'Hey, there's a young gentleman here - he's been crushed!' the deacon was saying. 'Watch what you're doing! Steady on . . . You're squashing him to death!'
The Tsar had entered the cathedral. The crowd fanned out again, and the deacon manoeuvred Petya, white-faced and scarcely breathing, over towards the big Tsar-Cannon.11 Several people took pity on Petya and before long quite a crowd had gathered round attentively. The nearest bystanders took him under their wing, unbuttoning his coat, hoisting him up on top of the cannon, and shouting at other people who were squeezing up too close.
'You could kill somebody, squashing like that! What do you think you're doing? Murderers! Look at 'im, poor little fellow, he's as white as a sheet,' said voices.
Petya soon came round and the colour came back to his face. The pain had gone, and this unpleasant little setback had gained him a seat on top of the cannon, from where he hoped to see the Tsar, because he had to come back that way. Petya had abandoned any idea of submitting his petition. Now he just wanted to see him - then he would be able to say he'd had a lucky day!
While the service went on inside the Cathedral of the Assumption, marking both the Tsar's arrival and the peace concluded with Turkey, the crowd scattered about the square, and hawkers came round selling kvass, gingerbread and poppy-seed sweets (Petya's favourite), and the people chatted about all the usual things. A shopkeeper's wife showed her torn shawl and told them how much it had cost; another one complained that nowadays the prices of everything silk had gone through the roof. The deacon who had rescued Petya was talking to an office-worker about the different priests who were officiating today with the most reverend bishop. The deacon made several uses of the word 'conciliar', which meant nothing to Petya. Two young apprentices were having fun with some servant-girls, cracking nuts with their teeth. All this talk, especially the chit-chat with the girls, which would normally have been fascinating to someone of Petya's age, had no appeal for him today. He sat there enthroned on his cannon, still excited at the thought of the Tsar and his love for him. The mixture of pain and panic when he was being crushed, together with the general rapture, had produced in him a passionate sense of occasion.
Suddenly cannon shots were heard from the embankment to mark the peace with Turkey, and the crowd swarmed over to the embankment to watch the firing. Petya would have liked to run across too, but the deacon, who had taken charge of his young gentleman, wouldn't let him go. They were still firing when a number of officers, generals and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the cathedral. Others followed at a slower pace, caps were doffed and the people who had run across to watch the cannons rushed back again. Eventually four men in uniforms and ribbons came out through the cathedral doors to a great 'Hurrah! Hurrah!' from the crowd.
'Which is the Tsar? Which one?' Petya asked around in a tearful voice, but there was no answer; everybody was too excited. Petya picked one of the four, and although he could hardly see him through his tears of joy, he focused all his passionate attention on him, though in fact this wasn't the Tsar. He roared 'Hurrah!' in a frenzied voice, and made up his mind once and for all that tomorrow nothing would stop him joining the army.
The crowd ran after the Tsar, went with him as far as the palace, and then began to break up. It was getting late, Petya had had nothing to eat, and he was sweating profusely, but he had no intention of going home. He stayed on with a smaller though still considerable crowd in front of the palace while the Tsar was at dinner. He gazed up at the palace windows waiting for something to happen, and envying both the grand personages driving up to the entrance to dine with the Tsar and the servants waiting at table, who could be glimpsed now and then at the windows.
Over dinner with the Tsar Valuyev glanced through the window and said, 'The people are still out there, hoping for another sight of your Majesty.'
When dinner was over the Tsar got to his feet, still munching a biscuit, and walked out on to the balcony. The crowd swept forward, taking Petya with it, and rushed towards the balcony.
'Angel! Father! Hurrah! Lord and master!' Petya roared along with the crowd. Some women and even a few of the more sensitive men, including Petya, wept for joy.
A fair-sized piece of biscuit fell from the Tsar's hand, hit the balcony railing and bounced down to the ground. A coachman in a jerkin, who was nearest to it, pounced on the piece of biscuit and snatched it up. Several people surged towards the coachman. When he saw this the Tsar asked for a plate of biscuits, and started tossing them down from the balcony. Petya goggled at this and the blood rushed to his head. Exhilarated more than ever by the danger of the crush, he dived towards the biscuits. He couldn't have said why, but he felt he must get one of the biscuits dropped from the Tsar's hands, and nothing must stop him. He leapt forward, knocking over an old woman who was just about to grab a biscuit. Down on the ground the old woman wouldn't admit defeat; she was still scrabbling after the biscuits but couldn't quite get hold of one. Petya shoved her hand away with his knee, grabbed a biscuit, and roared a hoarse 'Hurrah!' as fast as he could so as not to miss the Tsar.
The Tsar went in, and after that most of the crowd began to disperse.
'Told you it was worth waiting - and it was,' came delighted voices from all parts of the crowd.
Happy as he was, Petya felt reluctant to go home, because this would mean admitting that his day's pleasure was over. He walked away from the Kremlin, but instead of going home he went to see his pal, Obolensky, another fifteen-year-old who was keen to enlist. When he did get home, Petya made an announcement that brooked no denial: if they wouldn't let him go he was going to run away. And the following day, without actually giving in, Count Ilya Rostov went and made a few inquiries to see whether there was somewhere not too dangerous that Petya might be posted to.
CHAPTER 22
Two days later, on the 15th of July, an endless line of carriages could be seen standing outside the Sloboda palace.
The great halls were teeming. The first one was full of uniformed noblemen, the second with bearded merchants in blue, full-skirted coats, wearing all their medals. The hall selected for the Council of the Nobility was abuzz with movement and noise. The real bigwigs were sitting on high-backed chairs round a large table under a portrait of the Tsar, but most of the other noblemen were strolling about the hall.
These noblemen, people Pierre was used to seeing every day at the club or in their homes, were all in uniform, some dating back to the ages of Catherine or Paul, some new ones belonging to Alexander's reign, others nothing more than the standard uniform of the nobility, but the overall effect of these costumes was to impart a weird fantasy quality to this diverse assembly of faces, both young and old, many of them familiar. It was the older men who stood out with their half-seeing eyes, toothless mouths, bald heads, thin bodies, and faces all wrinkled, sallow or bloated. For the most part they just sat there in silence, and if they did get up to walk about and talk to people they would generally attach themselves to someone a bit younger. These faces were like the ones Petya had seen on the square, full of expectancy, waiting for some solemn event, totally different from their everyday selves and yesterday's faces, when all that mattered was a game of boston, Petrushka the cook, the state of Zinaida Dmitriyevna's health, and things like that.
Pierre was there. He had felt uncomfortable since early morning after squeezing himself into a nobleman's uniform that wouldn't fit. He was in a state of high excitement; this extraordinary assembly, of both nobles and merchants, the States General that transcended class, had reawakened in him a whole series of ideas about Rousseau's Social Contract and the French Revolution, ideas long abandoned but still engraved on his soul. The words he had spotted in the manifesto, about the Tsar coming to the capital for consultation with his people, had confirmed that he was on the right lines. Acting on the assumption that something really important of that order was almost upon them, something he had long been waiting for, he walked up and down watching and listening intently. Nowhere did he pick u
p the slightest sign of the ideas that now obsessed him.
The Tsar's manifesto was read out to enthusiastic applause, and then they all scattered about the rooms deep in conversation. Apart from everyday chit-chat, Pierre heard deliberations about where the marshals would have to stand when the Tsar came in, the best time to put on a ball for the Tsar, whether they should be broken down by districts or act together as a province, and so on. But the moment anyone so much as touched on the war and the purpose of their meeting, everything became vague and uncertain. Everyone, it seemed, would sooner listen than speak.
In one of the rooms a middle-aged man cutting a handsome, virile figure in his retired naval officer's uniform was holding forth to a little crowd that had gathered round him. Pierre moved over to the growing circle, and listened to the speaker. Count Ilya Rostov, wearing a uniform from the days of Catherine, had been sauntering about beaming at all and sundry, since he knew everyone, but now he too came over to this group and lent an ear with a pleasant smile on his face, as always when he was listening, nodding with approval when he agreed with the speaker. The retired naval officer was coming out with some outrageous things, as was evident from the listeners' faces and the fact that some people Pierre knew to be meek and timid souls were recoiling in disapproval or standing up to him. Pierre gradually elbowed his way into the middle of the circle, listening closely, and got the impression the speaker was a true liberal, but not in the sense that Pierre was interested in. The naval officer had the strong, melodious baritone of a Russian nobleman, with the pleasant addition of a guttural French r and slurred consonants, the kind of voice you hear when men shout, 'Be a good fe'ow, bwing me a pipe!' and phrases like that. His tone suggested an easy authority and long experience of the good life.
'What if the peopuh of Smolensk have offahd to waise militia for the Empewah? Are the peopuh of Smolensk going to lay down the law fow us? If the good noble peopuh of the Moscow pwovince think fit, they can show their loyalty to the Empewah by othah means. Have we fo'gotten the militia of 1807? Only the pwiests' sons and thieves and wobbahs made any money out of that . . .'
Count Ilya Rostov smiled his bland smile and nodded in approval.
'And was ah militia any good to the state? Not the swightest! Bwought the wuwal economy to wack and wuin. Bwing back conscwiption, that's what I say . . . othahwise a man comes back to you neithah soldiah no' peasant, nothing but only a mowal weck. We nobuhls are pwepared to wisk our lives. Evwy man jack of us will dwum up wecwuits. One word fwom our sov'weign and we'll go out and die for him,' added the orator, warming to his theme.
Count Rostov was drooling with pleasure, and he nudged Pierre, but Pierre wanted to speak too. He moved forward, full of excitement, without knowing why he was excited or what he was going to say. He opened his mouth to launch forth, only to be interrupted by a wily, crotchety senator without a tooth in his head, standing near to the orator. Obviously a veteran of the debating chamber well accustomed to formulating an argument, he spoke out in a low, clear voice.
'I would imagine, my dear sir,' said the senator, his toothless mouth champing, 'that we have been summoned here not to discuss the relative merits of conscription and the militia for our country today. We have been summoned to make a response to the appeal graciously placed before us by our sovereign the Emperor. As to the decision between conscription and the militia - we can leave that to a higher authority . . .'
Suddenly Pierre had found a target for all his excitement. He was furious with the senator for taking such a pernickety and narrow-minded view of the nobility and what they were being asked to do. Pierre stepped forward and stopped him in his tracks. Without actually knowing what he was going to say, he launched forth in rather bookish Russian, with the occasional lapse into French.
'Excuse me, your Excellency,' he began. (Pierre was well acquainted with this senator, but on this occasion he felt it best to address him formally.) 'Although I don't agree with this gentleman . . .' (Pierre hesitated, on the point of referring to him as 'the honourable previous speaker') 'with this gentleman - I'm afraid I don't know your name, sir - but I would imagine that those of us who are of noble estate, apart from any expression of sympathy and zeal for the cause, have also been convened to consider what measures we can take to assist our country. I would imagine,' said Pierre, warming to his task, 'that the Tsar himself would not be too pleased to find us being nothing more than the owners of peasants whom we have given up to him, and er, cannon-fodder . . . sort of . . . that we are willing to be - instead of finding us full of good c . . . cou . . . counsel.'
Many people shuffled away from the circle when they noticed the derisive smile of the senator and Pierre's outspokenness. Count Rostov was the only person who liked what Pierre said, just as he had liked what the naval officer had said and the senator. He always liked what the last speaker had said.
'I would imagine that before we get down to discussing these questions,' Pierre continued, 'we ought to ask the Emperor, his Majesty, with the greatest respect to communicate to us the numbers of our troops, the positions of our troops and our army, and only then . . .'
These words were hardly out of Pierre's mouth when he was roundly attacked from three sides at once. The most violent onslaught came from an old and well-disposed acquaintance by the name of Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin, who had often been his partner at boston. But Stepan Stepanovich was in uniform, and because of this or perhaps for some other reason, Pierre saw before him a completely changed man. Stepan Stepanovich yelled at Pierre with an old man's anger on an old man's face: 'In the first place, I'm telling you we have no right to put questions like that to the Emperor, and secondly, if the Russian nobility did have such a right, the Emperor would be in no position to reply. Troop movements depend on enemy manoeuvres. We put men in and we take them out . . .'
Another voice cut across Apraksin. It belonged to a forty-year-old man of medium height known to Pierre from earlier days at the gypsies' entertainments, when he had been no good at cards. He too was a different man in uniform, and he now moved up closer to Pierre.
'Anyway, this is no time for deep discussions,' said this nobleman. 'Action's the word! There's a war on. The enemy's on the march and he's coming to destroy Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, and get our wives and children.' He thumped himself on the chest. 'We shall arise. To a man we shall arise and follow our father the Tsar!' he roared, his eyes bloodshot and rolling. A murmur of approval ran through the group. 'We are Russians, ready to put our lives on the line for the defence of our faith, our throne, our country. But we must leave off our idle dreaming if we are true sons of our fatherland. We'll show them in Europe - Russia shall defend Russia!' roared this gentleman.
Pierre wanted to reply, but he couldn't get a word out. He could sense that the sound of his words, irrespective of any meaning, would be drowned out by the other's excited voice.
Count Rostov was nodding in agreement at the back. Some of the listeners had been quick to align themselves shoulder to shoulder with the speaker as he wound up, and there was a chorus of approval: 'Oh yes. Quite right. Yes indeed!'
Pierre wanted to say that he was by no means averse to sacrificing money, or his peasants, or himself, but you needed to know exactly what was what if you wanted to help . . . but he couldn't speak.
Voices were yelling and shouting together, too many for Count Rostov to nod to. And the group was continually growing, collapsing and re-forming until at last there came a general surge, accompanied by the buzz of conversation, towards the big table in the big room. Pierre was given no chance to speak. They talked him down, jostled him aside and turned their backs on him as if he was the common enemy, not because they didn't like what he had said (which had been lost by now in the torrent of further speeches), but because a crowd is always at its liveliest when it has a tangible object to love and another one to hate. Pierre had provided the latter. Many speakers said their piece after that excited gentleman, all in the same tone. There were some
very fine and original speeches.
Glinka, the owner of The Russian Messenger, who had been immediately recognized and hailed with shouts of 'Author! Author!', announced that it would take hell to repulse hell, and he had seen a child smile at thunder and lightning, but we would not be that child.
'No, no, not when it thunders here!' came the encouraging noises from the back.
They all drifted over towards the large table where the bald grey-bearded seventy-year-olds sat decked out in their uniforms and decorations. Pierre had seen virtually all of these men at home with their personal buffoons, if not playing boston at the club. The crowd advanced to the table, still with no lapse in the buzz of conversation. Various speakers, squashed up against the high chair-backs by the surging crowd, were holding forth one after the other and sometimes two at a time. Those at the back noted what the speaker had not managed to say and lost no time filling the gaps. Others, suffering in the heat and the crush, were racking their brains in search of any idea that could be blurted out. The bigwigs with familiar faces sitting at the table kept looking round at each other, and in most cases the expressions on those faces all said the same thing - they were feeling the heat. Pierre, however, was feeling all worked up; even he had caught the general mood, the urge to demonstrate that they could take anything in their stride, a mood that expressed itself in tone and attitude rather than in the meaning of anything said. He was sticking to his own ideas but he still felt somehow in the wrong, and he was keen to defend himself.
'All I said was - we could make better sacrifices when we know what the needs are,' he announced to the world, trying to shout the others down.
One old man sitting near by looked round, only to be immediately distracted by an outburst at the other end of the table.
'Yes, Moscow will fall! It's the price we'll have to pay!' came one voice.