Book123

    Free register and download UseNet downloader, then you can FREE Download from UseNet.

    Download without Limit " War And Peace: Book 13 - CHAPTER XIV " from UseNet for FREE!

THROUGH THE LANES of Hamovniky, the prisoners marched alone with their

escort, a train of carts and waggons, belonging to the soldiers of the escort,

following behind them. But as they came out to the provision shops they found

themselves in the middle of a huge train of artillery, moving with difficulty,

and mixed up with private baggage-waggons.

At the bridge itself the whole mass halted, waiting for the foremost to get

across. From the bridge the prisoners got a view of endless trains of

baggage-waggons in front and behind. On the left, where the Kaluga road turns

by Neskutchny Gardens, endless files of troops and waggons stretched away into

the distance. These were the troops of Beauharnais's corps, which had set off

before all the rest. Behind, along the riverside, and across Kamenny bridge,

stretched the troops and transport of Ney's corps.

Davoust's troops, to which the prisoners belonged, were crossing by the

Crimean Ford, and part had already entered Kaluga Street. But the baggage-trains

were so long that the last waggons of Beauharnais's corps had not yet got out of

Moscow into Kaluga Street, while the vanguard of Ney's troops had already

emerged from Bolshaya Ordynka.

After crossing the Crimean Ford, the prisoners moved a few steps at a time

and then halted, and again moved forward, and the crowd of vehicles and people

grew greater and greater on all sides. After taking over an hour in crossing the

few hundred steps which separates the bridge from Kaluga Street and getting as

far as the square where the Zamoskvoryetche streets run into Kaluga Street, the

prisoners were jammed in a close block and kept standing for several hours at

the crossroads. On all sides there was an unceasing sound, like the roar of the

sea, of rumbling wheels, and tramping troops, and incessant shouts of anger and

loud abuse. Pierre stood squeezed against the wall of a charred house, listening

to that sound, which in his imagination melted off into the roll of drums.

Several of the Russian officers clambered up on to the wall of the burnt

house by which Pierre stood so as to get a better view.

“The crowds! What crowds!…They have even loaded goods on the cannons! Look at

the furs!…” they kept saying. “I say, the vermin, they have been pillaging.…Look

at what that one has got behind, on the cart.…Why, they are holy pictures, by

God!…Those must be Germans. And a Russian peasant; by God!…Ah; the

wretches!…See, how he's loaded; he can hardly move! Look, I say, chaises; they

have got hold of them, too!…See, he has perched on the boxes. Heavens!…They have

started fighting!…That's left; hit him in the face! We shan't get by before

evening like this. Look, look!…Why, that must surely be Napoleon himself. Do you

see the horses! with the monograms and a crown! That's a portable house. He has

dropped his sack, and doesn't see it. Fighting again.…A woman with a baby, and

good-looking, too! Yes, I dare say; that's the way they will let you pass.…Look;

why, there's no end to it. Russian wenches, I do declare they are. See how

comfortable they are in the carriages!”

Again a wave of general curiosity, as at the church in Hamovniky, carried all

the prisoners forward towards the road, and Pierre, thanks to his height, saw

over the heads of the others what attracted the prisoners' curiosity. Three

carriages were blocked between caissons, and in them a number of women with

rouged faces, decked out in flaring colours, were sitting closely packed

together, shouting something in shrill voices.

From the moment when Pierre had recognised the manifestation of that

mysterious force, nothing seemed to him strange or terrible; not the corpse with

its face blacked for a jest, nor these women hurrying away, nor the burnt ruins

of Moscow. All that Pierre saw now made hardly any impression on him—as though

his soul, in preparation for a hard struggle, refused to receive any impression

that might weaken it.

The carriages of women drove by. They were followed again by carts, soldiers,

waggons, soldiers, carriages, soldiers, caissons, and again soldiers, and at

rare intervals women.

Pierre did not see the people separately; he saw only their movement.

All these men and horses seemed, as it were, driven along by some unseen

force. During the hour in which Pierre watched them they all were swept out of

the different streets with the same one desire to get on as quickly as possible.

All of them, alike hindered by the rest, began to get angry and to fight. The

same oaths were bandied to and fro, and white teeth flashed, and every frowning

face wore the same look of reckless determination and cold cruelty, which had

struck Pierre in the morning in the corporal's face, while the drums were

beating.

It was almost evening when the officer in command of their escort rallied his

men, and with shouts and oaths forced his way in among the baggage-trains; and

the prisoners, surrounded on all sides, came out on the Kaluga road.

They marched very quickly without pausing, and only halted when the sun was

setting. The baggage-carts were moved up close to one another, and the men began

to prepare for the night. Every one seemed ill-humoured and dissatisfied. Oaths,

angry shouts, and fighting could be heard on all sides till a late hour. A

carriage, which had been following the escort, had driven into one of their

carts and run a shaft into it. Several soldiers ran up to the cart from

different sides; some hit the carriage horses on the head as they turned them

round, other were fighting among themselves, and Pierre saw one German seriously

wounded by a blow from the flat side of a sword on his head.

It seemed as though now when they had come to a standstill in the midst of

the open country, in the cold twilight of the autumn evening, all these men were

experiencing the same feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eager

impulse forward that had carried them all away at setting off. Now standing

still, all as it were grasped that they knew not where they were going, and that

there was much pain and hardship in store for them on the journey.

At this halting-place, the prisoners were even more roughly treated by their

escort than at starting. They were for the first time given horse-flesh to

eat.

In every one of the escort, from the officers to the lowest soldier, could be

seen a sort of personal spite against every one of the prisoners, in surprising

contrast with the friendly relations that had existed between them before.

This spite was increased when, on counting over the prisoners, it was

discovered that in the bustle of getting out of Moscow one Russian soldier had

managed to run away by pretending to be seized with colic. Pierre had seen a

Frenchman beat a Russian soldier unmercifully for moving too far from the road,

and heard the captain, who had been his friend, reprimanding an under-officer

for the escape of the prisoner, and threatening him with court-martial. On the

under-officer's urging that the prisoner was ill and could not walk, the officer

said that their orders were to shoot those who should lag behind. Pierre felt

that that fatal force which had crushed him at the execution, and had been

imperceptible during his imprisonment, had now again the mastery of his

existence. He was afraid; but he felt too, that as that fatal force strove to

crush him, there was growing up in his soul and gathering strength a force of

life that was independent of it. Pierre supped on soup made of rye flour and

horseflesh, and talked a little with his companions.

Neither Pierre nor any of his companions talked of what they had seen in

Moscow, nor of the harsh treatment they received from the French, nor of the

orders to shoot them, which had been announced to them. As though in reaction

against their more depressing position, all were particularly gay and lively.

They talked of personal reminiscences, of amusing incidents they had seen as

they marched, and avoided touching on their present position.

The sun had long ago set. Stars were shining brightly here and there in the

sky; there was a red flush, as of a conflagration on the horizon, where the full

moon was rising, and the vast, red ball seemed trembling strangely in the grey

darkness. It became quite light. The evening was over, but the night had not yet

begun. Pierre left his new companions and walked between the camp-fires to the

other side of the road, where he had been told that the common prisoners were

camping. He wanted to talk to them. On the road a French sentinel stopped him

and bade him go back.

Pierre did go back, but not to the camp-fire where his companions were, but

to an unharnessed waggon where there was nobody. Tucking his legs up under him,

and dropping his head, he sat down on the cold ground against the waggon wheel,

and sat there a long while motionless, thinking. More than an hour passed by. No

one disturbed Pierre. Suddenly he burst into such a loud roar of his fat,

good-humoured laughter, that men looked round on every side in astonishment at

this strange and obviously solitary laughter. “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Pierre. And

he talked aloud to himself. “The soldier did not let me pass. They have taken

me—shut me up. They keep me prisoner. Who is ‘me'? Me? Me—my immortal soul! ha,

ha, ha! … Ha, ha, ha! …” he laughed, with the tears starting into his

eyes.

A man got up and came to see what this strange, big man was laughing at all

by himself. Pierre left off laughing, got up, walked away from the inquisitive

intruder, and looked about him.

The immense, endless bivouac, which had been full of the sound of crackling

fires and men talking, had sunk to rest; the red camp-fires burnt low and dim.

High overhead in the lucid sky stood the full moon. Forests and fields, that

before could not be seen beyond the camp, came into view now in the distance.

And beyond those fields and forests could be seen the bright, shifting,

alluring, boundless distance. Pierre glanced at the sky, at the far-away,

twinkling stars. “And all that is mine, and all that is in me, and all that is

I!” thought Pierre. “And all this they caught and shut up in a shed closed in

with boards!” He smiled and went to lie down to sleep beside his companions.

Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123