Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter XV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stoppedat the village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round thecampfires. Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh,lay down with his back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. Heagain slept as he had done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.

　　Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he oranother, gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the samethoughts that had been expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk.

　　"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves andthat movement is God. And while there is life there is joy inconsciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder andmore blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings,in innocent sufferings."

　　"Karataev!" came to Pierre's mind.

　　And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindlyold man who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. "Wait abit," said the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe wasalive- a vibrating ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surfaceconsisted of drops closely pressed together, and all these drops movedand changed places, sometimes several of them merging into one,sometimes one dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out andoccupy as much space as possible, but others striving to do the samecompressed it, sometimes destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.

　　"That is life," said the old teacher.

　　"How simple and clear it is," thought Pierre. "How is it I did notknow it before?"

　　"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflectHim to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears fromthe surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now,Karataev has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?"said the teacher.

　　"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.

　　He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed aRussian soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roastinga piece of meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up andhis sinewy, hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turnedthe ramrod. His brown morose face with frowning brows was clearlyvisible by the glow of the charcoal.

　　"It's all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to asoldier who stood behind him. "Brigand! Get away!"

　　And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turnedaway and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldierthe Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire pattingsomething with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized theblue-gray dog, sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.

　　"Ah, he's come?" said Pierre. "And Plat-" he began, but did notfinish.

　　Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in hisfancy- of the look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, ofthe shot heard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guiltyfaces of the two Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered andsmoking gun, and of Karataev's absence at this halt- and he was on thepoint of realizing that Karataev had been killed, but just at thatinstant, he knew not why, the recollection came to his mind of asummer evening he had spent with a beautiful Polish lady on theveranda of his house in Kiev. And without linking up the events of theday or drawing a conclusion from them, Pierre closed his eyes,seeing a vision of the country in summertime mingled with memoriesof bathing and of the liquid, vibrating globe, and he sank intowater so that it closed over his head.

　　Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapidfiring. French soldiers were running past him.

　　"The Cossacks!" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd ofRussians surrounded Pierre.

　　For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him.All around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.

　　"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping,as they embraced Cossacks and hussars.

　　The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offeredthem clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as hesat among them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldierwho approached him, and kissed him, weeping.

　　Dolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd ofdisarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that hadhappened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passedDolokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watchedthem with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent.On the opposite side stood Dolokhov's Cossack, counting theprisoners and marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.

　　"How many?" Dolokhov asked the Cossack.

　　"The second hundred," replied the Cossack.

　　"Filez, filez!"* Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted thisexpression from the French, and when his eyes met those of theprisoners they flashed with a cruel light.

　　*"Get along, get along!"

　　Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind someCossacks who were carrying the body of Petya Rostov to a hole that hadbeen dug in the garden.