War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

to him before I went in the army. Went home on leave, I did, and I'm tellin' you, they was livin' better than ever. Yard full of beasts, womenfolk at home, two brothers off earnin' good money. Only Mikhaylo, the youngest, still at home. Father says all his kids matters to him; bite any finger, it hurts just the same. And if they hadn't shaved Platon for a soldier that time, Mikhaylo would've had to go. Got us all together he did - would you believe it? - stood us right in front of the holy icons. "Mikhaylo," says he, "come you 'ere and bow down at his feet. You women, you bow down as well. And you grandchildren, you bow down. Understand?" says he. So there we 'ave it, me old dear. Fate picks you out. And 'ere we be, always passing judgement - that's not right, doesn't suit us. Our 'appiness, me dear, be like water in a drag-net. Swells out lovely when you pulls; take it out and it's empty. Yes, that's the way things be.' And Platon shifted position in the straw.

After a short pause he got up.

'Bet you could do with some shut-eye,' he said, and he began rapidly crossing himself and intoning, 'Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nikola, Fraula and Laura!2 Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nikola, Fraula and Laura! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy and save us!' he concluded, bowing down to touch the ground with his forehead. Then he got to his feet, gave a sigh and sat down again on his straw. 'That's it, then. Lord, make me lie down like a stone, and rise like new bread!' he murmured before lying down and pulling his greatcoat over him.

'What were you reciting just then?' asked Pierre.

'Huh?' said Platon, already half asleep. 'Recitin'? I was just sayin' my prayers. Don't you say your prayers, then?'

'Yes, I do,' said Pierre. 'But what was all that about Fraula and Laura?'

'Oh, them,' Platon answered quickly. 'They be the 'orses' saints. Got to think o' the poor beasts, too,' he said. 'Look at this little 'ussy, she be all curled up nice an' warm, daughter of a bitch!' he said, reaching down to touch the dog at his feet. With that he turned over again and went straight to sleep.

Somewhere outside there were distant sounds of people calling out and crying, and the glow from a fire could be seen through cracks in the shed-walls, but inside it was all dark and quiet. Pierre couldn't get to sleep for some time. He lay where he was with his eyes open in the darkness, listening to Platon's steady snoring at his side, and he could feel his ruined world rising up again in his soul with a new kind of beauty, and its new foundations were unshakable.





CHAPTER 13


In the shed, where Pierre spent four weeks, his fellow prisoners consisted of twenty-three soldiers, three officers and two government officials.

Later on Pierre would remember them as nothing more than misty figures, but Platon Karatayev would always stay in his mind as a most vivid and precious memory, the epitome of kind-heartedness and all things rounded and Russian. When Pierre took a look at his neighbour next day at dawn his first impression of something rounded was fully confirmed. Everything about Platon's figure, in his French military coat with a piece of string round his waist, his soldier's cap and bark-fibre shoes, was rounded. He had a perfectly round head, and his back, chest, shoulders, even his arms, which he always held out as if he was just about to embrace something, had rounded lines; his open smile and big, soft, brown eyes were round as well.

Platon Karatayev must have been on the wrong side of fifty if the stories of his old campaigns were anything to go by. He didn't know his own age and had no means of working it out. But he had strong, white teeth that gleamed in two full semi-circles whenever he laughed, which was often, and they were all good and sound; there wasn't grey hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole figure gave an impression of suppleness combined with remarkable toughness and stamina.

His face, for all its web of rounded wrinkles, shone with the innocence of youth, and his voice had a pleasant lilt. But the great thing about his way of talking was its spontaneity and shrewdness. Clearly, he never thought over what he had said or worked out what he was going to say, and this gave his sharp utterances a ring of truth and a special stamp of irresistible persuasiveness.

In the first days of his imprisonment his physical strength and agility were such that he didn't seem to know the meaning of illness or fatigue. Every night as he lay down to sleep he said, 'Lord, make me lie down like a stone and rise like new bread,' and every morning when he got up he would stretch his shoulders always in the same way and say, 'Sleep deep, wake with a shake.' And that's how it worked out: he only had to lie down to fall asleep like a stone, and when he woke, one shake saw him instantly ready to tackle anything without a second's delay, like a child wanting to play with his toys straightaway. There was nothing he couldn't do, if not brilliantly, then at least tolerably well. He could bake, cook, sew, work wood and cobble boots. He was always busy with something, and it was invariably late evening before he allowed himself a little conversation, which he loved, and some singing. He sang not like a singer who knows he has an audience, but more like a bird: obviously, he just needed to sing, in the way that sometimes you just have to stretch your limbs or go for a walk, and the sound of his singing was always light, sweet, plangent, almost feminine, and his face as he sang was very serious.

Now that he was in prison, letting his beard grow, he seemed to have cast off all the unnatural military behaviour that had been forced upon him, and reverted instinctively to his old peasant ways.

'A soldier back home leaves his shirt hanging out,' he used to say. He was reluctant to talk about his life as a soldier, though he never complained, and he kept on repeating that in all his years of service he'd never once been hit. Whenever he got going on a story he inevitably drew on a series of distant memories, obviously very dear to him, taking him back to a former life that he referred to as 'Christian' (Khristiansky), though what he meant was 'a peasant's' (krestyansky). The proverbs with which his speech was so liberally salted were not the coarse, usually indecent, expressions common among soldiers, but popular sayings that seem almost meaningless on their own, though they suddenly take on the profound significance of real wisdom when heard in a proper context.

Often he would come out with something that flatly contradicted what he had said before, yet both sayings were true. He loved talking, and he spoke well, embellishing his speech with warm diminutives and proverbial sayings that Pierre thought he had invented himself. But the best thing about his way of speaking was that the simplest of incidents, some of them witnessed but not really noticed by Pierre, in Karatayev's version assumed a new depth of meaning and dignified stature. He liked listening to the folk tales that one soldier used to tell in the evenings, always the same ones, but he preferred stories from real life. He beamed with delight listening to stories of this kind, contributing words of his own and asking questions aimed at bringing out clearly the full meaning and stature of the deeds recounted. Karatayev enjoyed no attachments, no friendships, no love in any sense of these words that meant anything to Pierre, yet he loved and showed affection to every creature he came across in life, especially people, no particular people, just those who happened to be there before his eyes. He loved his dog, his comrades, the French, and he loved Pierre, his neighbour. But Pierre felt that for all the warmth and affection Karatayev showed him (an instinctive tribute to Pierre's spirituality), he wouldn't suffer a moment's sorrow if they were to part. And Pierre began to feel the same way towards Karatayev.

To all the other men Platon Karatayev was just an ordinary soldier; they called him their mate or Platosha, made fun of him all the time, and sent him on errands. But as far as Pierre was concerned, that first-night impression of Karatayev as simplicity and truth roundly epitomized for all time in some mysterious way stayed with him for ever.

Platon Karatayev never learnt anything by heart except his prayers. When he spoke, he would always launch forth without any idea of how he was going to finish what he was saying.

Sometimes Pierre was particularly impressed by what he had said and asked him to repeat it, but Platon could never remember what he had said even a minute before, just as he could never run through the words of his favourite song for Pierre's benefit. How did it go? 'My own dear mother . . .', 'my little birch-tree . . .', 'my sickening heart . . .' - a few words, but no meaning. It was beyond him. He simply couldn't understand the meaning of any words out of context. Every word and every action of his was the outward manifestation of the unfathomable process of ongoing activity that made up his life. But that life, as he saw it, had no meaning out of its own broader context. Its only meaning was as one small part of a greater whole that he was conscious of at all times. Words and actions flowed from him as smoothly, inevitably and spontaneously as fragrance from a flower. He couldn't see any value or meaning in an action or word with no context.





CHAPTER 14


As soon as she heard from Nikolay that her brother was in Yaroslavl with the Rostovs, Princess Marya defied all her aunt's best efforts to dissuade her by getting ready straightaway to go and see him, and rather than going alone she was to take her nephew along too. She didn't stop to ask whether it would be difficult or not difficult, possible or impossible; she didn't want to know. Her duty was not only to be at the side of her brother, who might be on his deathbed, but to do all she could to take his son to see him, and she was ready to go. If Prince Andrey had not been in touch, Princess Marya had her own explanation: either he was too weak to write, or he thought the long journey would be too difficult and dangerous for her and his son.

It took only a day or two for Princess Marya to make preparations for the journey. Her party would travel in the huge coach that had brought her to Voronezh, and they were also taking a covered trap and a baggage-wagon. She would be accompanied by Mademoiselle Bourienne, little Nikolay and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, a young footman and a courier sent along by her aunt.

There could be no question of taking the direct route through Moscow, and the detour that Princess Marya would have to make, through Lipetsk, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya, was a long way round; it would also be difficult because there would be no posting horses, and down in the region of Ryazan, where the French had been seen, it might even be dangerous.

Throughout this arduous journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles and Princess Marya's servants were amazed at her display of vitality and strength. She was the last to go to bed and first up in the morning, and nothing could stop her. Thanks to her infectious vitality and energy they were getting near to Yaroslavl by the end of the second week.

The end of her stay in Voronezh had provided Princess Marya with the happiest days of her whole life. Her love for Rostov was no longer a source of torment or worry. That love had now filled her whole soul and become an inseparable part of her, and she had stopped struggling against it. Latterly Princess Marya had managed to persuade herself - though clearly not in so many words - that she was in love and loved in return. It was her last meeting with Nikolay that had finally convinced her, when he had come over to tell her that her brother was with the Rostovs. Nikolay did not venture so much as hint at the possibility of Prince Andrey's engagement to Natasha being renewed (if he were to recover), but Princess Marya could tell from his face that he was aware of this and was thinking about it. Nevertheless, his attitude to her - so considerate, tender and loving - certainly didn't change; indeed Princess Marya sometimes thought he seemed delighted at the new kinship between them because it gave him more freedom to express his loving friendship. Princess Marya knew she was in love for the first and last time in her life, she could sense she was loved in return, and this gave her a settled form of happiness.

But this happiness affected only one aspect of her inner life and had no effect on the intensity of her deep concern for her brother. The reverse was true: there was a sense in which her inner contentment made it possible for her to put everything into her feelings for her brother. These feelings were so intense as they set out from Voronezh that all the people travelling with her took one look at her careworn, despondent face and felt certain she would fall ill on the way. But it was the difficulties and setbacks of the journey itself, tackled with such determination by Princess Marya, that rescued her for the time being from her grief and gave her strength.

As always when you are out on the road, Princess Marya fixed her mind exclusively on the actual journey, and lost track of its purpose. But as they got near to Yaroslavl and she had a new vision of what was in store for her, not at some future date but that very evening, her anxiety knew no bounds.

A courier had been sent on ahead to find out where the Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl and what sort of condition Prince Andrey was in, and when he met the huge travelling coach at the city gate, he was dismayed by the sight of the ashen face that looked out at him through the window.

'I've got it all, your Excellency. The Rostovs are staying in the square, at the Bronnikovs' house - he's a merchant. Not far away, just down there by the Volga,' said the courier.

Princess Marya stared at him with a scared and quizzical look, taking nothing in. Why didn't he answer the only question that mattered: How was her brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put the question for her.

'How is the prince?' she asked.

'His Excellency is staying with them in the same house.'

'He must be alive, then,' the princess thought to herself, and she asked in a quiet voice, 'How is he?'

'The servants said there was no change.'

She didn't ask what 'no change' was supposed to mean. With a fleeting, barely perceptible glance at little seven-year-old Nikolay, who was sitting opposite, much enjoying the sight of a new town, she looked down, and didn't look up again until the great rumbling carriage stopped jolting and swaying and came to a standstill. The carriage steps came clattering down.

The carriage doors were opened. There was water on the left, a broad expanse of river; on the right, the entrance steps. There was a welcoming party that included the servants and a rosy-cheeked girl with a thick coil of black hair, who was looking at her with an unpleasant, rather forced smile on her face, or so it seemed to Princess Marya. (This was Sonya.) The princess ran up the steps, and the girl with the forced smile said, 'Here you are! Come in here!' and the princess found herself in the hall looking at an elderly woman with oriental features distorted with anguish, who was advancing rapidly to meet her. It was the countess. She put her arms round Princess Marya, and proceeded to kiss her.

'My dear child,' she said, 'I love you. I have known you for such a long time.' Princess Marya was thoroughly distraught, but she knew this was the countess, and she ought to say something. Without knowing how she did it, she managed to get out a few polite French phrases pitched in the same tone as those addressed to her, and then she asked, 'How is he?'

'The doctor says he's out of danger,' replied the countess, but even as she said it, she sighed and her eyes rolled upwards, negating her own words.

'Where is he? Please can I see him?' asked the princess.

'Yes, of course, Princess. Directly, my dear. Is this his son?' she said, turning to little Nikolay, who was on his way in with Dessalles. 'There's plenty of room for everybody. It's a nice big house. Oh, what a delightful boy!'

The countess conducted the princess into the drawing-room. Sonya spoke to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess petted the little boy. The old count came in to welcome the princess. He had changed enormously since Princess Marya had last seen him. Then he had been a bouncy, cheery, confident little old man; now he looked like some pathetic creature that had lost its way. As he talked to the princess he glanced round shiftily all the time, as if to check with other people that he was behaving himself properly. After the destruction of Moscow and the loss of his property, knocked out of his usual groove, he had clearly lost all sense of his own importance, and now felt he no longer had a place in life.

Despite all her anguish, her one desire to see her brother without further ado, and her sense of annoyance that at a time like this, when all she wanted was to go and see him, they were exchanging pleasantries and saying nice things about her nephew, the princess was taking everything in, and she could see that for the time being she had no alternative but to fall in with the new system she was now entering. She realized it was unavoidable, and this was hard to bear, but she didn't hold it against them.

'This is my niece,' said the count, introducing Sonya. 'You haven't met her, have you, Princess?'

Princess Marya turned towards her, doing her best to stifle a rising feeling of hostility at the sight of this girl, and kissed her.

But the strain of feeling that her mood was different from everybody else's was beginning to tell.

'Where is he?' she asked again, turning to face them all.

'He's downstairs. Natasha is with him,' answered Sonya, colouring up. 'We've sent someone to ask . . . Princess, you must be very tired.'

Tears of annoyance were stinging Princess Marya's eyes. She turned away and was just about to ask the countess again which way to go when she heard a noise at the door, the light, eager footsteps of someone who seemed to be tripping along quite cheerfully. She looked across and saw someone almost running into the room. It was Natasha, the same Natasha she had so heartily disliked when they had met such a long time ago in Moscow.

But Princess Marya took one look at Natasha's face and immediately recognized a comrade in adversity, and therefore a friend. She flew across, took her in her arms and burst into tears on her shoulder.

The moment Natasha, sitting at Prince Andrey's bedside, had heard of her arrival, she had tiptoed out of the room and run up to see Princess Marya. It was her tripping footsteps that had sounded so cheerful.

As she ran in, there was only one expression on her worried face, an expression of love, infinite love for him, for her, for anything the man she loved held dear, an expression of pity, compassion for others, and a deep desire to give herself up entirely to helping them. At that moment there was clearly not the slightest thought of self, of her relationship with him, in Natasha's heart.