War and Peace

efore the beginning of the campaign, Rostóv had received a letter from
his parents in which they told him briefly of Natásha’s illness and the
breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by
Natásha’s having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from
the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not
even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the
army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her
engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their
wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.

“Adored friend of my soul!” he wrote. “Nothing but honor could keep
me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the
campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades’ eyes but
in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the
Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly
the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will
throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent
breast.”

It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented
Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The
autumn in Otrádnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas
holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil
rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now
allured him. “A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a
dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by
election...” thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had
to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostóv,
as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the
regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.

On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed
by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the
Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation
from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,
and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in
numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.

The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,
new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was
infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement
of a war, and Rostóv, conscious of his advantageous position in the
regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of
military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to
relinquish them.

The troops retired from Vílna for various complicated reasons of state,
political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by
a complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at
headquarters. For the Pávlograd hussars, however, the whole of this
retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies
was a very simple and agreeable business.

It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and
intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where
they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only
because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some
pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced
to enter anyone’s head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good
soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of
the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vílna, making
acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being
reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order
to retreat to Sventsyáni and destroy any provisions they could not carry
away with them. Sventsyáni was remembered by the hussars only as the
drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there,
and because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking
advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,
carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostóv remembered
Sventsyáni, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town
he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken
men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels
of old beer. From Sventsyáni they retired farther and farther to Drissa,
and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia
proper.

On the thirteenth of July the Pávlograds took part in a serious action
for the first time.

On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy
storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable
for its storms.

The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which
was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and
horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostóv, with a young
officer named Ilyín, his protégé, was sitting in a hastily constructed
shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending
onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the
rain, entered Rostóv’s shelter.

“I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raévski’s
exploit?”

And the officer gave them details of the Saltánov battle, which he had
heard at the staff.

Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water
trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional
glance at Ilyín, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad
of sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same
relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denísov seven years
before. Ilyín tried to imitate Rostóv in everything and adored him as a
girl might have done.

Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of
the Saltánov dam being “a Russian Thermopylae,” and of how a deed worthy
of antiquity had been performed by General Raévski. He recounted how
Raévski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had
charged with them beside him. Rostóv heard the story and not only said
nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski’s enthusiasm but, on the contrary,
looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no
intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and
of 1807 Rostóv knew by experience that men always lie when describing
military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides
that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at
all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski’s
tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches
extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was
his habit, and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shanty. Rostóv looked at him
in silence. “In the first place, there must have been such a confusion
and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raévski did lead
his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen
men nearest to him,” thought he, “the rest could not have seen how or
with whom Raévski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it
would not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with
Raévski’s tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?
And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether
they took the Saltánov dam or not, as we are told was the case at
Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose
his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Pétya
there, or even Ilyín, who’s a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would
have tried to put them somewhere under cover,” Nicholas continued
to think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his
thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew
that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to
pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.

“I can’t stand this any more,” said Ilyín, noticing that Rostóv did not
relish Zdrzhinski’s conversation. “My stockings and shirt... and the
water is running on my seat! I’ll go and look for shelter. The rain
seems less heavy.”

Ilyín went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.

Five minutes later Ilyín, splashing through the mud, came running back
to the shanty.

“Hurrah! Rostóv, come quick! I’ve found it! About two hundred yards away
there’s a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get
dry there, and Mary Hendríkhovna’s there.”

Mary Hendríkhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young
German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack
of means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in
the early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the
hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among
the hussar officers.

Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrúshka to
follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right
through it—set off with Ilyín in the lessening rain and the darkness
that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.

“Rostóv, where are you?”

“Here. What lightning!” they called to one another.