Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XXIV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning onhis elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at thefurther end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in thebroken wall he could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirtyyear-old birches with their lower branches lopped off, a field onwhich shocks of oats were standing, and some bushes near which rosethe smoke of campfires- the soldiers' kitchens.

　　Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemedto him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritableas he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.

　　He had received and given the orders for next day's battle and hadnothing more to do. But his thoughts- the simplest, clearest, andtherefore most terrible thoughts- would give him no peace. He knewthat tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he hadtaken part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility ofdeath presented itself to him- not in relation to any worldly matteror with reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation tohimself, to his own soul- vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost asa certainty. And from the height of this perception all that hadpreviously tormented and preoccupied him suddenly became illuminedby a cold white light without shadows, without perspective, withoutdistinction of outline. All life appeared to him like magic-lanternpictures at which he had long been gazing by artificial lightthrough a glass. Now he suddenly saw those badly daubed pictures inclear daylight and without a glass. "Yes, yes! There they are, thosefalse images that agitated, enraptured, and tormented me," said heto himself, passing in review the principal pictures of the magiclantern of life and regarding them now in the cold white daylight ofhis clear perception of death. "There they are, those rudely paintedfigures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory, the good ofsociety, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself- how important thesepictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they seemed tobe filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the coldwhite light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The threegreat sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his lovefor a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion which hadoverrun half Russia. "Love... that little girl who seemed to mebrimming over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I maderomantic plans of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy Iwas!" he said aloud bitterly. "Ah me! I believed in some ideal lovewhich was to keep her faithful to me for the whole year of my absence!Like the gentle dove in the fable she was to pine apart from me....But it was much simpler really.... It was all very simple andhorrible."

　　"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: hisland, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from hispath, and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. PrincessMary says it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, whenhe is not here and will never return? He is not here! For whom then isthe trial intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! Andtomorrow I shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by oneof our own men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear asone of them did yesterday, and the French will come and take me byhead and heels and fling me into a hole that I may not stink undertheir noses, and new conditions of life will arise, which will seemquite ordinary to others and about which I shall know nothing. I shallnot exist..."

　　He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, withtheir motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To die...to be killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all thisshould still be, but no me...."

　　And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, thesmoke of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemedterrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rosequickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.

　　After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. "Who'sthat?" he cried.

　　The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadroncommander, but now from lack of officers a battalion commander,shyly entered the shed followed by an adjutant and the regimentalpaymaster.

　　Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had comeabout, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismissthem when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.

　　"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling over something.

　　Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had trippedover a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. Itwas unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set ingeneral, and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painfulmoments of his last visit to Moscow.

　　"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings you here? This isunexpected!"

　　As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness- theyexpressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approachedthe shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he feltconstrained and ill at ease.

　　"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me," saidPierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word"interesting." "I wish to see the battle."

　　"Oh yes, and what do the Masonic brothers say about war? How wouldthey stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. "Well, and how'sMoscow? And my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?" he askedseriously.

　　"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them,but missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow."