War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
On the second day of the march, when he examined his blisters by the camp-fire Pierre thought he would never be able to walk on them, but when everybody was up, he limped along with the rest, and later on, when he warmed up, it didn't hurt to go on walking, though his feet looked even more terrible that evening. But he ignored them and thought about something else.
It was now that Pierre understood the full power of human vitality, and the effectiveness of our inbuilt safety device, distraction, which works like a safety-valve in steam-engines, letting off excess steam as soon as the pressure reaches a certain point.
He never saw or heard straggling prisoners being shot, though more than a hundred had died that way. He never spared a thought for Karatayev, who was fading by the day, and seemed certain to suffer the same fate very soon. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The harder his lot became and the more ghastly his immediate future seemed, the more independent of his present plight were the gladness and consolation that came to him through the pictures provided by his mind, memory and imagination.
CHAPTER 13
At midday on the 22nd Pierre was walking up a muddy, slippery road, looking down at his feet and the rough road-surface. From time to time he glanced at the familiar crowd around him, then he would look down again at his feet. The crowd and the feet had two things in common: they were his, and he knew them well. The lavender-grey, bandy-legged dog was scampering merrily at the side of the road, sometimes lifting a back paw in the air and skipping along on three legs in a display of skill and joie de vivre, or dropping down on all four legs to go charging across and bark at the crows as they perched on carrion. Greycoat looked sleeker and chirpier than she had done in Moscow. On every side lay the flesh of various animals - from men to horses - in various stages of decomposition, and the marching soldiers kept the wolves away, so Greycoat could gorge herself whenever she wanted.
The rain had been coming down since early morning. It looked as if it was going to stop, and the sky seemed likely to clear at any minute, but then they would take a short break and the heavens would open again worse than ever. The road was so saturated with rain it couldn't take any more, and the ruts were filling up with running streams.
Pierre plodded on, looking from side to side, counting his steps, and marking them off on his fingers in threes. In his mind he talked to the rain, chanting to himself, 'Come rain, come rain, come away rain!'
He thought his mind was a blank, but no, somewhere in the depths of his soul he was meditating on something deeply serious that carried consolation. This something was a subtle and soulful follow-on from last night's conversation with Platon Karatayev.
During the halt yesterday evening Pierre had suddenly felt frozen next to a dying fire, so he had got up and moved across to the nearest one that still had some heat in it. Platon was sitting there with a greatcoat over his head like a priest's robe. His easy, mellifluous voice, softened by his illness, murmured on as he told the soldiers a story Pierre had heard before. It was past midnight, a time when Karatayev's fever usually abated, and he really came to life. As Pierre got near to the fire and heard Platon's feeble, sickly voice and saw his pathetic face lit up by the firelight, he felt a nasty pang in his heart. He was scared of the pity he felt for this man and would have gone off somewhere else, but there was no other fire to go to, so he sat down, trying not to look at Platon.
'Well, how have you been?' he asked.
'How have I been? When you're poorly, don't cry, or God won't let you die,' said Karatayev, and he went straight back to the story he was half-way through.
'So, listen, brother . . .' he went on with a smile on his thin, pale face, and a strangely happy light in his eyes. 'So, listen, brother . . .'
Pierre knew this story well. Karatayev had told it to him half a dozen times before, always with particular pleasure. But even though it was very familiar Pierre listened now as if it was something new, and the gentle sense of rapture that Karatayev was enjoying as he told it communicated itself to Pierre as well. It was the story of an old merchant, a good man who had lived a Godfearing life with his family, and who went off one day to the fair at Makary with a friend of his, a rich merchant.
They had put up at an inn together and gone to bed, and the next morning the rich merchant was discovered with his throat cut and his things stolen. A bloodstained knife was found under the old merchant's pillow. The merchant was tried and flogged, and had his nostrils slit - all according to the law, as Karatayev said - and he was sent off to hard labour.
'So, listen, brother . . .' (It was at this point that Pierre had come in on the story.) 'After this a dozen years or more goes by. The old man is still a convict. Resigned to 'is fate, 'e is, as is only right. Never does nothin' wrong. The only thing 'e prays to God for is death . . . Right then . . . One night they be all gathered together, them convicts, just like we be 'ere, and the old man with 'em. And they starts talkin' about what they'm all in for, what they done wrong in the eyes of God. Lots of good stories. One of 'em was in for murder, another for two murders, somebody else 'ad set fire to somethin', and there was a wanderin' tramp who never done nothin' wrong. So they turns to the old man and they says, "What are you in for, Grandad?" "Me? Payin' for me sins, I be, me dear brothers," says 'e, "and everybody else's sins as well. I 'aven't murdered nobody, or pinched nothing, just given what I 'ad to the poor. Used to be a merchant, I did, me dear brothers. I 'ad lots o' money." And 'e tells 'em all. 'Ow things 'as worked out for 'im, all the details of 'is story bit by bit. "Not bothered about meself," says 'e, "I been picked out by God. Only one thing wrong," says 'e, "I do feel sorry for me old woman, and the kiddies." And 'e sheds a few tears. And it so 'appened in that company was the very man, you know, what 'ad killed the merchant. "Where did all this'appen, Grandad?" says 'e. "When was it? What month?" Wanted to know all the details. 'Eartbroken 'e was. Goes up to the old man just like that, 'e does, an' falls down at 'is feet. "You be in 'ere, old man," says 'e, "for somethin' what I done." 'Tis God's truth. This man be innocent. 'E be sufferin' for nothing, lads," says 'e. "I done that job," says 'e, "an' put that knife under yer 'ead while you was asleep. Forgive me, Grandad. For God's sake, forgive me!" says 'e.'
Karatayev paused with a blissful smile on his face and stared into the fire, poking the logs.
'Then the old man, 'e says, "God will forgive you," says 'e, "but we'm all sinners in the eyes of God," says 'e. "I be sufferin' for me own sins." And 'e wept bitter tears. Then guess what, me old darling,' said Karatayev, with an ever-broadening beatific smile, as if to indicate that the best bit, the whole point of his story was about to come. 'Guess what, me old darling. That murderer went up to them at the top and confessed. "I seen six men off," says 'e ('e bein' a real wrong'un), "but I'm right sorry for this little old man. 'E shouldn't 'ave to suffer 'cos o' me." Went an' confessed, 'e did. 'Twas all wrote down on paper and sent off, as is only right. Bloomin' miles away. Looked at by all the judges. Then it all gets wrote down again right and proper by them at the top. Know what I mean? Gets to the Tsar. Then an order comes down from the Tsar. Let the merchant go. Give 'im 'is compensation, like what the judges 'as said. Piece o' paper arrives. Everybody sets to, lookin' for the old man. Where's that little old man gone what was innocent and shouldn't 'ave seen all this sufferin'? 'Ere be a paper from the Tsar! Looked everywhere they did.' Karatayev's jaw trembled. 'But God 'ad forgiven 'im. 'E was dead! That's 'ow it'appened, me old darling!' Karatayev came to the end of his story, and sat there for some time staring ahead with a smile on his face and nothing more to say.
It was not the story itself but its mysterious inner meaning, the glow of rapture that had lit up Karatayev's face as he told it, and the mysterious significance of his rapture - this was what filled Pierre's soul with a hazy feeling of joy.
CHAPTER 14
'Get fell in!' came a sudden voice, speaking in French.
There was a cheerful commotion among the prisoners and the escorting soldiers, and an air of ex
'The Emperor! The Emperor! The marshal! The duke!' And the sleek cavalry had hardly got clear when a carriage and six greys rumbled past. Pierre caught a passing glimpse of a podgy white face, serene and handsome, belonging to a man in a three-cornered hat. It was one of the marshals. The marshal's eye fell on Pierre's big, imposing figure, and in the expression on his face when he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he could see compassion and the desire to conceal it.
The general in charge whipped up his skinny horse, and galloped after the carriage with panic written all over his crimson face. Several officers came together in a group, and the soldiers gathered round them. They all looked uneasy and excited.
'What did he say? What did he say?' Pierre could hear them asking.
While the marshal had been driving past the prisoners had been hustled together in a bunch, and Pierre had caught sight of Karatayev for the first time that morning. He was sitting wrapped up in his little greatcoat, leaning back against a birch-tree. His face still wore the same look of joyous emotion as yesterday, when he had been telling the story of the merchant and his innocent suffering, but now it had another expression too, a look of quiet solemnity.
Karatayev was looking across at Pierre, and his kindly, round eyes, brimming with tears, held an unmistakable appeal, as if he had something to say to him. But Pierre feared for his own skin. He pretended he hadn't seen that look and hurried away.
When the prisoners set off again Pierre looked back. Karatayev was still sitting there under the birch-tree at the side of the road, and there were two Frenchmen standing over him, talking to each other. Pierre didn't look round again. He limped on up the hill.
A shot rang out from behind, back where Karatayev had been sitting. Pierre heard the shot distinctly, but the moment he heard it he suddenly remembered he hadn't finished calculating how many stages were left to Smolensk, the problem he had been working on before the marshal rode past. He started counting again. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of them holding a musket that was still smoking. They both looked pale, and in the expression on their faces - one of them glanced timidly at Pierre - there was something similar to what he had seen in the young soldier at the execution in Moscow. Pierre looked at the soldier and remembered an occasion, only a couple of days ago, when that man had scorched his shirt while drying it in front of the fire and they had all laughed at him.
Back where Karatayev was sitting the dog started howling. 'Silly creature! What's she got to howl about?' thought Pierre.
Pierre's fellow prisoners, marching along at his side, were, like him, refusing to look back at the place where they had heard the shot come from and then the howling of the dog. But there was a grim look on every face.
CHAPTER 15
The cavalry wagons, the prisoners and Marshal Junot's baggage-train halted for the night in the village of Shamshevo. They all crowded round the camp-fires. Pierre went over to a fire, ate some roast horse-meat, lay down with his back to the fire and fell fast asleep. He slept as he had done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.
Once again real events mingled with his dreams; once again a voice, either his own or someone else's, was murmuring thoughts in his ear, some of the same thoughts he had heard in his dream at Mozhaysk.
Life is everything. Life is God. Everything is in flux and movement, and this movement is God. And while there is life there is pleasure in being conscious of the Godhead. To love life is to love God. The hardest and the most blessed thing is to love this life even in suffering, innocent suffering.
'Karatayev!' The memory flashed into Pierre's mind. And suddenly Pierre had a vision, like reality itself, of someone long forgotten, a gentle old teacher who had taught him geography in Switzerland. 'Wait a minute,' said the little old man. And he showed Pierre a globe. This globe was a living thing, a shimmering ball with no fixed dimensions. The entire surface of the ball consisted of drops closely compressed. And the drops were in constant movement and flux, sometimes dissolving from many into one, sometimes breaking down from one into many. Each drop was trying to spread out and take up as much space as possible, but all the others, wanting to do the same, squeezed it back, absorbing it or merging into it.
'This is life,' said the little old teacher.
'It's so simple and clear,' thought Pierre. 'How could I have not known that before? God is in the middle, and each drop tries to expand and reflect Him on the largest possible scale. And it grows, gets absorbed and compressed, disappears from the surface, sinks down into the depths and bubbles up again. That's what has happened to him, Karatayev: he has been absorbed and he's disappeared.'
'Now you understand, my child,' said the teacher.
'Don't you understand, damn your eyes?' shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.
He raised his head and sat up. A French soldier was squatting by the fire, having shoved a Russian soldier to one side, and he was roasting a piece of meat on the end of a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up, and his sinewy, hairy red hands, with their stubby fingers, were expertly rotating the ramrod. The glowing embers lit up his scowling brown face with its sullen brows.
'Makes no difference to him,' he muttered, glancing back quickly at a soldier standing behind him. 'Brigand! Get away from here!'
And the soldier, still turning the ramrod, glanced darkly at Pierre. Pierre turned away and stared into the shadows. A Russian soldier, the one who had been shoved aside, was sitting near the fire patting something. Pierre took a closer look and saw the lavender-grey dog sitting by the soldier, wagging her tail.
'She's come then . . .' said Pierre. 'Old Plat . . .' He couldn't finish what he was saying. All at once, a host of memories rose up in Pierre's mind, all of them instantly interlinked - the look that Platon had given him as he sat there under the tree, the shot they had heard from that very spot, the dog howling, the soldiers' guilty faces as they ran past, the smoking musket, Karatayev's absence when they got to the halting-place - and it was just beginning to sink in that Karatayev had been killed when another memory rose up in his mind, coming out of nowhere, a summer evening spent with a beautiful Polish lady on the verandah of his house in Kiev. And without quite managing to connect today's memories together or make anything of them, Pierre closed his eyes, and the picture of a summer evening in the country blended with the memory of going for a swim and that shimmering ball of liquid, and there he was plunging down, with the waters closing over his head.
Before sunrise he was woken up by loud and rapid firing and a lot of shouting. The French were rushing past.
'The Cossacks!' one of them shouted, and a minute later Pierre was surrounded by a crowd of Russians. It took some time for him to grasp what had happened to him. He could hear his comrades crying and sobbing with joy on every side.
'Brothers! Our boys! You lovely boys!' The old soldiers were shouting, weeping and hugging the Cossacks and hussars, hussars and Cossacks that crowded round the prisoners, offering them clothes, boots, bread. Pierre sat there sobbing in their midst. He couldn't get a word out. He hugged the first soldier who came near, and wept as he kissed him.
Dolokhov was standing at the gate of the dilapidated manor house, watching as crowds of disarmed Frenchmen filed past. The French, excited by all that had happened, were talking in raised voices, but as they walked past Dolokhov, who stood there lashing his boots with his riding-crop, and watching them with a cold, glassy stare that boded nothing but ill, their chatter died away. One of Dolokhov's Cossacks stood across from him, counting the prisoners, chalking them off in hundreds on the gate.
'How many's that?' asked Dolokhov.
'Getting on for two hundred,' answered the Cossack.
'Move along there,' said Dolokhov, deliberately using an expression picked up from the French, and whenever his eyes met the eyes of the passing prisoners they had a cruel glint in them.
It was with a sombre look that Denisov, hat in hand, walked behind the Cossacks as they processed towards a hole that had been dug in the garden, carrying the body of Petya Rostov.
CHAPTER 16
From the 28th of October, when the frosts set in, the flight of the French took on a more tragic character, with men freezing to death or being roasted to death by the camp-fires, while the Emperor, the kings and the dukes continued on their way in fur coats and carriages, taking their stolen treasure with them, though, in essence, the French army's process of flight and disintegration went on unchanged.
Between Moscow and Vyazma the French army of seventy-three thousand men (not including the guardsmen, who had spent the whole war doing nothing but pillage) had been reduced to a mere thirty-six thousand, even though only five thousand had been killed in battle. This is the first term in a progressive sequence; it can be used to calculate the remaining terms with mathematical exactitude.