Prince Vasily continued:
'Let the flagrant and brazen Goliath who comes from the borders of France visit upon the realm of Russia all the horrors of death. Our humble faith, the sling of the Russian David, shall send a swift blow to the head of his pride that so thirsteth for blood. This icon of the venerable Saint Sergiy, in ancient times a jealous champion of our country's weal, is hereby borne to your Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my failing powers prevent me from rejoicing in the sight of your most gracious countenance. I offer up to Heaven my most fervent prayers, that the Almighty may in His mercy exalt the generation of the righteous and fulfil the hopes of your Majesty . . .'
'Such power! And what a delivery!' came various voices praising reader and author alike. Newly inspired by this rousing appeal, Anna Pavlovna's guests stayed on for some time discussing the country's present situation, and there was a variety of opinions as to how the battle that must be fought any day now would turn out.
'You will see,' said Anna Pavlovna. 'Tomorrow is the Emperor's birthday, and we shall hear something. I have a funny feeling it will be something good.'
CHAPTER 2
Anna Pavlovna's funny feeling was amply justified. Next day, during a special service held at court in honour of the Tsar's birthday, Prince Volkonsky was called out to receive a message from Prince Kutuzov. It was a report written by Kutuzov at Tatarinova on the day of the battle. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not given an inch, French losses had been greater than ours, and this message was being dashed off on the actual battlefield without waiting for all the latest intelligence to come in. So there had been a victory. There on the spot, without leaving church, the congregation rendered thanks to the Creator for His help with their cause, and for victory.
Anna Pavlovna's funny feeling had been justified, and all that morning the town was in a happy holiday mood. Everyone assumed the victory to have been conclusive, and there was talk of Napoleon having been taken prisoner and deposed, and a new sovereign being chosen for France.
Far away from the scene of action and amid the distractions of court life it is quite difficult for events to be properly reflected and kept in proportion. Public events are automatically centred around some event of personal significance. Here, for instance, the courtiers were celebrating not just because a victory had been won, but equally because news of it had arrived on the Tsar's birthday. It was like an arranged surprise that had come off well. Kutuzov's report had also mentioned some Russian losses, including names as such as Tuchkov, Bagration and Kutaysov. So it was that, quite unconsciously in this Petersburg world, the sad side of things also centred around a single incident - the death of Kutaysov. Everybody had known him, the Tsar had liked him, and he had been an interesting young man. All that day people said to each other when they met, 'What a marvellous coincidence! Just like that, in the middle of the service. Oh, but what a loss - Kutaysov! Terrible pity!'
'What did I tell you about Kutuzov?' Prince Vasily said now, with the pride of a prophet. 'I always said he was the only man capable of beating Napoleon.'
But next day there was no news from the army, and the public voice began to waver. The courtiers felt for the Tsar in the agony of suspense that he was suffering.
'What a dreadful situation for the Empreror to be in!' said the courtiers. They stopped singing the praises of Kutuzov as they had done the other day; now they rounded on him as the cause of the Tsar's present plight. Prince Vasily stopped boasting about his beloved Kutuzov, and kept quiet when the commander-in-chief's name came up. To make matters worse, by that evening everything had seemingly conspired to plunge the Petersburg world into deep distress and anxiety: a dreadful piece of news came to add to their woes. Countess Helene Bezukhov had died quite suddenly of the dreadful illness which they had so much enjoyed chatting about. At large gatherings the official word was that Countess Bezukhov had died from a terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in close circles people went into great detail, telling how the personal physician to the Queen of Spain had prescribed small doses of a certain medicine for Helene that were supposed to have a special effect on her, but Helene, tormented by the old count's suspicions and her husband's failure to respond to her letter (that wretched profligate Pierre), had suddenly taken an overdose and died in agony before any help could be given. According to the story, Prince Vasily and the old count had rounded on the Italian, but he had produced notes left by the unhappy deceased, and these were so explicit they had promptly let him go.
Conversation now centred around three sad developments - the Tsar's state of uncertainty, the loss of Kutaysov and the death of Helene.
On the third day after Kutuzov's dispatch a country gentleman arrived from Moscow, and soon the news that the city had been surrendered to the French was all over town. This was awful! What a position for the Emperor to be in! Kutuzov was now a traitor, and when Prince Vasily talked to visitors calling in to express their condolences over his daughter's death, if there was any mention of Kutuzov (whom he had so recently praised to the skies, though allowances had to be made for the fact that in all his grief he had forgotten his earlier comments), he said you couldn't have expected anything different from a blind and dissipated old man.
'The thing that surprises me,' he would go on to say, 'is how on earth we could have entrusted the fate of Russia to the likes of him.'
While ever the news remained officially unconfirmed, it was still possible to doubt it, but next day the following message arrived from Count Rostopchin: Prince Kutuzov's adjutant has brought me a letter demanding a police escort for the army down the Ryazan road. He says he is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's action decides the fate of the capital and your whole empire. Russia will shudder to learn that this city, where the greatness of Russia is concentrated and the ashes of your forefathers lie, has been surrendered. I shall follow the army. I have had everything taken away. All that remains is for me to weep over the fate of my country.
On receiving this message, the Tsar dispatched Prince Volkonsky to Kutuzov with the following response: Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich! I have received no reports from you since the 29th of August. Meanwhile I have received, by way of Yaroslavl, from the governor-general of Moscow, writing on September 1st, the sad tidings that you have decided to take the army away and abandon Moscow. You can well imagine the effect this news has had upon me, and your silence exacerbates my astonishment. I am sending herewith Adjutant-General Prince Volkonsky to ascertain from you the present situation of the army and the reasons that lie behind such an unhappy decision.
CHAPTER 3
Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow a courier from Kutuzov reached Petersburg with an official announcement of the surrender of the city. He was a Frenchman, Michaud, who, as he put it, 'may have been a foreigner but called himself a Russian heart and soul'.
The Tsar was quick to receive the messenger in his study in the palace on Kamenny Island. Michaud had never set eyes on Moscow before the campaign and knew not a word of Russian, yet he wrote that he was deeply moved when he came before 'our most gracious sovereign' with the news of the burning of Moscow, the flames of which had lit up his route.
Though the origins of M. Michaud's sorrow must have been different from those that lay behind the grief of Russian people, Michaud had such a gloomy look about him when he was shown into the Tsar's study that the Tsar asked him at once:
'Do you bring me sad news, Colonel?'
'Very sad, sire,' answered Michaud, looking down with a sigh. 'The surrender of Moscow.'
'Can they really have surrendered my ancient capital without a fight?' the Tsar asked sharply, suddenly roused.
Michaud respectfully gave the message Kutuzov had asked him to give: there had been no possibility of fighting just outside Moscow, and since they had been left with a straight choice - either to lose the army and Moscow together or to lose only Moscow - the commander-in-chief had been forced to go for the latter option.
The Tsar listened wi
thout a word, avoiding Michaud's eyes.
'Is the enemy now inside the city?' he asked.
'Yes, sire, and by now the city is reduced to ashes. I left it all in flames,' said Michaud decisively, but one glance at the Tsar made him feel horrified at what he had done. The Tsar's breathing was rapid and laboured, his lower lip was quivering, and for one moment his handsome blue eyes were moist with tears.
But this lasted no more than a moment. The Tsar's sudden frown was a gesture of self-reproach for showing weakness. He looked up and spoke firmly to Michaud.
'I can see from all that is happening, Colonel, that Providence requires great sacrifices of us. I am ready to submit to His will in all things, but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army, seeing my ancient capital abandoned just like that without striking a blow? Did you see any alarm and despondency?'
Once he saw that his most gracious sovereign had regained his composure, Michaud was able to do the same, but the Tsar had asked a straight, factual question calling for a straight answer, and he didn't have one ready yet.
'Sire, will you permit me to speak frankly, as a loyal soldier?' he said, playing for time.
'Colonel, that is what I always insist upon,' said the Tsar. 'Hide nothing from me. I really do want to know how things stand.'
'Sire!' said Michaud, with the delicate hint of a smile on his lips now that he had had time to prepare his answer. It was polite, but it involved a little word play. 'Sire! I left the whole army, from the commanders to the lowest soldier without exception, in fear and trembling.'
'What can you mean?' the Tsar cut in with a dark scowl. 'Would my Russians allow themselves to lose heart in the face of misfortune? . . . Never!'
This was just what Michaud was waiting for to work his little trick.
'Sire,' he said, still respectful but now looking rather playful, 'their only dread is that your Majesty might be persuaded to sue for peace through sheer goodness of heart. They are spoiling for a fight,' said this representative of the Russian people, 'and eager to prove their loyalty to your Majesty by laying down their lives . . .'
'Aha!' said the Tsar, much reassured, with a gleam of affection in his eyes as he clapped Michaud on the shoulder. 'Colonel, you put my mind at rest . . .'
The Tsar looked down, and for a while he said nothing.
'Well, off you go back to the army,' he said at last, drawing himself up to his full height and addressing Michaud with a warm, regal gesture, 'and tell our good men, tell all our loyal subjects wherever you go, that when I am left without a single soldier I shall put myself at the head of my beloved nobility and my splendid peasants, and drain the last resources of my empire. I have more at my disposal than my enemies imagine,' said the Tsar, getting more and more excited. 'But if it were ever to be written in the decrees of Divine Providence,' he said, with his gentle, handsome eyes shining with emotion and raised towards heaven, 'that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting every means in my power I shall grow my beard down to here' (the Emperor placed his hand half-way down his chest) 'and go and eat potatoes with the humblest of my peasants rather than underwrite the shame of my country and my dear people, whose sacrifice I fully appreciate.'
Uttering these words in a voice full of feeling, the Tsar turned away brusquely as if he didn't want Michaud to see his eyes filling with tears, and walked to the other end of the study. After standing there for a while, he strode back to Michaud, and gripped his arm warmly below the elbow. The Tsar's gentle and handsome face was flushed, and his eyes smouldered with determination and fury.
'Colonel Michaud, don't forget what I am saying to you here. One day, perhaps, we shall recall it with pleasure . . . It's Napoleon or me,' he said, touching his breast. 'We can no longer rule together. I have come to know him. He will not deceive me again . . .' And the Tsar paused, frowning. At these words, seeing the look of gritty determination in the Tsar's eyes, Michaud, the foreigner who was a Russian heart and soul, felt truly inspired at that solemn moment by what he had heard (as he would later recount), and he felt he was expressing not only his own feelings but those of the Russian people as a whole, since he considered himself to be their representative, as he coined the following phrases:
'Sire! At this moment your Majesty is underwriting the glory of the nation and the salvation of Europe!'
The Tsar dismissed Michaud with a slight nod.
CHAPTER 4
With half of Russia in enemy hands, the inhabitants of Moscow scurrying away to remote provinces, and one levy of militia after another being raised for the defence of the country, we who were not living at that time are bound to think that all the Russian people, great and small, were wholly occupied in sacrificing themselves, saving their country, or weeping over its downfall. Every last story and description that has come down to us from that period tells of nothing but self-sacrifice, patriotism, despair, grief and heroic conduct on the part of the Russians. In real life, of course, it wasn't like that. It seems so to us, because all we see from the past is the general historical interest of the period; what we don't see are all the personal human concerns of people at that time. Yet in real life personal concerns of immediate relevance are so much more important than the general public interest that they prevent the public interest from ever being sensed, or even noticed. Most people at that time ignored the general course of events because they were wrapped up in their immediate personal concerns. And these same people were the prime movers of their day.
The ones who were actually making an effort to follow the general course of events, and trying to get involved through self-sacrifice and heroic conduct, were the least useful members of society; they looked at things the wrong way round, and everything they did, with the best of intentions, turned out to be useless and absurd, like the regiments provided by Pierre and Mamonov that went off to loot Russian villages, like the lint scraped by the ladies that never got through to the wounded, and so on. Even people who just liked to think things through and talk them over couldn't discuss the current situation of Russia without unconsciously lapsing into hypocrisy, falsehood or useless victimization and animosity levelled against individuals they were eager to blame for things that weren't anybody's fault.
Historical events illustrate more clearly than anything the injunction against eating of the Tree of Knowledge. The only activity that bears any fruit is subconscious activity, and no one who takes part in any historical drama can ever understand its significance. If he so much as tries to understand it, his efforts are fruitless.
The more intimately anyone was involved in the unfolding Russian drama of the day, the more easily its meaning escaped him. In Petersburg, and out in the provinces a long way from Moscow, ladies and gentlemen put on their militia uniforms, bewailed the fate of Russia and the loss of her ancient capital and talked of self-sacrifice, and so on. But in the army, which had retreated beyond Moscow, scarcely anybody talked or thought about Moscow, or gazed at the burning city and vowed to get his own back on the French, because they were all thinking about pay-day, or the next halt, or Mary the canteen-girl, or things like that.
Nikolay Rostov never had any idea of self-sacrifice; it was only because war happened to break out while he was still a serving soldier that he found himself with a direct and lengthy part to play in the defence of his country, and consequently able to look on what was happening in Russia without falling into despair or coming to pessimistic conclusions. If he had been asked his opinion of Russia's present situation he would have said it wasn't his job to think about things like that, that's what Kutuzov and the rest of them were there for, but he had heard the regiments were being topped up, so there must be a lot of fighting still to do, and with things as they were he ought to make colonel within a couple of years.
Since this was his general attitude he felt no misgivings at having to absent himself from the coming battle when he was suddenly directed to go down to Voronezh and get hold of fresh horses for the divisi
on. In fact he received the news with the greatest satisfaction, which he didn't seek to hide, and his comrades fully understood.
A few days before the battle of Borodino Nikolay was issued with money and travel documents, and off he went to Voronezh, using post-horses, having sent some hussars on ahead.
Only someone who has been through the same thing, someone who has spent months on end in the atmosphere of an army in the field, could possibly imagine the feeling of bliss that Nikolay experienced when he escaped from a region crawling with troops, foraging parties, trains of supply-wagons, and field-hospitals, when he left behind all the soldiers, army vehicles, the squalid conditions of camp life, and started to see villagers with working men and peasant women, fine country houses, cattle grazing in the fields and posting-stations with their sleepy masters. He was ecstatically happy; it was as if he was seeing it all for the first time. And what really surprised him, and pleased him, was the sight of women, healthy young women, who didn't have dozens of officers hovering around them, women who were delighted and flattered to meet a travelling officer and share a joke with him.
Nikolay was in buoyant mood when he arrived at his hotel in Voronezh late at night. He ordered everything he hadn't been able to get hold of for ages in the army, and the following morning he gave himself a really close shave and put on the full-dress uniform that he hadn't worn for many a long day, before driving over to present himself to the authorities.
The commander of the local militia was a civilian general, an old gentleman who was obviously enjoying his military status and rank. His attitude to Nikolay was rather truculent - he thought he knew the right attitude for a military man to adopt - and he interrogated him very seriously, as if it was his right to do so, and to find out how things were going, without showing approval or disapproval. Nikolay was in such a good mood that all this struck him as amusing.
From the militia commander he went to see the governor. The governor was a fussy little man, warm-hearted and as straight as a die. He told Nikolay about various stud-farms where he might be able to get horses, recommended a horse-dealer down town and a gentleman farmer fifteen miles away who had the best horses, and said he would help in any way he could.