War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

  'Goodbye, my dear fellow,' said Tushin, 'You're a good soul! Goodbye, my dear fellow,' he said through tears which had filled his eyes for no apparent reason.

  CHAPTER 21

  The wind had dropped and black clouds loured above the battlefield, melting on the horizon into the pother of gunsmoke. Two fires blazed more and more brightly in the gathering darkness. The cannonade was dying down, but there was a build-up of musket-fire from behind and to the right. As soon as Tushin had manoeuvred his big guns out of firing range, trundling around some wounded men and running over others, he began to descend into the ravine and was met by some senior officers, including the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been sent to Tushin's battery twice and never went there. They were all trying to outshout each other in the issuing of orders, telling people how to proceed and where to go, and showering Captain Tushin with blame and criticism. Tushin came on behind riding his gunner's nag; he had lost all control of his emotions and said nothing to them, afraid to open his mouth because every word brought him inexplicably to the brink of tears. Orders had been given to abandon the wounded, but many of them dragged themselves after the troops and begged for a lift on the gun-carriages. The dashing infantry officer who had rushed out of Tushin's little wattle hut just before the battle had been hoisted, shot through the stomach, up on to the carriage of 'Matthew's girl'. At the bottom of the hill a pale hussar cadet came up to Tushin, holding one arm in his other hand, begging for a lift.

  'Captain, for God's sake. I've hurt my arm,' he said timidly. 'For God's sake . . . I can't walk. For God's sake!' This was clearly not the first time the cadet had asked for a lift, and everyone else had refused. He asked in a pitifully diffident voice, 'Please tell them to let me get on, for God's sake!'

  'Let him get on, let him on,' said Tushin. 'You, Uncle, spread that coat out.' He turned to his favourite soldier. 'Hey, where's that wounded officer gone?'

  'We had to chuck him off. He was dead,' someone answered.

  'Well, give him a hand up. Sit yourself down, my dear fellow. There you are. Get that coat under him, Antonov.'

  The cadet was Rostov. He was still holding one arm with the other hand. He was pale, his jaw was trembling and he was shivering feverishly. They hoisted him up on to 'Matthew's girl', from where they had just removed the dead officer. There was blood on the coat that was laid under him, and Rostov's breeches and arm were smeared with it.

  'So, you're wounded, old fellow?' asked Tushin, going across to the gun-carriage on which Rostov was sitting.

  'No, it's only a sprain.'

  'What's all this blood on the side plate?' asked Tushin.

  'It was that officer, sir. He stained it,' answered a gunner, wiping the blood off with his coat sleeve as if to apologize for the dirty state of the cannon.

  With much effort and some assistance from the infantry, they hauled the cannon uphill and stopped when they got to the village of Guntersdorf. By now it was so dark you couldn't see the soldiers' uniforms ten paces away, and the firing was beginning to die down. All of a sudden shouts rang out not far away to the right followed by some shooting. Gunshots flashed through the darkness. It was a last attack by the French, and an immediate response came from our men who had taken refuge in the village houses. They rushed out from the village, but Tushin's big guns couldn't move; the gunners, Tushin and the cadet looked at each other in silence, wondering what might happen to them. But then the firing on both sides began to subside, and some soldiers streamed out of a side street, talking excitedly to one another.

  'You all right, Petrov?' inquired one.

  'We gave it to 'em hot, men. That'll keep 'em quiet,' another said.

  'Couldn't see nothing. They were hitting their own men! Couldn't see nothing for the dark, mates. Anything to drink?'

  The French had been driven back for the last time. Once again Tushin's big guns, shielded by the noisy infantry, trundled forward, moving on in pitch darkness.

  Through the darkness streamed a kind of invisible black river, always flowing in one direction, abuzz with whispers, words, clopping hooves and rumbling wheels. Amid the dull murmur, only the sounds of wounded men moaning and calling out rang through the dark night with any clarity. Their moans seemed to swell and fill the surrounding darkness. Moaning and darkness melted into one. After a while, a wave of excitement swept through the moving crowd. Someone with an entourage had ridden past on a white horse and said something as he went by.

  'What'd he say? Where are we goin' now? Are we goin' to halt? Thanked us, did he?'

  Eager voices called out on all sides, and the whole surging mass began to squeeze together - the men at the front must have stopped, and a rumour swept back that the order had been given to halt. Everybody came to a stop on the muddy road, just where they were.

  Fires were lit and there was a lot more talking. Captain Tushin gave some instructions to his battery, then sent some soldiers to find a dressing station or a doctor for the cadet and finally sat down by a fire lit by his soldiers at the roadside. Rostov struggled to the fire. His whole body was trembling feverishly from the pain, the cold and the damp. He was utterly weary, but he couldn't get to sleep because of the agonizing pain in his aching, dislocated arm. His eyes would close, and then open again, to stare into the fire, a blazing red blur, or at the feeble, hunched figure of Tushin squatting at his side. Tushin's wide, bright, kindly eyes were fixed on him with sympathy and commiseration. He could see that Tushin wanted to help him with all his heart, but there was nothing he could do.

  From all sides they could hear the footsteps and chatter of infantrymen as they walked past, drove by or settled down not far away. The sounds of those voices, and footsteps and horses' hooves squelching through the mud, and firewood crackling near by and far away, blended together into a dull throbbing murmur.

  The invisible black river flowing through the darkness had turned into a dismal sea, subsiding but still agitated after a storm. Rostov's uncomprehending eyes and ears followed what was going on in front of and around him. An infantry soldier came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held his hands to the heat and turned towards Tushin.

  'Is this all right, sir?' he asked. 'You see, sir, I've lost my company. I've no idea where I am. It's terrible!'

  With him an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came to the fire to ask for the cannon to be shifted over a little so that a wagon could get through. Then two soldiers ran up; they were swearing fearfully, struggling and fighting over a boot.

  'Oh no you don't! Picked it up, did you? That's a good 'un!' shouted one in a hoarse voice.

  Then a thin, pale soldier with a bloodstained rag bandage on his neck came over, furiously demanding water from the gunners.

  'Expect me to die like a dog?' he said.

  Tushin told them to give him some water. After that a good-humoured soldier ran up to ask for some burning embers for the infantry.

  'A bit of fire and heat for the infantry! Bless you, men. Thanks for the loan. We'll pay it back with interest,' he said, carrying some glowing pieces of wood off into the darkness.

  He was followed by four soldiers who walked past carrying something heavy in an overcoat. One of them stumbled.

  'Dammit, they've dropped firewood all over the road,' he grumbled.

  'He's dead. Not worth carrying him now,' said another voice.

  'You shut up!' And they vanished into the darkness with their heavy load.

  'Bit painful, eh?' Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.

  'Yes, it is.'

  'Sir, the general wants to see you. He's just over there in a hut,' said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.

  'Right, my friend.' Tushin got up, buttoned his coat, straightened his clothes and strode away from the fire.

  In a hut made ready for him not far away from the gunners' fire, Prince Bagration was taking dinner with several section commanders who had gathered about him. The little old colonel with the droopy eyes was there, greedily gnawing at a mutton bone, and also th
e general with twenty-two years of unblemished service, red in the face from a glass of vodka and the food, along with the staff officer wearing the signet ring, and Zherkov, who kept glancing nervously from one person to another, and Prince Andrey, looking pallid with his tense lips and feverishly glittering eyes.

  Leaning in the corner of the cottage was the captured French standard, and the naive-looking auditor kept feeling the material, shaking his head and looking puzzled, perhaps because he really was interested in the flag, or perhaps because it was not very nice for a hungry man to watch them all eating when no place had been laid for him. In the next cottage was the French colonel taken prisoner by the dragoons. Our officers were continually flocking in to have a look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the various commanding officers, and inquiring about the details of the battle and the losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was reporting that as soon as the engagement began he had withdrawn from the wood, picked up the wood-cutting contingent, let the French through, and then gone at them with the bayonets of two battalions and destroyed them.

  'Your Excellency, as soon as I saw that the first battalion was in trouble, I stood there in the road and I says to myself, "Why don't I let them through and then open fire on them?" - and that's just what I did.'

  This was so much what he wanted to have done, and so much regretted not doing, that he seemed to think it had really happened like that. Well, maybe it had. Who could tell in all that confusion what had happened and what hadn't?

  'Oh, by the way, sir, I beg to report,' he went on, remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his own recent encounter with the disgraced officer, 'that Private Dolokhov, who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner before my very eyes and fought with particular distinction.'

  'Sir, I watched the attack of the Pavlograd hussars, er . . . here,' put in Zherkov glancing around uneasily. He hadn't seen a single hussar all day, but he had heard something about them from an infantry officer. 'They broke up two squares, sir.'

  Several men smiled, as always when Zherkov held forth, expecting a joke. But realizing that his words redounded to the glory of our armed struggle on that momentous day, they all suddenly looked serious, though many of them knew full well that what he was saying was a complete fabrication. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel.

  'Gentlemen, I thank you one and all. Every branch of the service has behaved heroically - infantry, cavalry and artillery. How did two cannons come to be abandoned in the centre?' he inquired, looking for someone to respond. (Prince Bagration didn't even ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew they had all been abandoned at the very outset.) 'Didn't I send you?' he added, addressing the duty staff officer.

  'One was put out of action,' answered the staff officer, 'but the other . . . well, I can't explain. I was there all the time myself, fully in control, and I'd just left there . . . Well, yes, it was pretty hot,' he added modestly.

  Someone said that Captain Tushin was at hand in the village and had been sent for.

  'Oh, but you went there,' said Prince Bagration, turning to Prince Andrey.

  'Yes, I did. We must have just missed each other,' said the staff officer, smiling affably at Bolkonsky.

  'I didn't have the pleasure of seeing you,' said Prince Andrey, coldly and sharply.

  No one spoke. Tushin appeared in the doorway, timidly squeezing through at the back of the generals. Edging around behind them in the crowded hut, embarrassed as always before his superior officers, Tushin failed to see the flagstaff and tripped over it, to laughter from some of the officers.

  'How did the cannon come to be abandoned?' asked Bagration, frowning not so much at the captain as at the highly amused officers, among whom Zherkov was laughing loudest of all. Only now, stared at so fiercely by his commander, did Tushin conceive the full horror of his crime and disgrace in losing two cannons and remaining alive. He had been so excited that until this very moment nothing like this had occurred to him. The officers' laughter had confused him even more. He stood there in front of Bagration, his jaw quivering, scarcely able to get his words out.

  'Sir . . . I . . . I don't know . . . I . . . er . . . didn't have the men, sir.'

  'You could have got men from your cover!'

  Tushin didn't say there hadn't been any cover, although that was the truth. He was afraid that saying this might get another officer into trouble, so without uttering a word he gazed with staring eyes straight into Bagration's face, like a schoolboy whose mind has gone blank and can only goggle at the examiner.

  The silence went on for some time. Prince Bagration clearly did not wish to be severe but couldn't think of anything to say; nobody ventured to intervene. Prince Andrey was looking askance at Tushin and his fingers were twitching nervously.

  'Sir,' Prince Andrey broke the silence with his sharp voice. 'You were kind enough to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. When I got there I found two-thirds of the men and horses dead or wounded, two guns destroyed and no cover whatever.'

  Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkonsky, who was speaking with controlled emotion.

  'And if your Excellency will allow me to express an opinion,' he went on, 'we owe today's triumph more to the action of that battery and the heroic determination of Captain Tushin and his men than to anything else,' said Prince Andrey, who then rose and walked away from the table without waiting for a reply.

  Prince Bagration glanced at Tushin and, evidently reluctant to express any disbelief in Bolkonsky's rather impudent comment, yet not quite disposed to believe it entirely, he dismissed Tushin with a nod. Prince Andrey followed him out.

  'My dear fellow, thank you. Got me out of a mess,' Tushin said to him.

  Prince Andrey looked at Tushin, and walked off without a word. He was feeling bitterly disappointed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been looking forward to.

  'Who are these people? Why are they here? What do they want? When will it all end?' thought Rostov, staring at the shadowy figures dancing before his eyes. The pain in his arm was more and more agonizing. He was heavy with sleep, crimson circles danced before his eyes, and impressions of these voices and these faces together with a feeling of loneliness all merged into a single sensation of pain. There they were, these soldiers, wounded or not wounded, there they were pressing him and crushing him, twisting the sinews and searing the flesh in his damaged arm and shoulder. To get rid of them he closed his eyes.

  He dozed off for a moment, but in that brief span of oblivion he dreamt of things without number. He dreamt of his mother and her large, white hand, Sonya with her slender shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his voice and his moustache, Telyanin and all that business with Telyanin and Bogdanych. All that business blurred into one soldier with a harsh voice, and together these things, 'all that business' and the one soldier were crushing, pulling and twisting his arm so agonizingly, relentlessly, on and on in the same direction. He was trying to get away from them, but they wouldn't let go of his shoulder, not for anything, not for a second. He would have been free from pain, everything would have been all right if only they would stop twisting it - but there was no getting rid of them.

  He opened his eyes and looked up. Night's black canopy hovered only a couple of feet above the firelight, through which snowflakes were fluttering down. Tushin had not returned; no doctor had come. He was all alone, except for one soldier sitting naked on the other side of the fire, warming his skinny, yellow body.

  'Nobody's bothered about me!' thought Rostov. 'There's nobody to help me, nobody to feel sorry for me. And to think I was at home only the other day, all strong, and happy, and with people who loved me,' he sighed, and the sigh turned into an unintended groan.

  'Still hurting, eh?' asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out over the fire, and without waiting for an answer he wheezed on, 'Aye, there's a fair number bought it today - it's a bad business!'

  Rostov couldn't he
ar what he was saying. He gazed into the snowflakes swirling above the fire and thought of Russian winters at home, warm and bright, snug in his cosy fur coat, with a speeding sledge, rude health and his family with all their love and tenderness. And he wondered, 'Why did I ever come here?'

  Next day the French decided not to renew the attack, and the remnant of Bagration's detachment joined up with Kutuzov's army.

  PART III

  CHAPTER 1

  Prince Vasily was not given to planning ahead. Still less would he think of doing any harm to other people in order to gain an advantage. He was a man of the world pure and simple, someone who had found success in society and turned success into a habit. Various plans and considerations were always forming in his mind, according to circumstances and individual encounters, but he was never fully conscious of them, even though they were his main interest in life. At any time he had on the go not just one or two such plans and considerations but dozens of them, some just emerging in his mind, some coming to fruition, and others coming to nothing. He never said to himself, for instance, 'Here is a man with power. I must gain his friendship and confidence, and use him to obtain a grant from some special fund,' nor did he say, 'Now that Pierre is a wealthy man, I must hoodwink him into marrying my daughter and lending me the forty thousand I need.' But whenever he came across a man of power he knew instinctively whether this man might be of some use, and Prince Vasily would ingratiate himself and take the first opportunity - again instinctively and without any forethought - to flatter him, get on familiar terms with him and then tell him what he wanted.

  With Pierre at hand in Moscow, Prince Vasily secured him an appointment as gentleman of the bedchamber, a position which put him on the same footing as a state councillor,1 and he insisted that the young man travel with him to Petersburg and stay at his house. Quite inadvertently, it seemed, though with absolute certainty that he was doing the right thing, Prince Vasily did everything to ensure that Pierre would marry his daughter. Had Prince Vasily been given to thinking his plans out in advance, he could never have behaved so naturally or been so direct and familiar in his relations with everyone, whether higher or lower in rank. There was something that always drew him towards men richer or more powerful than himself, and he had the rare gift of knowing precisely when he could and should make use of such persons.