Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XX

by Leo Tolstoy

　　On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. Atthe descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road ledout of the town past the cathedral on the right, where a service wasbeing held and the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicleand proceeded on foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming downthe hill preceded by its singers. Coming up toward him was a trainof carts carrying men who had been wounded in the engagement the daybefore. The peasant drivers, shouting and lashing their horses, keptcrossing from side to side. The carts, in each of which three orfour wounded soldiers were lying or sitting, jolted over the stonesthat had been thrown on the steep incline to make it something likea road. The wounded, bandaged with rags, with pale cheeks,compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to the sides of thecarts as they were jolted against one another. Almost all of themstared with naive, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat and greenswallow-tail coat.

　　Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keepto one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended thehill with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked theroad. Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting inwhich the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did notpenetrate into the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but abovePierre's head was the bright August sunshine and the bells soundedmerrily. One of the carts with wounded stopped by the side of the roadclose to Pierre. The driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it,placed a stone under one of its tireless hind wheels, and beganarranging the breech-band on his little horse.

　　One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who wasfollowing the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound handand turned to look at Pierre.

　　"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take uson to Moscow?" he asked.

　　Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question.He was looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoyof wounded, now at the cart by which he was standing, in which twowounded men were sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up inthe cart had probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head waswrapped in rags and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby'shead. His nose and mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier waslooking at the cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, afair-haired recruit as white as though there was no blood in histhin face, looked at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The thirdlay prone so that his face was not visible. The cavalry singers werepassing close by:

　　Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen, Living in a foreign land.they sang their soldiers' dance song.

　　As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, themetallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot raysof the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet anothersort of merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the woundednear the panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber,and sad.

　　The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalrysingers.

　　"Oh, the coxcombs!" he muttered reproachfully.

　　"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too....The peasants- even they have to go," said the soldier behind the cart,addressing Pierre with a sad smile. "No distinctions made nowadays....They want the whole nation to fall on them- in a word, it's Moscow!They want to make an end of it."

　　In spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understoodwhat he wanted to say and nodded approval.

　　The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.

　　He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, butonly saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men ofdifferent branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment athis white hat and green tail coat.

　　Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance andeagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He wasdriving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a youngsurgeon, and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupiedthe driver's seat to pull up.

　　"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?" asked the doctor.

　　"Well, you know, I wanted to see..."

　　"Yes, yes, there will be something to see...."

　　Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention oftaking part in a battle.

　　The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutuzov.

　　"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?"he said, exchanging glances with his young companion. "Anyhow hisSerene Highness knows you and will receive you graciously. That's whatyou must do."

　　The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.

　　"You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position isexactly?" said Pierre.

　　"The position?" repeated the doctor. "Well, that's not my line.Drive past Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up thehillock and you'll see."

　　"Can one see from there?... If you would..."

　　But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.

　　"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here"- and he pointedto his throat. "I'm galloping to the commander of the corps. How domatters stand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle tomorrow.Out of an army of a hundred thousand we must expect at least twentythousand wounded, and we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, ordoctors enough for six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but weneed other things as well- we must manage as best we can!"

　　The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, whohad stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he hadnoticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and deathamazed Pierre.

　　"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything butdeath?" And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of theMozhaysk hill, the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, theslanting rays of the sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividlyrecurred to his mind.

　　"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for amoment think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded.Yet from among these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and theywonder at my hat! Strange!" thought Pierre, continuing his way toTatarinova.

　　In front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stoodcarriages, wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. Thecommander in chief was putting up there, but just when Pierrearrived he was not in and hardly any of the staff were there- they hadgone to the church service. Pierre drove on toward Gorki.

　　When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street,he saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts andwith crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animatedand perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass tothe right of the road.

　　Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earthalong planks, while others stood about doing nothing.

　　Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. Onseeing these peasants, who were evidently still amused by thenovelty of their position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of thewounded men at Mozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant whenhe said: "They want the whole nation to fall on them." The sight ofthese bearded peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer,clumsy boots and perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from theleft toward the middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburnedcollarbones, impressed Pierre more strongly with the solemnity andimportance of the moment than anything he had yet seen or heard.