War and Peace (162 page)

“That will do, Natasha,” Sonya said to her. “I see you are quite right, but take out just the top one.”

“I won’t,” cried Natasha, with one hand holding her disordered hair off her perspiring face, while with the other she squeezed down the rugs. “Press it, Petya, press it! Vassilitch, press hard!” she cried. The rugs yielded, and the lid closed. Natasha, clapping her hands, shrieked with delight, and tears started into her eyes. But that lasted only a second. She set to work at once on a fresh job; and now the servants put complete faith in her, and the count did not take it amiss when they told him that Natalya Ilyinitshna had given some direction superseding his orders; and the servants came to Natasha to ask whether a cart was packed full
enough and whether the loads were to be tied on. The packing went on fast now, thanks to Natasha’s supervision; everything useless was left behind, and the most valuable goods were packed as compactly as possible.

But with all their exertions, even late at night everything was not ready. The countess had fallen asleep, and the count put off their departure till morning and went to bed.

Sonya and Natasha slept in the divan-room, without undressing.

That night another wounded officer was driven along Povarsky Street, and Mavra Kuzminishna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the Rostovs’ yard. The wounded officer must, Mavra Kuzminishna thought, be a man of very great consequence. He was in a coach with the hood let down and a carriage apron completely covering it. An old man, a most respectable-looking valet, was sitting on the box with the driver. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in another conveyance.

“Come into our house, come in. The masters are going away, the whole house is empty,” said the old woman, addressing the old servant.

“Well,” answered the valet, sighing, “and indeed we have no hope of getting him home alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it is a long way further, and there’s no one living in it either.”

“Pray come in, our masters have plenty of everything, and you are welcome,” said Mavra Kuzminishna. “Is the gentleman very bad, then?” she asked.

“There’s no hope! I must ask the doctor.” And the valet got down and went to the vehicle behind.

“Very good,” said the doctor.

The valet went up to the coach again, peeped into it, shook his head, told the coachman to turn into the yard, and stood still beside Mavra Kuzminishna.

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy!” she murmured.

Mavra Kuzminishna suggested the wounded man being carried into the house.

“The masters won’t say anything …” said she.

But they had to avoid lifting him up the steps, and so they carried the wounded man to the lodge, and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss’s. This wounded officer was Prince Andrey Bolkonsky.

The last day of Moscow had come. It was a bright, clear autumn day. It was Sunday. The bells were ringing for service in all the churches, just as on all other Sundays. No one seemed yet able to grasp what was awaiting Moscow.

There were only two indications in the condition of society that betrayed the position of Moscow; those were the rabble, that is, the poorer class, and the prices of different objects. Factory hands, house-serfs, and peasants came out early that morning on to Three Hills in immense crowds, which were swelled by clerks, divinity students, and gentlemen. After staying there a while waiting for Rastoptchin, who did not come, and gaining the conviction that Moscow would be surrendered, this mob dispersed about the taverns and drinkshops of Moscow. Prices, too, on that day indicated the position of affairs. The prices of weapons, of carts and horses, and the value of gold rose higher and higher, while the value of paper-money and the prices of things useful in town were continually falling, so that by the middle of the day there were instances of cab-drivers carrying off at half-price expensive goods, like cloth; and while five hundred roubles was paid for a peasant’s horse, furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were given away for nothing.

In the old-fashioned and decorous house of the Rostovs the collapse of all the usual conditions of life was very slightly perceptible. In the night three out of the immense retinue of servants, did indeed disappear; but nothing was stolen, and the Rostovs were only aware of the change in the relative value of things from finding that the thirty carts from the country were of enormous value, for which they were envied by many, and offered enormous sums. Besides these would-be purchasers, all the previous evening and early in the morning of the 1st of September orderlies and servants were being continually sent into the Rostovs’ courtyard from wounded officers, and wounded men were constantly dragging themselves there from the Rostovs’ and neighbouring houses, to beseech the servants to try and get them a lift out of Moscow. The butler, to whom these requests were referred, resolutely refused, though he felt for the wounded men, and declared that he would never even dare to hint at such a thing to the count. Pitiable as the position of these wounded men was, it was obvious that if one gave up one cart to them, one might as well give all—and would even have to put the carriages too at their service. Thirty waggons could not save all the wounded, and
in the general catastrophe one must think of oneself and one’s family first. So the butler reasoned on his master’s behalf.

On waking up that morning Count Ilya Andreitch slipped quietly out of his bedroom, so as not to wake his wife, who had been awake till morning, and in his lilac silk dressing-gown he came out on to the steps. The loaded waggons were standing in the courtyard. The carriages were drawn up at the steps. The butler was standing in the entrance talking with an old orderly and a pale young officer with his arm in a sling. The butler, seeing his master, made a significant and peremptory sign to them both to retire.

“Well, is everything ready, Vassilitch?” said the count, rubbing his bald head; and looking benignly at the officer and the orderly, he nodded to them. (The count was always attracted by new faces.)

“Ready to put the horses in immediately, your excellency.”

“Well, that’s capital; the countess will soon be awake, and, please God, we set off! What can I do for you, sir?” he said, addressing the officer. “You are staying in my house?”

The officer came closer. His pale face suddenly flushed crimson.

“Count, do me a great favour, allow me … for God’s sake … to get into one of your waggons. I have nothing here with me … I can go quite well with the luggage …”

Before the officer finished speaking, the orderly came up to make the same request for his master.

“Oh! yes, yes, yes,” said the count hurriedly. “I shall be very glad indeed. Vassilitch, you see to it; you have a waggon or two cleared, well … well … what’s needed …?” The count murmured some vague orders. But the glowing look of gratitude on the officer’s face instantly put the seal on the order. The count looked about him; everywhere in the yard, at the gates, at the windows of the lodge—he saw wounded men and orderlies. They were all gazing at him and moving up towards the steps.

“Will you please walk into the gallery, your excellency; what are your orders about the pictures there?” said the butler. And the count went into the house with him, repeating his instructions that they were not to refuse the wounded men who begged to go with them.

“You can take something out of the loads, you know,” he added, in a subdued and mysterious voice, as though he were afraid of being overheard.

At nine o’clock the countess woke up, and Matrona Timofyevna,
who had been her maid before her marriage, and now performed the duties of a sort of
chef de gendarmes
for the countess, came in to report to her that Madame Schoss was very much aggrieved, and that the young ladies’ summer dresses could not possibly be left behind. On the countess inquiring the cause of Madame Schoss’s resentment, it appeared that that lady’s trunk had been taken out of the waggon, and that all the waggons were being unloaded, and that the luggage was being taken out, as the waggons were to be given up to the wounded men, whom the count, with his usual readiness to be imposed upon, had consented to take away with them. The countess sent for her husband to come to her.

“What’s this, my dear? I hear the luggage is being unloaded.”

“Do you know,
ma chère
, I wanted to speak to you about it … dear little countess … an officer came up to me—they are imploring us to let them have a few waggons for the wounded. It’s all a question of money loss to us, of course, but to be left behind … think what it means to them!… Here they are in our very yard; we asked them in ourselves; here are officers.… You know, I really think,
ma chère
 … well, let them take them. We are in no hurry.”

The count spoke timidly, as he always did when the subject was in any way connected with money. The countess was used to that tone, which always ushered in some matter prejudicial to her children’s interests, such as the building of a new gallery, or conservatory, or a new theatre in the house, or the training of an orchestra; and she made it a habit, and regarded it as a duty, to oppose everything that was communicated in that tone.

She assumed her air of tearful resignation, and said to her husband: “Listen, count, you have mismanaged things so, that we are getting nothing for the house, and now you want to throw away all our—all the children’s—property. Why, you told me yourself that we have a hundred thousand roubles’ worth of valuables in the house. I protest, and protest, my love. What would you have! It’s for the Government to look after the wounded. They know that. Only think, the Lopuhins opposite cleared everything to the last stick out of their house the day before yesterday. That’s how other people manage. It’s only we who are such fools. If you have no consideration for me, do at least think of your children.”

The count waved his hands in despair, and went out of the room without a word.

“Papa! why do you do that?” said Natasha, who had followed him into her mother’s room.

“Nothing! It’s no business of yours!” the count said angrily.

“But I heard,” said Natasha. “Why won’t mamma have it?”

“It’s no business of yours!” cried the count.

Natasha walked away to the window and pondered.

“Papa, here’s Berg coming to see us,” she said, looking out of the window.

The Rostovs’ son-in-law, Berg, was by now a colonel, with the orders of Vladimir and Anne on his neck, and was still filling the same comfortable and agreeable post of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant of the chief officer of the staff of the commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army.

On the 1st of September he had come into Moscow from the army.

He had absolutely nothing to do in Moscow; but he noticed that every one in the army was asking leave to go into Moscow, and was busy doing something there. He, too, thought fit to ask leave of absence on account of urgent domestic and family affairs.

Berg drove up to his father-in-law’s house in his spruce chaise, with his pair of sleek roans, precisely similar to those of a certain prince. He looked carefully at the luggage in the yard, and as he ran up the steps, he took out a clean pocket-handkerchief, and tied a knot in it.

Berg ran with a swimming, impatient step from the entry into the drawing-room, embraced the count, kissed Natasha’s hand and Sonya’s, and then hastened to inquire after mamma’s health.

“Health, at a time like this! Come, tell us what news of the army!” said the count. “Are they retreating, or will there be a battle?”

“Only Almighty God can tell what will be the fate of our Fatherland, papa,” said Berg. “The army is animated by the most ardent spirit of heroism, and now its chiefs, so to speak, are sitting in council. No one knows what is coming. But I can tell you, papa, that our heroic spirit, the truly antique valour of the Russian army, which they—it, I mean,” he corrected himself—“showed in the fight of the 26th … well, there are no words that can do justice to it.” (He smote himself on the chest just as he had seen a general do, who had used much the same phrases before
him—but he was a little too late, for the blow on the chest should properly have been at the words, “the Russian army.”) “I can assure you, papa, that we officers, so far from having to urge the soldiers on, or anything of the sort, had much ado to keep in check this … yes, these exploits recalling the valour of antiquity,” he rattled off. “General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere in front of his troops, I can assure you. Our corps was posted on the slope of a hill. Only fancy!” And Berg proceeded to recount all the stories he had heard repeated about the battle. Natasha stared at Berg, as though seeking the solution of some problem in his face, and her eyes disconcerted him.

“Altogether, the heroism shown by the Russian soldiers is beyond praise, and beyond description!” said Berg, looking at Natasha; and as though wishing to soften her, he smiled in response to her persistent stare … “ ‘Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of her sons!’ Eh, papa?” said Berg.

At that moment the countess came in from the divan-room with a look of weariness and annoyance on her face. Berg skipped, up, kissed the countess’s hand, asked after her health, and stood beside her, with a sympathetic shake of his head.

“Yes, mamma, to tell the truth, these are hard and sorrowful times for every Russian. But why should you be so anxious? You have still time to get away …”

“I can’t make out what the servants are about,” said the countess, addressing her husband. “They told me just now nothing was ready. Some one really must go and look after them. It’s at such times one misses Mitenka. There will be no end to it.”

The count was about to make some reply; but with a visible effort to restrain himself, got up and went to the door without a word.

Berg, meanwhile, had taken out his handkerchief as though about to blow his nose, and, seeing the knot in it, he pondered a moment, shaking his head with a mournful significance.

“And, do you know, papa, I have a great favour to ask …” he began.