had come to tend on him.

During his convalescence, he only by degrees got rid of his impressions of the last few months, to which he had become accustomed, and got used to these new ones that no one would drive him anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take away his warm bed from him, and that he would certainly have a dinner, and tea, and a supper. But in his dreams he continued for a long time to see himself in those conditions of captivity. Just as slowly did he comprehend the news which he had heard after his liberation : the death of Prince Andréy, the death of his wife, and the destruction of the French.

The joyous feeling of liberty, — of that full, inalienable liberty, which is innate in every man, — of which he had for the first time become conscious at the first day’s halt after leaving Moscow, filled Pierre’s soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find that this inner freedom, which is independent of external conditions, was now coupled to excess with an outward liberty as well. He was all alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything of him ; he was not sent anywhere. He had everything he wanted ; the thoughts about his wife, which had tormented him so much before, did not exist, just as she did not exist.

” Oh, how good, how fine ! ” he said to himself, when they moved up to him a neatly covered table with a savoury soup, or when he at night lay down on a soft, clean bed, or when he recalled that his wife and the French were no more.

” Oh, how good, how fine ! ” And with his old habit, he put the question to himself: “Well, and then what? What shall I do?” And immediately he answered himself : ” Nothing. I will live. Oh, how nice ! “

The same that before had tormented him, that he had been all the time looking for, the aims of life, did not exist for him now. The searchable aim of life did not exist for him merely by accident ; he felt that it was not, and could not be. And this absence of an aim gave him that full, joyous consciousness of freedom, which at that time formed his happiness.

He could not have any aim because he had faith now, — not faith in rules, or words, or ideas, but in the living, always tangible God. Formerly he had been looking for Him in the aims which he had placed before himself. This searching after an aim was only the searching after God ; and suddenly he had learned in his captivity, not through words, or through reflection, but through his immediate feeling, what his nurse had told him long before, that God was here and everywhere. He had learned in his captivity that God was greater, more endless, and more incomprehensible in Karatdev than in what was called by the Freemasons the Architect of the Universe. He experienced the sensation of a,man who had found under his feet what he had been looking for, though he had been straining his eyes to find it in the distance. He had all his life been looking into that distance, above the heads of the men surrounding him, whereas he ought not to have strained Ins vision, but only to have looked ahead of him.

Before, he had been unable to see anything great, incomprehensible, and endless in anything. He had only felt that it had to be somewhere, and he had been looking for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had seen only that which was limited, petty, terrestrial, senseless. He had armed himself with a mental spy-glass and had peered into the distance, there where the petty circumstances of life, concealing themselves in the misty horizon, had appeared to him great and endless, only because they were not clearly discernible. Such had seemed to him European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, philanthropy. But even then, at those moments, which he regarded as his moments of weakness, his mind had pierced even that distance, and there he had perceived the same petty, terrestrial, senseless characteristics.

But now that he had learned to see the great, eternal, and endless in everything, and, therefore, in order to see it, to enjoy it by contemplation, he naturally threw away that glass, through which he had heretofore been looking above the heads of men, and joyously contemplated all around him the eternally changeable, eternally great, the incomprehensible, and endless life. And the nearer he looked, the calmer and the happier he was. The terrible question, why? which formerly had destroyed all his mental structures, now did not exist for him. Now, to this question, why ? there was in his soul always ready the simple answer: Because there is a God, that God, without whose will a hair will not fall from the head of man.

XIV.

Pierre had hardly changed in his external ways. In looks he was the same he had been before. He was as absent-minded as he had been, and seemed to be occupied not with what was before his eyes, but with something peculiar. The difference between his former and his present condition consisted in this, that formerly, when he had forgotten something which was before him or which he had been told, he used painfully to knit his brow, as though trying to make it out, and yet unable to see what was far away from him. Now he forgot just as easily what was before him, or what he was told ; but now he looked with a barely perceptible, almost derisive smile at what was before him, and listened to what he was being told, although he apparently saw and heard something quite different. Formerly he had seemed to be a good, but unhappy man, and so people instinctively kept away from him. Now a smile of the joy of life constantly played about his lips, and in his eyes beamed sympathy for men, — the question whether they were as happy as he. And people felt at their ease in his presence.

Formerly he used to speak much, grew excited when he spoke, and listened little ; now he rarely was carried away by a conversation and was able to listen to people, so that they took delight in communicating to him their innermost thoughts.

The elder princess had never liked Pierre, and had had a peculiarly inimical feeling for him ever since the death of the old count, when she had put herself under obligations to him ; but now, after a short stay in Orél, whither she had come with the intention of proving to Pierre that, in spite of his ingratitude, she regarded it as her duty to look after him, she soon discovered, to her annoyance and surprise, that she actually loved him. Pierre had been doing nothing to gain that favourable opinion from the princess. He had only been watching her with curiosity. Formerly the princess used to feel that in his glance at her there was indifference and derision, and she withdrew from him, as from other people, and presented only her fighting side of life ; now, on the contrary, she felt that he was burrowing down to her most intimate sides of life, and she began, at first with incredulity, and later with gratitude, to show him the hidden good sides of her character.

Not the wiliest man could more artfully have stolen into the confidence of the princess, calling back her recollections of the best time of her youth, and evincing sympathy for them. And yet, all the wiles of Pierre consisted only in seeking his own pleasure, by which he evoked human sentiments in the crabbed, dry, and peculiarly haughty princess.

” Yes, he is a very, very good man when he is not under the influence of bad people, but of such as I am,” the princess said to herself.

The change which had taken place in Pierre was noticed in its way also by his servants, Terénti and Vdska. They found that he had become much simpler. Having undressed his master, holding his boots and garments in his hand, Terénti would tell him good night and yet hesitate to leave, waiting for his master to enter into a conversation with him. As a rule Pierre stopped Terénti when he noticed that his servant wanted to chat with him.

” Tell me how you provided food for yourself ! ” he would say. And Terénti would begin a story of the destruction of Moscow, or of the old count, and would stand for a long time with the clothes in his hands, talking, or listening to Pierre’s stories, after which he would leave for the antechamber, with the agreeable consciousness of his master’s nearness and favour to him.

The doctor, who cured Pierre and who came to see him every day, though he, as is the habit of physicians, regarded it as his duty to have the aspect of a man whose every minute was precious to suffering humanity, sat for hours at a time with Pierre, telling him his favourite stories and his observations on the habits of his patients in general and of the ladies in particular.

” Yes, it is a pleasure to have a chat with such a man, — quite different from what it is here in the province,” he said.

In Orél were living several captive officers, and the doctor brought one of them, a young Italian officer, with him.

This officer began to call on Pierre, and the princess had to laugh at the tender feelings which the Italian expressed for Pierre.

The Italian apparently was never so happy as when he could see Pierre, and talk with him, and tell him about his past, his domestic life, his love, and give vent to his indignation against the French, and especially against Napoleon.

” If all the Russians resemble you in the least,” he said to Pierre, ” c’est un sacrilege que de faire la guerre à un peuple comme le vôtre. You have suffered so much from the French, and yet have no resentment against them.”

And this impassioned love of the Italian Pierre merited only by evoking the best sides of his soul and admiring them.

During the latter part of his stay in Orél, he was visited by his old Masonic acquaintance, Count Willdrski, the one who had introduced him into the lodge in 1807. Willdrski was married to a rich Russian lady who had large possessions in the Government of Orél, and temporarily occupied a place in the city with the commissariat.

Upon learning that Bezukbi was in Orél, Willarski, though he had never been on a close footing with him, came to see him with those expressions of friendship and intimacy which people generally show to each other when meeting in the desert. Willarski felt lonesome in Orél, and he was happy to meet a man belonging to the same circle with him, and having, as he thought, the same interests.

But to his surprise, Willdrski soon noticed that Pierre had fallen very much behind actual life, and had dropped, as he considered it, into apathy and egoism.

« Vous vous encroûtez, mon cher,” he said to him. And yet, in spite of it, Willarski felt more comfortable in Pierre’s company than before, and he called on him every day. But Pierre, looking at Willdrski and listening to him now, could hardly make himself believe that he had but recently been like him.

Willdrski was married, a man with a family, busy with the affairs of his wife’s estates, and with the service, and with his family. He considered all these occupations as obstacles in life and as objects of contempt, because they aimed at Ids personal weal and at that of his family. Military, administrative, political, Masonic considerations constantly absorbed his attention. Without trying to change this opinion of his, and without condemning him with his now constantly calm and joyous smile, Pierre looked with delight at this strange, familiar phenomenon.

In his relations with Willarski, with the princess, with the doctor, with all the people whom he met now, there ■was a new feature in Pierre which earned for him the good-will of all people: it was the recognition of the possibility for each man to think, feel, and look at things in his own way, and the acknowledgment of the impossibility of dissuading a man with words. This legitimate peculiarity of each man, which formerly had so agitated and irritated Pierre, now formed the basis of the sympathy and interest which he took in people. The difference, sometimes the complete contradiction, of the views of these men with his own life and among themselves, gave pleasure to Pierre and provoked in him a derisive and meek smile.

In practical affairs Pierre now suddenly felt that he had a centre of gravity, which had been lacking before. Formerly every financial question, especially requests for money, to which he, as a rich man, was frequently subjected, used to agitate and perplex him beyond measure. ” Shall I give, or not ? ” he used to ask himself. ” I have some and he needs it. But another needs it worse. Who needs it most ? Maybe both are cheats.” And he formerly could find no way out of all these suppositions, and gave to all as long as he had anything to give. He used to be in the same perplexity in regard to every question touching his possessions, when one said that he ought to do so and so with them and another said he ought to do otherwise.

Now, to his surprise, he found that there were no more doubts and perplexities in all these questions. There had appeared in him a judge who decided by some incomprehensible laws what he had to do, and what not.

He was as indifferent to monetary matters as before; but now he knew indisputably what was to be done, and what not. The first application of this new judge was made by him in connection with the request of a captive French colonel, who came to him, told him a great deal about his exploits, and in the end almost demanded that Pierre should give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre without the least effort or strain refused him, later wondering himself how easy and simple was that which formerly had seemed impossible. At the same time, though refusing the colonel, he decided that it was necessary to employ a ruse when he left Orél, in order to make the Italian officer take some money, of which be was evidently in need. He found a new proof of his well-established view on practical matters in the solution of the question, which presented itself to him, about the debts of his wife and about repairing his Moscow houses and villas.

Pierre’s chief superintendent came to see him in Orél, and both together made a rough estimate of his changed income. The fire of Moscow cost Pierre, according to the calculation of the chief superintendent, about two millions.

The superintendent consoled Pierre in his losses, by presenting to him for consideration the fact that, in spite of his losses, his income would not only not be diminished, but would even be increased, if he refused to pay his wife’s debts, which he could not be compelled to do, and if he would not restore the Moscow houses and the suburban estate, which cost him eighty thousand a year and brought him no income.

” Yes, yes, it is true,” said Pierre, smiling merrily. ” Yes, yes, I do not need them. My ruin has made me much richer.”

But in January Savélich arrived from Moscow, and he told of the condition of the city, and communicated to him the estimate made by the architect for the restoration of his Moscow house and the suburban estate, speaking of it as an accomplished fact. Just then Pierre received letters from Prince Vasili and from other acquaintances in St. Petersburg. The letters spoke of his wife’s debts. Pierre decided that the plan of the superintendent, which had pleased him so much, was incorrect, and that he had to go to St. Petersburg to settle his wife’s affairs, and then to Moscow to build again. Why it was necessary

to do so he did not know ; but he was absolutely sure he had to do it. His income, in consequence of this decision, would be reduced by three-fourths. But it had to be done ; of that he was sure.

Willdrski was going to Moscow, and they agreed to travel together.

Pierre had been experiencing, during the whole period of his convalescence in Orél, a feeling of joy, liberty, life ; but when he, during his journey, found himself in a free world and saw hundreds of new faces, the sentiment was greatly increased. During his whole journey he experienced the joy of a schoolboy on a vacation. All the persons, the driver, the inspector of posts, the peasants on the road and in the village, — all had a new meaning for him. The presence of Willarski and his constant complaints about Russia’s poverty, backwardness as compared with Europe, and ignorance only heightened Pierre’s joy. Where Willarski saw death, Pierre saw an uncommonly powerful vitality, that force which in the snow, over the whole extent of territory, supported the life of this whole peculiar and unique nation. He did not contradict Willarski, but listened to him and smiled pleasantly, as though agreeing with him (since a feigned assent was the easiest way of avoiding discussions, which would lead to nothing).

XV.

Just as it is hard to explain why and whither the ants are hurrying from a scattered ant-heap, some of them leaving it with pieces of dirt, and -with eggs and dead bodies, others making their way into the hill, why they stumble against each other and fight, — so it would be hard to explain the causes which led the Russians, after the evacuation of the French, to congregate in the place which had once been called Moscow. But just as, looking at the ants who are swarming about the ruined mound, one sees by the persistence, energy, and multitude of the agitated ants that, in spite of the complete destruction of the hill, everything has been devastated except something indestructible and immaterial, something which forms the whole power of the ant-hill, — even so Moscow was in October the same city that it had been in August, though there were there no authorities, no churches, no wealth, no houses. Everything had been destroyed, except something immaterial, but powerful and indestructible.

The motives of the men who from all sides were streaming into Moscow, after its evacuation by the enemy, were of various kinds ; they were mostly personal and, at first, generally, of a savage, animal character. There was but one common motive to all, and that was a desire to revisit the place, formerly called Moscow, in order to apply their activities there.

Within a week there were there fifteen thousand people ; in two weeks, twenty-five thousand, and so forth.

Growing larger and larger, the number in the fall of 1813 surpassed the population in 1812.

The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode’s detachment, the peasants of the surrounding villages, and the inhabitants of Moscow who had tied and concealed themselves in the neighbouring country. The Russians, upon entering Moscow and finding it pillaged, themselves began to pillage. They continued the work of the French. Caravans of peasant carts arrived in the city, in order to carry off to the villages everything which lay scattered in the devastated houses and streets. The Cossacks took away what they could to their camps ; proprietors of houses looted everything they found in other people’s houses and carried it to their own buildings, under the pretext that it belonged to them.

But after the first looters arrived others, and again others, and, in proportion as their number increased, pillaging became harder and harder, and assumed more definite forms.

The Frenchmen had found Moscow empty, but with all the forms of a regular organic life, with all its manifestations of commerce, trades, luxury, government offices, and religion. The forms were lifeless, but they existed none the less. There were the rows, shops, stores, magazines, bazars, — most of them filled with wares ; there were factories and workshops ; there were palaces and opulent houses, filled with objects of luxury ; there were hospitals, jails, courts, churches, and cathedrals. The longer the French remained there, the more these forms of city life were being destroyed, and toward the end everything ran together into one inseparable, lifeless field of pillage.

The longer the pillaging of the French lasted, the more did the wealth of the city and the strength of the pillagers suffer from it. On the contrary, the longer the pillaging of the Russians, with which the occupation of the city began, lasted, the greater was the number of the participants in it, and the quicker was the wealth of the city and its regular life brought back to its normal condition.

Outside of the pillagers, people of the most varied description, attracted by curiosity, or by the sense of duty, or by calculation, — owners of houses, the clergy, the higher and lower officials, merchants, artisans, peasants, — began from all sides to flow to Moscow, like blood to the heart.

A week later, the peasants who arrived with empty carts in order to take things away were stopped by the authorities and compelled to haul away the dead bodies from the city. Other peasants, who heard of the failure of their comrades, came to the city with grain, oats, hay, and knocked each other’s prices down, until they were lower than ever before. Associations of carpenters, hoping to earn good wages, arrived in Moscow every day, and on every side new houses were built, and the old, halfburnt houses were mended. The merchants opened their shops in booths. Taverns and restaurants were opened in the ruined houses. The clergy renewed the divine services in many of the churches still standing. Contributors brought back the looted church vessels. The officials set up their tables with the green cloth and their shelves with the documents in small rooms. The higher authorities and the police looked after the distribution of the property left by the Frenchmen. The proprietors of the houses in which property taken from other houses was left complained of the injustice of taking it away ’to the palace ; others insisted that the French had collected many things in one place, and that, therefore, it was unjust to give the proprietors the things found in their houses. The police were abused ; they were bribed ; the burnt Crown property was calculated at ten times its value ; assistance was asked. Count Rostopchin wrote his proclamations.

XVI.

In the end of January, Pierre arrived in Moscow, taking up his abode in an intact wing of his house. He called on Count Postopchin and on a few friends who had returned to Moscow, and two days later got ready to leave for St. Petersburg. Everybody was celebrating the victory ; everything swarmed with life in the devastated and reviving capital. All were glad to see Pierre ; all wanted to see him and asked him about what he had seen. Pierre felt himself very friendlily disposed to all the men whom he met ; but he now involuntarily was guarded with all people, so as not to bind himself in any way. To all the questions put to him, — whether important or insignificant, — such as, where he would live, whether he would build up his houses, when he would go to St. Petersburg, and if he would not take a little box along, — he replied : ” Yes, maybe, I think so,” and so forth.

He heard that the Bostdvs were in Kostromä, but he rarely thought of Natäsha, or if he did, it was only as a pleasant recollection of a remote past. He felt himself not only free from all material conditions of life, but even from this feeling, which, he thought, he had forced upon himself.

Two days after his arrival in Moscow, he learned from the Drubetskdys that Princess Mdrya was in Moscow. The death, the suffering, the last days of Prince Andréy had often been in Pierre’s mind, and now occurred to him with renewed vividness. When he heard at dinner that Princess Mfirya was in Moscow and living in her intact house in the Vzdvfzhenka, he went to see her that same evening.

On his way to Princess Märya, Pierre kept thinking all the time of Prince Andréy, of his friendship with him, and of their various meetings, especially of the last at Borodind.

” Is it possible he died in that resentful mood in which he was then ? Was not the meaning of life revealed to him before his death ? ” thought Pierre. He recalled Karatdev and his death, and involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different and yet so much alike, on account of the love which he had had for both, and because they both had lived and now were dead.

Pierre reached the house of the old prince in the most serious of moods. The house was intact. Traces of devastation were visible in it, but its character was still the same.

Pierre was met by an old servant, whose stern face seemed to say that the absence of the old prince in no way changed the order of the house. He told Pierre that the princess was in her apartments, and that she received on Sundays.

“ Announce me to her ! Maybe she will receive me,” said Pierre.

” Yes, sir,” replied the servant. ” Please go to the portrait-room.”

A few minutes later the servant came out with Desalles. Desalles told Pierre in the name of the princess that she would be very glad to see him, and asked him to pardon her informality and come upstairs to her rooms.

In a low-studded room, lighted by one candle, sat the princess and some one else in a black dress. Pierre recalled that the princess always had some companions with her, but who these companions were, he did not remember. ” This is one of her companions,” he thought, looking at the lady in black.

The princess quickly got up to meet him, and offered him her hand.

” Yes,” she said, examining his changed face, after he had kissed her hand, ” so we meet again ! He spoke of you frequently before his death,” she said, transferring her eyes from Pierre to the companion, with a confusion which for a moment startled Pierre.

” I was so happy when I heard of your safety. That was the only joyful bit of news which we received from bygone days.”

The princess again looked, more restlessly still, at her companion, and was on the point of saying something ; but Pierre interrupted her. ” You must know that I knew nothing of him,” he said. ” I thought he was killed. I found out everything from third parties. All I know is that he came away with the Bostdvs — What strange fate ! ”

Pierre was speaking rapidly and with animation. He looked once or twice at the companion, saw her kind, curious, fixed glance directed at him, and, as often happens during a conversation, for some reason felt that the companion in black was a sweet, charming being who would not interfere with his intimate conversation with the princess.

But when he said the last words about the Bostdvs, Princess Mdrya’s face expressed even more embarrassment than before. She again shifted her eyes from Pierre’s face to the face of the lady in black, and said :

” Do you not recognize her ? ”

Pierre looked once more at the pale, thin face of the companion, with the black eyes and strange mouth. Something intimate, long forgotten, and more than sweet looked at him from those gazing eyes.

” But no, it cannot be,” he thought. “ This stern, lean, pale, aged face cannot be hers. It is only a memory of lier.” But just then Princess Mdrya called out ” Natdsha ! ” and the face with the gazing look smiled with difficulty and with an effort, as though a rusty door were opened, and through this opened door there was wafted upon Pierre a long-forgotten happiness, of which he had not been thinking, least of all then. It was wafted upon him, and surrounded him, and swallowed him all up. When she smiled, there could no longer be any doubt : it was Natasha, and he loved her.

In the first moment Pierre instinctively told her and Princess Mdrya, and, above all, himself, this to him unknown secret. He smiled a joyous and, at the same time, an agonizing smile. He wanted to conceal his agitation. But the more he wanted to conceal it, the more clearly, much more clearly than with words, he told himself, and her, and Princess Marya, that he loved her.

“ No, this is only from the suddenness,” Pierre thought. But the moment he wanted to continue the interrupted conversation with Princess Mdrya, he again glanced at Natasha, and a deeper blush covered his face, and a still greater agitation of joy and terror took possession of his soul. He became entangled in his words, and stopped in the middle of his speech.

Pierre had not observed Natasha, but the reason he had not recognized her was because the change which had taken place in her since he last saw her was enormous. She was paler and thinner. But it was not that which made her unrecognizable : she could not be recognized when he first entered, because on the face, on which there used to gleam a hidden smile of the joy of life, now, as he for the first time glanced at her, there was not a shadow of a smile ; there were only her gazing, kindly, and sadly interrogative eyes.

Pierre’s confusion was not reflected in Natasha by confusion, but by pleasure, which barely lighted up her whole face.

XVII.

” She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Marya. ” The count and the countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a terrible condition. But Natdsha herself had to see a doctor. She was sent away by force with me.”

« Yes, is there a family without its sorrow ? ” said Pierre, turning to Natäsha. “ Do you know, it was the same day that we were set free. I saw him. What a charming boy be was ! “

Natäsba looked at him, and in response to his words her eyes opened wider and gleamed more brightly.

« What can one find to say in consolation ? ” said Pierre. “ Nothing. Why had such a charming boy, in the prime of his life, to die ? “

” Yes, in our time it would be hard to live without faith — ” said Princess Märya.

“Yes, yes, that is very true,” Pierre hurriedly interrupted her.

“ Why ? ” asked Natäsha, looking fixedly into Pierre’s eyes.

” Why ? ” said Princess Märya. ” The mere thought of what awaits us there — “

Natasha did not hear the rest ; she again cast an interrogative glance at Pierre.

” And because,” continued Pierre, ” only he who believes that there is a God who guides us can endure such a loss as is hers and — yours,” said Pierre.

Natäsha had already opened her mouth, intending to say something. Pierre hastened to turn away from her, and again addressed Princess Märya, asking her about the last days of his friend. Pierre’s embarrassment had now almost entirely disappeared ; at the same time he felt that all his former freedom was gone. He felt that over every word and act of his there was now a judge, a tribunal, which was dearer to him than any tribunal of man. As he now talked, he weighed the impression which his words produced on Natasha. He did not speak purposely to please her, but, whatever he said, he judged himself from her point of view.

Princess Marya reluctantly, as was always the case, began to talk of the condition in which she had found Prince Andréy. But Pierre’s questions, his animated and restless glance, his face which was trembling with agitation, by degrees compelled her to enter into details, which, for her own sake, she was afraid to bring back to memory.

” Yes, yes, that is so,” said Pierre, bending forward with his whole body toward Princess Märya and eagerly listening to her story. ” Yes, yes. So he calmed down ? Became more gentle ? He had with all the forces of his soul been endeavouring to be absolutely good, and so be could not have been afraid of death. The faults which he had,—if he had any, — could not be attributed to him. So be grew more gentle ? ” said Pierre. ” What happiness that he saw you ! ” he said to Natasha, suddenly turning to her and looking at her, his eyes all filled with tears.

Natäsha’s face quivered. She frowned and for a moment lowered her eyes. For a moment she hesitated whether to speak, or not.

” Yes, it was happiness,” she said, with soft chest tones, “ for me it certainly was happiness.” She was silent. ” And he — he — he said that he had been wishing it just as I came up to him — ’’ Natäsha’s voice faltered. She blushed, compressed her hands on her knees,

and suddenly, making an apparent effort over herself, raised her head and began to speak quickly :

” We knew nothing when we were leaving Moscow. I did not dare to ask about him. And suddenly Sdnya told me that he was with us. I could not think, could not imagine in what condition he was. I only wanted to see him, to be with him,” she said, trembling and choking. And, without permitting him to interrupt her, she told him what she had not told any one yet, — everything she had gone through in the three weeks of their journey and of their life at Yaroslav.

Pierre listened to her with open mouth and without taking his tear-filled eyes off her. Listening to her, he did not think of Prince Andréy, nor of death, nor of what she was telling him. He only listened to her and pitied her for what she was suffering as she was telling him all this.

The princess, frowning in her attempt to restrain her tears, sat by Natasha’s side, and for the first time heard the story of the last days of her brother’s and Natdsha’s love.

This tantalizing and joyful story evidently was necessary for Natdsha.

She kept mingling the most trifling details with the most intimate secrets, and it seemed that she would never get through. Several times she repeated the same thing.

Behind the door was heard Desalles’s voice asking whether little Nikoläy could enter to bid them good night.

” That is all, all — ” said Natdsha.

She quickly rose as Nikolay entered, and almost ran to the door. She knocked herself against the door, which was covered with a portière, and with a groan of mingled pain and grief rushed out of the room.

Pierre looked at the door through which she had disappeared, and did not understand why he was suddenly left all alone in the world.

Princess Marya brought him back from his reverie, by directing his attention to her nephew who had just entered the room.

Nikoldy’s face, which resembled his father’s, so affected Pierre in the moment of his tender mood that he kissed Nikoldy, hurriedly rose, and, taking out his handkerchief, walked over to the window. He wanted to bid Princess Mdrya good night, but she held him back.

” No, Natdsha and I frequently stay awake until three o’clock. Please stay awhile longer ! I will order supper. Go downstairs ! We shall be there at once.”

Before Pierre left, Princess Marya said to him :

“ This is the first time she has spoken of him in this manner.”

XVIII.

Pierre was taken to a large, well-lighted dining-room. A few minutes later footsteps were heard, and the princess and Natäsha entered the room. Natäsha was calm, though a stern expression, without a smile, again rested on her face. Princess Marya, Natasha, and Pierre all alike experienced that awkward feeling which generally ensues after a serious and intimate conversation. It is impossible to continue the previous talk ; one feels ashamed to mention trifles, and it is not pleasant to keep silence, for all want to speak, while the silence seems to indicate that one is feigning. They silently approached the table. The servants moved away the chairs, and again moved them up. Pierre opened his cool napkin and, deciding to break the silence, looked at Natäsha and at Princess Märya. They, too, had evidently made up their mind to do the same : in the eyes of both of them gleamed the satisfaction with life and the recognition of the fact that outside of sorrow there were also joys.

” Do you drink brandy, count ? ” asked Princess Marya, and these words suddenly dispelled the shadows of the past.

” Tell us about yourself ! ” said Princess Marya. ” They say such strange things about you. “

“Yes,” Pierre replied, with what now was his customary smile of gentle derision. ” They even tell me such marvels about myself as I did not even dream of. Märya Abrämovna invited me to her house and told me everything that had happened to me, or that ought to have happened. Stepan Stepänych, too, taught me what I ought to tell about myself. In general, I have observed that it is a very simple thing to be an interesting mau (I am now an interesting man) ; I am invited, and then they tell me all about me.”

Natäsha smiled and was on the point of saying something.

” We have been told,” Princess Marya interrupted her, “ that you have lost two millions in Moscow. Is it true ? “

” And I am three times richer than before,” said Pierre. Although his wife’s debts and the necessity of rebuilding had changed the state of his affairs, he continued to say that he was three times as rich as before.

” What I have unquestionably gained,” he said, “ is liberty — ” He began seriously ; but he changed his mind when he noticed that it was too egotistical a subject for conversation.

” Are you rebuilding ? “

” Yes, Savélich tells me I must.

” Tell me, you did not know of the decease of the countess when you were still in Moscow ? ” said Princess Marya. She immediately blushed when she noticed that, putting this question immediately after his statement that he was free, she was ascribing a meaning to it which it probably did not have.

” No,” replied Pierre, evidently not annoyed by the interpretation which Princess Märya gave to his words about his freedom. ” I learned it in Orél, and you can’t imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,” he said, rapidly, looking at Natäsha, in whose face he discovered an expression of curiosity as to how he would speak of his wife. ” Yes, her death has shocked me terribly. When two people quarrel, both are wrong, and one’s own guilt suddenly grows dreadfully heavy before a man who is no more. And then, such a death — without friends, without consolation ! I am very, very

sorry for her,” he ended, and it gave him pleasure to observe a joyous approval on Natäsha’s face.

“Now you are again a bachelor and a match,” said Princess Märya.

Pierre suddenly blushed purple, and for a long time tried not to look at Natäsha. When he decided to do so, her face was cold, stem, and even contemptuous, as he thought.

“ But have you really seen Napoleon and talked with him as we have been told ? ” asked Princess Marya.

Pierre laughed.

” Not once, never. All seem to think that being in captivity is being Napoleon’s guest. I have not only not seen him, but have not even heard of him. I was in much worse society.”

The supper came to an end, and Pierre, who at first had refused to talk of his captivity, slowly was drawn into telling about it.

” But is it not true that you remained in Moscow in order to kill Napoleon ? ” Natäsha asked him, with a slight smile. ” I guessed it when we met at the Sukharev Tower. Do you remember ? ”

Pierre confessed that it was true, and from this question he was slowly led by the questions of Princess Marya, but especially by those of Natasha, to give a detailed account of his exploits.

At first he spoke in that derisive, meek tone which he now assumed in respect to people in general, and to himself in particular ; but later, when he reached the recital of the terrors and sufferings which he had witnessed, he was carried away by his own story, before he knew it, and began to speak with the repressed agitation of a man who is reminiscently passing through some powerful impressions.

Princess Mdrya looked with a meek smile now at Pierre, and now at Natdsha. In the whole story she saw nothing but Pierre and his goodness. Natasha leaned on her arm and, with an expression which was constantly changing with the story, watched Pierre, without taking her eyes away from him, and evidently lived through all the experiences of which he was telling. Not only her look, but also her exclamations and the short questions which she put, showed Pierre that she understood precisely what he wanted to convey. It was evident that she understood not only what he was telling, but also what he would like to say, without being able to express it in words. About the episode with the child and the woman, in defending whom he had been taken prisoner, he spoke as follows :

” It was a terrible spectacle ! Children were abandoned, some of them in the fire— In my presence a child was dragged out — women from whom they tore off their things, pulled out their earrings — ”

Pierre blushed and hesitated.

” Just then came a patrol and all men who were not looting were made prisoners. I, too.”

” You, no doubt, are not telling everything. You must have done something,” said Natasha ; and after a moment’s silence, ” something good ! “

Pierre continued his story. In telling about the execution, he wanted to avoid some terrible details; but Natasha demanded that he should not leave out anything.

Pierre began to tell about Karataev (he had got up from the table and was walking around, Natasha following him with her eyes), but stopped.

” No, you cannot understand what it is I learned from this illiterate, foolish man.”

” Yes, yes, you must tell us,” said Natäsha. ” Where is he ? “

” He was killed in my presence.” And Pierre began to tell about the last days of the retreat, about Karataev

(his voice was trembling all the time), and about his death.

Pierre told of his experiences as he had never thought of them before. He now seemed to see a new significance in all he had passed through. Now, as he was talking of them to Natasha, he had that rare enjoyment which women give in listening to a man, — not clever women, who, listening, try either to retain what they are told in order to enrich their minds and, upon occasion, to tell it to some one else, or to adapt the story to their needs and as quickly as possible to communicate their own clever speeches which they have worked out in their little mental households ; but that enjoyment which real women give, who are endowed with the ability to choose and drink in the best that is manifested in a man. Natasha, without knowing it, was all attention : she did not miss a word, nor a modulation of the voice, nor a glance, nor a jerking of a facial muscle, nor one of Pierre’s gestures. She caught the still unuttered word on the wing and took it straight to her open heart, divining the secret meaning of Pierre’s whole spiritual travail.

Princess Mdrya understood the story and sympathized with him; but she now saw something else which absorbed her whole attention ; she saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre. And the thought, which came to her for the first time, filled her soul with joy.

It was three hours after midnight. The servants, with saddened, stern faces came to change the candles; but nobody noticed them.

Pierre finished his story. Natdsha continued with her sparkling, animated eyes to look persistently and fixedly at Pierre, as though trying to make out the rest which, perhaps, he had suppressed. Pierre now and then looked at her in bashful and happy confusion, and was thinking of what to say in order to change the subject. Princess Marya was silent. It did not occur to one of them that it was three o’clock, and that it was time to go to bed.

« People talk of the misfortunes of suffering,” said Pierre. ” If I were asked this very minute, ‘ Do you want to be what you were before your captivity, or again live through it all ? ’ I should say, ‘ For God’s sake, let me be in captivity once more, and have horse-meat.’ We imagine that we are lost, if we are thrown out of the beaten routine ; but it is only then that the new, good part of our life begins. So long as there is life, there is happiness. Ahead of us is much, very much. I assure you,” he said, turning to Natdsha.

“ Yes, yes,” she said, replying to something quite different. ” I, too, would like to go through everything from the beginning.”

Pierre looked fixedly at her.

” Yes, and nothing else,” affirmed Natäsha.

” It is not so, not so ! ” exclaimed Pierre. “ It is not my fault that I am alive and want to live ; and so it is with you.”

Suddenly Natäsha lowered her head upon her hands and burst out into tears.

” What is the matter with you, Natasha ? ” said Princess Mdrya.

“ Nothing, nothing.” She smiled through her tears at Pierre. ” Good night, it is time to go to bed.”

Pierre got up and took his leave.

Princess Marya and Natasha again met in the sleeping-room, as usual. They talked together about what Pierre had been telling them. Princess Mdrya did not express her opinion about Pierre. Nor did Natasha talk of him.

” Good night, Marie,” said Natasha. ” Do you know, I frequently am afraid that we are not speaking of him

(Prince Andrey) because we are in fear of degrading our sentiment, and so we forget him.”

Princess Märya drew a deep sigh and thus acknowledged the justice of Natasha’s utterance ; but she did not agree with her in her words.

” How can we forget ! ” she said.

” It gave me such a relief tonight to tell everything : it pained me, and yet it was a relief, a great relief,” said Natasha. “ I am convinced that he loved him. That’s why I told him. Did I do wrong to tell him?” she asked, suddenly blushing.

” To tell Pierre ? Oh, no ! What a fine man he is ! ” said Princess Märya.

“ Do you know, Marie,” Natäsha suddenly said, with a mischievous smile, which Princess Märya had not seen on her face for a long time, ” he has become so clean, smooth, and fresh, as though he came straight from a bath. You understand ? From a moral bath. Is it not so ? ”

” Yes,” said Princess Märya. ” He has gained much.”

” And his short coat, and clipped hair ; just as though he came from a bath. Papa used to — ”

” I understand that he (Prince Andréy) loved no one so much as him,” said Princess Märya.

” Yes, and he is very different from liim. They say that men are friends when they are quite different from each other. It must be so. Is it not so ? He does not resemble him one bit.”

“ Yes, and yet he is a fine man ! ”

« Well, good night,” replied Natäsha. And the same mischievous smile, as though she had forgotten herself, did not for a long time leave her face.

XIX.

That night Pierre could not fall asleep for a long time. He paced the room, now frowning as if he was thinking of something hard, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and shuddering, and now smiling a happy smile.

He was thinking of Prince Andréy, of Natäsha, of their love, and now was jealous of her in the past, now rebuked, now forgave himself for it. It was six o’clock in the morning, and he was still walking in his room.

“ What is to be done ? It cannot be otherwise. What is to be done ? Evidently it is right so,” he said to himself, and, hastily undressing himself, he lay down on the bed, happy and agitated, but without misgivings and indecision.

« However strange and impossible this happiness may be, I must do everything in order to become her husband,” he said to himself.

Pierre had several days before determined on Friday as the day when he should leave for St. Petersburg. When he awoke on Thursday, Savélich came to him for his orders about packing his things.

” To St. Petersburg ? What is St. Petersburg ? Who is in St. Petersburg ? ” he instinctively asked himself. ” Yes, long ago, before this happened, I for some reason intended to go to St. Petersburg,” he thought. ” Why not ? Maybe I will go there. — How good and attentive he is ! He remembers everything ! ” he thought, looking

at Savélich’s old face. ” What a pleasant smile 1 ” he thought.

” Well, Savélich, do you still not want your freedom ? ” asked Pierre.

” What shall I do with my freedom, your Serenity ? I lived well with the late count, — the kingdom of heaven be his, — and have suffered no insult from you.”

” Well, and the children ? “

” The children will live thus, too, your Serenity. It is not hard to live with such masters.”

“ Well, and my heirs ? ” said Pierre. ” Suddenly I shall take a notion and get married — It is possible, you know,” he added, with an involuntary smile.

” And I take the liberty of telling your Serenity that it would be right.”

” He thinks it is so easy,” thought Pierre. ” He does not know how terrible it is, how dangerous. It is either too early or too late — Terrible ! “

” What is your command ? Will you depart tomorrow ? ” asked Savélich.

“No, I will postpone going for awhile. I will tell you later. Pardon me for the trouble I have given you,” said Pierre. Looking at Savélich’s smile, he thought : ” How strange that he does not know that there is no St. Petersburg now, and that first that other thing has to be decided. However, he no doubt knows and only pretends. Shall I talk with him about it ? What is his opinion ? ” thought Pierre. ” No, some other time.”

At breakfast Pierre informed the princess that he had called the night before on Princess Märya and had seen there, “ Imagine whom ? — Natâsha Bostév.”

The princess pretended not to see anything unusual in this bit of news, any more than as if he had seen Anna Seménovna.

” Do you know her ? ” asked Pierre.

” I have seen the princess,” she replied. ” I have heard that she has been spoken of as a match for young Bostdv. That would be very nice for the Bostdvs : they say they are ruined.”

” No, I mean Natäsha Bostdv.”

” I have heard about that affair. What a pity ! “

” No, she does not understand, or she pretends,” thought Pierre. ” I had better not tell her, either.”

The princess had also got his provisions ready for the journey.

” How good they all are,” thought Pierre, ” to busy themselves with these things now when they no longer can interest them. And they are doing it all for me, which is surprising.”

On that same day the chief of police came to see Pierre to ask him to send a trusty man into the palace to receive the property which was now to be distributed to the proprietors.

” He, too,” thought Pierre, looking into the face of the chief of police, ” what a fine and handsome officer he is, and how good ! Now to busy himself with such trifles. And they say that he is not honest and takes bribes! Then again, why should he not take bribes ? He was educated that way. All do it. What a pleasant, good face he has ! And how he smiles, as he looks at me ! “

Pierre went to dine with Princess Mdrya.

As he drove down the streets, between the burnt houses, he admired the beauty of these ruins. The chimneys of the houses and the shattered walls, picturesquely reminding him of the Bhine and the Coliseum, stretched, concealing each other, through the burnt wards. The cabmen and passengers he passed by, the carpenters working on buildings, the huckstresses, and the shopkeepers, all looked at Pierre with merry, beaming faces, and seemed to say, ” Ah, there he is ! Let us see what will come of it ! “

Upon entering the house of Princess Mârya, Pierre was

assailed by doubt whether he had really been there the night before, had seen Natdsha, and talked with her. ” Maybe it is my imagination. Maybe I shall enter, and see no one.” But he had hardly had time to enter the room, when, by the sudden loss of his liberty, he with all his being felt her presence. She wore the same black dress with the soft folds, and had her hair dressed in the same manner, but she was quite different now. If she had been the same the night before, when he had entered the room, he could not have helped recognizing her at once.

She was the same as he had known her almost as a child and later as Prince Andréy’s fiancée. A merry, interrogative sparkle beamed in her eyes ; on her face there was a kindly and strangely mischievous expression.

Pierre dined with them, and would have remained the whole evening there, but Princess Mdrya went to vespers, and so he went with them.

On the following day Pierre arrived early, dined with them, and stayed there all the evening. Although Princess Mdrya and Natdsha were apparently glad to see the guest; although Pierre’s whole interest in life now centred in this house, they talked themselves out toward evening, and the conversation constantly jumped over from one unimportant subject to another, and frequently broke in the middle. Pierre remained so long that Princess Märya and Natdsha kept exchanging looks, wondering whether he would leave soon. Pierre saw this, but could not go. He felt ill at ease and awkward, but he remained sitting because he could not get up and leave.

Princess Mdrya, seeing no end to it, was the first to get up. She complained of a megrim, and began to bid him good night.

” So you go tomorrow to St. Petersburg ? ” she asked.

“No, I sha’n’t,” Pierre said, hurriedly, in surprise and as though he were offended. “ Yes, no, to St. Petersburg ? Tomorrow. Only I do not yet bid you goodbye. I will call to get your commissions,” he said, scanuiug Princess Marya, blushing, and still remaining.

Natdsha gave him her hand, and went out. Princess Mdrya, on the contrary, instead of leaving, dropped down in a chair and with her beaming, deep glance looked sternly and fixedly at him. The lassitude which she had manifested before now left her entirely. She heaved a deep, prolonged sigh, as though getting ready for a long chat.

Pierre’s whole confusion and awkwardness disappeared at once upon Natdsha’s departure, and gave way to agitated animation. He quickly moved up his chair to Princess Mdrya.

” Yes, I wanted to tell you,” he said, replying to her glance, as though she had said something. ” Princess, help me ! What shall I do ? May I hope ? Princess, friend, listen to me ! I know all. I know that I am not worthy of her ; I know that it is impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to her. No, I can’t, I won’t — ”

He stopped and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.

“Well,” he continued, evidently making an effort over himself to speak connectedly, ” I do not know how long I have been loving her. But I have loved only her, her alone, all my life, and I love her so much that I cannot imagine life without her. I cannot make up my mind to ask her hand now ; but the thought that, perhaps, she may be mine and that I in some way am missing the opportunity — the opportunity — is terrible. Tell me, may I hope ? Tell me what to do ! Dear princess,” he said, after a moment’s silence, and touching her hand, as she did not answer him.

” I am thinking of what you have been saying to me,” replied the princess. ” This is what I will tell you. You are right when you say that now to tell her of love — ”

The princess stopped. She wanted to say, ” to tell her of love would be impossible,” but she stopped because two days before she had noticed by Natasha’s complete change that she not only would not be offended if Pierre told her of his love, but that it was the one thing she wished for.

” To tell her now — would be impossible,” Princess Märya nevertheless continued.

” What, then, am I to do ? “

” Leave it to me,” said Princess Marya. ” I know — ” Pierre looked into Princess Märya’s eyes.

“ Well, well — ” he said.

” I know that she loves — will love you,” Princess Mdrya corrected herself.

She had not yet finished these words when Pierre leaped up and with a frightened face seized Princess Mdrya’s hand.

“ Why do you think so ? You think that I may hope ? Do you think so ? ”

“Yes, I do,” Princess Màrya said, smiling. “Write to her parents, and leave it to me ! I will tell her when it is possible. I wish it. And my heart feels that it will be.”

“ No, it cannot be ! How happy I am ! But it cannot be ! How happy I am ! No, it cannot be ! ” said Pierre, kissing the hands of Princess Mdrya.

“ Go to St. Petersburg ! That will be better. I will write to you,” she said.

“ To St. Petersburg ? Must I go ? Yes, all right, I will. But may I come tomorrow to see you ? “

On the following day Pierre came to say goodbye. Natdsha was less animated than on the previous days ; but on that day, as he now and then looked into her eyes, he felt that he was vanishing, that neither he nor she existed, but only the one feeling of happiness. “Is it possible ? No, it cannot be,” he said to himself at every glance of hers, at every gesture and word, which filled his soul with joy.

When, taking leave, he lifted her thin, lean hand, he retained it a little longer than usual in his own.

” Is it possible this hand, this face, these eyes, all this treasure of feminine charm, so foreign to me, will be eternally mine and as known to me as I am to myself ? No, it is impossible ! “

” Goodbye, count ! ” she said to him aloud. « I will be waiting for your return,” she added, in a whisper.

And these simple words, and the glance and expression of the face which accompanied them for two months formed the subject of inexhaustible memories, interpretations, and happy reveries for Pierre. ” I will be waiting for your return — Yes, yes, how did she say it ? Yes. I will be waiting for your return. Oh, how happy I am ! What is it that makes me so happy ? ” Pierre said to himself.

XX.

Ix Pierre’s soul there was now taking place something quite different from what had happened to him under similar circumstances during his courtship of Hélène.

He did not repeat, as then, with painful shame, the words which he had uttered ; he did not say, ” Ah, why did I not say it ? Why did I say, ‘ Je vous aime’ ? ” Now, on the contrary, he repeated in his imagination every word of hers and his own words, with all the details of expression and smile, and he wanted neither to take anything away from them, nor add anything : he only wanted to repeat them. There was not even a shadow of a doubt whether that which he had undertaken was good or bad. There was only one terrible doubt that sometimes passed through his mind : ” Is it not all in a dream ? Did not Princess Marya make a mistake ? Am I not too proud and selfconfident ? I have faith ; but suddenly, which certainly must happen, Princess Märya will tell her, and she will smile and reply, ‘ How strange ! He, no doubt, made a mistake. Does he not know that he is a man, simply a man, and I ? — I am something quite different, a higher being.’”

It was this doubt only which frequently occurred to him. He now made no plans. The impending happiness seemed so improbable to him that if it should happen, there could be nothing after it. All was ended.

A joyous, unexpected madness, of which he had considered himself incapable, took possession of him. The whole meaning of life, not for him alone, but for the whole world, seemed to him to consist only in his love and in the possibility of her love for him. Occasionally all men seemed to him occupied with one thing only, — his future happiness. It seemed to him at times that they all rejoiced as much as he himself did, and that they only tried to conceal their joy and pretended to be occupied with other matters. In every motion and word he saw references to his happiness. He frequently surprised people whom he met with his significant, happy glances and smiles, expressive of secret agreement. But when he saw that people did not know of his happiness, he pitied them with his whole heart, and was possessed of the desire in some way to explain to them that everything with which they busied themselves was the merest bosh, and not worthy of attention.

When he was offered some office, or when some general affairs of State or of the war were discussed, and it was assumed that on such and such an issue of an event depended the happiness of all men, he listened with a meek, compassionate smile, and surprised his hearers by his strange remarks. But both the people who to Pierre appeared to understand the real meaning of life, that is, his sentiment, and those unfortunates who obviously did not understand it, — all men at that period of time appeared to him in such a bright light as a result of the sentiment which was agleam in him that, meeting a man, he without the least effort saw in him everything good and worthy of love.

In examining the affairs and the papers of his late wife, he did not experience any other feeling about her than that of pity because she had not known the happiness which he knew now. Prince Vasfli, who was now particularly proud of his new position and of a new decoration, appeared to him as a pathetic, good, pitiful old man.

Pierre later on frequently thought of that time of his happy madness. All the opinions which he formed about

men and things during that period of time remained for ever true for him. lie afterward not only never recanted his views on men and things, but, on the contrary, in internal doubts and contradictions had recourse to the view which he had held during his madness, and such a view always proved to be correct.

” Maybe,” he thought, ” I then seemed strange and ridiculous ; but I was not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary, my mind was then more penetrating and sharper than ever, and I understood everything worth understanding in life, because — I was happy.”

Pierre’s madness consisted in his not waiting, as before, for some personal reasons, which he called men’s worth, in order to love them. His love filled his heart to the brim, and he, loving men without cause, discovered indisputable reasons why they deserved that love.

XXI.

Beginning with that evening when Natasha, after Pierre’s leave, with a merry and derisive smile told Princess Marya that he looked as though he were fresh from a bath, and talked about his coat and clipped hair, — something hidden and incomprehensible to her, and yet something irrepressible, awoke in her soul.

Everything, her face, gait, glance, voice, — everything was suddenly changed in her. Her vital power, her hopes of happiness, swam out to the surface quite unexpectedly for her and demanded to be gratified. With that very evening she seemed to forget what had happened to her. She did not even once complain of her position, did not say a word about her past, and was no longer afraid to make cheerful plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when Princess Marya mentioned his name, a long extinct splendour flashed in her eyes, and her lips were puckered into a strange smile.

The change which took place in Natäsha at first surprised Marya ; but when she understood its meaning, it grieved her. ” Is it possible she loved my brother so little that she could forget him so soon ? ” thought Princess Marya, when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natäsha, she was not angry with her and did not scold her. The awakened power of life, which had seized Natasha, was apparently so irresistible, so sudden even to her, that in Natdsha’s presence she felt -that she had no right to rebuke her even in her mind.

Natdsha abandoned herself with such fulness and sincerity to the new sensation that she did not even try to conceal the fact that she now experienced, not sorrow, but joy and mirth.

When, after her explanation with Pierre, Princess Marya returned to her room, Natdsha met her at the threshold.

“Did he say it? Yes? He did?” she repeated. And a joyful and at the same time piteous expression, as though imploring forgiveness for her joy, stood in Natdsha’s face.

” I wanted to listen at the door ; but I knew that you would tell me.”

However natural and touching the glance which Natasha cast at Princess Marya appeared to her, however Princess Marya sympathized with her agitation, Natdsba’s words in the first moment offended her. She recalled her brother and his love.

” But what is to be done ? She cannot help herself,” thought Princess Mdrya, and with a sad and somewhat stern face she told Natasha everything which Pierre had said to her. When Natdsha heard that he was going away to St. Petersburg, she was amazed. ” To St. Petersburg ? ” she repeated, as though she did not understand. But, upon looking at Princess Mdrya’s sad expression, she guessed the cause of her sadness and suddenly burst out into tears. ” Marie,” she said, ” teach me what to do ! I do not want to be bad. I will do everything you tell me to. Teach me — ”

” Do you love him ? “

” Yes,” whispered Natdsha.

” Why, then, are you weeping ? I am happy for you,” said Princess Marya, fully forgiving Natasha’s joy for the sake of the tears.

” That will happen some day, not very soon. Think what happiness it will be when I am his wife, and you marry Nicolas ! “

” Natäsha, I have asked you not to speak of it. Let us speak of you ! “

They were silent.

” But why did he go to St. Petersburg ? ” Natdsha suddenly said, and immediately hastened to answer herself : ” Yes, yes, it must be — Yes, Marie ? It must be — “

EPILOGUE

PART THE FIRST

I.

Seven years passed. The agitated historical sea of Europe had settled between its shores. It looked becalmed ; but the mysterious powers which move humanity (mysterious, because the laws that determine their motion are unknown to us) continued their action.

Although the surface of the historical sea looked motionless, humanity moved as uninterruptedly as time itself. Various groups of human cohesion were composing and decomposing all the time; causes were active for the formation and dissolution of kingdoms, and for the permutations of peoples.

The historical sea no longer, as before, hurled itself with vehemence from one shore to another ; it seethed in its depth. The historical persons were not carried, as before, on the waves from one shore to another ; now they seemed to whirl around in one spot. The historical personages, who formerly at the head of armies had reflected the motion of the masses by ordering wars, campaigns, battles, now reflected this motion by political and diplomatic combinations, laws, treatises.

This activity of the historical personages the historians call the reaction.

In describing the activity of these historical persons,

who in their opinion were the cause of what they call the reaction, the historians condemn them severely. All the well-known people of that time, from Alexander and Napoleon to Madame de Staël, loti, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and so forth, pass under their severe judgment, and are praised or condemned, according to whether they cooperated with the progress or with the reaction.

According to their description, Russia was at that time herself passing through a period of reaction, and the chief culprit of this reaction was Alexander I., that same Alexander I., who, according to their own description, had been the chief author of the liberal beginnings of his reign and of the salvation of Russia.

In the contemporary Russian literature there is not a man, from a student of a gymnasium to a learned historian, who does not throw his stone at Alexander for his irregular acts during this period of his reign.

” He ought to have acted so and so. In this case he acted well, and in that badly. He bore himself admirably in the beginning of his reign and during the year 1812 ; but he acted badly in giving a constitution to Poland, in forming the Holy Alliance, in giving power to Arakchéev, and in encouraging Golitsyn and mysticism, and later Shishkov and Foti. He committed a mistake when he busied himself with the army at the front ; he committed a mistake when he cashiered the Seménovski regiment, and so forth.”

It would take ten sheets of paper to mention all the blunders of which the historians accuse him on the basis of that knowledge of the good of humanity which they possess.

What do these accusations mean ?

Do not the same acts for which the historians praise Alexander I., such as the liberal beginnings of his reign, the struggle against Napoleon, the hrmuess evinced by him in the year 1812, and the campaign of 1813, spring from the same sources, — the conditions of blood, education and life, which made Alexander’s personality what it was, — from which also spring those acts for which he is blamed, such as the Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, the reaction of the twenties ?

In what, then, consists the essence of these accusations ?

In this, that such a historical person as Alexander I., — a person who stood on the highest possible round of human power, as it were in the focus of the blinding light of all the historical rays which were concentrated upon him ; a person who was subject to those most powerful influences of intrigues, deceptions, flattery, conceit, which are inseparable from power ; a person who at any moment of his life felt the responsibility for everything which was taking place in Europe ; a person who was not invented, but was as alive as any man, with his individual habits, passions, strivings for what is good, beautiful, and true, — that this person was not exactly not virtuous (for of this the historians do not accuse him), but that he did not have those conceptions about the good of humanity, which now a professor has who from his early youth busies himself with science, that is, with the reading of books and lectures, and with the copying of these books and lectures into note-books.

But, even if we were to admit that Alexander I. fifty years ago was mistaken in his view about what constitutes the weal of the nations, we must involuntarily assume that the historian who judges Alexander will, after the lapse of some time, appear as unjust in his conception about what constitutes the weal of humanity. This assumption is the more natural and necessary since, in examining the evolution of history, we discover that with every year, with every new writer, the conception of what forms the good of humanity is changed, so that what once appeared to be good ten years later turns out to be evil, and vice versa. More than that, we find in history contradictory views held simultaneously about what is good, and what bad: some regard the constitution given to Poland and the Holy Alliance as being to Alexander’s credit, others blame him for it.

Of Alexander’s and Napoleon’s activity, we cannot say that it was useful or injurious, because we cannot say for what it was useful, and for what injurious. If this activity does not please a person, it fails to please him merely because it does not coincide with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether I regard as good the preservation of my father’s house in Moscow in the year 1812, or the glory of the Russian troops, or the flourishing condition of the universities of St. Petersburg and other cities, or the freedom of Poland, or the power of Russia, or the equilibrium of Europe, or progress, — that European enlightenment of a certain kind, — I must acknowledge that the activity of every historical person had, in addition to these aims, other, more general, and to me incomprehensible purposes.

But let us suppose that the so-called science is able to reconcile all the contradictions and has for historical persons and events the invariable measure of good and evil.

Let us suppose that Alexander might have done everything differently. Let us suppose that, following the prescription of those who accuse him, of those who profess to have the knowledge of the final end of the movement of humanity, he might have arranged everything according to that programme of nationality, freedom, equality, and progress (there seems to be no other), which the present accusers would have furnished him with. Let us suppose that this programme had been possible and worked out, and that Alexander would have acted in conformity with it. What would then have become of the activity of all those men who counteracted the government’s tendency, — of that activity which, in the opinion of the historians, is good and useful ? That activity would not have existed ; there would have been no life ; there would have been nothing.

If we admit that human life can be guided by reason, we destroy the possibility of life.

IL

If we admit, as the historians do, that great men lead humanity to the attainment of certain purposes, which consist either in the greatness of Russia or of France, or in the equilibrium of Europe, or in the dissemination of the ideas of the Revolution, or in general progress, or in anything else, — then it becomes impossible to explain the phenomena of history without the conceptions of chance and of genius.

If the purpose of the European wars in the beginning of the present century consisted in the greatness of Russia, then this purpose might have been attained without all the preceding wars and without the incursion. If the purpose was the grandeur of France, it might have been attained without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the purpose was the dissemination of ideas, printing would have done it much better than the soldiers. If the purpose was the progress of civilization, then it is very easy to assume that outside of the destruction of men and of their wealth there are other, more suitable ways for the dissemination of civilization.

Why did it happen so and not otherwise ?

Because it happened so. ” Chance created the situation ; the genius took advantage of it,” says history.

What is chance ? What is genius ?

The words chance and genius do not denominate anything actually existing, and so cannot be defined. These words only determine a certain stage of the comprehension of phenomena. I do not know why such and such a phenomenon takes place ; I think that I cannot know, and so I do not want to know, and I say ” chance.” I see a force which is producing an effect out of proportion to the usual human agencies ; I do not understand why it happens so, and I say ” genius.”

To a flock of sheep, the wether, which is every night driven by the shepherd into a separate enclosure for feeding, and which becomes twice as fat as the rest, must seem a genius. And the very fact that this same wether is every night kept away from the common sheepfold, and is driven to a special enclosure, where it is fed on oats, and that this same fattened wether is slaughtered for its meat, must appear as a striking combination of genius with a whole series of extraordinary accidents.

But the sheep need only stop thinking that everything which happens to them is done for the attainment of their sheep aims ; they need only admit that what occurs may have some ends which are incomprehensible to them, and they will see at once the unity and consistency of what takes place with the fattened wether. If they will not know for what purpose the wether is fattened, they will at least know that all that has happened to it was not fortuitous, and they will no longer be in need of the conception of chance nor of the conception of genius.

Only by rejecting the knowledge of the nearer, comprehensible purpose, and by acknowledging that the final end is inaccessible to us, shall we see the fitness of historical persons in life ; there will be revealed to us the cause of the action which is out of proportion to the usual human agencies, and the words chance and genius will be unnecessary to us.

We need only admit that the purpose of the agitation of the European nations is unknown to us, and that we only know the facts, which consisted in murders at first in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Spain, in Russia, and that the movement from the West to the

East, and from the East to the West forms the essence and the purpose of the facts, and we shall not only not be obliged to see something exceptional and ingenious in the characters of Napoleon and of Alexander, but we shall even be unable to see in these men anything more than we see in other men ; and we shall not only be relieved of the necessity of explaining the accidentalness of those petty events which made those men what they were, but it will also become clear to us that all those petty events were necessary.

In renouncing the knowledge of the final end, we shall clearly comprehend that, as we are not able to conceive in any single plant any colour and seed which would be more appropriate for it than what it produces, so it is impossible to imagine any two other men who would to such an extent, to such minutest details, have corresponded to the purpose which they were called to fulfil.

III.

The fundamental, essential significance of the European events in the beginning of the present century is the warlike movement of the masses of the European nations from the West to the East, and later from the East to the West. In order that the nations of the West might be able to accomplish their warlike movement toward Moscow, which they actually did accomplish, it was necessary that (1) they should combine into a warlike group of such magnitude as to be able to face the conflict with the warlike group of the East ; that (2) they should renounce all established traditions and habits, and that (3) in accomplishing their warlike movement they should have at their head a man who for himself and for them would be able to justify all the deceptions, all the pillaging, and all the murders, which were to accompany this movement.

And so, beginning with the French Revolution, the old, insufficiently large group is destroyed ; the old habits and traditions disappear ; step by step, a group of new dimensions, new habits and traditions is worked out, and the man is evolved who is to stand at the head of the future movement, and who is to bear the whole responsibility of what is about to happen.

A man without convictions, without stated habits, without tradition, without a name, not even a Frenchman, seems by the strangest fortuity to push himself forward amidst all the parties which agitate France, and, without joining any one of them, rises to a prominent place.

The ignorance of his comrades, the weakness and insignificance of his adversaries, the sincerity of this man’s lies, and his brilliant and selfconfident limitations carry him to the head of the army. The brilliant composition of the soldiers of the Italian army, the reluctance of the adversaries to fight, and his childish boldness and selfconfidence gain for him military glory. An endless number of so-called accidents accompany him everywhere. The disfavour into which he falls with the French leaders serves him to good purpose. His attempts to change his predestined path fail him : he is not accepted into Russian service, nor does he get his appointment into Turkey. During his wars in Italy, he is several times on the verge of ruin, and every time is saved in an unexpected manner. The Russian troops, which might have destroyed his glory, through various diplomatic combinations do not enter Europe while he is there.

After his return from Italy, he finds the government in Paris in that process of decomposition when the men who get into the government are inevitably crushed and annihilated. And quite independently of him there appears for him a way out from tins perilous situation, which is the senseless, causeless expedition into Africa. Again that so-called chance accompanies him. Inaccessible Malta surrenders without firing a shot; the most incautious endeavours are crowned with success. The hostile fleet, which later will not let a single boat pass by, now permits a whole army to pass. In Africa a whole series of misdeeds is committed against almost unarmed inhabitants.

And the men who commit these misdeeds, and especially their leader, assure themselves that it is beautiful, that it is glory, that it resembles Cæsar and Alexander the Great, and that it is good.

That ideal of glory and of greatness, which consists in regarding nothing as base, but even in priding oneself on one’s crime, by ascribing to it an incomprehensible, supernatural meaning, — that ideal, which in the future is to guide this man and those who are united with him, is worked out at leisure in Africa. Everything he does is successful. The plague does not attack him. The cruelty of killing the wounded is not laid at his doors. His childishly careless, causeless, and ungrateful departure from Africa, from his companions in need, is placed to his credit, and again the hostile fleet misses him twice. Just as he, completely intoxicated by his successful crimes, and prepared for his rôle, arrives in Paris without any aim, the decomposition of the republican government, which might have ruined him the year before, has now reached an extreme, and his presence, that of the man who has kept aloof from parties, now can only advance him.

He has no plan ; he is afraid of everything ; but the parties get hold of him and demand his participation.

He alone, with his ideal of glory and greatness, worked out by him in Italy and in Egypt, with his madness of self-adoration, with his boldness of crimes, with his sincerity of lying, — he alone is capable of justifying what is about to happen.

He is needed for the place which is awaiting him, and therefore, almost independently of his will and in spite of his indecision and his want of purpose, in spite of all the errors which he commits, he is drawn into the plot which has for its aim the seizing of power, and the plot is crowned with success.

He is pushed into the meeting of the rulers. He is frightened and wants to run, regarding himself as lost; he pretends to fall into a swoon and says senseless things, which ought to cause his ruin. But the rulers of France, shrewd and haughty before, now feel that their rôle has been played, and are even more confused than he ; they do not utter the words which they ought to pronounce in order to retain the power and ruin him.

Chance, a million accidents, give him the power, and all people, as though having plotted together, cooperate in strengthening this power. Accidents make the characters of the contemporary rulers of France submit to him ; accidents create the character of Paul I., who recognizes his power; accident causes a plot to be formed against him, and this does not injure him, but only confirms his power. Accident sends into his hands the Duke of Enghien and casually causes him to kill him, in this manner convincing the crowd, better than by any other means, that he has the right to do so, since he has the power. Accident makes him strain all his strength for an expedition into England, which no doubt would ruin him, and he never executes his intention, but casually falls upon Mack with his Austrians, and they surrender without giving battle. Chance and genius give him a victory at Austerlitz, and accidentally all men, not only the French, but all of Europe, with the exception of England, which will not take place in the coming events, all men, despite their former terror and disgust with his crimes, now acknowledge his power, the name which he has given himself, and his ideal of greatness and of glory, which to all appears as something beautiful and reasonable.

As though trying their strength and preparing for the coming movement, the forces of the West several times, in 1805, 6, 7, and 9, tend eastward, growing in strength and numbers. In 1811 a group of men, formed in France, blends into one enormous mass with the intermediate nations. With the ever increasing group of men grows the justificative power of the man who is at the head of the movement. In the decennary of his preparation, which precedes the great movement, this man is brought together with all the crowned heads of Europe. The unveiled sovereigns of the world are unable to oppose any sensible ideal to the Napoleonic ideal of glory and of greatness, which has no meaning. One after the other they hasten to show him their insignificance. The King of Prussia sends his wife to sue for the great man’s favour ; the Emperor of Austria regards it as a favour because this man receives the daughter of the Cæsars to his couch ; the Pope, the guardian of the holiness of the nations, with his religion serves the aggrandizement of the great man. It is not so much that Napoleon prepares himself to carry out his part, as that his surroundings force him to take upon himself the responsibility of what is taking place and is still to take place. There is not a deed, not a rascality, nor a petty deception, which he may commit, but what, from the mouths of those who surround him, is reflected in the form of a grand act. The greatest holiday which the Germans can invent for him is the celebration of Jena and of Auerstädt. Not he alone is great, but even his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, his brothers-in-law. Everything is taking place to deprive him of his last power of reason and to prepare him for his terrible rôle. And when he is ready, the forces, too, are ready.

The invasion tends to the East ; it reaches its final goal, — Moscow. The capital is taken ; the Russian army is destroyed, more than the hostile armies have ever been destroyed from Austerlitz to Wagram. But suddenly, in place of those accidents and of that genius, which so consistently have led him by an uninterrupted series of successes toward the predetermined goal, there appear an endless number of reverse accidents, from the cold in the head at Borodino to the frosts and the sparks winch have burnt Moscow, and instead of the genius, there appear unexampled stupidity and baseness.

The invaders run, turn back, again run, and all the chance is now no longer for, but against him.

There takes place a counter movement from the East to the West, which has a remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from the West to the East ; the same attempts of moving from the East to the West, as in

1805, in 1807, and 1809, precede the great movement; the same combination into a mass of enormous dimensions ; the same participation of the intermediate nations in the movement; the same wavering in the middle of the path, and the same rapidity in proportion to the approach of the goal.

Paris, the final goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and the troops are destroyed. Napoleon no longer has any meaning, and all his acts are apparently pitiable and base ; but again there takes place an inexplicable accident: the allies hate Napoleon, in whom they see the cause of their calamities ; deprived of his strength and power, convicted of his misdeeds and rascalities, he ought to present himself to them such as he appeared ten years before and will appear a year later, — as an outlaw. But, by a strange fortuity, no one sees it. His rôle is not yet finished. The man, who ten years before and a year later is regarded as an outlaw, is sent on a two days’ voyage from France, to an island, given into his possession, with a guard and with millions, which for some reason are paid out to him.

IV.

The movement of the nations begins to quiet down between the shores. The waves of the great movement have been swept back, and on the becalmed sea are formed circles, on which the diplomats are borne, imagining that it is they who are producing the calm.

But the becalmed sea suddenly rises. It seems to the diplomats that they, their discords, are the cause of this new impulse; they are waiting for a war between their sovereigns; the problem seems to them insoluble. But the wave, the swell of which they feel, is not borne from where they expect it. The same wave rises from the same starting-point, Paris. There takes place the last surging of the movement from the West, a surge which is to decide the apparently insoluble, diplomatic difficulties, and to put an end to the military movement of that period.

The man who has destroyed France, all alone, without a plot, without soldiers, comes to France. Any janitor may arrest him ; but, by a strange fortuity, no one arrests him, and all meet in delight the man whom they cursed yesterday and will curse again in a month.

This man is needed in order to justify the last united act.

The act is accomplished.

The last rôle is played. The actor is told to take off his disguise, and to wash off his paint and powder : he is no longer wanted.

And several years pass, during which this man, in his solitude on the island, plays to himself a pitiful comedy, intriguing and lying, and justifying his acts, when this justification is no longer needed, and showing to the whole world what that something was which men took for power, when an invisible hand guided him.

The manager, at the end of the drama, having divested the actor, showed him to us.

“ See what you have believed in ! Here he is ! Do you now see that it is not he, but I, who have moved you ? “

But, blinded by the force of the motion, men did not comprehend it for a long time.

A still greater consistency and necessity is presented to us by the life of Alexander I., of that person who stood at the head of the counter movement from the East to the West.

What is wanted of a man that he, overshadowing the rest, should stand at the head of this movement from the East to the West ?

What is needed is a feeling of justice, a sympathy for the affairs of Europe, one that is remote and is not clouded by petty interests ; there is needed a moral preeminence over the comrades, the sovereigns of the time ; there is needed a meek, attractive personality, and a personal grievance against Napoleon. And all this is found in Alexander I. ; all this is brought about by an endless number of so-called accidents of his previous life : by his education, his liberal beginnings, by his nearest counsellors, by Austerlitz, by Tilsit, by Erfurt.

During the national war this person is inactive, because he is not needed. But the moment there rises the necessity of a general European war, this person at the given moment appears in Iris place and, uniting the European nations, leads them to their goal.

The goal is reached. After the last war of the year 1815, Alexander is on the height of the greatest possible human power. How does he use it ?

Alexander I., the peacemaker of Europe, a man who from his earliest youth strove for the good of his nations, the first originator of liberal innovations in his country, now, when it seems he possesses the greatest possible power and, therefore, is able to do everything for the welfare of his nations, while Napoleon in exile makes childish and false plans of how he would make humanity happy, if he had the power, Alexander I., having accomplished what he had been bidden to, and feeling upon himself the hand of God, suddenly recognizes the insignificance of this presumable power, turns away from it, places it to the hands of men he hates and despises, and only says :

” Not for us, not for us, but for Thy name ! I am a man like you : let me live like a man, and think of my soul and of God ! “

Just as the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere which is complete in itself, and at the same time is only an atom of a whole which, on account of its immensity, is incomprehensible to man, — even so each personality has its own purposes within itself, and at the same time possesses them in order to serve some incomprehensible common purposes.

A bee, sitting on a flower, has stung a child. And the child is afraid of the bees and says that the purpose of the bee is to sting men. The poet admires the bee, as it sinks into the flower-cup, and says that the purpose of the bee is to imbibe the aroma of the flowers. The beekeeper, observing that the bee gathers the pollen and carries it to the hive, says that the purpose of the bee is to gather honey. Another beekeeper, who has studied the beehive more closely, says that the bee gathers the pollen in order to feed the young brood with it and rear the queen bee, and that its purpose consists in continuing

the species. A botanist notices that, flying on the pistil with the pollen of a dioecious flower, the bee fructifies it, and so he sees in this the purpose of the bee. Another, observing the migration of the plants, sees that the bee takes an important part in this migration; this new observer may say that the purpose of the bee lies in this. But the final end of the bee is not exhausted by this or that purpose, which the human mind may discover. The higher the human reason rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious does the incomprehensibility of the final end become to him.

Man can only grasp by observation the correspondence of a bee’s life with other phenomena of life. The same is true of the purposes of historical persons and of nations.

V.

The marriage of Natäsha, who was united with Bezukhi in 1813, was the last joyful event in the old family of the Rostdvs. During the same year Count Ilyd Andréevich died, and, as often happens, with his death the family fell to pieces.

The events of the last year, — the conflagration of Moscow and the flight from it, the death of Prince Andréy and Natäsha’s despair, Pétya’s death, the countess’s bereavement, — all this fell stroke after stroke upon the head of the old count. He did not seem to understand, and felt himself unable to grasp the meaning of all these events, and, morally bending his old head, seemed to be waiting for new strokes to make an end of him. He looked now frightened and lost, now unnaturally animated and enterprising.

Natäsha’s marriage for awhile occupied him with its external side. He ordered dinners and suppers, and evidently tried to appear merry ; but his mirth was not contagious, as formerly, but, on the contrary, provoked compassion in the men who had known him and loved him before.

After the departure of Pierre and his wife, he grew quiet and began to complain of tedium. A few days later he grew ill and took to his bed. From the first day of his illness he understood, in spite of the assurance of the physicians, that he would never rise again. The countess passed two weeks at his bedside, without undressing herself. Every time she gave him his medicine,

he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On the last day he, sobbing, asked the forgiveness of his wife and, privately, of his son, for having ruined the estate, — the chief guilt he was conscious of. He confessed and received the extreme unction ; he died quietly, and on the following day a mass of acquaintances, who arrived in order to do the last honours to the deceased man, filled the rented apartments of the Rostdvs. All these acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house, and who had so often laughed at him, now with one common feeling of self-reproach and contrition, as though justifying themselves before some one, said : ” Yes, you may say what you please, but he was a fine man. You will not find such men nowadays — Who has not his weaknesses ? “

He died suddenly just as his affairs became so entangled that it was impossible to imagine how it would all end in another year.

Nikoläy was with the Russian troops in Paris, when he received the news of his father’s death. He immediately resigned from service and, without waiting for the acceptance of the resignation, took a leave of absence and went to Moscow. The condition of the monetary affairs was cleared up within a month of the count’s death ; it startled everybody by the immensity of the sum of various minor debts, the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to twice the value of the estates.

Nikoldy’s relatives and friends advised him to reject the inheritance. But Nikoldy saw in this a reproach to his father’s memory, which was sacred to him, and so he would not hear of the rejection and assumed the inheritance with the obligations attached to it.

The creditors, who had been so long silent, having in the lifetime of the count come under that indefinite but powerful influence which his lax kindness exerted upon them, now suddenly demanded that they be paid. There was a rivalry between them as to who would be the first to receive his due, and men who, like Mitenka and others, had been given notes as presents, now appeared as the most exacting of creditors. Nikoläy was given no rest, and no days of grace, and those who, it seemed, had pitied the old man who was the cause of their losses (if there were any), now pitilessly pounced down on the innocent young heir who voluntarily assumed the liabilities.

None of the accommodations thought of by Nikolày was successful. The estate was sold under the hammer for half its value, and half of the debts remained unpaid. Nikoläy took the thirty thousand roubles offered him by his brother-in-law Bezukhi, with which to pay such part of the debts as he regarded as monetary debts, real debts. And, in order not to be put in the hole for the remaining indebtedness, as the creditors threatened to do, he again entered the service.

He could not return to the army, where he was in line of promotion to the vacant post of the commander of the regiment, because his mother held on to him as her last attachment in life ; and thus, in spite of his disinclination to remain in Moscow in the circle of men who knew him, and in spite of his aversion to the civil service, he accepted a civil appointment in Moscow and, doffing his beloved uniform, settled with his mother and with Sonya in small quarters on the Sivtsev Vrazhdk.

Natäsha and Pierre at that time lived in St. Petersburg, without having any clear conception of Nikoläy’s situation. When he had borrowed the money from his brother-in-law, he had tried to conceal his precarious condition from him. Nikolay’s state of affairs was exceedingly bad, since with his 1,200 roubles salary he not only had to support himself, his mother, and Sonya, but to support them in such a way that they should not know that they were poor. The countess could not understand the possibility of a life without the conditions of luxury to which she had been accustomed from childhood, and, without

knowing how hard it was for her son, kept asking now for a carriage, which they did not have, in order to send for a friend of hers, now for expensive food for herself and for wine for her son, or for money, with which to give a surprise to Natasha, to Sdnya, or even to Nikoldy himself.

Sonya looked after the house, tended on her aunt, read aloud to her, bore her whims and hidden resentment, and helped Nikoldy to conceal from the countess the precarious condition in which they were. Nikolay felt that he was under eternal obligations to Sdnya for everything she was doing for his mother, and admired her patience and devotion, but tried to alienate himself from her.

In his innermost soul he seemed to reproach her for being too perfect, and for giving him no cause for reproaching her. She had everything for which people are valued, but little of that which would make him love her. He felt that the more he esteemed her, the less he loved her. He took her at her word, when in her letter she gave him his liberty, and now carried himself in such a way as though everything which had been between them had been forgotten long ago, and could never be repeated.

Nikolay’s position grew worse and worse. The plan, which he had had, of putting aside part of his salary proved only a dream. He did not save a thing and, on the contrary, had to borrow here and there, in order to satisfy his mother’s needs. He could see no escape from his situation. The thought of marriage with a rich girl, of which his relatives spoke to him, was repulsive to him. Another issue — the death of his mother — never presented itself to his mind. He wished for nothing, hoped for nothing ; and in the depth of his heart he experienced a grim and gloomy enjoyment in enduring his condition without a murmur. He tried to avoid his old acquaintances, with their sympathy and their offers of offensive aid ; he avoided every amusement and distraction, and even at home did nothing more than play solitaires with his mother, pace the room in silence, and smoke pipe after pipe. It looked as though he took special care to cultivate that gloomy mood, in which alone he felt himself capable of enduring his plight.

VI.

In the beginning of winter Princess Mdrya arrived in Moscow. From the city gossip she learned of the condition of the Rostdvs and that « the son was sacrificing himself for his mother ; ” so they said in the city. ” I did not expect anything else of him,” Princess Märya said to herself, experiencing a joyful confirmation of her love for him. As she recalled her friendly relations with the whole family, which verged on relationship of blood, she considered it her duty to call on them. But, when she thought of her relations with Nikoldy in Voronezh, she was afraid to do so. She made a great effort over herself, and finally, after a few weeks in Moscow, drove out to call on the Rostdvs.

Nikolay was the first to meet her, as it was necessary to pass through his room in order to reach that of the countess. At his first glance at her, Nikolay’s face, instead of expressing the joy which Princess Marya had expected to see on it, assumed an expression of coldness, dryness, and pride, such as she had never seen in him. Nikoldy asked for her health, took her to his mother, and, after staying there for five minutes, left the room.

When the princess left the countess, Nikoldy met her again, and quite solemnly and dryly accompanied her to the anteroom. He did not reply a word to her remarks about the health of the countess. ” What is that to you ? Let me alone ! ” his glance seemed to say.

” What is she coming for ? What does she want ? I can’t bear those ladies and all their amiable ways ! ” he said, aloud, in Sonya’s presence, apparently unable to repress his annoyance, when the carriage of the princess had driven away from the house.

” Oh, how can one speak so, Nicolas ? ” said Sonya, with difficulty concealing her joy. ” She is so good, and mamma loves her so ! “

Nikolay made no reply and would have liked never to speak again about the princess. But, ever since her visit, the old countess spoke of her several times each day.

The countess praised her, demanded that her son should call on her, and expressed her wish to see her often ; at the same time she grew impatient every time she spoke of her.

Nikolay tried to keep silence when his mother mentioned the princess, but his silence only irritated the countess.

” She is a very worthy and fine girl,” she said, ” and you must call on her. You will at least see somebody ; I am sure you must be getting tired of our company.”

” But, mamma, I have not the least desire.”

“ There was a time when you wanted to see her, and now you say you have no desire. My dear, I fail to comprehend you. She is a very worthy girl, and you always liked her; I do not understand your reasons. You are all concealing something from me.”

” Not at all, mamma.”

“ I am not asking you to do something unpleasant : I merely ask you to return the call. It seems to me that politeness demands it — I have told you what I wish, and now I will not interfere again, for I see you have secrets from your mother.”

” I will go, if you wish it.”

” It makes no difference to me. I want it for your sake.”

Nikolay heaved a sigh, bit his moustache, and laid out the cards, trying to lead his mother’s attention to another subject.

On the following day, and on the third and fourth day the same conversation was repeated.

After her call on the Rostovs and after that unexpectedly cold reception from Nikolay, Princess Märya acknowledged to herself that she had been right in not wishing to make the first call on the Rostdvs.

” I did not expect anything else,” she said to herself, invoking the aid of her pride. ” I do not care for him ; I only wanted to see the old lady, who has always been kind to me, and to whom I am under many obligations.”

But she could not calm herself with such reflections : a sensation resembling repentance tormented her at the recollection of her visit. Though she firmly decided not to call again on the Rostovs and to forget all that, she was conscious of being in an indefinite position. When she asked herself what it was that tormented her, she had to confess that it was her relation to Rostov. His cold, civil tone did not spring from his feeling for her (she was sure of that), but that tone concealed something. This something she had to clear up ; and she felt that until then she could not be calm.

In the middle of winter she was sitting in the classroom, watching her nephew’s lessons, when Rostov’s visit was announced to her. With the firm determination not to betray her secret and not to show any confusion, she invited Mlle. Bourienne to go with her to the drawingroom.

With her first glance at Nikoläy’s face, she saw that he had come merely to pay a duty call, and she decided that she would adopt the same tone in which he addressed her.

They spoke of the health of the countess, of their common acquaintances, and of the last news of the war, and when the ten minutes demanded by propriety had passed, when a guest may rise, Nikoldy got up in order to leave.

The princess, with the aid of Mlle. Bourienne, carried on the conversation very well, but in the very last moment, as he rose, she grew so weary from talking about things she was not interested in, and the thought of how few joys were given her in life occupied her so much, that in an attack of absent-mindedness she fixed her beaming eyes in front of her and sat motionless, without noticing that he had risen.

Nikolay looked at her and, wishing to appear as though he had not observed her abstraction, said a few words to Mlle. Bourienne and again looked at the princess. She still sat motionless, and on her gentle face there was an expression of suffering. He suddenly felt sorry for her and had a dim idea that he probably was the cause of the grief which was expressed in her face. He wanted to succour her, to tell her something pleasant ; but he could not think what to say to her.

” Goodbye, princess,” he said.

She regained her senses, blushed, and drew a deep sigh.

“ Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said, as though awakening. ” So you are leaving, count ? Well, goodbye ! And the cushion for the countess ? “

“ Wait, I will bring it ! ” said Mlle. Bourienne, leaving the room.

Both were silent, now and then looking at one another.

” Yes, princess,” Nikoldy finally said, with a sad smile, ” it is but a short time ago, but much water has flown since we first met at Bogucharovo. How unfortunate we all seemed to be, and yet I would give much to bring back that time — but that is impossible.”

The princess looked fixedly into his eyes with her lustrous glance, as he said this. She seemed to try to understand the hidden meaning of his words, which would explain to her his feeling for her.

” Yes, yes,” she said, ” but you have uo reason to regret the past, count. As I understand your life now, you will always recall it with pleasure, because the selfsacrifice which you now practise — “

” I do not accept your praises,” he hurriedly interrupted her. ” On the contrary, I constantly rebuke myself ; but this is an entirely uninteresting and cheerless subject for conversation.”

Again his glance assumed the former dry, cold expression. But the princess again recognized in him that man she used to know and love, and she was speaking only with that man now.

” I thought you would permit me to say this to you,” she said. ” We had become so intimate ■with you — and with your family — that I thought you would not consider my interest in you out of place; but I was mistaken,” she said. Her voice suddenly trembled. “ I do not know why,” she continued, regaining her composure, “but you were formerly a different man and — ”

” There are a thousand reasons why ” (he emphasized the word why). “ I thank you, princess,” he said, softly. ” Now and then it is hard.”

” So this is the reason ! This is the reason ! ” an inner voice spoke in Princess Marya’s soul. ” No, it was not this merry, kindly, and open glance, not this handsome appearance that I loved in him ; 1 divined his noble, firm, selfsacrificing soul,” she said to herself. “He is poor now, and I am rich — Yes, that is the only reason — Yes, if it were not for that — ” And, as she recalled his former tenderness, and now looked at his good, sad face, she suddenly saw the reason of his coldness.

” Why, count, why ? ” she suddenly almost shouted, instinctively moving up to him. ” Why ? Tell me ! You must tell me ! ”

He was silent.

” I do not know your why, count,” she continued. ” But it oppresses me — I must confess it to you. You want for some reason to deprive me of your former friendship. And this pains me.” Tears were in her eyes and voice. “ I have had so little happiness in life that such a loss is hard for me to bear — Pardon me, forgive me ! ”

She suddenly burst out into tears and started to leave the room.

” Princess ! Wait, for God’s sake ! ” he exclaimed, trying to stop her. ” Princess ! “

She looked back. A few seconds they looked silently into each other’s eyes, and what was distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.

VIL

In the fall of 1813, Nikoläy married Princess Märya, and they, accompanied by his mother and by Sdnya, went to live at Lÿsyya Gdry.

In four years he, without selling his wife’s estate, paid all the remaining debts and, having received a small inheritance from a cousin of his, he acquitted himself of his indebtedness to Pierre.

Three years later, in 1820, Nikoläy so managed his financial affairs that he bought a small estate near Lÿsyya Gory and carried on negotiations about buying back Ms father’s Oträdnoe, which was a favourite dream of his.

Having begun to farm from necessity, he soon became so fond of farming that it became his favourite and almost exclusive occupation. Nikoläy was a simple proprietor ; he did not care for innovations, especially English ideas, which then were the fashion, laughed at theoretical works on farming, had no use for factories, expensive products, and the sowing of extraordinary seeds, and, in general, did not busy himself with any one part of farming in particular. Before his eyes was constantly the estate, and not any part of it. In his estate the chief subject was not the nitrogen and the oxygen which is found in the soli and in the air, not some particular plough and fertilizer, but that main instrument, through which the nitrogen and the oxygen, the fertilizer and the plough, acted, that is, the peasant workman. When Nikoläy took to farming and began to interest himself in the different parts of it, the peasant attracted his greatest attention ; the peasant appeared to him not only as a tool, but as an aim and a judge. At first he only watched the peasant, trying to make out what he needed, what he regarded as good and as bad, and he only pretended that he was ordering Mm about. In reality, he learned from the peasants the proper mode of action, their speech, and their judgment of what was good and what bad. Only when he understood the tastes and the strivings of the peasant, when he learned to speak his language and to comprehend the hidden meaning of his speech, when he felt himself one with him, did he begin to manage him with firmness, that is, to fulfil the duty toward the peasants which was actually demanded of Mm. And Nikoläy’s farming produced brilliant results.

When Nikoläy took the management of the estate into his hands, he immediately, without a mistake, by a peculiar sense of clairvoyance, appointed as burgh master, elder, and deputy the very men who would have been elected by the peasants themselves, if they could have chosen them for themselves, and Ms officers were never changed. Before investigating the chemical properties of the manure, before dabbling with “debit and credit” (as he sarcastically remarked), he investigated the number of cattle held by each peasant, and this he tried to increase by every means possible. The families of the peasants he maintained in the largest possible units, without permitting them to break up. He pursued alike the lazy, the corrupt, and the weak, and tried to exclude them from the Commune.

At sowing-time and at the harvest he watched with equal interest over Ms own and over the peasant fields. And there were few landed proprietors whose fields were sowed and harvested so early and so well, and who received as much income from them as did Nikoläy.

He did not like to have anything to do with the manorial servants, called them parasites, and, as everybody said, pampered them and was lax in discipline toward

them ; whenever some command was to be given to a manorial servant, especially when one had to be punished, he was undecided and took counsel with everybody in the house ; only when the opportunity presented itself for enlisting a manorial servant in the army, in the place of a peasant, he did so without the least hesitancy. In all the commands which he had to give to the peasants he never experienced the least wavering. Every order of his, he knew full well, would be approved by the whole mass of them against any one or a few.

He kept himself equally from burdening or punishing a man, simply because he felt like doing so, or from alleviating and rewarding a man, because that coincided with his personal wish. He would have been unable to say by what consideration he was guided in what he ought to do, and what not; but the just measure was firmly rooted in his soul and unshakable.

He frequently used to say in anger, when something went wrong or was in disorder : ” What can you expect of our Russian people ? ” and he imagined that he could not bear the peasant.

But he with all the powers of his soul loved our Russian people and their existence, and for that reason comprehended and made his own the only path and method of farming which produces good results.

Countess Mdrya was jealous of this love of his, and regretted that she was unable to take part in it ; she could not understand the joys and sorrows which were caused in him by this separate world of his, which was so foreign to her. She could not understand why he was so peculiarly animated and happy when, rising with daybreak and passing the whole morning in the field or on the threshing-floor, he returned to her tea from planting, mowing, or harvesting. She did nor understand why he was so delighted when he told in transport about the wealthy proprietary peasant Matvyey Ermfshin, who had been hauling sheaves all night with his whole family, and whose ricks were all up, while nobody else had yet begun to harvest. She did not understand why he so cheerfully passed from the window to the balcony, smiling beneath his moustache and winking, when a warm, drizzly rain fell on the sere blades of sprouting oats, or why, when a menacing cloud was carried away by the wind during mowing or harvesting, he, red, sunburnt, and perspiring, with the odour of wormwood and of gentian in his hair, upon returning from the threshing-floor, joyfully rubbed his hands, saying : ” Another day like this, and everything of mine and of the peasants will be under cover.”

Still less could she understand why, with his good heart, with his constant readiness to anticipate her wishes, he almost despaired when she communicated to him the requests of some peasant men or women, who had implored her intervention to be freed from labours, why he, good Nicolas, persistently refused her, asking her not to interfere in his affairs. She felt that he had a separate world of his own, which he loved passionately and which had its especial laws that she could not grasp.

When she now and then tried to understand him and talked to him about his deserts for doing good to his subjects, he grew angry and said : ” Not at all. Never thought of it. I would not do as much as this for them. All this talk about your neighbour’s good is nothing but poetry and fairy-tales. AU I need is that our children should not be beggars. I must look after our estate while I am alive, — that’s all. For this I must have order, and severity, — that’s all!” he said, sanguinely, clinching his fist. “And justice, of course,” he added, ” because if a peasant is naked and hungry, and has but one old nag, he will work neither for himself, nor for me.”

And, no doubt, because Nikoläy did not permit himself to think that he was doing anything for others, for virtue’s sake, — everything he did bore fruit ; his fortune grew rapidly ; neighbouring peasants came to beg him to buy them, and the pious memory of his management was current among the people for a long time after his death. ” He was a great master — first the peasants’ and then his own. He was stern, though. In short, he was a great master.”

VIII.

The one thing that tormented Nikoldy in the matter of his farming, was his irritability in connection with his old hussar habit of giving free play to his hands. At first he saw nothing prejudicial in this, but during the second year of his marriage his view on this kind of justice suddenly changed.

Once, during the summer, the village elder who in Boguchàrovo had taken the place of dead Dron was called out ; he was accused of all kinds of rascalities and malfeasance. Nikolay went out on the porch to him, and, immediately after the first answers of the elder, cries and blows were heard in the vestibule. On returning to the house for breakfast, Nikolay went up to his wife, who was sitting with drooping head over the embroideryframe, and told her, as usual, everything which had interested him on that morning, and, among other things, about the Boguchàrovo elder. Countess Marya, blushing, growing pale, and tightening her lips, sat as before with drooping head and made no reply to her husband’s words.

” What an impudent rascal ! ” he said, flying up at the very recollection of him. “If he had told me that he was drunk, — I did not see it — What is the matter with you, Marie ? ” he suddenly asked.

Countess Märya raised her head and wanted to say something, but again hastened to lower her head and puckered her lips.

” What is the matter with you ? What is it, my dear ? “

The homely countess always grew pretty when she wept. She never wept from pain or annoyance, but always from sadness or pity. And when she wept, her beaming eyes assumed an irresistible charm.

The moment Nikolay took her hand, she was unable to hold in any longer and burst out into tears.

“Nicolas, I saw it— He is guilty, but you — why did you, Nicolas?” and she covered her face with her hands.

Nikoläy kept silence, blushed purple, and, walking away from her, began to pace the room. He understood what she was weeping about ; but he could not in his innermost soul agree at once with her that that to which he had been accustomed from childhood, and which he regarded as a usual occurrence, was bad. ” It is mawkishness, woman’s sentiment, — or is she right ? ” he asked himself. He did not decide the question ; but, upon looking once more at her suffering and loving face, he suddenly understood that she was right, and that he had long been guilty.

“ Marie,” he said, softly, walking over to her, ” it shall never happen again ! I give you my word for it. Never ! ” he repeated, with a trembling voice, like a boy who asks forgiveness.

Tears flowed more copiously from the eyes of the countess. She took her husband’s hand and kissed it.

” Nicolas, when did you break your cameo ? ” she said, in order to change the subject, looking at bis fingers, on one of which was a ring with the head of Laocoon.

“ To-day. It was done then. Oh, Marie, do not mention it to me!” He again grew excited. “I give you my word of honour that it shall never happen again. And may this remind me of it for all time ! ” he said, pointing to the broken cameo.

Since that time, whenever in his explanations with the elders or the stewards the blood rushed to his face and his hands began to clinch themselves into fists, Nikoläy turned the broken ring around on his finger and lowered his eyes before the man that had made him angry. Still, once or twice a year he forgot himself, and then he came to his wife, confessed it to her, and promised her that it was the last time.

” Marie, you, no doubt, despise me,” he said to her. ” I deserve it.”

” Go away, go away as fast as you can, whenever you feel unable to control yourself,” Countess Marya said, sadly, trying to comfort her husband.

Nikolay was respected, but not loved, by the gentry of the Government. He was not interested in the affairs of the nobility. Because of this some regarded him as a proud, and others as a stupid, man. All his time in the summer, from the sowing in the spring until the harvest, was taken up by the cares of the estate. In the fall he abandoned himself to the chase with the same businesslike preoccupation with which he attended to the farm, going away for a month or two to hunt in distant places. In the winter he visited the other villages and busied himself with reading. The books he read were mostly historical, and on these he spent ever)’ year a stated sum. He was gathering, as he said, a serious library, and made it his rule to read all the books he bought. With a serious look he sat down in his cabinet to read, an employment which at first he had imposed on himself as a duty, but which later became a habitual occupation with him, giving him special pleasure and the consciousness that he was working on something serious. Except for business journeys, he passed the greater part of the winter at home, in close communion with his family, and entering into the intimate relations between the mother and her children. His wife grew nearer and nearer to him, and every day he discovered new spiritual treasures in her.

Sonya had been living in the house ever since Nikoläy’s marriage. Even before his marriage, Nikoläy, accusing himself and praising Sdnya, had told his wife everything there had been between them. He asked Princess Mérya to be kind and good to his cousin. Countess Mdrya was quite conscious of her husband’s guilt; she also felt her own guilt toward Sonya; she thought that her fortune might have had an influence on his choice ; she could not reproach Sdnya in anything, and she wanted to love her ; but she not only did not love her, but frequently discovered resentment in her heart against her, and could not overcome it.

Once she talked with her friend Natasha about Sdnya, and about her injustice toward her.

” Do you know,” said Natasha, ” you have read the Gospel a great deal ; there is a passage in it which refers directly to Sdnya.”

” What is it ? ” Countess Marya asked, in surprise.

” ‘ For whosoever hath, to him shall be given ; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath,’ — do you remember it ? She has not ; why, I do not know ; maybe she has no egoism, — for aught I know ; but from her it will be taken, and already has been taken. I sometimes am very sorry for her ; I used to wish that Nicolas would marry her ; but I always foresaw that it would never be. She is a sterile flower, you know, as in the strawberries. At times I am sorry for her, and at times I think that she does not feel it as we should feel it.”

Although Countess Màrya explained to Natasha that these words of the Gospel must be understood differently, she had to agree with Natäsha’s explanation, as she looked at Sdnya. Indeed it seemed that Sonya did not feel her position burdensome and that she was resigned to her vocation as a sterile flower. She was fond not so much of the people as of the whole family. Like a kitten, she got used to the house, and not to the inmates. She tended on the old countess, caressed and spoiled the children, and was always ready to do small favours, of which she was always capable ; but everybody accepted them instinctively, without any great sense of gratitude —

The manor of Lÿsyya Gory was rebuilt, but no longer on the scale on which it had been during the life of the late prince.

The buildings, which were started in time of need, were more than simple. The enormous house, on the old stone foundation, was of wood. It was plastered only on the inside. The large, spacious house, with unpainted plank floors, was furnished with the simplest kind of rough divans, chairs, and tables, made by the home carpenters of birches from the estate. The house was very spacious, and had rooms for the manorial servants, and apartments for guests. The relatives of the Rostovs and of the Bolkonskis now and then came to Lÿsyya Gdry with their whole families, with their sixteen horses and dozens of servants, and stayed there for months at a time. In addition to that, four times a year, during the namedays and birthdays of Nikoläy and his wife, about one hundred guests assembled for a day or two. The remaining part of the year, the regular routine of life, with its usual occupations, teas, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, all furnished by the products of the farm, went on in unimpaired order.

IX.

It was the day preceding St. Nicholas Day, December 5, 1820. Natäsha, with her husband and children, had been visiting her brother ever since fall. Pierre was in St. Petersburg, whither he had gone for three weeks to attend to his business, as he had said, but where he had been staying seven. He was expected back at any moment.

On December 5th there was at NikolLy’s house, in addition to Bezukhi’s family, his old friend, ex-General Vasili Fédorovich Denisov.

Nikolay knew that on December 6th, the day of the celebration, when the guests would call, he would have to take off his frock coat and don a long coat and tight, pointed boots, and drive to the church which he had lately erected, and then receive congratulations, and offer appetizers, and talk of the elections of the gentry and of the crops ; but on the day preceding the celebration he regarded it as his privilege not to deviate from his routine. He audited the account of the burgh master from the Ryazan village, belonging to his wife’s nephew, wrote two business letters, and inspected the threshing-floor and the cattle yard and horse stables. Having taken the proper measures against the general intoxication which was expected on the following day on the occasion of the celebration, he went to dinner and, without having had a chance to see his wife all by herself, seated himself at the long table which was set for twenty, and at which all the household was gathered. There were his mother, the old woman Byélov, who was living with her, his wife, his three children, a governess, a tutor, his nephew with his tutor, S6nya, Denisov, Natdsha, her three children, their governess, and old Mikhail Ivänych, the prince’s architect, who was living out his days at Lÿsyya Gory.

Countess Marya was sitting at the opposite end of the table. The moment her husband sat down in his seat, she decided from the gesture with which he, taking his napkin, rapidly changed the position of the tumbler and wine-glass, which were standing in front of him, that he was not in spirits, as sometimes happened with him, especially before the soup, and when he came from the farm directly to dinner. Countess Marya knew this disposition very well, and when she herself was in a good humour, she waited for him to finish his soup, and then began to speak with him and made him confess that he had no reason to be out of sorts ; but on that day she completely forgot to observe that rule; she was pained to see him angry with her without cause, and she felt unhappy. She asked him where he had been. He told her. She asked him again whether everything was in order on the farm. He gave an unpleasant frown at her unnatural tone and quickly answered her question.

« Yes, I am not mistaken,” thought Countess Mârya. ” Why is he angry with me ? ” In the tone with which he replied to her Countess Märya heard ill-will toward herself and a desire to stop the conversation. She felt that her words were unnatural, but she could not keep herself from asking him a few questions more.

Thanks to Denisov, the conversation at dinner soon became general and animated, and Countess Marya did not speak with her husband. When they left the table and went to thank the old countess, Countess Mdrya, in offering her husband her hand, kissed him and asked him why he was angry with her.

” You have always such strange ideas ! I never thought of being angry,” he said.

But the word always told Countess Marya : ” Yes, I am angry, and I do not want to tell you.”

Nikoldy and his wife lived so well together that even Sdnya and the old countess, who, out of jealousy, wished to see some difference between them, could find no pretext for reproaches ; but there were between them now and then moments of hostility. At times, particularly after the happiest periods, they were suddenly assailed by a sensation of estrangement and hostility ; this feeling generally appeared during the pregnancy of Countess Marya. She was now in that state.

“ Well, messieurs et mesdames,” said Nikoldy, in a loud and seemingly merry voice (Countess Mdrya thought that he spoke so on purpose, just to offend her), ” I have been on my feet since six o’clock. Tomorrow I shall have to suffer, but now I must go and take a rest.” And without saying anything more to Countess Mdrya, he went to the small sofaroom and lay down on a sofa.

” It is always like that,” thought Countess Mdrya. ” He talks with everybody but me. I see, I see that he loathes me. Especially when I am in this state.” She looked at her high abdomen and in the mirror at her sallow, emaciated face with her large eyes, which now looked larger than ever.

And everything became unpleasant to her: Denisov’s shout and laughter, and Natdsha’s conversation, and, especially, the glances which Sdnya kept casting at her.

Sdnya was always the first pretext winch Countess Mdrya chose for her irritation.

Staying awhile with the guests and not understanding a word of all they were saying, she softly went out and walked to the nursery.

The children were riding to Moscow on chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with them, but the thought of her husband and of his causeless anger tormented her all the time. She got up and, with difficulty walking on tiptoe, went to the small sofaroom.

” Maybe he is not asleep ; I will have an explanation with him,” she said to herself. Andryusha, her eldest boy, imitating her, walked on tiptoe behind her. Countess Mdrya did not notice him.

“ Chère Marie, il dort, je crois ; il est fatigué,” said Sdnya in the large sofaroom. Countess Mdrya was sure that she always turned up on purpose. “ Andryusha will wake him.”

Countess Mdrya looked around, saw Andryusha behind her, and felt that Sonya was right ; but for that very reason she burst into a passion and with difficulty repressed harsh words. She said nothing and, not to seem to obey her, she beckoned to Andryusha to follow her quietly, and went up to the door. Sdnya passed through another door. From the room where Nikoldy was sleeping proceeded his even breathing, which she knew to its minutest details. As she heard his breathing, she saw before her his smooth, handsome brow, his moustache, his whole face, on which she so frequently gazed when he was asleep, in the stillness of the night. Nikoldy suddenly moved and made a noise. At the same moment Andryusha beyond the door cried out : ” Papa, mamma is here ! ” Countess Mdrya grew pale from fright and made signs to her son. He grew silent, and for a moment lasted that terrible silence. She knew how Nikoldy hated to be wakened. Suddenly she heard through the door a louder sound, a moving, and Nikoldy’s angry voice :

” Not for a moment will they give me a rest ! Marie, is it you ? Why did you bring him here ? ”

“ I just came to see — I did not see — forgive me — “

Nikoldy cleared bis throat and grew silent. Countess Mdrya went away from the door and took her son back to

the nursery. Five minutes later, black-eyed, three-year-old Natäsha, her father’s favourite, learning from her brother that her father was asleep, and that mother was in the sofaroom, ran up to him, unnoticed by her mother. The black-eyed little girl boldly creaked the door, with energetic little steps of her tapping feet went up to the sofa, and, observing the position of her father, who was sleeping with his back toward her, got up on tiptoe and kissed his hand which was lying under his head. Nikolay turned around with a gentle smile on his face.

” Natasha, Natäsha ! ” was heard the frightened whisper of Countess Marya from the other room. ” Papa wants to sleep?’

” No, mamma, he does not want to sleep,” little Natasha replied, with conviction. ” He is laughing.”

Nikolay put down his feet, got up, and took his daughter in his arms.

” Come in, Marie ! ” he said to his wife.

Countess Mdrya entered the room and sat down by her husband’s side.

” I did not see him running after me,” she said, timidly.

” I just wanted to see.”

Nikolriy, holding his daughter with one arm, and seeing the guilty expression of her face, embraced her with the other, and kissed her hair.

” May I kiss mamma ?” he asked NatKsha.

Natdsha smiled in embarrassment.

” Again ! ” she said, with an imperative gesture, pointing to the spot where Nikoldy had kissed his wife.

” I do not know why you think that I am in ill humour,” said Nikolay, replying to the question which, he knew, was in his wife’s mind.

” You can’t imagine how unhappy and lonely I am when you are like that. It then seems to me — ”

” Marie, stop it ! Why are you not ashamed,” he said, merrily.

” It seems to me that you cannot love me, that I am so homely — always — and now — in this condi— ”

” Oh, how funny you are ! Not beauty makes sweetness, but sweetness beauty. Only Malvina and such like are loved because they are beautiful ; but do I love my wife ? I do not love her, but, you know, I do not know how to explain it. Without you, or when we have a tiff, I feel all lost, and can’t do a thing. Do I love my finger ? No, I do not love it, but try to cut it off — ”

“ No, it is different with me, but I understand you. So you are not angry with me ? ”

” I am, terribly,” he said, smiling, and, rising and arranging his hair, he began to walk up and down in the room.

” Do you know, Marie, what I am thinking about ? ” he began, when peace had been made, at once beginning to think aloud in his wife’s presence. He did not ask her whether she was ready to hear him ; that made no difference to him. The thought had come to him, consequently to her, too. He told her of his intention of asking Pierre to stay with them until spring.

Countess Mrlrya listened to him, made her remarks, and began herself to think her thoughts aloud. Her thoughts were of the children.

“How the woman can already be seen in her!” she said, in French, pointing to little Natäsha. ” You accuse us women of being illogical. Here is our logic. I say, ‘ Papa wants to sleep,’ and she says, ‘ No, he is laughing.’ And she is right,” said Countess Mdrya, with a happy smile.

“ Yes, yes,” and Nikoldy, taking his daughter on his strong arm, raised her up high, put her on his shoulders with her legs astride, and began to walk up and down the room with her. Father and daughter had both senselessly happy faces.

“ Do you know, you may be unjust. You love this one

too much,” Countess Märya said, in French, in a whisper.

” Yes, but what is to be doue ? I try not to show it — ” Just then sounds of the door-block and of steps, as though some one had arrived, were heard in the vestibule and anteroom.

” Some one has arrived.”

” I am sure that it is Pierre. I will go and see,” said Countess Marya, leaving the room.

During her absence Nikolay galloped around the room with his daughter. Gasping for breath, he took down his laughing child and pressed her to his breast. His leaps reminded him of dancing, and, looking at her happy, round, childish face, he tried to imagine how she would be when he, an old man, should begin to take her out in society, and how he would dance the mazurka with her, just as his father had danced the Daniel Cooper with his daughter.

” It is he, it is he, Nicolas,” Countess Mârya said a few minutes later, returning to the room. ” Now our Natdsha is herself again. You ought to have seen her transport, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long ! — Come, come at once! Can’t you separate?” she said, smiling, and looking at the girl who was pressing against her father.

Nikoldy went out, leading his daughter by the hand. Countess Mdrya remained in the sofaroom.

” Never, never should I have believed,” she whispered to herself, ” that it is possible to be so happy.” Her face was lighted up by a smile; but, at the same time, she sighed, and calm sorrow was expressed in her profound glance, as though, outside the happiness which she was experiencing, there was another happiness, which was inaccessible in this life, and of which she involuntarily thought at that moment.

X.

Natasha had married early in the spring of the year 1813, and in 1820 she had already three daughters and one son, whom she had wished for so much, and whom she now was nursing. She was broader and fuller now, so that in this healthy mother it was difficult to recognize the once slender and mobile Natasha. Her features were defined and had the expression of calm softness and clearness. In her face there was not, as before, that constant fire of animation, which had formed her charm. Now her face and body could often be seen, but her soul never. All one saw was a sturdy, handsome, fertile female. Her former fire rarely burnt in her now, and that happened only on such occasions, as at that particular time when her husband came back, or when a child got well, or when she and Countess Marya spoke of Prince Andréy (to her husband she never mentioned Prince Andréy, assuming that he was jealous even of his memory), or very rarely, when something accidentally drew her to sing, a thing which she had entirely ceased to do since her marriage. In those rare moments, when the former fire flashed up in her well-developed, beautiful body, she was even more attractive than before.

Since her marriage, Natâsha had been living with her husband in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, and in the Moscow suburban estate, and with her mother, that is with Nikolay. The young Countess Bezukhi was little seen in society, and those who saw her were dissatisfied with her. She was neither attractive nor amiable. It was hard to say

whether Natasha loved solitude (she did not know herself whether she did or not, but now and then she thought she did not) ; but, being pregnant, bearing and nursing her children, and taking part in every minute of her husband’s life, she could not satisfy these wants otherwise than by renouncing the world. All those who had known Natäsha before her marriage marvelled at the change which had taken place in her, as though it were something extraordinary. But the old countess, with her maternal instinct, understood that all of Natdsha’s impulses had for their base the need of having a family and a husband, as she had always said at Oträdnoe, not so much in jest as in earnest. The mother marvelled at the surprise of the people who did not understand Natasha, and kept repeating that she always knew that Natasha would be an exemplary wife and mother.

” The only trouble is, she carries her love for her husband and for her children to excess,” the countess would say, ” so that it is really stupid.”

Natäsha did not follow the golden rule which is preached by clever people, especially by the French, and which is that a girl in marrying must not let herself down and neglect her talents, but should, even more than in girlhood, try to attract her husband, as she attracted men before. Natasha, on the contrary, gave up all her enchantments, of which one was particularly great, her singing. She gave it up for the very reason that it was so seductive. Natäsha took no care of her manners, nor of the delicacy of her speech, nor did she try to appear to her husband in the most advantageous attitudes, nor trouble herself about her toilet, or about the possibility of annoying her husband with her exactions. She did the very opposite to these rules. She felt that all those seductions, which instinct had taught her to use before, would now be ridiculous in the eyes of her husband, to whom she had given herself body and soul from the start, without leaving a single comer hidden from him. She felt that her union with her husband was not sustained by those poetic sentiments which had attracted him to her, but by something else, something indefinite, but firm, like the union of her own soul with her body.

To puff up her locks, put on fine robes, and sing romances in order to attract her husband, would have appeared as strange to her as if she embellished herself, in order to be satisfied with herself. To adorn herself in order to please others might have been agreeable to her, — she did not know about that, — but she had absolutely no time to think of it. The chief reason why she did not busy herself with her singing, her toilet, her speech, was that she had absolutely no time to think of these things.

It is well known that man has the ability to concentrate all his attention on one subject, no matter how insignificant it may be, and that no subject is so insignificant but that, with concentrated attention directed upon it, it will grow up to endless dimensions.

The subject in which Natäsha was completely absorbed was her family, that is, her husband, who had to be kept in such a way as to belong inseparably to her and to the house, and the children, whom she had to carry in her womb, bear, nurse, and rear.

And the more she penetrated, not with her mind, but with her whole soul, into the subject which absorbed all her attention, the more it expanded, and the weaker and more insignificant her strength appeared to her, so that she concentrated it all on one and the same thing, and still did not succeed in doing what to her seemed necessary.

The talks and reflections about the rights of women, about the relations of the married pair, about their freedom and rights, though not yet called ” questions ” as now, were then the same that they are now ; but these questions did not interest Natasha ; she did not even understand them.

These questions then existed as they now exist, for those men alone who in wedlock look only for the pleasure which the married pair derive from each other, that is, for the mere beginning of the married state, and not for its whole significance, which consists in the family.

These reflections and the modern questions, like the questions of how to derive the greatest enjoyment out of a dinner, did not exist then, and do not exist now, among people whose purpose in dining is nutrition, and whose purpose of matrimony is the family.

If the purpose of the dinner is the nutrition of the body, then he who eats two dinners may derive greater enjoyment, but will not attain his aim, because two dinners will not be digested in his stomach.

If the purpose of matrimony is the family, then he who wants to have many wives, or she who wants to have many husbands, may derive much pleasure, but in no case will have a family.

The whole question, if the purpose of dining is nutrition, and the purpose of marriage the family, is solved if one does not eat more than one can digest, and has no more wives, or husbands, than is necessary to rear a family, that is one. Natdsha needed a husband. A husband was given to her, and the husband gave her the family. And she saw no necessity for any other better husband. As all her spiritual powers were directed toward serving this man and her family, she could not imagine, and saw no interest in imagining, what would have happened if it had been otherwise.

Natdsha did not like society in general ; but she valued so much the more the company of her relatives, of Countess Mdrya, her brother, her mother, and 86nya. She valued the company of those people to whom she, dishevelled, in her morninggown, could walk out with long strides from the nursery, with a radiant face showing them the diaper with a yellow instead of a green spot upon it, and listening to their assurances that the baby was much better now.

Natäsha let herself down to such an extent that her costumes, her coiffures, her inappropriate remarks, her jealousy, — she was jealous of Sdnya, of the governess, of every pretty and every homely woman, — were a standing subject for jokes with all her near friends. The general opinion was that Pierre was under his wife’s thumb, and that was really so. Natäsha made her peremptory demands on him soon after her marriage. Pierre was surprised at this to him entirely new view of his wife, which was that every minute of his life belonged to her and his family ; Pierre was surprised at his wife’s demands, but he was flattered by them and submitted to them.

Pierre’s submission consisted in this, that he did not dare to court a woman, or even to talk to one with a smile ; that he did not dare to drive to the clubs for dinners, just to pass the time there ; that he did not dare to spend money on small vices ; that he did not dare to leave for a long period of time, except on business, in which she included his occupations with the sciences, of which she did not understand a thing, but to which she ascribed great importance. To compensate for this, Pierre had full liberty in the house, to dispose of himself, and even of the family, as he pleased. In her house, Natasha placed herself on the footing of her husband’s slave ; and the whole house walked on tiptoe when Pierre was busy, — when he read or wrote in his cabinet. Pierre had only to show a predilection for anything, in order to have his whim satisfied all the time. He needed only to express a wish, and Natäsha sprang up and ran to execute it.

The whole house was guided by the seeming commands of her husband, that is, by his wishes, which she tried to divine. Natäsha’s manner of life, domicile, acquaintances, connections, occupations, and the education of her children were not only determined by Pierre’s explicit will, but Natdsha tried to guess what might follow from the thoughts expressed by him in conversations. And she divined correctly the essence of Pierre’s wishes, and, having once guessed it, she persistently held on to it. If Pierre himself wanted to change his wish, she fought against him with his own weapon.

Thus, during a grave period, which for ever remained memorable to Pierre, after the birth of her first, weakly child, when they had to change three wet-nurses and Natdsha grew ill from despair, Pierre once communicated to her Rousseau’s ideas, with which he fully agreed, about the unnaturalness and harm of wet-nurses. With the next baby, in spite of the opposition of the mother, the doctors, and her husband himself, who rose in a body against her nursing as an unheard-of and injurious thing, she stuck to her determination, and ever afterward nursed her own children.

Very frequently, in moments of irritation, it happened that they quarrelled, but much later Pierre, to his joy and surprise, discovered, not only in his wife’s words, but also in her actions, that she had adopted the very idea against which she had struggled before. And he not only found that idea in her, but it was purified from all the dross, caused by the exaggeration and the heat of the discussion in the expression of Pierre’s idea.

After seven years of married life, Pierre was conscious of a joyous, definite feeling that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife. In himself he felt everything good and bad mixed and dimmed ; but in his wife only that was reflected which was truly good ; everything not absolutely good was rejected. This reflection was not brought about by logical reasoning, but in some other mysterious, direct way.

XI.

Two months before, Pierre, when he was already visiting the Rostdvs, had received a letter from Prince Fédor, who called him to St. Petersburg to deliberate on certain important questions which in St. Petersburg engaged the attention of the members of a certain society, of which Pierre was one of the chief founders.

Having read this letter, Natasha, who always read her husband’s correspondence, in spite of the whole burden which would fall upon her through her husband’s absence, herself proposed to him that he should go. To everything which was her husband’s mental, abstract business she, not understanding it, ascribed a very great importance and lived in eternal fear lest she should be an obstacle to her husband’s activity. To Pierre’s timid, questioning glance, after he had read the letter, she replied by begging him to go, asking him only to tell her definitely the time of his return. He received his leave of absence for four weeks.

From the time that the period of Pierre’s leave was over, that is, for two weeks, Natasha lived in a constant state of fear, sadness, and irritation.

Denisov, now an ex-general, who was dissatisfied with the contemporary state of affairs, and who had arrived during those two weeks, looked at Natdsha with surprise and melancholy, as on a bad likeness of a once beloved person. Her gloomy, tedious glance, inappropriate answers, and nursery talk was all he saw or heard from his former enchantress.

Natasha was sad and irritated all the time, especially when her mother, her brother, Sônya, or Countess Marya tried to console her by finding excuses for Pierre, and inventing reasons for his delay.

“ Nonsense, bosh,” said Natâsha, ” all these deliberations which lead nowhere, and all these stupid societies ! ” she said of the very affairs in whose great importance she had implicit faith. And she went to the nursery to feed her only boy, Pétya.

No one could tell her anything so sensible or give her so much comfort as that three-months-old being, as he lay at her breast, and she felt the motion of his mouth and the sniffling of his nose. This being said to her: “You are angry, you are jealous, you would like to have your revenge, you are afraid, but I am he. I am he — ” And there was no answer to it. It was more than the truth.

During these two weeks of unrest Natésha had had recourse so often to the babe for consolation, and busied herself so much with him, that she overfed him, and he grew sick. She was afraid for his health, and that was precisely what she needed. Attending to him, she could more easily bear her uneasiness about her husband.

She was nursing the child when Pierre’s vehicle was heard at the porch, and the nurse, who knew what would make her mistress happy, with inaudible but rapid steps and a beaming countenance entered the room.

“Has he come?” Natäsha asked, in a rapid whisper, fearing to move, lest she should wake the child, who had fallen asleep.

“ Yes, my lady,” whispered the nurse.

The blood rushed to Natäsha’s face, and her feet instinctively moved ; but she could not jump up and run. The boy again opened his eyes and looked up. “ You are here,” he seemed to say, and again indolently smacked his little lips.

Slowly pulling away her breast, Natasha jumped up, turned him over to the nurse, and walked with rapid steps toward the door. But at the door she stopped, as though feeling scruples for having left the child so soon, and she looked back. The nurse, with uplifted elbows, lifted the child over the balustrade of his crib.

” Go, go, my lady ! Don’t worry ! Go !” the nurse whispered, smiling, with a certain familiarity which had established itself between the nurse and the mistress.

Natasha ran with light steps into the antechamber.

Denisov, who, smoking his pipe, had gone from the cabinet to the parlour, now for the first time recognized Natdsha. A bright, sparkling, joyous light emanated in streams from her transformed face.

” He has come ! ” she called out to him on her run, and Denisov felt that he himself was in a transport because Pierre had come, though he had little love for him. On reaching the anteroom, Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat, unwrapping himself.

” It is he, he ! Yes. Here he is,” she muttered to herself, and, flying up to him, she embraced him and pressed his head to her breast, and then, pushing him away, looked at his ruddy, happy face, covered with hoarfrost. “ Yes, it is he ! Happy, satisfied — ”

And suddenly she thought of all the torments of expectancy through which she had passed in the last two weeks : the beaming joy on her face became veiled ; she frowned, and a torrent of reproaches and resentful words was poured forth on Pierre.

“ Yes, you were comfortable, you had a good time, you have enjoyed yourself — But how was it with me ? If you only pitied the children. I am nursing, and my milk is spoilt — Pétya was sick unto death. And you are having a good time. Yes, you are — ”

Pierre knew that he was not guilty, because he could not have come earlier ; he knew that this outburst of hers

was improper, and that it would pass in two minutes ; he knew, above everything else, that he was happy. He felt like smiling, but did not dare to think of it even. He made a pitiful, frightened face, and bent his head.

” I could not, upon my word. But how is Pétya ? “

« He is all right now. Come ! Aren’t you ashamed ? If you only could see how I feel when you are not here, how I suffer — “

” Are you well ? ”

” Come, come ! ” she said, still holding his hand. And they went to their apartments.

When Nikoläy and his wife went to find Pierre, he was in the nursery, having in his enormous right hand the awakened babe, whom he was holding out. On Pétya’s broad face with the open, toothless mouth stood a happy smile. The storm had spent itself long ago, and a bright, joyous sun gleamed on the face of Natasha, who was looking at her husband and her son with emotion.

” Have you talked everything over with Prince Fédor ? ” asked Natäsha.

” Yes, everything.”

“You see, he holds it up” (Natdsha meant his head). ” What a fright he gave me ! — Did you see the princess ? Is it true that she is in love with that — ”

” Yes, just think of — ”

The door opened, and Nikoldy and Countess Mdrya entered the room. Without putting his son down, Pierre bent over and kissed them, and answered their questions. But it was evident that, in spite of the many interesting things that he had to communicate, his baby in its cap, with its nodding head, absorbed his whole attention.

” How sweet ! ” said Countess Mdrya, looking at the child, and playing with him. ” I cannot understand, Nicolas,” she turned to her husband, ” how it is you do not appreciate the charm of these sweet little things ! “

” I do not, I can’t,” said Nikoläy, looking at the baby with a cold glance. ” A bit of flesh. Come, Pierre! ”

“ And he is such a tender father,” said Countess Marya, trying to justify her husband, « but only when they are a year old, or — ”

” Beally, Pierre takes excellent care of them,” said Natdsha. “He says that his palm just fits the baby’s bottom. Just see!”

” Only not for this business,” Pierre said, with a sudden burst of laughter, putting his arms about the child and giving him to the nurse.

XII.

As in every real family, there were in the manor at Lÿsyya Gory several distinct worlds, which, retaining each its peculiarities and making allowances for one another, blended into one harmonious whole. Each event that took place in the house, whether cheerful or sad, was equally important to all those separate worlds, but each world had its distinct, independent causes to rejoice or feel sorrow on account of the event.

Thus Pierre’s arrival was a joyous, important event, and as such it was reflected in all.

The servants, the safest judges of their masters, because they do not judge by conversations or by expressions of feeling, but by the acts and manner of life, rejoiced in Pierre’s arrival because they knew that, while he was there, the count would not go out on the farm daily, and would be more cheerful and better to them, and also because there would be fine presents given on the holiday.

The children and the governesses were glad of Bezukhi’s arrival because no one drew them so much into the general drift of life as he did. He was the only one who could play on the clavichord that écossaise (his only piece), at the sounds of which, as he said, one could dance any dance imaginable, and, no doubt, he had brought presents for everybody.

Nikélenka, Prince Andréy’s son, who now was a lean, sickly, clever boy of fifteen, with curly blond hair, was glad because Uncle Pierre, as he called him, was the object of his admiration and impassioned love. No one had instilled any special love for Pierre in Nikdlenka, and he saw him but rarely. His guardian, Countess Märya, used every effort to make Nikdlenka love her husband as she loved him, and Nikolenka did love his uncle ; but he loved him with a barely perceptible shade of contempt, whereas he worshipped Pierre. He did not want to be a hussar, nor a chevalier of St. George, like Uncle Nikoläy, but he wanted to be learned, clever, and good, like Pierre. In Pierre’s presence there was always a joyful lustre in his face, and he blushed and gasped for breath whenever Pierre addressed him. He did not lose a word of what Pierre told him, and later he recalled with Desalles and by himself every word uttered by him, and tried to make out its meaning. Pierre’s past life, his misfortunes before the year 1812 (of which he had formed a dim, poetical conception from such things as he had heard about him), his love for Natasha (whom, too, the boy loved with a peculiar love), and, above all, his friendship with his father, whom Nikdlenka did not remember, made of Pierre something heroic and holy to him.

From the interrupted talks about his father and Natäsha, from the agitation with which Pierre spoke of the deceased man, from that careful, reverential tenderness with which Natdsha spoke of him, the boy, who had just begun to comprehend love, formed the conception that his father had loved Natdsha, and had, dying, bequeathed her to his friend. His father, whom the boy did not remember, presented himself to him as a divinity above all human comprehension, of whom he did not think otherwise than with trepidation and with tears of sorrow and transport. And so the boy was happy on account of Pierre’s arrival.

The guests were glad to see Pierre, as he was a man who always cheered up and unified any company he was in.

The grown homefolk, not to mention his wife, were

glad to see a friend, with whom life went more easily and more calmly.

The old ladies were glad, because they would get some presents from him, and because, above all, Natdsha would revive.

Pierre felt all these various attitudes of the different worlds toward him, and hastened to give each his due.

Pierre, the most absent-minded, forgetful of men, had bought everything according to the list made up for him by his wife, without forgetting the commissions of the mother and the brother, or the material for a dress for Miss Byélov, or the toys for his nephews. During the first period of his marriage this demand of his wife that he should carry out to the letter his intention of buying presents, without forgetting anything, had seemed strange to him, and he was startled by her serious grief when, during his first journey, he made a muddle of his purchases. But later he became accustomed to it. Knowing that Natäsha never asked him to buy anything for herself, and ordered him to buy for others only when he himself expressed his desire to do so, he now experienced a certain childish enjoyment in these purchases of presents for the whole house, and never forgot anything. If he deserved any rebuke from Natdsha, he deserved it for buying too much and too expensive things. To all of what were, in the opinion of the majority, her faults, such as slovenliness and neglect, and in Pierre’s opinion, her good qualities, Natäsha added stinginess.

Ever since Pierre began to keep a great house, with a large family, demanding great expenditures, he to Iris surprise discovered that he spent half as much as before, and that his affairs, which had been in a ruinous state, especially on account of the debts of his first wife, were beginning to mend.

It cost him less to live because life was circumscribed : Pierre no longer indulged in that costly luxury, which consisted in that kind of life which could be changed at any moment, nor did he wish to have it. He felt that his mode of life was now determined once for all until his death and that it was not in his power to change it, and so it was inexpensive.

Pierre with a happy, smiling face laid out his purchases.

” How is this ? ” he said, opening up, like a shopkeeper, a piece of cloth.

Natdsha, holding her eldest daughter on her knees, and swiftly transferring her lustrous eyes from her husband to what he was showing, sat opposite him.

“This is for Miss Byélov? Excellent.” She felt the goods. ” I suppose a rouble an arshin ? “

Pierre told her the price.

” Too much,” said Natäsha. “ How happy the children and mamma will be ! Why did you buy this for me ? ” she added, unable to repress a smile, as she looked at a golden comb set in pearls, such as were just coming into fashion.

“ Adèle insisted that I should buy it,” said Pierre.

” When shall I put it on ? ” Natasha put it in her hair. ” It will be good to take Mäsha out into society ; maybe they will wear them again then. Come now!”

And picking up the presents, they went, first to the nursery, and then to the countess.

The countess was sitting with Miss Byélov and, as was her custom, was laying out a Grand-patience, when Pierre and Natasha, with the bundles under their arms, entered the drawingroom.

The countess was more than sixty years old. She was all gray and wore a cap, the ruche of which came down over her whole face. Her face was wrinkled ; her upper lip had receded, and her eyes were dim.

After the death of her son and of her husband, which followed rapidly one after the other, she suddenly felt herself a forgotten being in the world, without any aim or meaning. She ate, drank, slept, kept awake, but did not live. Life gave her no impressions. She needed nothing of life but rest, and this rest she could find only in death. But, while death did not come, she had to live, that is, make use of her powers of life. In her was developed in the highest degree that which may be observed in very small children and very old people. In her life could be seen no external purpose, but only the necessity to exercise her various inclinations and functions. She had to eat, sleep, think, talk, weep, work, get angry, and so forth, because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. All this she did, not under any external stimulus, as people do in the full vigour of life, when the purpose of the application of their forces cannot be seen back of the other purpose toward which they tend. She talked only because she had the physical necessity of working her lungs and her tongue. She wept, like a child, because she had to clear her nose, and so forth. That which for people in their full vigour appeared as a purpose, for her evidently was an excuse.

Thus, in the morning, especially if the day before she had eaten something fat, she felt the necessity of being angry, and then she chose the nearest excuse, — Miss Byélov’s deafness.

She began to tell her something in a soft tone of voice from the other end of the room.

“ To-day it feels warmer, my dear,” she said, in a whisper.

And then Miss Byélov replied, in a gruff voice :

” Yes, he has come.”

” 0 Lord, how deaf and how stupid ! “

Another excuse was her snuff, which now seemed to her too dry, now too moist, or badly crushed. After such irritations, the bile spread over her face, and her maids had sure signs when Miss Byélov would again be deaf, and the snuff moist, and her face yellow. Just as she had to put her bile into operation, so she had now and then to put to work her still existing faculty of thinking, and then a solitaire was her excuse. When she had to weep, her late husband was a pretext. When it was necessary to be agitated, Nikoldy and his health were the excuse ; when she had to make some venomous remarks, Countess Mdrya was the excuse. When she had to give exercise to her organ of speaking, — this generally was at seven o’clock, after a rest of her alimentary canal in a dark room, — the excuse was the telling of ever the same stories to ever the same hearers.

This condition of the old woman was understood by everybody in the house, though nobody ever spoke of it and all made every imaginable effort to satisfy these wants of hers. Only in a casual glance or a sad halfsmile, directed at each other by Nikolay, Pierre, Natäsha, and Countess Mdrya, was expressed their mutual comprehension of her state.

But these glances also told something else ; they told that she had done her work in life ; that she was not all which now was visible in her ; that all of us would be like that some day ; and that it was a joy to submit to her, to restrain ourselves for the sake of this to us once dear, but now pitiable being, which was once as full of life as we are. ” Memento mori,” these glances said.

Of the whole household, only very bad and stupid people and the little children did not understand her and kept away from her.

XIII.

When Pierre and his wife came to the drawingroom, the countess was in her habitual state of needing a mental exercise, which found its expression in a Grand-patience, and so, although she spoke the words, which she usually employed at the return of her son or of Pierre, ” It is time, it is time, my dear ; we have been waiting for you ; thank God ! ” and, when she received her presents, uttered the other customary words, ” The present is not expensive, my son ; thank you for remembering me, the old woman,” — it was evident that Pierre’s arrival was not pleasant to her at that moment, because it took away her attention from the Grand-patience. She finished the solitaire, and then only got up to receive her presents. They consisted of a card-case of fine workmanship, of a light blue Sèvres cup, with a lid and shepherd figures, and of a gold snuffbox with the count’s portrait, which Pierre had ordered of a miniaturist in St. Petersburg, and which the countess had long been wishing for. She did not feel like weeping just then, and so she looked indifferently at the portrait and busied herself more with the card-case.

” Thank you, my dear ! You have given me pleasure,” she said. ” But the best thing is that you have brought yourself back. Really, it did look dreadful! You ought to scold your wife for it. Why, she is like an insane person without you. She sees nothing, remembers nothing,” she spoke her customary sentences. ” See, Anna Timofeevna,” she added, ” what a card-case my son has brought me!”

Anna Byélov praised the presents and admired her cloth.

Although Pierre, Natdsha, Nikolay, Countess Märya, and Denisov had a great many things to talk about, things that were not mentioned in the hearing of the countess, not because anything was concealed from her, but because she had fallen so far behind the times that, when anything was talked of in her presence it became necessary to reply to her questions, inappropriately put, and to repeat the same tiling several times : to tell her that such and such a one had died, another had married, which, being a new piece of information, she was unable to remember ; — yet, following their old habit, they sat in the drawingroom at the samovar, and to the countess’s questions Pierre gave answers which she herself did not need, and which did not interest any one, about Prince Vasili, who had grown old, and about Marya Aleksyéevna, who sent her best regards, and so forth.

Such a conversation, which interested no one, but nevertheless was necessary, was carried on during the whole time of the tea. All the grown members of the family generally assembled about a round table with the samovar, at which sat Sdnya. The children, the tutors, and the governesses had had their tea, and their voices could be heard from the adjoining sofaroom. At tea all occupied their habitual seats : Nikolay sat down at the stove, behind a small table, on which his tea was served. Old greyhound Milka, the daughter of the first Milka, with her completely gray face, on which her large, black eyes bulged out more than ever, lay in a chair near him. Denisov, with his curly, half-gray hair, moustache, and sidewhiskers, wearing the uniform of a general all unbuttoned, was sitting near Countess Marya. Pierre was seated between his wife and the old countess. He was telling her what, he knew, might interest the old woman and would be intelligible to her. He spoke of external social matters and about people who at one time had formed the circle of the old countess’s contemporaries, and who formerly had been an actual, living, separate circle, but who now, scattered for the most part through the world, were living out their days like her, garnering the last ears of what they had sowed in life. But they, those contemporaries of hers, appeared to the old countess as the only serious and real world. Natdsha saw, by Pierre’s animation, that his journey had been interesting and that he wished to tell many things, but did not dare to do so in the presence of the old countess. Denisov, not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre’s caution, and, besides, as one of the dissatisfied, was very much interested in finding out the news in St. Petersburg, and so he kept provoking Pierre to tell about the late incident in the Seménovski regiment, about Arakchéev, and about the Bible Society. Pierre now and then was carried away by these subjects, and started to tell about them, but Nikoläy and Natasha every time took him back to the health of Prince Ivdn and Countess Marya Antdnovna.

“ How about all that madness, Gossner and Tatdri-nova,” asked Denisov, “is it still being kept up?”

” Is it kept up ? ” exclaimed Pierre. ” Worse than ever. The Bible Society is now the whole government.”

“ What is that, mon cher ami ? ” asked the countess, who had finished her tea and now apparently needed a pretext to get angry, after having partaken of her food. “What do you mean by the government? I do not understand.”

“ You see, mamma,” interposed Nikolay, who knew how to translate into his mother’s language, “Prince A. N. Golitsyn has founded a society, and so he is very powerful, they say.”

“Arakchéev and Golitsyn,” Pierre said, incautiously, “ are now the whole government. And what a government ! In everything they see plots ; they are afraid of everything.”

“ How is Aleksandr Nikoldevich to blame ? He is a very honourable man. I used to meet him in those days at Marya Antonovna’s,” the countess said, provoked, and, still more provoked to hear them all silent, she continued : ” They pass judgment now on everybody. An evangelical society, — where is the harm ? ” and she got up (so did the rest) and with a stern look sailed out into the sofaroom, to her table.

During the melancholy silence which ensued, children’s voices and laughter were heard in the adjoining room. Apparently some joyful agitation had taken possession of the children.

“ Ready, ready ! ” was heard, louder than all, the wail of joy of little Natasha. Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Marya and Nikolay (he saw Natasha all the time) and smiled a happy smile.

” What charming music ! ” he said.

“ Anna Makdrovna has finished knitting a stocking,” said Countess Mdrya.

“ Oh, I must go and see,” said Pierre, leaping up. ” Do you know,” he said, stopping at the door, “ why I particularly love this music ? They are the first to tell me that everything is well. As I was travelling to-day I felt more and more uneasy the nearer I came to the house. As I entered the anteroom, I heard Andryusha laughing for all he was worth, and I knew that everything was well — ”

” I know, I know the feeling,” Nikolay confirmed him. “ I can’t go with you, because the stockings are to be a surprise for me.”

Pierre went to the children, and the laughter and shouts grew louder still

“Well, Anna Makarovna,” was heard Pierre’s voice, ” you stand here, in the middle of the room, and at the command of one, two — and when I say three — You stand here. You get in my arms. Well, one, two — ” said Pierre. A silence ensued. ” Three ! ” and there rose

a groan of transport, uttered by the children in the room. ” Two, two ! ” cried the children.

Those were two stockings which, according to a secret known to her alone, Anna Makdrovna had knit at the same time, and which she always solemnly took out one from the other before the children, whenever the work was done.

XIV.

Soon after the children came to say good night. The children kissed everybody, and the governesses and tutors bowed themselves out and went away. Desalles alone with his pupil remained in the room. The tutor in a whisper asked the boy to go downstairs.

” Non, M. Desalles, je demanderai à ma tante de rester,” Nikdlenka Bolkdnski answered him, also in a whisper.

” Ma tante, permit me to stay,” said Nikdlenka, walking over to his aunt. His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. The countess looked at him and turned to Pierre.

” When you are here, he cannot tear himself away,” she said to him.

” Je vous le ramènerai tout-à-l’heure, M. Desalles ; bonsoir ! ” said Pierre, giving the Swiss his hand, and, smiling, he turned to Nikolenka : ” We have not seen each other yet. Marie, how much like him he is getting to be ! ” he added, turning to Countess Marya.

“ Like father ? ” asked the boy, blushing purple and looking up at Pierre with his ecstatic, beaming eyes.

Pierre nodded to him and continued the story which had been interrupted by the children. Countess Marya was working on the embroideryframe ; Natdsha did not take her eyes off her husband. Nikoldy and Denisov kept getting up, asking for their pipes, smoking, taking tea from Sdnya, who sat gloomy and sullen at the samovar, and putting questions to Pierre. The curly-headed,

sickly boy, with his lustrous eyes, sat, unnoticed by any one, in the corner. Turning his curly head on his thin neck, which protruded from a turnover collar, in the direction where Pierre was, he now and then shuddered and whispered to himself, evidently experiencing a new, powerful sensation.

The conversation turned on that contemporary gossip from the higher spheres of the administration, in which the majority of people generally find the most important interest of internal politics. Denisov, who was dissatisfied with the government on account of his failure in the service, was glad to hear of all the stupid things which, in his opinion, were now being done in St. Petersburg, and in sharp, vigorous expressions commented on Pierre’s words.

” Formerly one had to be a German, and now one must dance with TaUrinova and read Madame Kriidner — Eckarthausen and the brotherhood. Oh, I should like to see our good fellow Bonaparte come down on them once more. He would drive all the nonsense out of them. What sense is there in giving the Seménovski regiment to the soldier Schwartz ? ” he shouted.

Though not possessed of that desire, which Denisov had, of finding everything bad, Nikoldy considered it proper and important to pass judgment on the government, and thought that the fact that A–-had been appointed minister of such and such an office, and that B–—was sent

as governorgeneral to such and such a place, and that the emperor had said this and that, and a minister had expressed himself so and so, was of prime importance. And he regarded it as necessary to take an interest in these things and to ask Pierre questions about them. So long as those two interlocutors plied him with questions, the conversation did not depart from that general character of gossiping about the higher administrative spheres.

But Natdsha, who knew all the hidden thoughts of her husband, saw that he had long been trying to turn the conversation into another groove, without being able to do so. He wanted to tell them his secret thought, the one on account of which he had gone to St. Petersburg to consult his new friend, Prince Fédor, and she helped him out with the question :

” How about the affair with Prince Fédor ? “

” What is that ? ” asked Nikoläy.

” Still the same,” said Pierre, looking around him. ” Everybody sees that matters proceed so badly that they cannot be left as they are, and that it is the duty of all honest men to counteract this condition to the best of their ability.”

« What can the honest men do ? ” Nikolay said, slightly frowning. ” What can be done ? ”

« This — ! “

” Bet us go to the cabinet! ” said Nikolay.

Natäsha, who had been expecting to be called to feed the baby, heard the nurse’s call, and went to the nursery. Countess Mdrya followed her. The men went to the cabinet, and Nikdlenka Bolkdnski, unnoticed by his uncle, entered too, and seated himself in the shadow, at the writing-desk near the window.

” Well, what are you going to do ? ” asked Denisov.

” Mere fancy,” said Nikolay.

” This,” began Pierre, without sitting down. He now paced the room, now stopped, lisping and making quick motions with his arms, while he was speaking. ” It is this. The situation in St. Petersburg is like this: the emperor does not take part in anything. He is all absorbed in that mysticism.” (Pierre now forgave no one his mysticism.) ” He is looking only for quiet, and this quiet is given him by those men sans foi ni loi, who hew everything down from the shoulder: Magnitski, Arakchéev, and tutti quanti— You will admit that if you did not busy yourself with the farm, but were looking only for quiet, your burghmaster would be so much the more cruel, and you would attain your end so much the sooner,” he turned to Nikoldy.

“ What are you saying this for ? ” asked Nikolay.

” Well, everything is perishing. They steal in the courts, and in the army the stick rules: nothing but marching and military settlements ; — they are tormenting the people ; they are crushing enlightenment. They destroy everything that is young and honest. All see that things cannot go on that way. Everything is stretched too much, and it must burst,” said Pierre (as people have been saying ever since governments have existed, whenever they examine the acts of those governments). ” I told them a thing in St. Petersburg.”

” Whom ? ” asked Denisov.

” Well, you know whom,” said Pierre, casting a significant, stealthy look at them. “Prince Fédor and the rest. It is all very nice to do all you can for enlightenment and charity, — of course. It’s a fine purpose, and all that; but, in the present circumstances, something different is wanted.”

At that time Nikoldy noticed the presence of his nephew. His face grew sullen ; he walked over to him.

” What are you doing here ? “

” Why, leave him ! ” said Pierre, taking Nikoldy’s hand, and continuing : ” That is not enough, — I told them. Now we need something else. When you stand and wait for that strained string to burst, when all are waiting for the inevitable revolution, — it is necessary for as many people as possible to unite closely and walk hand in hand in order to withstand the general catastrophe. All the youthful, vigorous elements are attracted by it and are corrupted. One is seduced by women, another by honours, a third by ambition, or money, and they go over to that camp. There are left no independent, free men, such as you and I. I told them to widen the circle of the society and let the mot d’ordre be not merely virtue, but independence and activity.”

Nikolay after leaving his nephew, angrily moved his chair away, sat down in it, and, listening to Pierre, angrily cleared his throat and kept frowning more and more.

“What do you want with activity?” he exclaimed. ” And in what relation will you stand to the government ? “

“ In the relation of helpers. The society need not be a secret one, if the government will permit it. It is not inimical to the government, — it is a society of real conservatives, a society of gentlemen in the full acceptance of the word. All we want is that Pugachév shall not slaughter my children and yours, and that Arakchéev shall not send me into a military settlement. We go hand in hand for this only : our aim is the common good and the common safety.”

” Yes ; but it is a secret organization, consequently hostile and harmful, and it can do only an injury.”

” Why? Has the Tugendbund, which has saved Europe ” (at that time they did not yet dare believe that it was Russia that had saved Europe), ” produced anything harmful ? The Tugendbund is a society of virtue : it is love, mutual aid ; it is what Christ has preached on the cross.”

Natasha, who had entered the room in the middle of the conversation, looked joyfully at her husband. She was not rejoiced at what he was saying. It did not even interest her, for she thought that it was all extraordinarily simple and that she had always known it (it seemed so to her because she knew all that it originated from, — Pierre’s whole soul) ; but she was happy, looking at his animated, ecstatic face.

Still more ecstatically and blissfully Pierre was watched by the boy, who was forgotten by everybody, with his thin neck protruding from the turnover collar. Every word of Pierre’s burnt his heart, and, without knowing it, he with a nervous movement of his fingers broke the sealing-wax and the pens on his uncle’s desk, that fell into his hands.

« Not at all what you imagine. Let me tell you what the German Tugendbund was, and what the society is winch I have proposed.”

” My friend, the Tugendbund may be good enough for the sausageeaters, — Ido not know about that, and have no objection to it,” was heard Denisov’s loud, determined voice. ” Everything is bad and base, I admit, only I do not understand your Tugendbund ; if things do not go well, let us bunt, that’s what. Je suis vot’e homme.”

Pierre smiled and Natàsha laughed ; but Nikoldy knit his brow more than before and began to prove to Pierre that no revolution was in sight, and that the whole peril, which he foresaw, was only in his imagination. Pierre proved the opposite, and as his mental powers were stronger and more versatile, Nikoldy felt that he got the worst of the argument. This angered him still more, for in his innermost soul he knew, not by reflection, but by something more powerful than reflection, that his opinion was indisputably correct.

” Let me tell you,” he said, getting up, and with nervous movements putting his pipe in the corner and giving it up altogether. ” I cannot prove it to you. You say that everything is in a bad shape with us, and that there will be an overthrow, — I do not see it ; but you say that an oath is a conventional matter, and I say to you : you are my best friend, you know that, but form a secret society, begin to work against the government, whatever it be, and I know that it is my duty to obey the latter. And let Arakchéev command me to go against you with a squadron and mow you down, — I will not hesitate for a second, and will go. You may judge me as you please.”

After these words ensued an awkward silence. Nat risk a was the first to speak. She defended her husband and attacked her brother. The conversation was again taken up, and no longer in that disagreeable and hostile tone in which Nikoldy’s last words had been said.

When all rose to go to supper, Nikdlenka Bolkonski went up to Pierre. He was pale, and his lustrous eyes were sparkling.

” Uncle Pierre — you — no — If papa were alive — would he have agreed with you ? ” he asked.

Pierre suddenly comprehended what peculiar, independent, complex, and vigorous work of mind and sentiment had been going on in the boy during the conversation, and, recalling all he had said, he was sorry that the boy had heard him. Still, he had to answer him.

” I think he would,” he said, reluctantly, leaving the cabinet.

The boy bent his head and now for the first time noticed what he had done on the table. His face was flushed, and he went up to Nikolay.

“Uncle, pardon me! I did it, — unwittingly,” he said, pointing to the broken sealing-wax and pens.

Nikoläy gave an angry jerk.

” All right, all right,” he said, throwing away the bits of sealing-wax and the pens. And, apparently unable to restrain the wrath which had risen in him, he turned away from him.

“You had no business being here anyway,” he said.

XV.

At supper the conversation no longer turned on politics and societies, but on the recollections of the year 1812, which was quite to the liking of Nikoldy. It was provoked by Denisov, and Pierre was here very charming and amusing. They all parted with the happiest of feelings for each other.

When, after supper, Nikoldy, having undressed himself in the cabinet and having given his orders to the superintendent who had been waiting for him, came in his morninggown into the sleeping-room, he found his wife still at the writing-desk : she was writing something.

” What are you writing, Marie ? ” asked Nikoldy.

Countess Mdrya blushed. She was afraid that what she had written would not be understood or approved by her husband. She would have liked to conceal from him what she had written, but, at the same time, she was glad that he had found her at work, and that she would have to tell him.

” It is a diary, Nicolas,” she said, handing him a blue note-book, filled with her firm, large writing.

” A diary ? ” Nikoldy said, with a shade of sarcasm, taking the note-book into his hands. It was written in French.

” December 4th. This morning Andryusha ” (her eldest son), ” on getting up, did not want to get dressed, and Mlle. Louise sent for me. He was whimsical and stubborn. I tried to threaten him, but he got angrier still. So I changed my manner : I left him alone, and, with the nurse, began to dress the other children, but told him that I did not love him. He was silent for a long time, as though amazed ; then he leaped out of his bed in his shirt, ran up to me, and wept so bitterly that I could not quiet him for a long time. It was evident that he was tormented at having grieved me ; then, in the evening, when I gave him a ticket, he again wept pitifully, as he kissed me. One can do anything with him by kindness.”

” What is a ticket ? ” asked Nikolay.

” I have begun to give the elder children notes in the evening, telling of their conduct.”

Nikolay glanced at her beaming eyes that were looking at him, and continued to turn the pages and to read. In this diary was noted down everything in the lives of the children which seemed to the mother of any importance in defining their character, or giving hints, about educational methods. These observations were for the most part about trifles, but they did not seem so to the mother, nor now to the father, who was reading them for the first time.

Under December 5th it said:

“ Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said not to let him have any pastry. He got none ; but he looked so pitifully and so eagerly at the others, as they ate theirs ! I think that punishing, by refusing sweetmeats, only develops a longing for them. Must tell Nicolas.”

Nikoldy put the book aside, and looked at his wife. Her beaming eyes looked interrogatively at him, to discover whether he approved of the diary or not. There could be no doubt of Nikoldy’s approval of his wife’s action ; he admired it.

Maybe it was not necessary to do it so pedantically, maybe not at all, thought Nikolay ; but this incessant, eternal straining, having for its aim only the moral good of the children, delighted him. If Nikoldy had been able to analyze his feeling, he would have found that the chief foundation of his firm, tender, and proud love for his wife had for its basis that sense of admiration for her spirituality, for that elevated moral world, almost inaccessible to Nikoldy, in which his wife had always lived.

He was proud of her cleverness and goodness, recognizing at the same time his insignificance in the spiritual world, and so he was greatly rejoiced because she, with her soul, not only belonged to him, but formed part of himself.

” I approve of it very, very much, my dear,” he said, with a significant glance. And, after a moment’s silence, he added: “I have acted miserably to-day. You were not in the cabinet. Pierre and I had a heated debate, and I lost my temper. I could not help it. He is such a baby. I do not know what would happen to him if Natasha did not hold him in check. Can you imagine what he went to St. Petersburg for ? They have founded there — “

” Yes, I know,” said Countess Marya. ” Natdsha has told me.”

” Well, then you know,” Nikoldy continued, getting excited at the very recollection of the dispute. “He wants to convince me that it is the duty of every honest man to go against the government, while oath and duty — I am sorry you were not there. They all fell upon me, Denisov and Natdsha — Natdsha is very amusing. She keeps him under her thumb, but the moment it comes to reflections, she has no words of her own, — she talks his words,” added Nikoldy, succumbing to that invincible tendency to pass judgment on very near and dear people. Nikoldy forgot that what he was saying about Natdsha could have been said, word for word, of him in reference to his wife.

“Yes, I have noticed it,” said Countess Mdrya.

” When I told them that duty and oath stood higher than anything else, he began to prove to me God knows what. I am sorry you were not there. I wonder what you would have said.”

” In my opinion, you are quite right. I told Natdsha so. Pierre says that all suffer, are tormented, and corrupted, and that it is our duty to aid our neighbours. Of course, he is right,” said Countess Mdrya, “ but he forgets that we have other, nearer duties, which God himself has pointed out to us, and that we may risk our own lives, but not those of our children.”

” Precisely, precisely. That’s what I told him,” Nikoldy interrupted her. He actually thought that he had said that very thing. “ But they kept talking about love of your neighbour and Christianity, all that in the presence of Nikolenka, who had slunk into the cabinet, where he broke up everything.”

“Oh, do you know, Nicolas, Nikolenka worries me a great deal,” said Countess Marya. “He is such an unusual boy. I am afraid I neglect him on account of my children. We all of us have children, and a family ; but he has nobody. He is always alone with liis thoughts.”

“ It seems to me you have no reason to reproach yourself. Everything the tenderest mother could do for her son, you have been doing for him. And I, of course, am glad of it. He is a fine boy. Tonight he has been listening to Pierre in some kind of oblivion. And, do you know, as we were going out to supper, I found that he had broken everything on my table into splinters, and he told me so at once. I have never known him to tell an untruth. A fine, fine boy ! ” repeated Nikoldy. In his heart he did not like Nikdlenka, but he always tried to acknowledge that he was a fine boy.

“ Still, I am not like a mother to him,” said Countess Mdrya. ” I feel that I am not, and that worries me. He is a superb boy ; but I am terribly afraid for him. Society will do him good.”

“ Well, it will not be long. Next summer I will take him to St. Petersburg,” said Nikolay.

” Yes, Pierre has always been and always will be a dreamer,” he continued, returning to his conversation in the cabinet, which apparently agitated him. ” What in the world do I care whether Arakchéev is a bad man, and all such things ? what was all that to me when I married and had so many debts that they wanted to put me in the hole, and my mother could not see the state of affairs and did not want to comprehend it ? And then, you, the children, affairs. Do I attend to business and the farm just for my personal pleasure? No, I know that I must work in order to soothe mother, pay back to you what I owe you, and not leave the children such beggars as I was.”

Countess Marya wanted to tell him that men live not by bread alone, and that he ascribed too much importance to affairs; but she knew that it was unnecessary and useless to say that. She only grasped his hand and kissed it. He took this gesture of his wife as an approval and confirmation of his thoughts and, after thinking awhile in silence, continued then aloud :

« You know, Marie,” he said, ” Ilyd Mitrofdnych ” (the business manager) ” has arrived to-day from the Government of Tambov ; he tells me that they now öfter eighty thousand for the forest.” And Nikoldy began to talk with an animated face about the possibility, which would soon present itself, of buying Otrddnoe back. ” Ten years more of life, and I will leave it to the children — in an excellent condition.”

Countess Mdrya listened to her husband and understood everything he was telling her. She knew that when he thought aloud thus, he might ask her what he said, and would get angry if he noticed that she was thinking of something else. But she was making a great effort at listening, because she was not in the least interested in what he was saying. She was looking at him and not so much thinking as feeling something else. She felt a submissive, tender love for this man, who would never understand everything she understood, and, as though for that very reason, she loved him more intensely still, with a shade of passionate tenderness. Outside of this feeling, which absorbed her whole being and prevented her from penetrating into all the details of her husband’s plans, there flashed through her head thoughts which had nothing in common with what he was saying. She was thinking of her nephew (her husband’s statement about his agitation during Pierre’s discourse had struck her very forcibly), and she passed in review the various features of his gentle, sensitive character ; and, thinking of her nephew, she also thought of her children. She did not compare her nephew with her children, but her feeling for him with the feeling which she had for them, and she found, to her sorrow, that something was lacking in her affection for Nikdlenka.

Now and then she thought that this difference was due to their ages ; but she felt that she was guilty toward him, and in her innermost soul she promised herself to mend and to do the impossible, that is, in this life to love her husband, and her children, and Nikolenka, and all her neighbours, as Christ had loved humanity. Countess Mdrya’s soul always strove after the infinite, eternal, and perfect, and so she could never be calm. On her face appeared the stern expression of the secret, exalted suffering of her soul burdened by a body. Nikoldy looked at her. “ 0 Lord ! What will become of us, if she dies, — that is what I always think when she looks like that,” he thought, and, standing before the image, he began to say his evening prayer.

XVI.

Natasha, too, when left alone with her husband, talked with him as only a married couple talk together, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity recognizing and communicating thoughts, along a path which is contrary to all the rules of logic, without premises, conclusions, or deductions, but in their own peculiar way. Natäsha had become so accustomed to speak with her husband in this manner that her safest sign that something was wrong between them was the logical sequence of Pierre’s thoughts. When he began to prove, to speak sensibly and calmly, and she, carried away by his example, began to do the same, she knew that it would certainly lead to a quarrel.

As soon as they were left alone, and Natdsha, with wide-open, happy eyes, softly went up to him and, quickly grasping his head, suddenly pressed it to her breast, and said, “ Now you are all, all mine ! You will not get away again ! ” there began that conversation which is contrary to all the laws of logic, if for no other reason than because they spoke of the greatest variety of subjects at the same time. This simultaneous discussion of a number of things did not in the least interfere with the clearness of comprehension ; on the contrary, it was the surest sign that they fully understood each other.

Just as everything in a dream is incorrect, senseless, and contradictory, except the guiding sensation of the dream, so in this communion, which was contrary to all the laws of reason, it is not the utterances that are consistent and clear, but only the feeling which guides them.

Natdsha told Pierre of how her brother was getting on, and of how she suffered without her husband, and of how she had got fonder still of Marie, and of how Marie was in every respect better than she. Saying this, Natdsha was quite sincere. At the same time, she demanded of Pierre that he should none the less prefer her to Marie and to all other women, and that he should say so to her again now, especially since he had seen so many women in St. Petersburg.

Answering NaUsha, Pierre told her how unbearable it had been for him to be in St. Petersburg at evening entertainments and dinners with the ladies.

” I have entirely forgotten how to talk to ladies,” he said. ” It just wearied me, — particularly since I was so busy.”

Natasha looked fixedly at him, and continued :

“ Marie is such a dear ! ” she said. ” How she understands the children ! She seems to see nothing but their souls. Yesterday, for example, Mitya was fussy — “

“ How he resembles his father ! ” interrupted Pierre.

Natäsha knew why he made that remark about Mitya’s resemblance to Nikolay : he was displeased at the thought of his dispute with his brother-in-law, and he wanted to know Natasha’s opinion on the matter.

« Nikolay has the weakness of not agreeing to a thing if it is not accepted by everybody. I understand that you value particularly the right to ouvrir une carrière she said, repeating the words which Pierre had once used.

« No, the worst is that NikoMy,” said Pierre, ” looks upon ideas and reflections as upon an entertainment, almost a pastime. He has been gathering a library, and makes it his rule not to buy any new book without reading it, — Sismondi, and Rousseau, and Montesquieu,” Pierre said, with a smile. ” You know how I once — ” he began, toning down his words, but Natdsha interrupted him, intimating to him that it was unnecessary.

” So you say that ideas are a pastime for him — “

” Yes, and for me everything else is waste of time. I saw everybody in St. Petersburg as in a dream. When an idea interests me, everything else is a waste of time.”

“ What a pity I did not see you when you first greeted the children ! ” said Natdsha. “ Who was the happiest ? No doubt Liza ? “

“ Yes,” said Pierre, and he proceeded with what interested him. ” Nikoldy says that we must not think, but how can I help it ? Not only did I feel (I may tell you so) that without me every thing in St. Petersburg would fall to pieces, — each was pulling in his own direction ; but I succeeded in uniting them all, and then my idea is so simple and so clear. I do not say that we must counteract this and that. We may be mistaken. But I do say : join hands all of you who love goodness, and let us all have one standard — active virtue. Prince Sérgi is a fine man and he is clever.”

Natdsha had no doubt but that Pierre’s idea was great, but there was one thing which troubled her, and that was that he was her husband. ” Is it possible that such a distinguished man, who is so needed by society, is at the same time my husband ? Why did it happen this way ? ” She felt like expressing her doubt to him. ” Who of all men could decide that he is really more intelligent than the rest? ” she asked herself, scanning in her imagination all the men who were most respected by Pierre. To judge from his accounts, there was no one whom he respected so much as Platdn Karatdev.

” Do you know what I am thinking about ? ” she said. ” About Platdn Karatdev. How about him ? Would he approve of you now ?”

Pierre was not in the least surprised at this question. He understood the march of his wife’s thoughts.

” Platon Karataev ? ” he said, musing, evidently making a sincere attempt at imagining Karatdev’s judgment on this subject. ” He would not have understood it, and — perhaps he would.”

” I love you terribly ! ” Natdsha suddenly said. ” Terribly, terribly ! ”

” No, he would not have approved of it,” said Pierre, after some thinking. ” What he would have approved of is our domestic life. He wanted so much to see in everything order, happiness, peace, and I should have taken a pride in showing my family to him. You talk of separation. You do not know what a peculiar feeling I have for you after a separation — ”

” Another thing — ” Natdsha began.

“ No, not that. I never cease loving you. And one cannot love more ; but there is something special — Well — ” he did not finish, because their glances, meeting, said the rest.

” What nonsense,” Natdsha suddenly said, ” to imagine that the honeymoon and the greatest happiness are only in the beginning. On the contrary, now is the happiest time. If you only did not leave me ! Do you remember how we quarrelled ? And it was always I who was to blame. Always I. I do not even remember what it was we used to quarrel about.”

” Always the same thing,” said Pierre, smiling, « jeal— ”

” Don’t say it, I can’t bear it,” exclaimed Natdsha. And a cold, evil sparkle flashed in her eyes. ” Have you seen her ? ” she added, after a moment’s silence.

“No. I should have, but did not hear of her.”

They were silent.

“ Do you know, as you were talking in the cabinet, I was looking at you,” said Natdsha, evidently wishing to dispel the shrouding cloud. ” You and he, the boy, are like two drops of water.” She meant her son. “It is

time to go to him — The milk has come — I hate to leave you.”

They grew silent for a few seconds. Then they suddenly turned to each other at one and the same time and began to talk. Pierre began with self-satisfaction and enthusiasm ; Natasha with a calm, happy smile. Upon striking against each other, they both stopped, one giving the other a chance to talk.

” What is it ? Go on, talk ! “

” No, you speak, — I had nothing, just foolishness,” said Natasha.

Pierre said what he had begun to say. It was the continuation of his self-satisfied reflections on his success in St. Petersburg. It seemed to him at that moment that he was called to give a new direction to Russian society and to the whole world.

” I only wanted to say that all the thoughts that have enormous consequences are always simple. My idea is that if vicious people unite and form a force, honest men must do the same. This is so simple.”

“ Yes.”

” What did you want to say ? ”

” Nothing, just some foolishness ! ”

“ Tell it, all the same ! “

” Oh, nothing,” said Natdsha, beaming with a brighter smile ; ” I just wanted to tell you about Pétya : to-day the nurse came to take him from me, and he laughed, halfclosed his eyes, and pressed close to me, — no doubt he thought that he hid himself. He is awfully sweet. There, he is crying. Goodbye ! ” and she left the room.

At the same time a lamp was burning, as always, in Nikdlenka Bolkdnski’s sleeping-room (the boy was afraid of the dark, and could not be cured of his fear). Desalles was sleeping high on his four pillows, and his Roman nose emitted even sounds of snoring. Nikdlenka, just awakened, in a cold perspiration, was sitting on his bed with his eyes wide open, and looking in front of him. A terrible dream had wakened him. He had seen himself and Pierre in helmets, such as were painted in the edition of Plutarch. Pierre and he had been marching in front of an enormous army. This army was composed of white, slanting lines which filled the air like those gossamers which fly about in the fall, and which Desalles called ” le fil de la Vierge.” In front was Glory, just like the rest of the gossamers, only a little more solid. They, Pierre and he, were borne away easily and joyfully nearer and nearer to their aim. Suddenly the threads that moved them grew weaker and became entangled ; there was a heavy feeling. Uncle Nikolay Ilfch stopped in front of them in a stern attitude.

” Did you do it ? ” he said, pointing to the broken bits of sealing-wax and pens. ” I loved you, but Arakchéev has commanded me, and I will kill the first man who moves.”

Nikdlenka looked back at Pierre; but Pierre was no more. Pierre was his father, Prince Andréy, and his father had no features and no form, but he was, and, seeing him, Nikdlenka felt the weakness of love: he felt himself helpless, boneless, and liquid. His father was caressing him and pitying him. But Uncle Nikolay Ilfch moved upon them, nearer and nearer. Terror took possession of Nikdlenka, and he awoke.

” My father,” he thought. ” My father ” (though there were two good likenesses of his father in the house, Nikdlenka never thought of Prince Andréy in a human form), ” my father was here, and he caressed me. He approved of me, he approved of Uncle Pierre. I will do whatever he says. Mucius Scævola burned his hand. Why, then, will there not be the same in my life ? I know they want me to study, and I will. But some day I shall stop ; and then I will do it. I pray God only for this, that the same may happen to me that has happened to the men of Plutarch, and I will do the same. I will do better. All will know it, and all will love me and admire me.” Suddenly Nikolenka felt a lump rising in his throat, and he burst out into tears.

” Etes-vous indisposé ? ” was heard Desalles’s voice.

“Non” replied Nikdlenka, lying down on his pillow. ” He is good and kind, I love him,” he thought of Desalles. ” And Uncle Pierre ? Oh, what a charming man ! And father ? Father ! Father ! Yes, I will do that with which even he shall be satisfied ! “

PART THE SECOND

I.

The life of the nations and of humanity forms the subject of history. Directly to seize and clothe in words, — to describe the life, not of humanity, but even of one nation, presents itself as an impossibility.

All the ancient historians have employed one and the same method in order to describe and seize the apparently impalpable life of a nation. They have described the individual men who have ruled the nation, and this activity for them expressed the activity of the whole nation.

To the question in what manner individual men compelled the nations to act according to their will, and what governed the will of these men, the ancients replied, to the first question, by recognizing the will of the Divinity which submitted the nations to the will of one chosen man, and to the second, by assuming that the same Divinity directed the will of this chosen man toward a predetermined end.

For the ancients, these questions were decided by faith in the immediate participation of the Divinity in the affairs of humanity.

Modem history has, in its theory, rejected these two principles.

One would think that, in order to reject the beliefs of the ancients in the submission of men to the Divinity, and in the definite aim toward which the nations are led,

modern history would have to study, not the manifestations of the power, but the causes which form it. But modern history has not done so. Though in theory it has rejected the conceptions of the ancients, it follows them in practice.

In the place of men who are endowed with divine power and who are directly guided by the will of the Divinity, modern history has put either heroes who are endowed with unusual, superhuman properties, or simply men with a great variety of different qualities, from monarchs to journalists, who guide the masses. In the place of the former divinely approved purposes of the nations, the Judean, the Greek, the Roman, which to the ancients appeared as the purposes of the movement of humanity, modern history has put its own purposes, — the French, the German, the English welfare, and, in its highest abstraction, the purposes of the weal of all humanity, by which are to be understood as a rule the nations which occupy a small northwest corner of a large continent.

Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients, without putting in their place any new conception, and the logic of the situation compelled the historians, despite the rejection of the divine power of the kings and of the fatum of the ancients, to arrive at the same conclusions by another road, — to recognize (1) that the nations are guided by individual men, and (2) that there exists a certain aim toward which the nations and humanity are tending.

In all the works of the latest historians, from Gibbon to Buckle, these two ancient, inevitable principles are assumed as a basis, in spite of the apparent difference of opinion among the historians and the apparent novelty of their conceptions.

In the first place, the historian describes the activity of separate individuals, who, in his opinion, have guided humanity (one regards as such only monarchs, military leaders, ministers; another, in addition to monarchs and orators, includes also the learned, the reformers, philosophers, poets). In the second place, the aim toward which humanity is being led is known to the historian (for one this aim is the greatness of the Roman, the Spanish, the French realms; for another it is freedom, equality, a certain kind of civilization in a small corner of the world, called Europe).

In 1789 a ferment begins in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed in the movement of the nations from the West to the East. It is several times directed to the East, and comes in contact with the countermovement from the East to the West; in 1812 it reaches its extreme goal, Moscow, and, with remarkable symmetry, the countermovement takes place from the East to the West, just as in the first movement, drawing along with it the intermediate nations. The reverse movement reaches the starting-point of the movement in the West, Paris, and dies down.

In this period of twenty years, an immense area of fields has remained uncultivated : houses are burned ; commerce reverses its direction ; millions of people are impoverished, enriched, transplanted, and millions of Christians, who profess the law of the love of their neighbours, kill one another.

What does it all mean ? Why has it happened ? What is it that has compelled these men to burn houses and kill their like ? What were the causes of these events ? These are instinctive, simple-minded, and most legitimate questions, which humanity proposes to itself, as it stumbles on the monuments and traditions of the past period of this movement.

To solve these questions, the common sense of humanity turns to the science of history, which has for its aim the study of the nations and of humanity.

If history retained the conception of the ancients, it would say : ” To reward, or to punish the nation, the Divinity gave Napoleon the power and guided his will, for the attainment of his divine aims.” And such an answer would be complete and clear. It was possible to believe, or not to believe, in the divine significance of Napoleon ; for the believer everything would be intelligible in the whole history of that time, and there could not be a single contradiction.

But modern history cannot answer in such a way. Science does not admit the conception of the ancients in the direct participation of the Divinity in the affairs of humanity, and so it has to give different answers.

Answering these questions, modern history says : You want to know what this movement means? what has caused it, and what force has brought about those events ? Listen !

” Louis XIV. was a very proud and selfconfident man ; he had such and such paramours and such and such ministers, and he governed France badly. The descendants of Louis were also weak men, and they, too, governed France badly. And they had such and such paramours and such and such favourites. Besides, at that time some people wrote books. At the end of the eighteenth century a score of men were gathered in Paris, who began to talk about all men being equal and free. From this, people began to slash and drown one another throughout France. These men killed the king and a lot of other people. At that time there was in France a great genius, Napoleon. He conquered everybody everywhere, that is, he killed a lot of people, because he was a genius. And he went for some reason to kill the Africans, and he killed so well, and he was so cunning and so clever, that, upon returning to France, he made everybody obey him. And all obeyed him. Having become an emperor, he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria, and Prussia. And he killed a great many there. In Russia there was an emperor, Alexander, who decided that he would reestablish order in Europe, and so he fought with Napoleon. But in the year 1807 he suddenly made friends with him, and in 1811 he again quarrelled with him, and they began once more to kill a large number of people. And Napoleon took six hundred thousand to Russia and conquered Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and then Emperor Alexander, with the aid of Stein’s counsel, and with the counsel of others, united Europe into an armament against the disturber of its peace. All of Napoleon’s allies suddenly became his enemies ; and this army went against Napoleon, who had collected new forces. The allies vanquished Napoleon, entered Paris, made Napoleon abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, without depriving him of the title of emperor, and showing him every mark of respect, although five years before and a year later they all regarded him as an outlaw. And there began to reign Louis XVIII., whom heretofore the French and the allies had ridiculed. But Napoleon, weeping before his old Guard, abdicated and went into exile. Then experienced statesmen and diplomats (particularly Talleyrand, who managed to seat himself before any one else in a certain chair and thus expanded the boundaries of France) talked in Vienna, and with their conversations made the peoples of Europe happy or miserable. Suddenly the diplomats and monarchs almost quarrelled ; they were just getting ready to order their armies again to kill one another; but just then Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who despised him, at once submitted to him. But the allied monarchs got angry at that, and went to fight France once more. And the genius Napoleon was conquered and taken to the island of St. Helena, being suddenly declared a robber. And there the exile, separated from those who were dear to his heart and from his

beloved France, died a slow death on a rock, and transmitted his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction took place, and all the sovereigns began once more to oppress their nations.”

It would be fruitless to assume that this is sarcasm, a caricature of historical descriptions. On the contrary, it is a very mild expression of those contradictory answers, which do not reply to the questions, and which are given by every history, from the authors of memoirs and histories of separate kingdoms to the universal histories and the newfangled histories of civilization for that period.

The strangeness and comicalness of these answers is due to the fact that modern history resembles a deaf person who replies to questions which no one is putting to him.

If the aim of history is the description of the movement of humanity and of the nations, the first question, which, remaining unanswered, leaves everything else incomprehensible, is the following: What power moves the nations ? To this modern history takes pains to say that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV. was very proud, or that such and such authors have written such and such books.

All that is very possible, and humanity will agree to it ; but it is not this that it wants to know. All that would be interesting, if we recognized a divine power, based on itself, and for ever the same, as guiding its nations through Napoleons, Louises, and authors ; but we do not recognize this power, and so, before speaking of Napoleons, Louises and authors, it becomes necessary to show the existing connection between these persons and the movement of the nations.

If another force has taken the place of the divine power, it behoves us to explain wherein this new force consists, because the whole interest of history lies in this very force.

History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to everybody. But, in spite of all desire to recognize this new force as known, he who reads very many historical works will involuntarily come to doubt that this force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is well known to everybody.

II.

What force moves the nations ?

The private biographical historians and the historians of the separate nations understand this force as a power which is inherent in heroes and rulers. According to their interpretation, events are produced exclusively by the will of a Napoleon, an Alexander, or, in general, by those persons whom the private historian happens to describe. The answers given by the historians of this class to the question about what force moves the events, are satisfactory, but only so long as there exists one historian for each event. But the moment the historians of various nationalities and conceptions begin to describe the same event, the answers which they give at once lose their whole meaning, because this force is understood by each of them not only differently, but often in a diametrically opposite sense. One historian affirms that such and such an event was produced by the power of Napoleon ; another affirms that it was produced by the power of Alexander ; a third, that it was done through the agency of a third person. Besides, the historians of this class contradict each other even in the exposition of that force on which is based the power of one and the same person. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon’s power was based on his virtue and genius ; Lanvrey, a republican, says that it was based on his rascality and on the deception of the people. Thus the historians of this class, mutually annihilating their respective views, by so doing destroy the conception of the force which produces the events, and give no answer to the essential question of history.

The universal historians, who deal with all the nations, seem to recognize the incorrectness of the view of the private historians in regard to the force which produces the events. They do not recognize this force as a power which is inherent in heroes and rulers, but as the result of a multiplicity of variously directed forces. In describing a war or the subjection of a people, the universal historian looks for the cause of the event, not in the power of one person, but in the interaction of many persons who are connected with the event.

According to this view, the power of historical persons, presenting itself as the result of many forces, would not seem to admit the interpretation of it as a force which of itself produces the events.’ And yet the universal historians, in the majority of cases, again use the concept of power as a force of itself producing the events and standing to them in the relation of cause. According to their exposition, the historical person is the product of his time, and his power is only the product of various forces ; or his power is a force which produces the events. Gervinus, Schlosser, for example, and others, now prove that Napoleon is the product of the Revolution, of the ideas of the year 1789, and so forth, or they say distinctly that the campaign of the year 1812, and other events which they do not like, are only the product of the falsely directed will of Napoleon, and that the very ideas of the year 1789 had been arrested in their development by Napoleon’s arbitrariness. The ideas of the Revolution, the general trend of public opinion, produced Napoleon ; but Napoleon’s power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general trend of public opinion.

This curious contradiction is not accidental. It not only is met with at every step, but all the descriptions of the universal historians are composed from a consecutive series of such contradictions. This contradiction is due to the fact that, having entered the field of analysis, they stop in the middle of the road.

In order to find the component forces which are equal to the composite or resultant, it is necessary for the sum of the component forces to be equal to the resultant. This condition is never observed by the universal historians, and so, in order to explain the resultant force, they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient components, a still unexplained force, which acts along the resultant.

The private historian, describing the campaign of the year 1813, or the restoration of the Bourbons, says distinctly that these events were produced by the will of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, in overthrowing this conception of the private historian, tries to prove that the campaign of the year 1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons had for their causes, outside of Alexander’s will, the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de Staël, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian has evidently decomposed Alexander’s power into the components: Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, and so forth ; the sum of these components, that is, the interaction of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Staël, and others, evidently does not equal the whole resultant, that is, that phenomenon that millions of Frenchmen submitted to the Bourbons. From the fact that Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël, and others said certain words to each other, there follows only their mutual relations, but not the subjugation of millions. And so, in order to explain in what manner the subjugation of millions follows from these relations of theirs, that is, how from the components equal to one A there should follow the resultant, which is equal to one thousand A, the historian is necessarily obliged to assume the same force of power which he denies by recognizing it as the result of the forces, that is, he is obliged to admit that unexplained force winch acts along the resultant. It is precisely this that the universal historians do, and thus they not only contradict the private historians, but themselves as well.

Country people, having no exact conception about the causes of the rain, and wishing either rain or good weather, say, ” The wind has driven away the clouds,” and “ The wind has driven up the clouds.” Even thus the universal historians : at times, when they want it, when it falls in with their theory, they say that power is the result of events; at others, when they have to prove something else, they say that power produces the events.

The third class of historians, called the historians of civilization, following in the path laid out by the universal historians, who now and then recognize authors and ladies as event-producing forces, understand this force in quite a different manner. They see it in the so-called culture, in the mental activity.

The historians of civilization are quite consistent in relation to their precedents, the universal historians, for, if historical events may be explained by the fact that certain people acted so and so toward each other, why not explain them by the fact that certain people wrote certain books ? These historians select the token of mental activity out of an immense number of tokens that accompany any living phenomenon, and say that that token is the cause. But, in spite of all their endeavours to show that the cause of the event lay in the mental activity, it takes a great deal of yielding in order to admit that there is anything in common between mental activity and the movement of the nations, and in no case is it possible to agree with the statement that mental activity has guided the activity of men, because such phenomena as the most cruel murders of the French Revolution, arising from the sermons on the equality of man, and the direst wars and executions, arising from the sermon on love, do not confirm this proposition.

But, even admitting that all the ingenious considerations, with which these histories are filled, are true ; admitting that the nations are governed by an indefinable force, called the idea, — the essential question of history is still left without an answer, or to the former power of the monarchs and to the influence of counsellors and other persons, introduced by the universal historians, is added a new force of the idea, the connection of which with the masses demands an explanation. It is possible to understand that Napoleon had the power, and so an event occurred ; with some yielding, it is possible to comprehend that Napoleon, together with other influences, was the cause of an event ; but in what way the book, ” Le Contrat Social,” had the effect of making Frenchmen drown each other, cannot be understood without the explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.

Unquestionably, there exists some connection among all things which live simultaneously, and so there is a possibility of finding a certain connection between the mental activity of men and their historical movement, just as this connection may be found between the movement of humanity and commerce, the trades, gardening, or anything else you may wish. But it is hard to understand why the mental activity of men is represented by the historians of civilization as the cause or expression of every historical movement. To such a conclusion the historians could have been brought only by the following considerations : (1) that history is written by the learned, and so it is natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their guild is the foundation of the movement of all humanity, just as it is natural and agreeable for the merchants, agriculturists, and soldiers to think so (this finds no expression because merchants and soldiers write no history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment, civilization, culture, idea, — are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions, under the banner of which it is very convenient to employ words which have an even less definite meaning, and which, therefore, are easily introduced into all kinds of theories.

But, leaving out of consideration the internal value of histories of this class (maybe they are necessary for somebody and something), the histories of civilization, to which universal histories are now being reduced more and more frequently, are significant in that they, seriously and in detail analyzing all kinds of religious, philosophical, and political doctrines, as the causes of events, every time when they have to describe a really historical event, as, for example, the campaign of the year 1812, involuntarily describe it as a manifestation of power, saying distinctly that the campaign was the product of Napoleon’s will. Speaking thus, the historians of civilization involuntarily contradict themselves, or prove that that new force which they have invented does not express historical events, and that the only means for understanding history is that power, which they pretend not to recognize.

III.

There is an engine in motion. The question is : why does it move? The peasant says: the devil moves it. Another says that the engine moves because the wheels in it move. A third asserts that the cause of the motion is in the smoke which the wind is carrying off.

The peasant is not to be refuted. In order to refute him it is necessary to prove to him that there is no devil, or for another peasant to tell him that it is not the devil, but a German, who is moving the engine.

Only then will he see from the contradictions that they are both wrong. But he who says that the motion of the wheels is the cause, is refuting himself, for, since he has entered on the road of analysis, he must go farther and farther : he must explain the cause of the motion of the wheels, and so long as he does not arrive at the last cause of the engine’s motion, at the steam which is compressed in the boiler, he will have no right to stop in the search for truth. But he who explained the motion of the engine from the smoke which is carried back, seeing that the explanation of the wheels did not give the cause, took the first sign which occurred to him, and, on his part, gave it out as a cause.

The only conception which can explain the motion of the engine is the conception of a force equal to the visible motion.

The only conception by means of which the movement of the nations can be explained is the conception of a force equal to the whole movement of the nations.

In the meantime, a great variety of forces, all of them unequal to the visible motion, are understood by the various historians under this concept. Some see in it a force which is directly inherent in the heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the engine ; others see in it the resultant of certain other forces, like the motion of the wheels; others again see in it a mental influence, like the smoke that is carried away.

So long as histories of separate individuals are written, — be they a Cæsar, an Alexander, a Luther, or a Voltaire, — and not the history of all, absolutely all, men who take part in an event, there is no possibility of describing the movement of humanity without the concept of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward one aim. And the only concept of the kind, which is known to the historians, is power.

This concept is the only handle by means of which one can control the material of history under its present exposition, and he who should break off this handle, as Buckle has done, without discovering any other method of treating the historical material, would only deprive himself of the last possibility of manipulating it. The inevitableness of the concept of power for the explanation of historical phenomena is proved best of all by the universal historians and the historians of civilization themselves, who claim to reject the concept of power, and who, none the less, inevitably make use of it at every stage.

Historical science is so far, in respect to the questions of humanity, like the money in circulation, — like the paper money and the coin. The biographical and individually national histories are like the paper money. They can be in circulation, satisfying their purpose without doing any one any harm, and may even be useful, so long as the question does not rise how they are guaranteed. It is enough to forget about the question in what way the will of the heroes produces the events, and the history of a Thiers will be interesting, instructive, and, besides, will have a tinge of poetry. But just as the doubt will rise in respect to the actual value of the assignats, because, it being easy to make them, people will begin to manufacture a good many of them, or because somebody will wish to have them exchanged for gold, — just so arises the doubt as to the actual value of the histories of this kind, either because there are too many of them, or because some one in the simplicity of his heart will ask : ” By what force did Napoleon do it ? ” that is, he will wish to exchange the current paper for the pure gold of actual comprehension.

The universal historians and the historians of civilization are like the men who, recognizing the inconvenience of the paper money, would decide to substitute for it coins made from a metal which has not the specific gravity of gold. It would indeed be a coin, but nothing else. A paper could deceive the ignorant ; but a coin which is not made of a precious metal cannot deceive anybody. Just as gold is only gold when it can be used not merely in exchange, but also independently, even so the general historians will only then be gold when they are able to reply to the essential question of history : what is power ? The universal historians answer it contradictorily, and the historians of civilization reply to something quite different. And just as counters, which resemble gold, may be used in an assembly of men who agree to regard them as gold and by those who do not know the property of gold, even so the universal historians and the historians of civilization, who do not answer the essential questions of humanity for some reasons of their own, serve as currency in the universities and among a mass of readers, — lovers of serious books, as they call them.

IV.

Having renounced the conception of the ancients about the divine subjection of the nation’s will to one chosen man, and about the subjection of this will to the Divinity, history cannot take one step without contradictions, unless it chooses one of two things : either to return to the former belief in the immediate participation of the Divinity in the affairs of humanity, or definitely to explain the significance of the force which produces historical events, and which is called ” power.”

It is impossible to return to the first : the faith has been destroyed, and so it becomes necessary to explain the meaning of power.

Napoleon ordered an army to be collected and to go to war. We are so much accustomed to this conception, we have become so used to this view, that the question why six hundred thousand men go to war when Napoleon pronounces certain words seems senseless to us. He had the power, and so that which he ordered was executed.

This answer is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given him by God. But as soon as we do not acknowledge this, it becomes necessary to determine what this power of one man over others is.

This power cannot be the immediate power of the physical predominance of the stronger being over the weaker, — a predominance which is based on the application, or on the threat of the application, of physical force, — as the power of Hercules ; nor can it be based on the predominance of moral force, as some historians imagine, in the simplicity of their hearts, saying that the historical actors are heroes, that is, men endowed with a special force of mind and soul, called genius. This power cannot be based on the predominance of moral force, because, leaving out the human heroes, such as Napoleon, on whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history shows us that neither a Louis XL, nor a Metternich, who governed millions of people, had any especial qualities of moral force, but, on the contrary, generally were morally weaker than any one of the millions of people over whom they ruled.

If the source of power does not lie in the physical, nor in the moral qualities of the man possessing it, then it becomes evident that the source of this power must be found outside this person, — in those relations to the masses in which the power-possessing person is.

Even thus power is understood by the science of jurisprudence, that historical exchange-bank which promises to give pure gold in exchange for the historical interpretation of power.

Power is the compound of the wills of the masses, transferred by expressed or tacit consent to the rulers which are chosen by the masses.

In the field of jurisprudence, which is composed of the reflections of how the state and the power are to be arranged if it is at all possible to arrange them, all this is very clear ; but in its application to history this definition of power demands elucidations.

Jurisprudence considers the state and the power, as the ancients used to consider fire, as something absolutely existing. But for history the state and the power are only phenomena, just as for modern physics fire is not an element, but a phenomenon.

From this fundamental difference in the views of history and jurisprudence it follows that the latter can give us a detailed account of how, in its opinion, power is to be constructed and what the power is which exists immutably outside of time ; but to the historical questions about the meaning of the power, which varies with time, it can give us no reply.

If the power is the sum of wills transferred to the ruler, then is not Pugachév the representative of the wills of the masses ? If not, why is Napoleon I. ? Why was Napoleon III. a criminal when he was caught in Boulogne, and why were later those criminals whom he caught ?

In court revolutions, in which sometimes only two or three men take part, is the will of the masses transferred to the new person ? Is the will of the masses of the nation transferred to the victor in international relations ? Was the will of the Rhenish Confederation transferred to Napoleon in 1808 ? Was the will of the mass of the Russian nation transferred to Napoleon in 1809, when our troops, in alliance with the French, went to fight against Austria ?

To these questions we may answer in three ways :

Either (1) we assume that the will of the masses is always unconditionally transferred to the ruler, or rulers, whom they have chosen, and that, therefore, every formation of a new power, every struggle against the once delegated power, must be regarded only as a violation of the existing power.

Or (2) we assume that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers conditionally, under definite, well-known conditions, and we show that all the oppressions, conflicts, and even destructions of power are due to the non-observance of those conditions, under which the power was delegated to the rulers.

Or (3) we assume that the will of the masses is delegated to the rulers conditionally, under unknown, indefinite conditions, and that the formation of many powers, their struggle, and their fall are due to the greater or lesser adherence by the rulers to those unknown conditions, under which the wills of the masses have been transferred from one set of persons to another.

In this threefold manner the historians explain the relations of the masses to the rulers.

One class of historians, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, do not understand the question about the significance of power, — those very private and biographical historians, who have been mentioned before, — seem to assume that the sum of the wills of the masses is unconditionally delegated to the historical persons, and so, in describing some one power, these historians take for granted that this same power is the only absolute and real power, and that any other force which counteracts this real power is not a power, but the violation of power,— violence.

Their theory, which is applicable to primitive and peaceful periods of history, in its application to complex and stormy periods of the life of nations, during which various powers arise simultaneously and struggle with each other, has this disadvantage, that the Legitimist historian will prove that the Convent, the Directory, and Bonaparte were only violations of power, while a republican and a Bonapartist will prove, the one, that the Convent, and the other, that the empire, was the real power, and that everything else was a violation of power. It is evident that as they thus mutually overthrow one another, the explanation of power given by these historians may be good enough for children in their tenderest years.

In recognizing the falseness of this view of history, another class of historians say that power is based on the conditional delegation of the sum of the wills of the masses to the rulers, and that the historical persons have power only under the condition of carrying out the programme which, by tacit consent, the will of the nation has prescribed to them ; but the historians do not tell us wherein this programme consists, or if they do, they continually contradict one another.

To every historian, according to his view of what constitutes the aim of the movement of the nations, this programme presents itself in the greatness, wealth, freedom, enlightenment of the citizens of France or of another state. But, leaving out of consideration the fact that the historians contradict each other as to what this programme is, and admitting that there exists a common programme, the historical facts nearly always contradict this theory. If the conditions under winch the power is delegated consist in the wealth, freedom, enlightenment of the nation, then why do a Louis XIV. and a John IV. end their reigns in peace, and why are a Louis XVI. and a Charles I. executed by the nations ? To this question the historians reply that the activity of Louis XIV., which was contrary to the programme, was reflected on Louis XVI. But why was it not reflected on Louis XIV. and XV. ? Why had it by all means to be reflected on Louis XVI.? What is the limit of time for such a reflection ? To these questions there are no answers, and there can be none. Just as little, in holding this view, can be explained the cause of the fact that the sum of the wills of several centuries is not taken away from the rulers and their heirs, and then suddenly, in the course of fifty years, is transferred to the Convent, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII., again to Napoleon, to Charles X., to Louis Philippe, to the republican government, to Napoleon III. In explaining these rapidly succeeding transferences of the wills from one person to another, and especially in considering the international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are involuntarily compelled to acknowledge that part of these phenomena are not a regular delegation of wills, but accidents which depend on the cunning, or blunder, or craftiness, or weakness of a diplomat, or ruler, or leader of a party. Thus the greater part of the phenomena of history — civil wars, revolutions conquests — are represented by these historians, not as the products of the delegation of free wills, but as the products of the wrongly directed will of one or of several individuals, that is, again as violations of power. And thus the historical events are represented by the historians of this class as deviations from the theory.

These historians resemble that botanist who, having observed that some plants grow out of the seeds with two cotyledons, insists that all growing things are dicotyledonous, and that the palm, the mushroom, and even the oak, which branch out in their full growth and have no longer any semblance of two cotyledons, depart from the theory.

The historians of the third class assume that the will of the masses is transferred conditionally to the historical persons, but that these conditions are unknown to us. They say that the historical persons have power only because they execute the will of the masses which has been delegated to them.

But, in that case, if the force which moves the nations does not rest in the historical persons, but in the nations themselves, wherein, then, does the significance of these historical persons lie ?

The historical persons, say these historians, express the will of the masses ; the activity of the historical persons serves as a representative of the activity of the masses.

But, in that case, there rises the question whether the whole activity of the historical persons serves as an expression of the will of the masses, or only a certain part of it. If the whole activity of the historical persons serves as an expression of the will of the masses, as some actually think, then the biographies of a Napoleon, a Catherine, with all the details of court gossip, serve as an expression of the life of the nations, which is obvious nonsense ; but if only one side of the activity of a historical person serves as the expression of the life of the nations, as other so-called philosophical historians believe, then, in order to determine what side of the activity of the historical person expresses the life of the nation, it is necessary first to know in what this life of the nation consists.

To meet this difficulty, the historians of this class invent a most indistinct, impalpable, and general abstraction, under which it is possible to classify the greatest number of events, and say that the aim of the movement of humanity lies in this abstraction. The most common general abstractions, as adopted by nearly all the historians, are : freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress, civilization, culture. Having assumed any one abstraction as the aim of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men who have left behind them the greatest number of monuments, — kings, ministers, generals, authors, reformers, popes, journalists, in proportion as all these persons, in their opinion, have cooperated with, or opposed themselves to, a given abstraction. But, as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity consists in freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection of the masses with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is based only on an arbitrary assumption that the sum of the wills of the masses is always transferred to those persons who are noticeable to us, the activity of the millions of men, who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture, and destroy each other is never expressed in the description of the activity of half a score of men, who do not burn houses, busy themselves with agriculture, or kill their like.

History proves this at every step. Are the ferment of the nations of the West, at the end of last century, and their tendency toward the East to be explained by the activities of Louis XIV., XV., and XVI., of their paramours and ministers, or by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot, Beau marché, and others ?

Is the movement of the Russian nation to the East — to Kazan and Siberia — expressed in the details of John IV.’s madness and in his correspondence with Kurbski ?

Is the movement of the nations during the crusades to be explained by the lives and activities of a Godfrey and a Louis, and their ladies ? The movement of the nations from the West to the East, without any aim, without any leadership, with a crowd of vagrants, with Peter the Hermit, has remained incomprehensible to us. Still more incomprehensible is the cessation of this movement at a time when the sensible, sacred aim of the crusades, the liberation of Jerusalem, was clearly enunciated by the historical actors. Popes, kings, and knights kept inciting the people to liberate the Holy Land ; but the people did not go, since that unknown cause, which had incited them to move before, no longer existed. The history of a Godfrey and of the minnesängers apparently does not embrace the life of the nations. And the history of a Godfrey and of the minnesingers has remained a history of a Godfrey and of the minnesingers, and the history of the life of the nations and of their impulses has remained unknown to us.

Still less does the history of the authors and of the reformers explain to us the life of the nations.

The history of civilization explains to us the impulses, the conditions of life, and the ideas of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther was irritable and made such and such speeches : we learn that Rousseau was diffident and wrote some books ; but we do not learn why after the Reformation the nations slew one another, and why during the French Revolution men executed one another.

If both kinds of history are combined, as is done by the newest historians, we shall get histories of monarchs and writers, and not histories of the life of the nations.

V.

The life of the nations is not embraced by the lives of a few men ; for the connection between these few people and the nations has not been found. The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the sum of the wills to the historical persons is a hypothesis which is not confirmed by historical experience.

The theory of the transference of the sum of the wills of the masses to the historical persons may explain very many things in the field of jurisprudence, and may be necessary for its aims ; but, in its application to history, the moment there appear revolutions, conquests, and civil wars, — as soon as history begins, — this theory does not explain anything.

This theory seems irrefutable for the very reason that the act of the transference of the wills of the nation cannot be verified, because it has never existed.

Whatever event may take place, whoever may stand at the head of an event, the theory can always say that such a person stood at the head of that event because the sum of the wills was delegated to him.

The answers given to the historical questions by this theory resemble the answers of a man who, looking at a flock in motion, and not taking into consideration the different qualities of the pasturage in the various parts of the field, nor the driving of the shepherd, judges of the causes of this or that direction of the flock from the animal which is at the head of the flock.

” The flock is going in this direction because the animal in front is leading it, and the sum of the wills of the individual animals has been transferred to this guide of the flock.” Thus answer the historians of the first class, those who assume the unconditional surrender of the power.

” If the animals walking at the head of the flock are changed, it is due to the fact that the sum of the wills of all the animals is transferred from one guide to another, according to whether this animal is leading in the direction selected by the flock, or not.” Thus answer the historians who assume that the sum of the wills of the masses is delegated to the rulers under conditions which they regard as unknown. (With such a method of observation, it frequently happens that the observer, conforming with the direction chosen by him, regards those as guides who, in the case of the change of direction of the masses, are no longer in the front, but at the side or even in the rear.)

” If the animals at the head are constantly changed, and the direction of the flock is constantly changed, it is due to the fact that, in order to obtain the direction which we know, the animals transfer their wills to those animals that are noticeable to us, and so, in order to study the movement of the flock, it is necessary for us to observe all the prominent animals which are walking on all the sides of the flock.” Thus say the historians of the third class, those who regard all the historical persons, from monarchs down to journalists, as expressions of their time.

The theory of the transference of the wills of the masses to the historical persons is only a paraphrase, — an expression of the question with other words.

What is the cause of historical events ? Power. “What is power ? Power is the sum of the wills delegated to one person. Under what conditions are the wills of the masses delegated to one person ? Under conditions under which the person expresses the wills of all men ; that is, power is power ; that is, power is a word the meaning of which is incomprehensible to us.

If the sphere of human knowledge were limited to mere abstract reasoning, then humanity, submitting to criticism that explanation of power which science gives, would come-to the conclusion that power is merely a word, and that it does not exist in reality. But, for the cognition of phenomena, man has, in addition to the abstract reasoning, the tool of experience with which he verifies the results of reasoning. And experience says that power is not a word, but an actual, existing phenomenon.

Not only can no single description of the collective activity of men neglect the concept of power, but the existence of power is proved both by history and by the observation of contemporary events.

Whenever an event takes place, there appears a man, or a few men, by whose will the event seems to take place. Napoleon III. prescribes, and the French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck prescribe, and the troops march into Bohemia. Napoleon I. commands, and the army goes to Russia. Alexander I. commands, and the French submit to the Bourbons. Experience teaches us that, no matter what event may take place, it is always connected with the will of one or of several men who have ordered it.

The historians, following their old habit of assuming the divine participation in the affairs of humanity, want to see the cause of the event in the expression of the will of the person endowed with the power; but that conclusion is confirmed neither by reason nor by experience.

On the one hand, reflection shows that a man’s expressions — his words — are only a part of the general activity which is expressed in the event, as, for example, in a war or revolution; therefore, without acknowledging an incomprehensible, supernatural power, — the miracle, — it

is impossible to admit that the words could be the immediate cause of the movement of millions ; on the other hand, if we should admit that words may be the cause of an event, history shows that the expressions of the will of historical persons in the majority of cases produce no results, that is, that their commands are frequently not carried out, and that sometimes even the very opposite takes place of what they are commanded to do.

Without admitting the divine participation in the affairs of humanity, we cannot take power to be the cause of events.

Power, from the standpoint of experience, is only the relation which exists between the expression of a person’s will and the execution of this will by other men.

In order to make clear to ourselves the conditions of this relation, we must first establish the concept of the expression of the will, by referring it to man, and not to the Divinity.

If the Divinity gives a command, expresses his will, as is shown to us in the history of the ancients, the expression of this will does not depend on time and is not called forth by an y tin ng, since the Divinity is in no way connected with the event. But, speaking of commands, — of the expression of the will of men acting in time and connected with each other, — we, in order to explain to ourselves the nexus of the commands with the events, must establish : (1) the condition of everything which is taking place : the uninterruptedness of the movement in time, both of the events and of the person commanding, and (2), the condition of the necessary connection in which the person commanding stands with the persons who execute his command.

VI.

Only the expression of the Divinity’s will, which does not depend on time, can be referred to a whole series of events which is to take place in a few years or centuries, and only,.the Divinity, unprovoked by anything, by dint of His wiff alone, can determine the direction of the movement of humanity ; but man acts in time and himself takes part in an event.

In establishing the first condition, omitted heretofore, — the condition of time, — we shall see that no command can be fulfilled unless there has been a preceding command, which makes the execution of the latter possible.

No command ever appears arbitrarily, or ever includes a whole series of events ; but each command flows from another and never refers to a whole series of events, but always only to one moment of an event.

When, for example, we say that Napoleon commanded the armies to go to war, we combine into one simultaneous command a series of consecutive commands, which depend on each other. Napoleon could not have commanded an expedition into Russia, and he never did. He commanded to-day the writing of certain papers to Vienna, to Berlin, and to St. Petersburg, tomorrow, of such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the commissariat, and so forth, and so forth, — a million commands, from which was composed a series of commands corresponding to a series of events which led the French armies into Russia.

If Napoleon during his whole reign gives the commands

about an expedition into England and in none of his undertakings wastes such efforts and so much time, and yet, in spite of it, during his whole reign does not even once make the attempt to carry out his intention, but makes an expedition into Russia, with which country he, according to his repeatedly expressed conviction, regards it as advantageous to be in alliance, — then this is due to the fact that the first commands correspond to a series of events, and the second do not.

In order that a command should be surely executed, it is necessary for a man to give such a command as can be executed. But it is impossible to know what can be executed, and what not, not only in the case of the Napoleonic expedition into Russia, in which millions take part, but even in the case of the least complex event, because millions of obstacles may be met with in the execution of either. Each command executed is always one out of an immense number of those that are not executed. All the impossible commands are not connected with the event and are not executed. Only those which are possible are connected into consecutive series of commands, corresponding to series of events, and are executed.

Our deceptive conception that the command which precedes the event is the cause of it is due to the fact that, when the event has taken place and those few out of thousands of commands which are connected with the events are executed, we forget those that were not executed, because they could not be. Besides, the chief source of our error in this sense is due to the fact that in the historical exposition a whole series of endless, divers, petty events, as, for example, all that which brought the French armies to Russia, is generalised into one event, according to the result produced by that series of events, and, corresponding to this generalization, a whole series of commands is also generalized into one expression of will.

We say : Napoleon wanted to make an expedition into Russia, and he made it. In reality, we shall never find in all of Napoleon’s activity anything resembling the expression of that will, but a series of commands, or expressions of his will, directed in sundry, indefinite ways. Out of an endless number of unexecuted commands of Napoleon there was formed a series of executed commands for the expedition of the year 1812, not because these commands in any way differed from the other unexecuted commands, but because the series of these commands coincided with the series of events which brought the French armies to Russia ; just as this or that figure will be drawn with a stencil, not according to the manner in which the dye will be smeared over it, but because the dye has been smeared all over the stencil, on all sides of the figure cut into it.

Thus, in considering the relation in time of the commands to the events, we shall find that the command in no case can be the cause of an event, but between the two there exists a certain definite dependence.

In order to comprehend in what this dependence consists, it is necessary to establish another condition, heretofore omitted, of any command which originates not in the Divinity, but in man, which is, that the man commanding himself takes part in the event.

This relation of the commander to those to whom he commands is precisely that which is called power. This relation consists in the following :

For a common activity men always unite into certain combinations, in which, despite the difference of the aims taken for collective action, the relation between the men who take part in the action is always the same. In uniting in these combinations, men always assume such relations toward each other that the greatest number of men take the greatest direct part, and the smallest number of men the least direct part, in that collective action for which they have combined.

Of all the combinations, in which men unite in order to

perform collective actions, one of the most sharply defined is the army.

Every army is composed of the lowest military rank, — the rank and file, — of whom there is always the greatest number ; of the next higher in military rank, — the corporals, underofficers, — whose number is smaller than that of the first ; of the still higher, the number of whom is still less, and so forth, to the highest military power, which is concentrated in one person.

The military structure may quite exactly be expressed by the figure of a cone, in which the base with the greatest diameter will represent the rank and file, a higher, lesser base, the higher order of the army, and so forth, to the apex, which represents the general.

The soldiers, of whom there is the greatest number, form the lower points of the cone and its base. The soldier himself stabs, cuts, burns, pillages, and always receives the command from higher persons for the commission of these deeds. The underofficer (the number of underofficers is already smaller) less frequently commits the act itself than the soldier ; but instead he commands. The officer still less often commits the act itself and commands more frequently. The general only commands the troops, pointing out the aim to them, and seldom makes use of a weapon. The commanderin-chief can never take part in the action itself, and only gives general orders about the movement of the masses. The same relation of individuals among themselves is to be found in every combination of men for a common activity, — in agriculture, commerce, and in every management.

Thus without artificially dividing all the contiguous points of the cone and the ranks of the army, or the organization of any management, or common affair, from the lowest to the highest, we get the law according to which men, for the commission of collective actions, always combine in such a relation that the more immediate their participation in the commission of the action, the less can they command and the greater their number ; and that the weaker the direct part taken by the men in the action itself, the more they command, and the smaller their number ; in this manner we rise from the lowest strata to one last man, who takes the least direct part in the event, and who more than the rest directs his activity to commanding.

This relation of the commanding individuals to those whom they command constitutes the essence of the concept called power.

Having established the condition of time under which all events take place, we found that the command is executed only when it refers to a corresponding series of events. • In establishing the necessary condition of the nexus between him who commands and him who executes, we found that, by their very constitution, the commanders take the least part in the event itself, and that their activity is directed exclusively to giving commands.

VIL

When a certain event takes place, men express their opinions, their wishes in regard to the event, and, as the event arises ‘from the collective action of many men, one of the expressed opinions or wishes is sure to be fulfilled, at least approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is fulfilled, it is connected with the event, as a command which preceded it.

Men are dragging a log. Each of them expresses his opinion about how and whither to drag it. The men drag the log out, and it turns out that it has been done as one of them has said. He ordered it. Here we have command and power in their primitive form.

The one who works most with his hands can least consider what he is doing, or reflect what will come of the common activity, or command. The one who commands most, on account of his activity in words, can evidently act least with his hands. The larger the concourse of men who direct their activity upon one aim, the more sharply is the class of men defined whose activity is directed toward commanding in proportion to the lesser part they take in the common activity.

When a man works by himself, he always carries with him a certain series of reflections which, so he thinks, have guided his past activity, serve as a justification of his present acts, and will govern him in planning his future actions.

Even thus act concourses of men, when they leave it to those who do not take part in the action to reflect on, justify, and plan their collective activity.

From known or unknown causes, the French begin to drown and cut one another. And the event is accompanied by its justification in the expressed wills of the men, which is, that it is necessary for the good of France, for freedom, for equality. Men cease slaughtering each other, and this event is accompanied by the justification of the necessity of unity of power, of resistance to Europe, etc. Men go from the West to the East, killing their like, and this event is accompanied by the words about the glory of France, the baseness of England, and so forth. History shows us that these justifications of the event have no general sense and are self-contradictory, like the killing of a man as the result of the recognition of his rights, and the killing of millions in Russia in order to humiliate England. But these justifications have in a contemporary sense a necessary value.

These justifications relieve from moral responsibility the men who produce the event. These temporary aims are like the brushes which are attached in front of the locomotive, in order to clear the path : they clear the path of the moral responsibility of these men. Without these justifications there could not be explained the simplest question which presents itself in examining any event: How can millions of people commit collective crimes, wars, murders, and so forth ?

Is it possible, with the present complex forms of public and social life in Europe, to imagine any event which is not prescribed, pointed out, commanded by kings, ministers, parliaments, gazettes ? Is there any collective action which would not find its justification in the unity of state, in nationality, in the equilibrium of Europe, in civilization ? Thus every event which takes place inevitably coincides with some expressed wish and, finding its justification, presents itself as the result of the will of one man, or of a few men.

No matter in what direction a ship may go, a stream of the waves cut by it will always precede it. For the men on board that ship the motion of tins stream will be the only perceptible movement.

Only by watching it near by, moment after moment, and comparing the motion of this stream with the movement of the ship, shall we convince ourselves that every moment of the movement of the stream is determined by the movement of the ship, and that we have been led into error because we ourselves were moving imperceptibly.

We shall observe the same if we watch, moment after moment, the movement of historical persons (that is, if we reestablish the necessary condition of every event, — the condition of uninterruptedness of motion in time), and if we do not let out of sight the necessary connection of historical persons with the masses.

No matter what may take place, it will always appear that that has been foreseen and commanded. No matter in what direction the ship may go, the stream, without guiding, or increasing its motion, seethes in front of it, and from the distance will present itself to us not only as moving arbitrarily, but even as governing the movement of the ship.

By examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons that stand to the events in the relation of commands, the historians have assumed that the events are dependent on these commands. But, by examining the events themselves, and the connection of the historical persons with the masses, we have found that the historical persons are dependent on the events. As an indisputable proof of this deduction serves the fact that, no matter how many commands there may be, the event will not take place if there are no other causes for it ; but, the moment the event takes place, — whatever it be, — there will always be found, among the number of uninterruptedly expressed wills of various persons, such as in . meaning and in time will be referred to the event as commands.

Having come to this conclusion, we can directly and positively answer the two essential questions of history :

(1) What is power?

(2) What force produces the movement of the nations ?

(1) Power is such a relation of a given individual to other individuals, that this individual takes a proportionately lesser part in the action, according to the degree in which he expresses opinions, plans, and justifications of the collective action in question.

(2) The movement of the nations is not produced by power, by mental activity, not even by the union of the two, as historians have imagined, but by the activity of all men who take part in the event and who are always connected with each other in such a way that those who take the greatest direct part in the event assume the least responsibility, and vice versa.

In the moral sense, power appears as the cause of an event ; in the physical, those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is unthinkable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other, but in the union of the two.

Or, in other words, the concept of cause is inapplicable for the phenomenon which we are considering.

In the last analysis we arrive at the eternal circle, at that extreme boundary, at which the human understanding arrives in every sphere of reasoning, if it does not play with its subject. Electricity produces heat; heat produces electricity. Atoms attract each other ; atoms repel each other.

Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of the atoms, we cannot say why it is so, and we say that it is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, because it must be, — because it is a law. The same is true of historical phenomena. We do not know why a war or a

revolution takes place ; all we know is that, in order to produce this or that action, men form certain combinations, in which all take part ; and we say that it is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, — it is a law.

VIII.

If history had to do with external phenomena, the positing of this simple and obvious law would be sufficient, and we should be through with our reflection. But the law of history refers to man. A particle of matter cannot say to us that it does not at all feel the need of attraction and repulsion, and that these phenomena are not true ; but man, who is the subject of history, says distinctly : I am free, and so I am not subject to laws.

The presence of the question of the freedom of the human will, even though not expressed, is felt at every step in history.

All the serious historians have involuntarily come to this question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history — that false path over winch that science is travelling — are based only on the lack of a solution for this question.

If the will of each man has been free, that is, if each man could have acted as he pleased, then the whole history is a series of disconnected accidents.

If even one man in a million, in the period of a thousand years, has been able to act freely, that is, as he wished, then it is evident that one free act of that man, which is contrary to the laws, destroys the possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.

But, if there is even one law which governs the actions of men, there can be no free will, for the will of men must be subject to this law.

In this contradiction lies the question about the freedom of the will, which since the most remote times has interested the best minds of humanity, and which since the most remote times has been put in all its enormous meaning.

The question consists in this, that, looking at man as an observation from whatever point of view, — from the theological, historical, ethical, philosophical, — we find a common law of necessity, to winch he is subject, like everything existing. But, looking at him from within ourselves, as at something which we are conscious of, we feel ourselves free.

This consciousness is an entirely separate source of self-knowledge, independent from reason. By means of reason man observes himself ; but he knows himself only through consciousness.

Without self-consciousness no observation and no application of reason is thinkable.

In order to understand, observe, ratiocinate, man must first cognize himself as living. Man is conscious of living only by knowing himself as wishing, that is, he is conscious of his will. But his will, which forms the essence of his life, man recognizes, and cannot help recognizing, as free.

If, subjecting himself to observation, man sees that his will is always directed according to one and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food, or the activity of the brain, or anything else), he is unable to understand tins ever equal direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. That which would not be free could not be limited. Man’s will presents itself to him as limited, even because he cognizes it not otherwise than free.

You say : I am not free. But I have raised my arm and have dropped it again. Everybody understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.

This answer is the expression of consciousness winch is not subject to reason.

If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate source of self-consciousness, independent of reason, it would be subject to reflection and experiment; but in reality such a subjection never exists and is unthinkable.

A series of experiments and reflections shows to every man that, as an object of observation, he is subject to certain laws, and he submits to them and never struggles with the once cognized law of gravity or impermeability. But the same series of experiments and reflections shows him that the full liberty of which he is cognizant is impossible, that every action of his depends on his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him ; but he never submits to the deductions of these experiments and reflections.

Having learned from experiment and reflection that a stone falls downwards, man has absolute faith in this and in all cases expects the fulfilment of the cognized law.

But having learned just as infallibly that his will is subject to laws, he does not believe it, and cannot believe it.

No matter how often experiment and reflection may show a man that, under the same conditions, with the same character, he will do the same as before, he, for the thousandth time approaching the same conditions, with the same character, for the action which has always ended in the same manner, will be sure to feel just as convinced that he is able to act freely, as before the experiment. No matter how irrefutably reflection and experiment may prove to a savage or a thinker that it is impossible to imagine two acts under precisely the same conditions, he feels that without this senseless concept (which forms the essence of freedom) he could not imagine life. He feels that, however impossible it may be, it exists ; for without this concept of freedom he not only would fail to understand life, but would even be unable to live a single minute.

He could not live because all the impulses of men, all the inducements of life are only tendencies toward the increase of freedom. Wealth — poverty, glory — ingloriousness, power — subjection, strength — weakness, health — disease, culture — ignorance, work — leisure, satiety — hunger, virtue — vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.

A man having no freedom cannot be imagined otherwise than deprived of life.

If the concept of freedom presents itself to reason as a senseless contradiction, as the possibility of committing two acts at one and the same moment of time, or an act without a cause, it only proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.

This imperturbable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, subject to neither experiment nor reflection, acknowledged by all thinkers and perceived by all men without exception, — the consciousness without which no conception of man is possible, — forms the other side of the question.

Man is the creation of almighty, all-bountiful, omniscient God. What, then, is sin, a conception which arises from the consciousness of man’s freedom ? That is a question of theology.

The actions of men are subject to general, immutable laws expressed by statistics. In what, then, does man’s responsibility before society consist, — a conception which arises from the consciousness of freedom ? That is a question of jurisprudence.

A man’s acts spring from his inborn character and from the motives that act upon him. What is conscience and the knowledge of the good and the evil of acts, which arise from the consciousness of freedom ? That is a question of ethics.

Man, in connection with the general life of humanity, presents himself as subject to laws which determine this life. But the same man, independently of this connection, imagines himself to be free. How should the past life of the nations and of humanity be considered ? as the product of the free, or the not free activity of men ? That is a question of history.

Only in our selfconfident time of the popularization of science, thanks to the most powerful tool of ignorance, — the dissemination of printing, — the question of the freedom of the will has been transferred to a sphere where the question itself can no longer exist. In our day, the majority of the so-called leaders, that is, a mass of ignoramuses, have accepted the labours of the naturalists, who busy themselves with one side of the question, as the solution of the whole question.

There is no soul and no freedom, because man’s life is expressed by muscular motions, and the muscular motions are conditioned by nervous activity ; there is no soul and no freedom, because at an unknown period of time we originated from apes, they say, write, and print, not at all suspecting that thousands of years ago, all religions, all thinkers, had not only accepted, but had even never denied that very law of necessity, which they now attempt to prove so carefully by means of physiology and comparative zoology. They do not see that the rôle of the natural sciences in this question consists only in serving as a tool for the enlightenment of one of its sides ; for that, from the standpoint of observation, reason and will are only secretions of the brain, and that man, following the general law, may have evolved from the lower animals at an uncertain period of time, elucidates only from a new side the truth, which was recognized thousands of years ago by all the religions and philosophical theories, that, from the standpoint of reason, man is subject to the laws of necessity, but does not advance a hair’s breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite side based on the consciousness of freedom.

If men originated from apes at an unknown period of time, this is as intelligible as that men were formed from a handful of earth at a given period of time (in the first case x is the time, in the second, the origin), and the question of how the consciousness of man harmonizes with the law of necessity, to which man is subject, cannot be determined by comparative physiology and zoology, because in the frog, the rabbit, and the ape we can observe only a nervo-muscular activity, while in man we observe both the nervo-muscular activity and consciousness.

The naturalists and their admirers, who think that they can solve this question, are like plasterers who are put to work to plaster one side of a church wall, and who, making use of the absence of the chief master workman, in an outburst of zeal, plaster up the windows, and the images, and the timbers, and the unsteadied walls, and admire their work which, from their plasterer standpoint, is so smooth and even.

IX.

The solution of the question about freedom and necessity has this advantage for history, as compared with the other branches of knowledge, in which the solution of the question has been attempted, in that for history this question does not refer to the essence itself of the human will, but to the conception about the manifestation of this will in the past and under certain conditions.

History, in the matter of solving this question, stands to the other sciences in the position of an experimental science as compared with speculative sciences.

History has for its subject, not the human will, but our conception about it.

Therefore, for history does not exist, as for theology, ethics, and philosophy, the unsolved mystery about the union of the two contradictions of freedom and necessity. History examines the conception of human life, in which this union has already taken place.

In actual life each historical event, each human action, is understood quite clearly and definitely, without the perception of the smallest contradiction, although each event presents itself now as free, and now as necessary.

In order to solve the question how freedom and necessity may be combined, and what forms the essence of these concepts, the philosophy of history may and must proceed on an opposite path from the one traversed by the other sciences. Instead of defining the concepts of freedom and of necessity in themselves, and of classifying the phenomena of life according to the definitions thus formed,

history must deduce the definition of the very concepts of freedom and of necessity from an immense number of phenomena subject to its investigation, which always present themselves as dependent on freedom and necessity.

No matter what conception of the activity of many men or of one man we may examine, we never understand it otherwise than as the product partly of the freedom of man, and partly of the laws of necessity.

We do not see the least contradiction whether we speak of the migration of peoples and the incursions of the barbarians, or of the orders of Napoleon III., or of the act of a man committed an hour ago, which consists in having chosen one out of several directions for a walk. The measure of freedom and necessity, which has guided the acts of these men, is clearly defined for us.

Very frequently the conception of the greater or lesser freedom varies, according to the different point of view from which we examine the event ; but, invariably, each action of man presents itself to us not otherwise than as a certain combination of freedom and of necessity. In each action under examination we see a certain measure of freedom and a certain measure of necessity. And always, the more freedom we see in any action, the less there is necessity ; and the more necessity, the less freedom.

The relation of freedom to necessity may be greater or smaller, according to the standpoint from which an act may be viewed; but the relation will always be in inverse proportion.

A drowning man who catches at another and drowns him, or a hungry mother who, exhausted by her babe’s suckling, steals food, or a man drilled in discipline who, while in the ranks, kills by command a defenceless man, appears less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of necessity, to him who knows the conditions in which these men were, and more free to him who does not know that the man himself was drowning, the mother hungry, and the soldier in the ranks, and so forth. Even thus a man who twenty years before committed a murder and ever afterward lived peacefully and harmlessly in society, appears less guilty ; his act seems more subject to the law of necessity to him who views it after the lapse of twenty years, and more free to him who examined it a day after it had been committed. Even thus every deed of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears as less free and more necessary to him who knows the mental condition of the man who has committed the deed, and more free and less necessary to him who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom is increased or diminished, and the conception of necessity is correspondingly diminished or increased, according to the point from which the act is viewed. So that the greater the necessity appears to be, the smaller is the freedom, and vice versa.

Religion, the common sense of humanity, jurisprudence, and history itself have the same notions about the relations between necessity and freedom.

All the cases without exception, in which our conception of the freedom and the necessity is increased or diminished, have only three foundations :

(1) The relation of the man committing an act to the external world,

(2) to time, and

(3) to the causes which led to the act.

(1) The first foundation is a greater or lesser visible relation of man to the external world, a more or less clear conception of the definite place which each man occupies in relation to everything which exists contemporaneously with him. It is that foundation which makes it apparent that the drowning man is less free and is more subject to the law of necessity than the man who stands on dry ground; that foundation, in consequence of which the actions of a man living in close connection with other

men in a densely populated locality, the actions of a man who is tied down by a family, service, enterprises, unquestionably present themselves as less free and more subject to necessity than the actions of a single and solitary man.

If we view a man alone, without any relation to everything surrounding him, every action of his will appear free to us. But if we see any relation to what surrounds him, if we see his connection with anything whatsoever, with a man who is speaking with him, with a book which he is reading, ■with the labour with which he is occupied, even with the air which surrounds him, or with the light that falls upon the objects surrounding him, — we see that each of these conditions has an influence upon him and guides at least one side of his activity. And inasmuch as we see these influences, insomuch do we diminish our conception of his freedom, and increase our conception of the necessity to which he is subjected.

(2) The second foundation is a greater or lesser visible temporal relation of man to the world,— a more or less clear conception of the place which a man’s action occupies in time. It is that foundation, in consequence of which the fall of the first man, which had for its result the origin of the human race, presents itself obviously as less free than the marriage of a modern man. It is that foundation, in consequence of which the lives and activities of men who lived centuries ago, and who are connected with me in time, cannot appear to me so free as contemporary life, the consequences of which are not yet known to me.

The gradation of the conception of the greater or lesser freedom in this respect depends on the greater or lesser interval of time from the performance of the deed to the judgment about it.

If I examine an act performed by me a minute ago, under approximately the same conditions under which I now am, my act indubitably presents itself to me as free. But if I reflect on an act committed by me a month ago, I, finding myself under different conditions, involuntarily assume that, if the act had not been committed, many useful, agreeable, and even necessary things which sprang from that deed would not have taken place. If I transfer myself in imagination to a still more remote act, ten years back, or more, the consequences of my act are still more manifest to me, and I find it hard to make out what would have happened if the act had not been. The farther back I transfer myself in imagination, or, what is the same, in advance of the judgment, the more doubtful will my reflection be about the freedom of the act.

Precisely the same progression of persuasiveness as regards the influence of the free will on the general affairs of humanity we find in history. A contemporary event presents itself to us as unquestionably the product of all the known men ; but in a more remote event we see its inevitable consequences, in the place of which we cannot imagine any other. And the farther back we transfer ourselves in the examination of events, the less arbitrary do they appear to us.

The Austro-Prussian war appears to us as the unquestionable result of the actions of wily Bismarck, and so forth.

The Napoleonic wars, though somewhat doubtfully, still appear to us as the products of the will of the heroes; but in the crusades we already see an event which occupies a definite place, and without which the modem history of Europe is unthinkable, though to the chroniclers of the crusades this event appeared only as the result of the will of several persons. In the migration of the peoples no one in our day imagines that Attila’s arbitrary will had anything to do with the renovation of the European world. The farther back in history we take the subject of observation, the more doubtful does the freedom of the event-producing men become, and the more manifest is the law of necessity.

(3) The third foundation is a greater or lesser accessibility of that endless nexus of causes, forming an inevitable demand of reason, in which each conceptual phenomenon and, therefore, each human action must have its definite place, as a result of the foregoing and a cause for the consequent.

It is that foundation, in consequence of which our acts and those of other men present themselves to us, the more free and the less subject to necessity, on the one hand, the better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and historical laws, which are deduced from observation, and to which man is subject, and the more correctly we have seized the physiological, psychological, or historical cause of action ; on the other hand, the simpler the observable action and the less complex in character and mind the man is, whose action we are examining.

When we absolutely fail to understand the causes of an act, — whether in the case of a misdeed, or an act of virtue, or an indifferently good or bad act, — we in such a case assume the greatest measure of freedom. In the case of a misdeed we demand most persistently that it be punished ; in the case of an act of virtue, we most value such a deed. In the indifferent case we assume the greatest individuality, originality, freedom. But, if only one of the endless causes is known to us, we recognize a certain measure of necessity, and less persistently demand retribution for a crime, less readily acknowledge the deserts of a virtuous deed, and see less freedom in what seemed to be an original act. The fact that the criminal was brought up among malefactors already extenuates his guilt. The selfsacrifice of a father, a mother, — a selfsacrifice with the possibility of reward, — is more comprehensible than aimless selfsacrifice, and so appears as less deserving sympathy, as free. The founder of a sect or party, an inventor, surprises us less when we know how and by what his activity has been prepared. If we have a long series of experiments, if our observation is constantly directed toward discovering the correlations in the actions of men between their causes and their consequences, the actions of men will appear to us the more necessary and the less free, the more correctly we connect the consequences with the causes. If the actions under observation are simple, our conception of their necessity will be fuller still. The dishonest act of a son of a dishonest father, the bad behaviour of a woman who has fallen into bad company, a drunkard’s relapse into drunkenness, and so forth, are acts which appear to us the less free, the more intelligible the cause is to us. But if the man, whose action we are viewing, stands on the very lowest stage of mental development, as a child, a demented person, a fool, we, knowing the causes of action and the simplicity of character and mind, see such a great measure of necessity and such a small measure of freedom that, the moment we know the cause which is to bring about an action, we are able to predict the deed itself.

Only on these three foundations are based the irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances which are to be found in all legislations. The imputability is represented as greater or as less, according to the greater or lesser knowledge of the conditions under which the man was, whose act is being judged, according to the greater or lesser interval of time from the commission of the deed to the judgment about it, and according to the greater or lesser comprehension of the causes of the act.

X.

Thus our conception of freedom and of necessity gradually decreases or increases, according to the greater or lesser connection with the external world, according to the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes, under which we view the phenomenon of human life.

So that, if we examine the position of a man in which the connection with the external world is best known, the period of judgment most remote from the period of the commission of the deed, and the causes of the act most accessible, we get the conception of the greatest necessity and the least freedom. But if we view a man in the least dependence on external conditions, if his act was committed in a moment near to the present, and the causes of his action are inaccessible to us, we get the conception of the least necessity and of the greatest freedom.

But, in neither case, no matter how much we may change our point of view ; no matter how we may elucidate that connection which subsists between man and the external world, or how accessible it may seem to us; no matter how much we may lengthen or shorten the period of time ; no matter how intelligible or inaccessible the causes may be to us, — we are never able to imagine either complete freedom, or complete necessity.

1. No matter how we may imagine man exempt from the influences of the external world, we shall never arrive at the conception of freedom in space. Every human act is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him, — his very body. I raise my arm and I drop it. This action to me seems voluntary ; but I ask myself : Could I have raised my arm in every direction ? I see that I raised my arm in the direction where for this action I found least resistance, both in the bodies surrounding me and in the structure of my own body. If, of all possible directions, I chose one, I did so because there were the least number of obstacles. In order to imagine man as free, we must imagine him outside of space, which is obviously impossible.

2. No matter how much we may move up the time of judgment to the time of the deed, we shall never get a concept of freedom in time. For, if I examine an act which was committed a second ago, I still must recognize the necessity of the act, because it is fettered in that moment of time when it was committed. Can I raise my arm ? I raise it ; but I ask myself : Could I have not raised my arm in that already past moment of time ? To convince myself of it, I do not raise it in the next moment of time. But I did not raise my arm not in that first moment when I asked myself about the freedom. Time has passed, which it was not in my power to keep back, and the arm which I then raised is not the same arm with which I now do not make that motion, and the air in which I then made the motion is no longer the same air which now surrounds me. The moment in which the first movement took place is irretrievable, and at that moment I could have made but one motion, and whatever motion I might have made, it would have been the only one. The fact that I did not raise my arm the next moment does not prove that I could have not raised it then. And since my motion could have been one only at a given moment of time, it could not have been anything else. In order to imagine it as free, we must imagine it in the present, on the boundary-line between the past and the future, that is, outside of time, which is impossible, and —

3. No matter how much the difficulty of comprehending the cause may increase, we shall never arrive at the conception of complete freedom, that is, at the absence of cause. No matter how inaccessible to us may be the cause of the expression of the will in any one act of our own or of others, the first demand of reason is the assumption of a cause and the search for it, for without cause no phenomenon is thinkable. I raise my hand in order to commit an act which is independent of all causes, but my wishing to commit an act which has no cause is the cause of my act.

But even if, imagining a man who is entirely exempt from all influences, and examining only his momentary act in the present, which is not called forth by any cause, we should admit an infinitely small remainder of necessity, equal to zero, we should still not arrive at the conception of absolute freedom ; because a being which does not receive the influences of the external world, which stands outside of time, is no longer a man.

In the same manner we can never imagine the action of a man without the participation of freedom, and subject only to the law of necessity.

1. No matter how much our knowledge of those space conditions, in which a man is, may increase, this knowledge can never be full, because the number of these conditions is inimitably large, just as illimitable as space itself. And therefore, so long as not all conditions of the influences exerted on man are determined, there is no full necessity, and there is a certain measure of freedom.

2. No matter how much we may lengthen the period of time from the event winch we are examining to the time of the judgment, this period will be finite, while time is infinite, and so in this relation, too, there cannot be full necessity.

3. No matter how accessible the causal chain of any act may be, we shall never know the whole chain, because it is endless, and again we shall not arrive at full necessity.

But, besides, even if, admitting a remainder of minimum freedom, equal to zero, we should in some case, such as in the dying man, the germ, the idiot, assume a complete absence of freedom, we should by that very assumption destroy the conception of man, which we are examining ; because, as soon as there is no freedom, there is no man. And so the conception of a human action which is subject only to the law of necessity, without the least remainder of freedom, is just as impossible as the conception of an absolutely free human action.

And so, in order to imagine the action of a man which is subject only to the law of necessity, without freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an infinite number of space relations of an infinitely large period of time and an infinite series of causes.

In order to imagine an absolutely free man, who is not subject to the law of necessity, we must imagine him all alone, outside of space, outside of time, and outside of dependence on causes.

In the first case, if necessity without freedom were possible, we should arrive at the definition of the laws of necessity by necessity itself, that is, at the mere form without contents.

In the second case, if freedom without necessity were possible, we should arrive at unconditional freedom outside of space, time, and causes, which, for the very reason that it would be unconditional and not limited by anything, would be nothing or mere contents without form.

We should, in general, arrive at those two foundations of which the whole world-philosophy of man is composed, — at the incomprehensible essence of life, and at the laws which define that essence.

Reason says : (1) Space, with all the forms which visible matter gives it, is endless and cannot be thought of otherwise. (2) Time is infinite motion without a moment of rest, and it is not thinkable otherwise. (3) The causal nexus has no beginning and can have no end.

Consciousness says: (1) I am alone, and everything which exists is nothing but I ; consequently, I include space ; (2) I measure flowing time by the immovable moment of the present, in which alone I am conscious of living ; consequently, I am outside of time, and (3) I am outside of cause, for I feel myself the cause of every manifestation of my life.

Reason expresses the laws of necessity. Consciousness expresses the essence of freedom.

Freedom, not limited by anything, is the essence of life in the consciousness of man. Necessity without contents is human reason with its three forms.

Freedom is that which is being viewed. Necessity is that which views. Freedom is contents. Necessity is form.

Only in dissevering the two sources of cognition, which stand to each other in the relation of form to contents, do we receive the mutually excluding and incomprehensible concepts of freedom and of necessity.

Only in uniting them do we get a clear conception of human life.

Outside of these two concepts, which in their union mutually determine each other as form and contents, no conception of life is possible.

Everything which we know of the lives of men is only a certain relation of freedom to necessity, that of consciousness to the laws of reason.

Everything which we know about the external world of Nature is only a certain relation of the forces of Nature to necessity, or the essence of life to the laws of reason.

The vital forces of Nature lie outside of us and are not cognizable by us, and we call these forces gravity, inertia, electricity, vital force, and so forth ; but the vital force of man is cognizable by us, and we call it freedom.

But just as the in itself incomprehensible force of gravity, which is perceived by every man, becomes comprehensible to us to the extent to which we know the laws of necessity to which it is subject (from the first knowledge that all bodies are heavy to the laws of Newton), even so the in itself incomprehensible force of freedom, which is cognizable by everybody, is comprehensible to us only to the extent to which we know the laws of necessity to which it is subject (beginning with the fact that every man dies, and up to the knowledge of the most complex economic or historic laws).

Every knowledge is only a subordination of the essence of life to the laws of reason.

Man’s freedom differs from every other force in that this force is recognized by man ; but for the reason it in no way differs from any other force. The force of gravity, of electricity, and of chemical affinity differ from each other only by being differently defined by reason. Just so the force of human freedom is distinguished by reason from the other forces of Nature only by the definition which this reason makes of it. But freedom without necessity, that is, without the laws of reason that define it, in no way differs from gravity, or heat, or the vegetative force, — it is for the reason only a momentary, indefinable sensation of life.

And as the indefinable essence of the force which moves the celestial bodies, the indefinable essence of the force of heat and electricity, or of the force of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, form the contents of astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so forth, even so the essence of the force of freedom forms the contents of history. But just as the subject of every

science is the manifestation of this unknown essence of life, while the essence itself can be the subject only of metaphysics, — even so the manifestation of the force of freedom of men in space, time, and dependence on causes forms the subject of history; but the freedom itself is the subject of metaphysics.

In the experimental sciences, that which we know we call the laws of necessity ; that which we do not know we call vital force. Vital force is only the expression of an unknown remainder from what we know of the essence of life.

Even so in history, what is known to us we call laws of necessity; what is unknown to us, — freedom. Freedom for history is only the expression of the unknown remainder from what we know of the laws of human life.

XL

History views the manifestations of human freedom in connection with the external world in time and in the dependence on causes, that is, it defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science only in so far as this freedom is defined by these laws.

For history, the recognition of human freedom as a force which may influence historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same as the assumption, for astronomy, of a free force of motion for the heavenly bodies.

This assumption destroys the possibility of the existence of laws, that is, of any knowledge. If there exists even one single freely moving body, then there do not exist the laws of Kepler and of Newton, and there no longer exists any conception about the movements of the heavenly bodies. If there exists a single free act of a man, there does not exist a single historical law or any conception of historical events.

For history there exist lines of movements of human wills, one end of which is concealed in the unknown, and at the other end of which there moves in space, in time, and in the dependence on causes the consciousness of human freedom in the present.

The more this field of motion expands before our eyes, the more evident are the laws of this motion. To seize and define these laws forms the problem of history.

From that point of view from which science now looks at its subject, on that path on which it now travels, in

endeavouring to discover the causes of the phenomena in the free will of men, the expression of laws is impossible for science, because, no matter how much we may limit human freedom, the moment we recognize it as a force which is subject to no laws, the existence of a law is impossible.

Only by limiting this freedom to infinity, that is, by viewing it as an infinitely small quantity, shall we convince ourselves of the absolute insufficiency of causes, and then, instead of looking for causes, history will have for its problem the discovery of laws.

The discovery of these laws was begun long ago, and those new methods of reasoning, which history must adopt, are being worked out simultaneously with the self-destruction toward which, by parcelling out the causes of the phenomena, the old history is moving.

On this path all the sciences have marched. In arriving at the infinitely small, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the process of parcelling, and proceeds to the summation of the unknown, the infinitely small. Receding from the conception of cause, mathematics tries to discover the law, that is, the properties which are common to all unknown, infinitely small elements.

Still on the same path of reasoning, though in a different form, the other sciences have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity, he did not say that the sun and earth had the property of attraction ; he said that every body, from the largest to the minutest, had the property of attracting each other, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the movement of the bodies, he expressed the property which is common to all bodies, from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by the natural sciences : leaving aside the question of the cause, they look for the laws. On the same path stands history. And if history has for its object the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity, and not the description of episodes from the lives of men, then it must reject the conception of causes and try to discover the laws which are common to all equal and inseparably interrelated infinitely small elements of freedom.

XII.

Ever since the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition that it was not the sun that was moving, but the earth, has destroyed the whole cosmography of the ancients. It was possible to reject this law and retain the old conception of the movement of the bodies, but, by not rejecting it, it would seem, it would not have been possible to continue the study of Ptolemy’s worlds. But even after, the discovery of the law of Copernicus, Ptolemy’s worlds continued to be studied for a long time.

Ever since the first man said and proved that the number of births or crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that certain geographical and economic conditions determine this or that mode of government, and that certain relations of the population to the land produce the movement of the peoples, the foundations on which history was built were destroyed in their essence.

It was possible to reject the new laws and still cling to the old view of history, but, in not rejecting them, it seems, it was impossible to continue to study historical events as the product of the free will of men. For, if such and such a mode of government has been established, and such and such a movement of the nations has taken place, as the result of geographical, ethnographical, or economic conditions, then the will of those men, who to us appear as having established the mode of government, or having evoked the movement of the nations, can no longer be considered as a cause.

And yet, the former history is still studied together with the laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology, and geology, which directly contradict its propositions.

The struggle between the old and the new view has gone on for a long time in the physical philosophy. Theology was on the qui vive for its old view and accused the new of destroying revelation. But when truth prevailed, theology built just as firmly on the new foundation.

Just as long and as stubbornly has the struggle been going on between the old and the new conception of history, and even so theology is on the lookout for the old view and accuses the new of having destroyed revelation.

In either case, the struggle provokes the passions on either side and chokes truth. On the one side appears the struggle of terror and pity for the whole structure which has been reared in past ages ; and on the other the struggle of the passion for destroying.

To the men who struggled against the rising truth of physical philosophy it seemed that, if they accepted the truth, there would be destroyed the faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, in the miracle of Joshua. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to Voltaire, for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed religion, and so he used the laws of gravity as a tool against religion.

Even so, it seems, it will suffice to recognize the law of necessity, and there will be destroyed the conception about the soul, about good and evil, and all the institutions of Church and State, which are based upon it.

Even so now, the uninvited defenders of the law of necessity use, as Voltaire did in his time, this law of necessity as a tool against religion, whereas, just as was the case with the law of Copernicus in astronomy, the law of

necessity in history not only does not destroy, but even strengthens the foundation on which the institutions of State and Church are reared.

As then, in the question of astronomy, so now, in the question of history, the whole difference of the view is based on the recognition or non-recognition of the absolute unit which serves as a measure of the visible phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth ; in history it is the independence of the personality, — freedom.

Just as in astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth consisted in renouncing the immediate feeling of the stability of the earth and of a similar feeling of the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty in recognizing the subjection of the individual to the laws of space, time, and causality consists in renouncing the immediate feeling of the independence of one’s own personality. But as in astronomy the new view said, ” It is true, we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by assuming its immovability we arrive at nonsense; and by admitting the motion, which we do not feel, we arrive at laws,” so in history the new view says, ” It is true, we do not feel our dependence, but, by admitting our freedom, we arrive at nonsense ; and, by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on causes, we arrive at laws.”

In the first case, it was necessary to renounce the recognition of a non-existent immovability in space and recognize the motion which is imperceptible to our senses ; even so, in the present case, it is necessary to renounce the non-existent freedom and recognize the dependence of which we are not conscious.

THE END.