Book Thirteen: 1812 - Chapter XIV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Through the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisonersmarched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagonsbelonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores theycame among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled withprivate vehicles.

　　At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to getacross. From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of movingbaggage trains before and behind them. To the right, where theKaluga road turns near Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and cartsstretched away into the distance. These were troops of Beauharnais'corps which had started before any of the others. Behind, along theriverside and across the Stone Bridge, were Ney's troops andtransport.

　　Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossingthe Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kalugaroad. But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last ofBeauharnais' train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached theKaluga road when the vanguard of Ney's army was already emergingfrom the Great Ordynka Street.

　　When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a fewsteps forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehiclesand men crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the fewhundred paces that separated the bridge from the Kaluga road, takingmore than an hour to do so, and came out upon the square where thestreets of the Transmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, andthe prisoners jammed close together had to stand for some hours atthat crossway. From all sides, like the roar of the sea, were heardthe rattle of wheels, the tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of angerand abuse. Pierre stood pressed against the wall of a charred house,listening to that noise which mingled in his imagination with the rollof the drums.

　　To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto thewall of the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.

　　"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goodseven on the cannon! Look there, those are furs!" they exclaimed. "Justsee what the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that onehas behind in the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from someicons, by heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow hasloaded himself up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbedthose chaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks....Heavens! They're fighting."

　　"That's right, hit him on the snout- on his snout! Like this, weshan't get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must beNapoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown!It's like a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack anddoesn't see it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and notbad-looking either! Yes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let youpass... Just look, there's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven,so they are! In carriages- see how comfortably they've settledthemselves!"

　　Again, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiositybore all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks tohis stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attractedtheir curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts,closely squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed inglaring colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.

　　From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of themysterious force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful:neither the corpse smeared with soot for fun nor these womenhurrying away nor the burned ruins of Moscow. All that he nowwitnessed scarcely made an impression on him- as if his soul, makingready for a hard struggle, refused to receive impressions that mightweaken it.

　　The women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts,soldiers, wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers,ammunition carts, more soldiers, and now and then women.

　　Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.

　　All these people and horses seemed driven forward by someinvisible power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all cameflowing from the different streets with one and the same desire to geton quickly; they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and tofight, white teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words ofabuse flew from side to side, and all the faces bore the sameswaggeringly resolute and coldly cruel expression that had struckPierre that morning on the corporal's face when the drums werebeating.

　　It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding theescort collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his wayin among the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on allsides, emerged onto the Kaluga road.

　　They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when thesun began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the menbegan to prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry anddissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting couldbe heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort raninto one of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole.Several soldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beatthe carriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, othersfought among themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badlywounded on the head by a sword.

　　It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amidfields in the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one andthe same feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry andeagerness to push on that had seized them at the start. Once at astandstill they all seemed to understand that they did not yet knowwhere they were going, and that much that was painful and difficultawaited them on this journey.

　　During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse thanthey had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for thefirst time received horseflesh for their meat ration.

　　From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed whatseemed like personal spite against each of the prisoners, inunexpected contrast to their former friendly relations.

　　This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll ofprisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow oneRussian soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, hadescaped. Pierre saw a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly forstraying too far from the road, and heard his friend the captainreprimand and threaten to court-martial a noncommissioned officer onaccount of the escape of the Russian. To the noncommissioned officer'sexcuse that the prisoner was ill and could not walk, the officerreplied that the order was to shoot those who lagged behind. Pierrefelt that that fatal force which had crushed him during theexecutions, but which be had not felt during his imprisonment, nowagain controlled his existence. It was terrible, but he felt that inproportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush him, there grewand strengthened in his soul a power of life independent of it.

　　He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted withhis comrades.

　　Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seenin Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or ofthe order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if inreaction against the worsening of their position they were allparticularly animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences,of amusing scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, andavoided all talk of their present situation.

　　The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there inthe sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizonfrom the rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangelyin the gray haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the nighthad not yet come. Pierre got up and left his new companions,crossing between the campfires to the other side of the road wherehe had been told the common soldier prisoners were stationed. Hewanted to talk to them. On the road he was stopped by a Frenchsentinel who ordered him back.

　　Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to anunharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under himand dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel ofthe cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought.Suddenly he burst out into a fit of his broad, good-naturedlaughter, so loud that men from various sides turned with surpriseto see what this strange and evidently solitary laughter could mean.

　　"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: "Thesoldier did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold mecaptive. What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!..." andhe laughed till tears started to his eyes.

　　A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughingat all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went fartheraway from the inquisitive man, and looked around him.

　　The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with thecrackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, thered campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in thelight sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp,unseen before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still,beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitlessdistance lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and thetwinkling stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all thatis within me, and it is all I!" thought Pierre. "And they caught allthat and put it into a shed boarded up with planks!" He smiled, andwent and lay down to sleep beside his companions.