Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XXV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparentlyreluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay andhave tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazedwith surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talkof Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden.Prince Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbiddingthat Pierre addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-naturedbattalion commander.

　　"So you understand the whole position of our troops?" PrinceAndrew interrupted him.

　　"Yes- that is, how do you mean?" said Pierre. "Not being amilitary man I can't say I have understood it fully, but Iunderstand the general position."

　　"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may," saidPrince Andrew.

　　"Oh!" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity atPrince Andrew. "Well, and what do think of Kutuzov's appointment?"he asked.

　　"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know," repliedPrince Andrew.

　　"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they aresaying heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?"

　　"Ask them," replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.

　　Pierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogativesmile with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.

　　"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, yourexcellency," said Timokhin timidly, and continually turning toglance at his colonel.

　　"Why so?" asked Pierre.

　　"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you.Why, when we were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a stickor a wisp of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he wouldget it all; wasn't it so, your excellency?" and again Timokhinturned to the prince. "But we daren't. In our regiment two officerswere court-martialed for that kind of thing. But when his Serenitytook command everything became straight forward. Now we see light..."

　　"Then why was it forbidden?"

　　Timokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how toanswer such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.

　　"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to theenemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound: onecan't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops tomarauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French mightoutflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understandthis," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape himinvoluntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the firsttime, we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spiritin the men such as I had never seen before, that we had held theFrench for two days, and that that success had increased ourstrength tenfold. He ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts andlosses went for nothing. He had no thought of betraying us, he triedto do the best he could, he thought out everything, and that is why heis unsuitable. He is unsuitable now, just because he plans outeverything very thoroughly and accurately as every German has to.How can I explain?... Well, say your father has a German valet, and heis a splendid valet and satisfies your father's requirements betterthan you could, then it's all right to let him serve. But if yourfather is mortally sick you'll send the valet away and attend toyour father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands, and willsoothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could. So ithas been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner couldserve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is indanger she needs one of her own kin. But in your Club they have beenmaking him out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and theonly result will be that afterwards, ashamed of their falseaccusations, they will make him out a hero or a genius instead of atraitor, and that will be still more unjust. He is an honest andvery punctilious German."

　　"And they say he's a skillful commander," rejoined Pierre.

　　"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'"replied Prince Andrew ironically.

　　"A skillful commander?" replied Pierre. "Why, one who foresees allcontingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions."

　　"But that's impossible," said Prince Andrew as if it were a mattersettled long ago.

　　Pierre looked at him in surprise.

　　"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked.

　　"Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, thatin chess you may think over each move as long as you please and arenot limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight isalways stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger thanone, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a divisionand sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodiesof troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "ifthings depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be theremaking arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to servehere in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on ustomorrow's battle will depend and not on those others.... Successnever depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, oreven on numbers, and least of all on position."

　　"But on what then?"

　　"On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timokhin,"and in each soldier."

　　Prince Andrew glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander inalarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnityPrince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain fromexpressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.

　　"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did welose the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equalto ours, but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing thebattle, and we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing tofight for there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon aswe could. 'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had notsaid that till the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened.But tomorrow we shan't say it! You talk about our position, the leftflank weak and the right flank too extended," he went on. "That'sall nonsense, there's nothing of the kind. But what awaits ustomorrow? A hundred million most diverse chances which will be decidedon the instant by the fact that our men or theirs run or do not run,and that this man or that man is killed, but all that is being done atpresent is only play. The fact is that those men with whom you haveridden round the position not only do not help matters, but hinder.They are only concerned with their own petty interests."

　　"At such a moment?" said Pierre reproachfully.

　　"At such a moment!" Prince Andrew repeated. "To them it is only amoment affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain anextra cross or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of ahundred thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met tofight, and the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fightand the side that fights more fiercely and spares itself least willwin. And if you like I will tell you that whatever happens andwhatever muddles those at the top may make, we shall win tomorrow'sbattle. Tomorrow, happen what may, we shall win!"

　　"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth," saidTimokhin. "Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in mybattalion, believe me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the dayfor that!' they say."

　　All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of theshed with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they hadgone Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start aconversation when they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on theroad not far from the shed, and looking in that direction PrinceAndrew recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack.They rode close by continuing to converse, and Prince Andrewinvoluntarily heard these words:

　　"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nichtgenug Preis geben,"* said one of them.

　　*"The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commendthat view."

　　"Oh, ja," said the other, "der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen,so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtungnehmen."*

　　*"Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course onecannot take into account the loss of private individuals."

　　"Oh, no," agreed the other.

　　"Extend widely!" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when theyhad ridden past. "In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, atBald Hills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying toyou- those German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but willonly make all the mess they can, because they have nothing in theirGerman heads but theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't intheir hearts the one thing needed tomorrow- that which Timokhin has.They have yielded up all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us.Fine teachers!" and again his voice grew shrill.

　　"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre.

　　"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would doif I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners.Why take prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my homeand are on their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and areoutraging me every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they areall criminals. And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. Theyshould be executed! Since they are my foes they cannot be myfriends, whatever may have been said at Tilsit."

　　"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at PrinceAndrew. "I quite agree with you!"

　　The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill andall that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. Henow understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of theimpending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant andstern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up forhim by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say inphysics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly,and as it were lightheartedly.

　　"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself wouldquite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we haveplayed at war- that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all thatstuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity andsensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed:she is so kind-hearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eatingthe calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, ofchivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on.It's all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; theyhumbugged us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people'shouses, issue false paper money, and worst of all they kill mychildren and my father, and then talk of rules of war andmagnanimity to foes! Take no prisoners, but kill and be killed! He whohas come to this as I have through the same sufferings..."

　　Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether ornot Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in hisspeech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down afew times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lipsquivered as he began speaking.

　　"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to waronly when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Thenthere would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended MichaelIvanovich. And when there was a war, like this one, it would be war!And then the determination of the troops would be quite different.Then all these Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leadingwould not follow him into Russia, and we should not go to fight inAustria and Prussia without knowing why. War is not courtesy but themost horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and notplay at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly andseriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war bewar and not a game. As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of theidle and frivolous. The military calling is the most highly honored.

　　"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What arethe habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods ofwar are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of acountry's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army,and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of themilitary class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline,idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And inspite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone.All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and hewho kills most people receives the highest rewards.

　　"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; theykill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving servicesfor having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number),and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people theyhave killed the greater their achievement. How does God above lookat them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill,piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me tolive. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn'tdo for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil....Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added.

　　"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back toGorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly.

　　"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,compassionate eyes.

　　"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeatedPrince Andrew.

　　He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him."Good-by, be off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..."and turning away hurriedly he entered the shed.

　　It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether theexpression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.

　　For some time he stood in silence considering whether he shouldfollow him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded."And I know that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply androde back to Gorki.

　　On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but hecould not sleep.

　　He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in hisimagination. On one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividlyrecalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excitedface was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms theprevious summer and had lost her way in the big forest. Sheincoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and atalk with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story tosay: "No, I can't! I'm not telling it right; no, you don'tunderstand," though he encouraged her by saying that he didunderstand, and he really had understood all she wanted to say. ButNatasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that they didnot convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced thatday and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and itwas so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can'tdescribe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrewsmiled now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into hereyes. "I understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her,but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, thatfrankness of soul- that very soul of hers which seemed to befettered by her body- it was that soul I loved in her... loved sostrongly and happily..." and suddenly he remembered how his love hadended. "He did not need anything of that kind. He neither saw norunderstood anything of the sort. He only saw in her a pretty and freshyoung girl, with whom he did not deign to unite his fate. And I?...and he is still alive and gay!"

　　Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and againbegan pacing up and down in front of the shed.