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From Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight down the
Virgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden in which
a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been dug in the ground,
and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood in a semicircle. The crowd
consisted of a few Russians and many of Napoleon's soldiers who were not on
duty- Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right
and left of the post stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red
epaulets and high boots and shakos. |
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The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list
(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly began to
beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if part of his soul
had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or understanding. He could
only hear and see. And he had only one wish- that the frightful thing that had
to happen should happen quickly. Pierre looked round at his fellow prisoners and
scrutinized them. |
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The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin, the
other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a domestic serf,
about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a plump, well-nourished body.
The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome man with a broad, light-brown beard
and black eyes. The fifth was a factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of
eighteen in a loose coat. |
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Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or
two at a time. "In couples," replied the officer in command in a calm
voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident that
they were all hurrying- not as men hurry to do something they understand, but as
people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and incomprehensible task. |
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A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of
prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French. |
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Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the officer's
command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The convicts stopped
when they reached the post and, while sacks were being brought, looked dumbly
around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching huntsman. One crossed himself
continually, the other scratched his back and made a movement of the lips
resembling a smile. With hurried hands the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing
the sacks over their heads, and bound them to the post. |
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Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm
regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away to avoid
seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling noise was heard
which seemed to him louder than the most terrific thunder, and he looked round.
There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen were doing something near the pit, with
pale faces and trembling hands. Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way
and with similar looks, these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a
silent appeal for protection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or
believe what was going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they
alone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood nor
believed that it could be taken from them. |
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Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the
sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment he saw
smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who were again doing
something by the post, their trembling hands impeding one another. Pierre,
breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what it meant. The same question
was expressed in all the looks that met his. |
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On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers
without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that were in
his own heart. "But who, after all, is doing this? They are all suffering
as I am. Who then is it? Who?" flashed for an instant through his mind. |
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"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!" shouted someone. The
fifth prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away- alone. Pierre did not
understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought there only
to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no sense of joy or
relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man was the factory lad in
the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on him he sprang aside in terror and
clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered and shook himself free.) The lad was
unable to walk. They dragged him along, holding him up under the arms, and he
screamed. When they got him to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly
understood something. Whether he understood that screaming was useless or
whether he thought it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took
his stand at the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a
wounded animal looked around him with glittering eyes. |
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Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity
and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch at this
fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he wrapped his loose
cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other. |
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When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt
the back of his head; then when they propped him against the bloodstained post,
he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that position, straightened
himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again more comfortably. Pierre did
not take his eyes from him and did not miss his slightest movement. |
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Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of
eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember having
heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the workman suddenly
sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed itself in two places, how
the ropes slackened under the weight of the hanging body, and how the workman
sat down, his head hanging unnaturally and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up
to the post. No one hindered him. Pale, frightened people were doing something
around the workman. The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache
trembled as he untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it
awkwardly from the post and began pushing it into the pit. |
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They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must
hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible. |
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Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with
his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other. That
shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls of earth
were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the soldiers, evidently
suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to go back. But Pierre did not
understand him and remained near the post, and no one drove him away. |
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When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken
back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post made a half
turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four sharpshooters with
discharged muskets, standing in the center of the circle, ran back to their
places as the companies passed by. |
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Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in
couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This one, a
young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and his musket
resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot from which he had
fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps forward and back to save
himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned officer ran out of the ranks and
taking him by the elbow dragged him to his company. The crowd of Russians and
Frenchmen began to disperse. They all went away silently and with drooping
heads. |
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"That will teach them to start fires," said one of the
Frenchmen. |
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Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who was
trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not able to do so.
Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a hopeless movement with his
arm and went away. |
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After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners
and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church. |
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Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and
told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for the
prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre got up and
went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the field, where there
were some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and battens, and led him into
one of them. In the darkness some twenty different men surrounded Pierre. He
looked at them without understanding who they were, why they were there, or what
they wanted of him. He heard what they said, but did not understand the meaning
of the words and made no kind of deduction from or application of them. He
replied to questions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to
his replies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces and
figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless. |
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From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by
men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his life, on
which everything depended and which made everything appear alive, had suddenly
been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into a heap of meaningless
rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, his faith in the right
ordering of the universe, in humanity, in his own soul, and in God, had been
destroyed. He had experienced this before, but never so strongly as now. When
similar doubts had assailed him before, they had been the result of his own
wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his
despair and from those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt
that the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins
remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not in his
power to regain faith in the meaning of life. |
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Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something
about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and asking
him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he found himself in
a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and talking on all sides. |
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"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at
the other end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who. |
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Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall, Pierre
sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as he closed them he
saw before him the dreadful face of the factory lad- especially dreadful because
of its simplicity- and the faces of the murderers, even more dreadful because of
their disquiet. And he opened his eyes again and stared vacantly into the
darkness around him. |
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Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he
was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from him every
time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the darkness, and
though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man continually glanced at
him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw that the man was taking off his
leg bands, and the way he did it aroused Pierre's interest. |
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Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully
coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up at
Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already unwinding
the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully removed the leg bands
by deft circular motions of his arm following one another uninterruptedly, the
man hung the leg bands up on some pegs fixed above his head. Then he took out a
knife, cut something, closed the knife, placed it under the head of his bed,
and, seating himself comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and
fixed his eyes on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant,
comforting, and well rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered
arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at the man
without taking his eyes from him. |
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"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little man
suddenly said. |
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And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice
that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears rising to his
eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray his confusion,
instantly continued in the same pleasant tones: |
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"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong
caressing voice old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend-
'suffer an hour, live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we
live, thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men
as well as bad," said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees with a
supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of the shed. |
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"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at
the other end of the shed. "So you've come, you rascal? She remembers...
Now, now, that'll do!" |
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And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him,
returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something wrapped in a
rag. |
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"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful
tone as he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup
for dinner and the potatoes are grand!" |
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Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed
extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat. |
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"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile.
"You should do like this." |
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He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two equal
halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the rag, and
handed it to Pierre. |
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"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some
like that!" |
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Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better. |
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"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did they shoot
those poor fellows? The last one was hardly twenty." |
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"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what a sin... what
a sin!" he added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in
his mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: "How was it, sir, that you
stayed in Moscow?" |
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"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed
accidentally," replied Pierre. |
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"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?" |
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"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and
tried me as an incendiary." |
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"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man. |
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"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he munched the
last of the potato. |
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"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in
Moscow." |
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"Why, are you a soldier then?" |
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"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of
fever. We weren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We
had no idea, never guessed at all." |
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"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired. |
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"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is
Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to
address him. "They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one to
help feeling sad? Moscow- she's the mother of cities. How can one see all this
and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies first'; that's
what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly. |
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"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre. |
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"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen not as we
plan but as God judges," he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he
had said before, and immediately continued: |
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"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you
have abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still
living?" he asked. |
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And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed
smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these questions. He
seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that he had no mother. |
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"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none
as dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well, and have you little
ones?" he went on asking. |
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Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened to
add: |
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"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have
some. The great thing is to live in harmony...." |
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"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help saying. |
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"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never decline a
prison or a beggar's sack!" |
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He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to
tell a long story. |
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"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home," he began.
"We had a well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and
our house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing there
were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so happened..." |
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And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into someone's
copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been tried,
flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier. |
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"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his voice "we
thought it was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for
my sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger
brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife behind. We had
a little girl, but God took her before I went as a soldier. I come home on leave
and I'll tell you how it was, I look and see that they are living better than
before. The yard full of cattle, the women at home, two brothers away earning
wages, and only Michael the youngest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children
are the same to me: it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if
Platon hadn't been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called
us all to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons.
'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young woman,
you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before him! Do you
understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate looks for a head. But
we are always judging, 'that's not well- that's not right!' Our luck is like
water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it bulges, but when you've drawn it out
it's empty! That's how it is." |
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And Platon shifted his seat on the straw. |
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After a short silence he rose. |
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"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and began rapidly
crossing himself and repeating: |
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"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus
Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on
us and save us!" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got up, sighed,
and sat down again on his heap of straw. "That's the way. Lay me down like
a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he muttered as he lay down,
pulling his coat over him. |
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"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre. |
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"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. "What
was I saying? I was praying. Don't you pray?" |
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"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that you said:
Frola and Lavra?" |
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"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the horses'
saints. One must pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and
got warm, you daughter of a bitch!" said Karataev, touching the dog that
lay at his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately. |
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Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance
outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but inside it
was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but lay with eyes open
in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of Platon who lay beside him,
and he felt that the world that had been shattered was once more stirring in his
soul with a new beauty and on new and unshakable foundations. |
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Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined in
the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for four weeks. |
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When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to
him except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his mind a most vivid and
precious memory and the personification of everything Russian, kindly, and
round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn the first impression of
him, as of something round, was fully confirmed: Platon's whole figure- in a
French overcoat girdled with a cord, a soldier's cap, and bast shoes- was round.
His head was quite round, his back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which
he held as if ever ready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile
and his large, gentle brown eyes were also round. |
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Platon Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of campaigns
he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself know his age and
was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly white, strong teeth which
showed in two unbroken semicircles when he laughed- as he often did- were all
sound and good, there was not a gray hair in his beard or on his head, and his
whole body gave an impression of suppleness and especially of firmness and
endurance. |
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His
face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of innocence and
youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief peculiarity of his
speech was its directness and appositeness. It was evident that he never
considered what he had said or was going to say, and consequently the rapidity
and justice of his intonation had an irresistible persuasiveness. |
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His physical strength and agility during the first days of his
imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and sickness
meant. Every night before lying down, he said: "Lord, lay me down as a
stone and raise me up as a loaf!" and every morning on getting up, he said:
"I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself." And indeed he
only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he only had to shake
himself, to be ready without a moment's delay for some work, just as children
are ready to play directly they awake. He could do everything, not very well but
not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed, planed, and mended boots. He was always
busy, and only at night allowed himself conversation- of which he was fond- and
songs. He did not sing like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but
like the birds, evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one
stretches oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were
always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his face at
such times was very serious. |
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Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to
have thrown off all that had been forced upon him- everything military and alien
to himself- and had returned to his former peasant habits. |
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"A soldier on leave- a shirt outside breeches," he would say. |
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He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not
complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during the whole
of his army service. When he related anything it was generally some old and
evidently precious memory of his "Christian" life, as he called his
peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full, were for the most
part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers employ, but those folk sayings
which taken without a context seem so insignificant, but when used appositely
suddenly acquire a significance of profound wisdom. |
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He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous
occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well, adorning
his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which Pierre thought
he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay in the fact that the
commonest events- sometimes just such as Pierre had witnessed without taking
notice of them- assumed in Karataev's a character of solemn fitness. He liked to
hear the folk tales one of the soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were
always the same), but most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He
would smile joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a
word or asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear to
himself. Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre understood
them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life brought him in
contact with, particularly with man- not any particular man, but those with whom
he happened to be. He loved his dog, his comrades, the French, and Pierre who
was his neighbor, but Pierre felt that in spite of Karataev's affectionate
tenderness for him (by which he unconsciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its
due) he would not have grieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre
began to feel in the same way toward Karataev. |
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To all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary
soldier. They called him "little falcon" or "Platosha,"
chaffed him good-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always
remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded, eternal
personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth. |
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Platon Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began
to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude. |
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Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to
repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment before,
just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his favorite song: native
and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in it, but when spoken and not
sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He did not, and could not, understand
the meaning of words apart from their context. Every word and action of his was
the manifestation of an activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his
life, as he regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only
as part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions
flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance exhales
from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance of any word or
deed taken separately. |
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When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the
Rostovs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her aunt's
efforts to dissuade her- and not merely to go herself but to take her nephew
with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or impossible, she did not
ask and did not want to know: it was her duty not only herself to be near her
brother who was perhaps dying, but to do everything possible to take his son to
him, and so she prepared to set off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew
himself, Princess Mary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his
considering the long journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son. |
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In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the
huge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a semiopen trap, and a
baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne, little Nicholas and his
tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, and a young footman and courier her
aunt had sent to accompany her. |
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The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the
roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk, Ryazan,
Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were not everywhere
obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the French were said to have
shown themselves was even dangerous. |
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During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and
Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of spirit.
She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no difficulties
daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which infected her fellow
travelers, they approached Yaroslavl by the end of the second week. |
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The last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her life.
Her love for Rostov no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her whole
soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer struggled
against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved and was beloved,
though she never said this definitely to herself in words. She had become
convinced of it at her last interview with Nicholas, when he had come to tell
her that her brother was with the Rostovs. Not by a single word had Nicholas
alluded to the fact that Prince Andrew's relations with Natasha might, if he
recovered, be renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and
thought of this. |
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Yet in spite of that, his relation to her- considerate, delicate, and
loving- not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess Mary
that he was even glad that the family connection between them allowed him to
express his friendship more freely. She knew that she loved for the first and
only time in her life and felt that she was beloved, and was happy in regard to
it. |
|
|
But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent
her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that
spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her to give
full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so strong at the
moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as they looked at her
careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall ill on the journey. But the
very difficulties and preoccupations of the journey, which she took so actively
in hand, saved her for a while from her grief and gave her strength. |
|
|
As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the
journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl the
thought of what might await her there- not after many days, but that very
evening- again presented itself to her and her agitation increased to its utmost
limit. |
|
|
The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the Rostovs
were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew was, when he met
the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled by the terrible pallor
of the princess' face that looked out at him from the window. |
|
|
"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostovs are
staying at the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from here,
right above the Volga," said the courier. |
|
|
Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding
why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her brother?
Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her. |
|
|
"How is the prince?" she asked. |
|
|
"His excellency is staying in the same house with them." |
|
|
"Then he is alive," thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low
voice: "How is he?" |
|
|
"The servants say he is still the same." |
|
|
What "still the same" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but
with an unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in
front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and did not
raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and swaying, came to a
stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let down. |
|
|
The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water- a great river-
and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance: servants, and a
rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as it seemed to Princess
Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was Sonya.) Princess Mary ran up the
steps. "This way, this way!" said the girl, with the same artificial
smile, and the princess found herself in the hall facing an elderly woman of
Oriental type, who came rapidly to meet her with a look of emotion. This was the
countess. She embraced Princess Mary and kissed her. |
|
|
"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais
depuis longtemps."* |
|
|
*"My child! I love you and have known you a long time."
Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the countess
and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly knowing how she did
it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in French in the same tone as
those that had been addressed to her, and asked: "How is he?" |
|
|
"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess,
but as she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a
contradiction of her words. |
|
|
"Where is he? Can I see him- can I?" asked the princess. |
|
|
"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?"
said the countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.
"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a lovely
boy!" |
|
|
The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sonya was
talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and the old
count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very much since Princess
Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk, cheerful, self-assured old
man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered person. While talking to Princess Mary
he continually looked round as if asking everyone whether he was doing the right
thing. After the destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his
accustomed groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and
to feel that there was no longer a place for him in life. |
|
|
In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and
her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they should
be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew, the princess
noticed all that was going on around her and felt the necessity of submitting,
for a time, to this new order of things which she had entered. She knew it to be
necessary, and though it was hard for her she was not vexed with these people. |
|
|
"This is my niece," said the count, introducing Sonya-
"You don't know her, Princess?" |
|
|
Princess Mary turned to Sonya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling
that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt oppressed by the
fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far from what was in her own
heart. |
|
|
"Where is he?" she asked again, addressing them all. |
|
|
"He is downstairs. Natasha is with him," answered Sonya,
flushing. "We have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess." |
|
|
Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She turned
away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when light,
impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door. The princess
looked round and saw Natasha coming in, almost running- that Natasha whom she
had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow long since. |
|
|
But hardly had the princess looked at Natasha's face before she realized
that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend. She ran to
meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder. |
|
|
As soon as Natasha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard of
Princess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her with those
swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary. |
|
|
There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the
drawing room- that of love- boundless love for him, for her, and for all that
was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others, and passionate
desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was plain that at that
moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought of herself or of her own
relations with Prince Andrew. |
|
|
Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the
first glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful
pleasure. |
|
|
"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natasha, leading her into the
other room. |
|
|
Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natasha. She
felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn everything. |
|
|
"How..." she began her question but stopped short. |
|
|
She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words. Natasha's
face eyes would eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and profoundly. |
|
|
Natasha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say
all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes which
penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible not to tell the
whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natasha's lips twitched, ugly wrinkles
gathered round her mouth, and covering her face with her hands she burst into
sobs. |
|
|
Princess Mary understood. |
|
|
But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust: |
|
|
"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?" |
|
|
"You, you... will see," was all Natasha could say. |
|
|
They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off
crying and were able to go to him with calm faces. |
|
|
"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse?
When did this happen?" Princess Mary inquired. |
|
|
Natasha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish
condition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and the
doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also passed. When they
reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester (Natasha knew all about such
things as festering) and the doctor had said that the festering might take a
normal course. Then fever set in, but the doctor had said the fever was not very
serious. |
|
|
"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natasha,
struggling with her sobs. "I don't know why, but you will see what he is
like." |
|
|
"Is he weaker? Thinner?" asked the princess. |
|
|
"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too
good, he cannot, cannot live, because..." |
|
|
When Natasha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar movement and let
Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the sobs in her
throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now tried to remain
tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at him without tears. |
|
|
The princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: "two
days ago this suddenly happened." She understood those words to mean that
he had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs of
approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in imagination
Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle, mild, sympathetic
face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore affected her very strongly.
She was sure he would speak soft, tender words to her such as her father had
uttered before his death, and that she would not be able to bear it and would
burst into sobs in his presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went
in. The sobs rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly
distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his features,
and then she saw his face and met his gaze. |
|
|
He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by
pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand he held a
handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate mustache he had
grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them as they entered. |
|
|
On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace suddenly
slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly felt
guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and eyes. |
|
|
"But in what am I to blame?" she asked herself. And his cold,
stern look replied: "Because you are alive and thinking of the living,
while I..." |
|
|
In the deep the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards
there was an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and
Natasha. |
|
|
He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont. |
|
|
"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?" said he in
a voice as calm and aloof as his look. |
|
|
Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror
into Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice. |
|
|
"And have you brought little Nicholas?" he asked in the same
slow, quiet manner and with an obvious effort to remember. |
|
|
"How are you now?" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at
what she was saying. |
|
|
"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor," he replied, and again
making an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his
words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts): |
|
|
"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue."* |
|
|
*"Thank you for coming, my dear." |
|
|
Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just
perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now understood
what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his tone, and especially
in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be felt an estrangement from
everything belonging to this world, terrible in one who is alive. Evidently only
with an effort did he understand anything living; but it was obvious that he
failed to understand, not because he lacked the power to do so but because he
understood something else- something the living did not and could not
understand- and which wholly occupied his mind. |
|
|
"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together,"
said he, breaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. "She looks after me
all the time." |
|
|
Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a
thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that, before
her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he could not have
said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had not known that he was
dying, how could he have failed to pity her and how could he speak like that in
her presence? The only explanation was that he was indifferent, because
something else, much more important, had been revealed to him. |
|
|
The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off. |
|
|
"Mary came by way of Ryazan," said Natasha. |
|
|
Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only
after calling her so in his presence did Natasha notice it herself. |
|
|
"Really?" he asked. |
|
|
"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and
that..." |
|
|
Natasha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was
making an effort to listen, but could not do so. |
|
|
"Yes, they say it's burned," he said. "It's a great
pity," and he gazed straight before him, absently stroking his mustache
with his fingers. |
|
|
"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?" Prince Andrew
suddenly said, evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He wrote
here that he took a great liking to you," he went on simply and calmly,
evidently unable to understand all the complex significance his words had for
living people. "If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you to
get married," he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having found
words he had long been seeking. |
|
|
Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as
a proof of how far away he now was from everything living. |
|
|
"Why talk of me?" she said quietly and glanced at Natasha. |
|
|
Natasha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again
silent. |
|
|
"Andrew, would you like..." Princess Mary suddenly said in a
trembling voice, "would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always
talking about you!" |
|
|
Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but
Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did not smile
with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle irony because he
thought she was trying what she believed to be the last means of arousing him. |
|
|
"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?" |
|
|
When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at
his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else was
crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to say to him. |
|
|
When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her
brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began to cry. |
|
|
He looked at her attentively. |
|
|
"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked. |
|
|
Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping. |
|
|
"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off. |
|
|
"What did you say?" |
|
|
"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with
the same cold expression. |
|
|
When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at the
thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a great effort
he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of view. |
|
|
"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how
simple it is. |
|
|
"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father
feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;
"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They can't
understand that all those feelings they prize so- all our feelings, all those
ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot understand one
another," and he remained silent. |
|
|
Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew
nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,
observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he
afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound
understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his father,
Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He understood it completely, and, leaving
the room without crying, went silently up to Natasha who had come out with him
and looked shyly at her with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted,
rosy upper lip trembled and leaning his head against her he began to cry. |
|
|
After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and
either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of whom he
seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and shyly. |
|
|
When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what
Natasha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natasha of hopes of
saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and did not cry any
more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that Eternal and Unfathomable,
whose presence above the dying man was now so evident. |
|
|
Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was
dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from
everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence. Without
haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable, eternal,
distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt continually all his life-
was now near to him and, by the strange lightness he experienced, almost
comprehensible and palpable... |
|
|
Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly
tormenting fear of death- the end- but now he no longer understood that fear. |
|
|
He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before
him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and knew that
he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after being wounded and
the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly unfolded itself in his soul
as if freed from the bondage of life that had restrained it, he no longer feared
death and ceased to think about it. |
|
|
During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent
after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new principle of
eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously detached himself from
earthly life. To love everything and everybody and always to sacrifice oneself
for love meant not to love anyone, not to live this earthly life. And the more
imbued he became with that principle of love, the more he renounced life and the
more completely he destroyed that dreadful barrier which- in the absence of such
love- stands between life and death. When during those first days he remembered
that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what of it? So much
the better!" |
|
|
But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her
for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his lips,
had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again crept unobserved
into his heart and once more bound him to life. And joyful and agitating
thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the moment at the ambulance station
when he had seen Kuragin, he could not now regain the feeling he then had, but
was tormented by the question whether Kuragin was alive. And he dared not
inquire. |
|
|
His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha referred
to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two days
before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle between life
and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the unexpected realization
of the fact that he still valued life as presented to him in the form of his
love for Natasha, and a last, though ultimately vanquished, attack of terror
before the unknown. |
|
|
It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his
thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting by the table. He began to
doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him. |
|
|
"Ah, she has come!" thought he. |
|
|
And so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come in
noiselessly. |
|
|
Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this
physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair placed
sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was knitting a
stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince Andrew had casually
mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old nurses who knit stockings,
and that there is something soothing in the knitting of stockings. The needles
clicked lightly in her slender, rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see
the thoughtful profile of her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off
her knees. She started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her
hand stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball, and
regained her former position. |
|
|
He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a deep
breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed cautiously. |
|
|
At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told her
that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had brought them
together again, but after that they never spoke of the future. |
|
|
"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her
and listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have
brought me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the
truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my life
in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what am I to do if I
love her?" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned, from a habit acquired
during his sufferings. |
|
|
On hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to
him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him and bent
over him. |
|
|
"You are not asleep?" |
|
|
"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No
one else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light. I
want to weep for joy." |
|
|
Natasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy. |
|
|
"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the
world." |
|
|
"And I!"- She turned away for an instant. "Why too
much?" she asked. |
|
|
"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul,
your whole soul- shall I live? What do you think?" |
|
|
"I am sure of it, sure!" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of
both his hands with a passionate movement. |
|
|
He remained silent awhile. |
|
|
"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it. |
|
|
Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would
not do and that he had to be quiet. |
|
|
"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy.
"Try to sleep... please!" |
|
|
He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and
sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at him, and
her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her stocking and
resolved not to turn round till it was finished. |
|
|
Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and
suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration. |
|
|
As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now
always occupied his mind- about life and death, and chiefly about death. He felt
himself nearer to it. |
|
|
"Love? What is love?" he thought. |
|
|
"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I
understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists,
only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die
means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal
source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were only
thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they were too
one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former agitation and
obscurity. He fell asleep. |
|
|
He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that he
was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and insignificant
people appeared before him. He talked to them and discussed something trivial.
They were preparing to go away somewhere. Prince Andrew dimly realized that all
this was trivial and that he had more important cares, but he continued to
speak, surprising them by empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these
persons began to disappear and a single question, that of the closed door,
superseded all else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it.
Everything depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went,
and tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be in
time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He was seized
by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It stood behind the
door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward the door, that dreadful
something on the other side was already pressing against it and forcing its way
in. Something not human- death- was breaking in through that door, and had to be
kept out. He seized the door, making a final effort to hold it back- to lock it
was no longer possible- but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door,
pushed from behind by that terror, opened and closed again. |
|
|
Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain
and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was death,
and Prince Andrew died. |
|
|
But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep,
and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke. |
|
|
"Yes, it was death! I died- and woke up. Yes, death is an
awakening!" And all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had
till then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt as
if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that strange
lightness did not again leave him. |
|
|
When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natasha went
up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at her
strangely, not understanding. |
|
|
That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's
arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever assumed a
malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest Natasha, she saw
the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more convincing. |
|
|
From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with
his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did not seem
to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the duration of a dream. |
|
|
There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow
awakening. |
|
|
His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both
Princess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did not weep
or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that they were not
attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left them) but on what reminded
them most closely of him- his body. Both felt this so strongly that the outward
and terrible side of death did not affect them and they did not feel it
necessary to foment their grief. Neither in his presence nor out of it did they
weep, nor did they ever talk to one another about him. They felt that they could
not express in words what they understood. |
|
|
They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper,
away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it was right. |
|
|
He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of him.
When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy's and turned
away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and Natasha understood
that) but simply because he thought it was all that was required of him, but
when they told him to bless the boy, he did what was demanded and looked round
as if asking whether there was anything else he should do. |
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When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,
occurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present. |
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"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few
minutes lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, looked at
the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not kiss
them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him- his body. |
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"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..." |
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When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table, everyone
came to take leave of him and they all wept. |
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Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.
The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and because he was no more.
The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too, must take the
same terrible step. |
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Natasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own
personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which had taken
possession of their souls at the consciousness of the simple and solemn mystery
of death that had been accomplished in their presence. |
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