War and Peace

t is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that
when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to
distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the
defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least
were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,
or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time
without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,
despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really
so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic
interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests
that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment
so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the
public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at
that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were
guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people
whose activities at that period were most useful.

Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take
part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members
of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the
common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre’s and
Mamónov’s regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the
young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.
Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,
who discussed Russia’s position at the time involuntarily introduced
into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or
useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of
actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule
forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially
applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part
in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to
realize it his efforts are fruitless.

The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in
Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and
in the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in
militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of
self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow
there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight
of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they
thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matrëshka the
vivandière, and like matters.

As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostóv took a close
and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,
without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was
going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his
brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of
Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about
it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had
heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that
fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being
so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple
of years’ time.

As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being
sent to Vorónezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without
regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but
with the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his
comrades fully understood.

A few days before the battle of Borodinó, Nicholas received the
necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in
advance, he set out with post horses for Vorónezh.

Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some months
continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can understand the
delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the
army’s foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When—free
from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp—he saw villages
with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country houses, fields
where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in
them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for
a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young
and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,
too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke
with them.

In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Vorónezh,
ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very
clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long
time, went to present himself to the authorities.

The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was
evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received
Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)
and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general
progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do
so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.

From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor
was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud
farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse
dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had
the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.

“You are Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son? My wife was a great friend of your
mother’s. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so please come
and see us quite informally,” said the governor, taking leave of him.

Immediately on leaving the governor’s, Nicholas hired post horses and,
taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the
landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to
him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Vorónezh
and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,
everything went well and easily.

The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a
horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy
and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who
owned some splendid horses.

In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six
thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After
dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having
exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the
friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest
frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for
the governor’s party.

When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,
Nicholas arrived at the governor’s rather late, but with the phrase
“better late than never” on his lips.

It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew
that Catherine Petróvna would play valses and the écossaise on the
clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as
to a ball.

Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this
difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the
arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that
went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an
“in for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?” spirit, and the inevitable
small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,
now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.

The society gathered together at the governor’s was the best in
Vorónezh.

There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas’ Moscow
acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the
cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured
and well-bred Count Rostóv. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an
officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that
prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian
was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him
that everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him
cordially though with dignity and restraint.

As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him
a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words “better late
than never” and heard them repeated several times by others, people
clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once
that he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of
a universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so
after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the
landowner’s snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and
here too at the governor’s party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)
an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,
impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him
and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this
fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these
was the governor’s wife herself, who welcomed Rostóv as a near relative
and called him “Nicholas.”

Catherine Petróvna did actually play valses and the écossaise, and
dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial
society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even
surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he
danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would
even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in
bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by
something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular
thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.

All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and
pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.
With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s
wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and
treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,
without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady
would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that
conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the
latter’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless that sometimes even he
involuntarily yielded to Nicholas’ good humor. Toward the end of the
evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the
husband’s became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there
were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife’s
share increased the husband’s diminished.