ajesty.
After much fuss and bother and a good deal of whispering, another troika galloped past and then suddenly all eyes were on the approaching sledge, with the figures of the Tsar and Volkonsky clearly visible in it.
Fifty years of sheer habit now took their toll; all of this had a disturbing effect on the old man. He felt rapidly about his person in great anxiety, straightened his hat and just managed to pull himself together and come to attention at the very moment when the Tsar stepped down from the sledge and turned to look at him. He handed over the report, and spoke out in his measured, ingratiating voice.
Scanning Kutuzov from head to foot in one rapid glance, the Tsar frowned for a moment, but instantly regained self-control, walked over to him, opened his arms and enfolded the old general in a close embrace. Once again Kutuzov felt the effect of long years of habit combined with some deep inner feeling of his own; this embrace made its usual impact on Kutuzov, and he gave a spluttering sob.
The Tsar greeted the officers and the Semyonovsky guard of honour, shook hands again with the old man, and walked off with him back into the castle.
Alone with his commander-in-chief, the Tsar expressed his disappointment at the slow progress in pursuing the enemy, and the blunders made at Krasnoye and the Berezina, and announced his future plans for taking the campaign abroad. Kutuzov said nothing by way of comment or objection. The same expression of mindless deference that he had adopted seven years before when listening to the Tsar's injunctions on the field at Austerlitz was now fixed on his face again.
When Kutuzov had left the room, and was trudging across the reception-hall, waddling along with downcast head, a voice stopped him.
'Your Serene Highness,' it said.
He looked up and gazed into the face of Count Tolstoy, who was standing there holding a silver salver with a small object on it. Kutuzov had every appearance of not knowing what was expected of him.
Then suddenly he seemed to come to his senses, a faint smile dawned on his podgy face, and with a low, respectful bow he picked up the object lying on the salver. It was the Order of St George, First Class.
CHAPTER 11
The next day the field-marshal gave a dinner and a ball which the Tsar honoured with his presence.
Kutuzov had received the Order of St George, First Class, the Tsar had bestowed the highest honours on him, but the Tsar's dissatisfaction with the commander-in-chief was known to all. The proprieties were being observed, and in this the Tsar led by example, but everyone knew the old man was both guilty and useless. When, following an old custom from the days of Catherine the Great, Kutuzov gave orders at the ball for the captured standards to be lowered at the Tsar's feet the moment he entered the ballroom, the Tsar gave a nasty frown and muttered something that included, according to some, the phrase 'old comedian'.
The Tsar's displeasure was exacerbated at Vilna, especially by Kutuzov's obvious unwillingness or inability to see the importance of the coming campaign.
When next morning the Tsar said to the officers gathered around him, 'You have saved more than Russia, you have saved Europe!' everyone could see immediately that the war was not yet over.
Kutuzov was the only one who refused to see this, telling the world candidly that no new war could improve the position of Russia, or add to her glory; it would only weaken her situation, and detract from the lofty pinnacle of glory that in his view Russia was standing on at present. He did what he could to show the Tsar the impossibility of levying fresh troops, and he talked about the desperate plight of the population, the prospect of failure, and so on . . .
With an attitude like this the field-marshal naturally looked like nothing but a hindrance and a drag on the coming campaign.
To avoid a direct confrontation with the old man the obvious solution was the one that had proved so effective at Austerlitz and with Barclay in the early stages of the war - to cut away all the real power from under the commander-in-chief's feet, without upsetting him by going into explanations, and transfer it to the Tsar.
With this aim in mind the staff underwent a modest reshuffle by means of which all the real power of Kutuzov's staff was removed and transferred to the Tsar. Toll, Konovnitsyn and Yermolov were all given new appointments. Everyone talked openly about the commander-in-chief's increasing feebleness and failing health.
It was necessary for him to be in failing health in order to make way for his successor. But as it happened his health really was failing.
By the same natural, simple and gradual process by which he had emerged from Turkey all those years ago and come to the Treasury in Petersburg to raise the militia, and take over the army at the very time when he was most needed, he now yielded his place, now that his part was played, to the new figure demanded by the times.
The war of 1812 was about to add to its national significance, dear to every Russian heart, by taking on a new, European character.
The movement of men from west to east was to be followed by a movement of men from east to west, and this new war needed a new proponent, with aims and qualities that differed from Kutuzov's, and a different kind of motivation.
Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of men from east to west and the determination of new national frontiers as Kutuzov had been necessary for the salvation and glory of Russia.
Kutuzov had no understanding of what was meant by Europe, the balance of power and Napoleon. All of this was beyond him. For this representative of the Russian people, once the enemy had been annihilated and Russia had been liberated and raised to the highest pinnacle of glory, for this true Russian there was nothing left to do. For this representative of the national war there was nothing left to do but die. And die he did.
CHAPTER 12
As so often happens on occasions like these, Pierre felt the full effects of the physical hardships and strain he had suffered as a prisoner only when the strain and hardships were over. After being rescued he made his way down to Oryol, and two days later, just as he was getting ready to set off for Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up for three months. He was suffering from what the doctors called a 'bilious fever'. Despite their treatment - with blood-letting and various medicines - he recovered.
Everything that had happened to Pierre between his rescue and his illness had left hardly any impression on his mind. His only recollections were of dull grey weather, constant rain or snow, a physical aching inside his body and pains in his legs and his side. He had a vague memory of people suffering terribly, and of being worried by the intrusiveness of interrogating officers and generals, and how difficult it had been to get a conveyance and horses, but the overriding impression was of a time when he had lost all capacity for thought and feeling.
On the day of his rescue he had seen the dead body of Petya Rostov. The same day he learnt that Prince Andrey had lived on for more than a month after the battle of Borodino, but had died quite recently at Yaroslavl in the Rostovs' house. And also on the same day Denisov, who had given Pierre this piece of news, made a passing reference to the death of Helene, assuming that Pierre knew all about it. Pierre's only reaction was that these things seemed rather strange. He felt incapable of absorbing the significance of these events. His only thought was to get away as fast as he could from the here and now where men were slaughtering each other, and find some quiet refuge where he could relax, recover again and think over all the strange new things he had learnt during this period. But as soon as he reached Oryol he fell ill. When he came round after his illness Pierre saw two of his servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had come down from Moscow to wait on him, and the eldest of his cousins, who had got word of Pierre's rescue and illness while staying at his estate in Yelets, and had come over to look after him.
During his convalescence it took Pierre quite some time to ease himself away from the impressions left with him from the last few months, which had become a habit of mind, and get used to the idea that no one was going to get him moving tomorrow, no one would take his warm bed away, and he was quite sure of getting his dinner, tea and supper. But for a long time to come his sleep would be disturbed by dreams of his life as a prisoner. And only by the same gradual process did Pierre come to understand all the news he had heard since his escape: the death of Prince Andrey, the death of his wife and the defeat of the French.
A blissful sense of freedom - the complete and inalienable freedom inherent in man that had made itself felt only at that first halting-place outside Moscow - began to flood through Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find this inner freedom, which did not depend on external circumstances, now transformed into outward freedom seemingly decked out with luxury and excess. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one made any demands on him; no one sent him anywhere. He had everything he wanted, and the worries about his wife that he had once found so agonizing had gone, because she was gone.
'Oh, that's wonderful! It's marvellous!' he said to himself, when a neatly set-out table was moved towards him with an appetizing bowl of broth, or when he climbed into his soft, clean bed at night, or when the thought struck him that his wife and the French had gone. 'Oh, it's wonderful! It's marvellous!' And from habit he would start asking himself questions. 'What comes next, then? What am I going to do?' And immediately he knew the answer: 'Nothing. I'm just going to live. Oh, it's marvellous!'
The one thing that had tormented him in earlier days, the constant search for a purpose in life, had ceased to exist. The ending of his search for a purpose was more than a chance event or a temporary development: he now sensed that it did not and could not exist. And it was the lack of any purpose that gave him the complete and joyous sense of freedom underlying his present happiness.
He could seek no purpose now, because now he had faith - not faith in principles, words or ideas, but faith in a living God of feeling and experience. In days gone by he had sought Him by setting purposes for himself. That search for a purpose had really been a seeking after God, and suddenly during his captivity he had come to know, not through words or arguments, but from direct personal experience, something that his old nurse had told him long ago: God is here, here with us now, here and everywhere. In captivity he had come to see that Karatayev's God was greater, more infinite, more unfathomable than any Architect of the Universe recognized by the masons. He felt like a man who finds what he is looking for right under his feet after straining his eyes to seek it in the distance. All his life he had been peering into the distance over the heads of those around him when all he had to do was stop straining his eyes and look down right in front of him.
In those earlier days he had been unable to see the great, the unfathomable and the infinite in anything. All he had was a sense that it must exist somewhere, and he had gone on looking for it. In anything close to and well understood he had seen nothing but limitation, workaday triviality and pointlessness. He had armed himself with a mental telescope and peered into the far distance, where that same workaday triviality, shrouded in the mists of remoteness, had seemed great and infinite, but only because it couldn't be clearly seen. This was how he had looked on European life, politics, freemasonry, philosophy and philanthropy. But even then, at times that he had mistaken for moments of weakness, his mind had penetrated the furthest distance and recognized the same workaday triviality and pointlessness.
Now he had learnt to see the great, the eternal and the infinite in everything, and naturally enough, in order to see it and revel in its contemplation, he had thrown away the telescope that he had been using to peer over men's heads and now took pleasure in observing the ever-changing, infinitely great and unfathomable life that surrounded him. And the more closely he watched, the more he felt himself to be happy and at peace. The terrible question that had destroyed all his carefully structured thinking in the bad old days - the question Why? - no longer existed. His soul now had a ready-made, straightforward answer to the question Why? - because God is, and without God not one hair of a man's head shall fall.
CHAPTER 13
Outwardly Pierre had hardly changed at all. To look at he was the same as before. He was just as absent-minded as he had always been, and he seemed to be permanently preoccupied with something that wasn't there, something that was all his own. The difference between his former state and the one he was now in was that in the old days, when he was oblivious to everything that was going on around him and what was being said to him, he would wince and furrow his brow in an apparently vain effort to see something that was a long way away. Nowadays he could still be oblivious to everything that was going on around him and what was being said, but at least he looked at what was going on around him with the ghost of a smile, however ironical, and he also listened to what was being said, though he was obviously seeing and hearing something very different. In the old days he had seemed like a nice man who was unhappy, which inevitably kept people at arm's length. Nowadays a smile of joie de vivre played constantly about his mouth, his eyes shone with sympathy for others, wondering whether they were as happy as he was, and people enjoyed his company.
In the old days he had had a lot to say, he got excited when he said it, and he was a poor listener. Nowadays he was no conversationalist, but he did know how to listen, and this made people only too ready to pour out their innermost secrets to him.
His cousin, the princess, who had never liked Pierre, and had been particularly ill-disposed towards him ever since the old count's death had left her feeling under an obligation to him, had come over to Oryol with every intention of making it clear that she had felt duty-bound to ignore his ingratitude and look after him, but it wasn't long before she found herself, much to her own surprise and irritation, getting rather fond of him. Pierre made no effort to try and win her round; he just watched her with close curiosity. In the old days she had felt that there was mockery and indifference in the way he looked at her, and she had shrivelled up in his presence, as she did with other people, and shown only her aggressive side. Now she felt the reverse: it was as if he was delving into the innermost recesses of her life, and, at first with some suspicion but then with gratitude, she let him see her hidden kindly side.
The craftiest manipulator could not have wormed his way more skilfully into the princess's confidence, coaxing from her recollections of her youthful heyday and warming to them. And yet Pierre's only craftiness consisted in finding pleasure in drawing out human qualities in an embittered, hardened, and, in her own way, proud princess.
'Yes, he's a very, very nice man when he's away from the influence of bad people and is influenced by people like me,' thought the princess.
The change that had taken place in Pierre was also noticed by his servants, Terenty and Vaska, each in his own way. They found him altogether more straightforward. After undressing his master and saying good night, Terenty would often linger with the boots and clothes in his hands, on the off chance that his master might exchange a few words with him. And more often than not Pierre would stop Terenty on the way out because he could see he was dying for a chat.
'Come on then, tell me . . . how did you manage to get any food?' he would ask. And Terenty would launch forth into stories about the destruction of Moscow, or the late count, and he would stand there for ages, clothes in hand, chatting away or listening to Pierre, and when he did at last withdraw into the ante-room it was with a warm feeling of closeness to his master and affection for him.
The doctor who was treating Pierre and called in every day, though he never omitted to present himself, in the manner of all doctors, as a man whose every minute counts for suffering humanity, would stay on with him for hours on end, telling his favourite stories and commenting on the funny ways of patients in general, and ladies in particular.
'Yes, it's very nice to talk to a man like that. Not what we're used to in the provinces,' he would say.
There happened to be several prisoners from the French army in Oryol, and the doctor brought one of them, a young Italian officer, to see Pierre.
This officer became a regular visitor, and the princess used to laugh at the warmth that showed in his attitude to Pierre.
It was obvious that the Italian was only happy when he could come and see Pierre, and have a chat with him, talk about his own past years, his home life and his love and pour out his bile against the French, especially Napoleon.
'If all Russians are the slightest bit like you,' he used to say to Pierre, 'it is sacrilege to wage war on a people like yours. You've suffered so much at the hands of the French, and you don't even hold it against them.'
And yet Pierre had won the Italian's undying devotion simply by drawing out the best aspects of his soul and admiring them.
Towards the end of Pierre's stay in Oryol he was visited by an old acquaintance, Count Willarski, the freemason who had introduced him to the lodge in 1807. Willarski had married a Russian heiress with huge estates in the Oryol province, and he was temporarily employed in the town's department of supplies.
As soon as Willarski heard that Bezukhov was in Oryol, even though they had never been particularly close, he called on him and displayed the kind of friendliness and intimacy normally reserved for people coming across one another in the desert. Willarski was bored with life in Oryol, and he was delighted to meet a man of his own circle who must surely share the same interests.
But Willarski was in for a surprise: he soon spotted that Pierre had opted out of real life and - as he saw it - descended into apathy and egoism.
'You're going to seed, old fellow,' he said to him.
But for all that Willarski felt much more at ease with Pierre now than he had done in the past, and he came to see him every day. Pierre, for his part, watched Willarski and listened to him, finding it strange and incredible to think that not long ago he too had been like that.
Willarski was a married man with a family, busily occupied with the management of his wife's property, the performance of his official duties and looking after his family. He regarded all the