Book Fifteen: 1812-13 - Chapter XIV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap hasbeen destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits ofrubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why theyjostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equallydifficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure ofthe French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. Butwhen we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity,energy, and immense number of the delving insects prove that despitethe destruction of the heap, something indestructible, which thoughintangible is the real strength of the colony, still exists; andsimilarly, though in Moscow in the month of October there was nogovernment no churches, shrines, riches, or houses- it was still theMoscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except somethingintangible yet powerful and indestructible.

　　The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow afterit had been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, andat first for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they allhad in common: a desire to get to the place that had been calledMoscow, to apply their activities there.

　　Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, ina fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 thenumber, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in1812.

　　The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks ofWintzingerode's detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, andresidents who had fled from Moscow and had been hiding in itsvicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered,plundered it in their turn. They continued what the French hadbegun. Trains of peasant carts came to Moscow to carry off to thevillages what had been abandoned in the ruined houses and the streets.The Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and thehouseholders seized all they could find in other houses and moved itto their own, pretending that it was their property.

　　But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a thirdcontingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more andmore difficult and assumed more definite forms.

　　The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizationsof regular life, with diverse branches of commerce andcraftsmanship, with luxury, and governmental and religiousinstitutions. These forms were lifeless but still existed. Therewere bazaars, shops, warehouses, market stalls, granaries- for themost part still stocked with goods- and there were factories andworkshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled with luxuries, hospitals,prisons, government offices, churches, and cathedrals. The longerthe French remained the more these forms of town life perished,until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless scene ofplunder.

　　The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both thewealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. Butplundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the citybegan, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greaterthe number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealthof the city and its regular life restored.

　　Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn bycuriosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest- houseowners, clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, andpeasants- streamed into Moscow as blood flows to the heart.

　　Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry offplunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpsesout of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beatdown one another's prices to below what they had been in formerdays. Gangs of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscowevery day, and on all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built,and old, charred ones repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths.Cookshops and taverns were opened in partially burned houses. Theclergy resumed the services in many churches that had not been burned.Donors contributed Church property that had been stolen. Governmentclerks set up their baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes ofdocuments in small rooms. The higher authorities and the policeorganized the distribution of goods left behind by the French. Theowners of houses in which much property had been left, brought therefrom other houses, complained of the injustice of taking everything tothe Faceted Palace in the Kremlin; others insisted that as theFrench had gathered things from different houses into this or thathouse, it would be unfair to allow its owner to keep all that wasfound there. They abused the police and bribed them, made outestimates at ten times their value for government stores that hadperished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchinwrote proclamations.