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From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by
the enemy. On the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded
was marching along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald
Hills. Heat and drought had continued for more than three weeks.
Each day fleecy clouds floated across the sky and occasionally
veiled the sun, but toward evening the sky cleared again and the
sun set in reddish-brown mist. Heavy night dews alone refreshed
the earth. The unreaped corn was scorched and shed its grain.
The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from hunger, finding no
food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in the forests
while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the road,
the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such
freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest;
the dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than
six inches deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery
and baggage wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that
rose to the very hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep
in that soft, choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night.
Some of this dust was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the
rest rose and hung like a cloud over the troops, settling in eyes,
ears, hair, and nostrils, and worst of all in the lungs of the
men and beasts as they moved along that road. The higher the sun
rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and through the screen
of its hot fine particles one could look with naked eye at the
sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded sky.
There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless atmosphere.
They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths.
When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells
and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.
Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management
of that regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of
receiving and giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk
and its abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling
of anger against the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was
entirely devoted to the affairs of his regiment and was considerate
and kind to his men and officers. In the regiment they called
him "our prince," were proud of him and loved him. But
he was kind and gentle only to those of his regiment, to Timokhin
and the like- people quite new to him, belonging to a different
world and who could not know and understand his past. As soon
as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff,
he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and contemptuous.
Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to him,
and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself
to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.
In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy
light to Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk
on the sixth of August (he considered that it could and should
have been defended) and after his sick father had had to flee
to Moscow, abandoning to pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills
which he had built and peopled. But despite this, thanks to his
regiment, Prince Andrew had something to think about entirely
apart from general questions. Two days previously he had received
news that his father, son, and sister had left for Moscow; and
though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince Andrew
with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that
he must ride there.
He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment
on the march, rode to his father's estate where he had been born
and spent his childhood. Riding past the pond where there used
always to be dozens of women chattering as they rinsed their linen
or beat it with wooden beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there
was not a soul about and that the little washing wharf, torn from
its place and half submerged, was floating on its side in the
middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's lodge. No one at the
stone entrance gates of the drive and the door stood open. Grass
had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and horses and
calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode up
to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the
trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called
for Taras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round
the corner of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that
the carved garden fence was broken and branches of the plum trees
had been torn off with the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew
in his childhood had often seen at the gate was sitting on a green
garden seat, plaiting a bast shoe.
He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was
sitting on the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and
beside him strips of bast were hanging on the broken and withered
branch of a magnolia.
Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old
garden had been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were
wandering in front of the house among the rosebushes. The shutters
were all closed, except at one window which was open. A little
serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran into the house. Alpatych,
having sent his family away, was alone at Bald Hills and was sitting
indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On hearing that Prince
Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on his nose,
buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word began
weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.
Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began
to report on the position of affairs. Everything precious and
valuable had been removed to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of
grain had also been carted away. The hay and the spring corn,
of which Alpatych said there had been a remarkable crop that year,
had been commandeered by the troops and mown down while still
green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too had gone to
Bogucharovo, only a few remained.
Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:
"When did my father and sister leave?" meaning when
did they leave for Moscow.
Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure
for Bogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and
again went into details concerning the estate management, asking
for instructions.
"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a
receipt for them? We have still six hundred quarters left,"
he inquired.
"What am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew,
looking down on the old man's bald head shining in the sun and
seeing by the expression on his face that the old man himself
understood how untimely such questions were and only asked them
to allay his grief.
"Yes, let them have it," replied Prince Andrew.
"If you noticed some disorder in the garden," said
Alpatych, "it was impossible to prevent it. Three regiments
have been here and spent the night, dragoons mostly. I took down
the name and rank of their commanding officer, to hand in a complaint
about it."
"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here
if the enemy occupies the place?" asked Prince Andrew.
Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him,
and suddenly with a solemn gesture raised his arm.
"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.
A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the
meadow toward the prince.
"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over
to Alpatych. "You must go away too, take away what you can
and tell the serfs to go to the Ryazan estate or to the one near
Moscow."
Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs.
Gently disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode
down the avenue at a gallop.
The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like
a fly impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping
the last on which he was making the bast shoe, and two little
girls, running out from the hot house carrying in their skirts
plums they had plucked from the trees there, came upon Prince
Andrew. On seeing the young master, the elder one frightened look
clutched her younger companion by the hand and hid with her behind
a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some green plums they had
dropped.
Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to
let them see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the
pretty frightened little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and
yet felt an irresistible desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort
and relief came over him when, seeing these girls, he realized
the existence of other human interests entirely aloof from his
own and just as legitimate as those that occupied him. Evidently
these girls passionately desired one thing- to carry away and
eat those green plums without being caught- and Prince Andrew
shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He could
not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,
they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their
shrill little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little
sunburned feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow
grass.
Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off
the dusty highroad along which the troops were moving. But not
far from Bald Hills he again came out on the road and overtook
his regiment at its halting place by the dam of a small pond.
It was past one o'clock. The sun, a red ball through the dust,
burned and scorched his back intolerably through his black coat.
The dust always hung motionless above the buzz of talk that came
from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he crossed the
dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the pond.
He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and
he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks
and laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more
than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked
white bodies of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces,
who were splashing about in it. All this naked white human flesh,
laughing and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty pool like
carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment
in that floundering mass rendered it specially pathetic.
One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince
Andrew knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed
himself, stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the
water; another, a dark noncommissioned officer who was always
shaggy, stood up to his waist in the water joyfully wriggling
his muscular figure and snorted with satisfaction as he poured
the water over his head with hands blackened to the wrists. There
were sounds of men slapping one another, yelling, and puffing.
Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there
was healthy, white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with
his red little nose, standing on the dam wiping himself with a
towel, felt confused at seeing the prince, but made up his mind
to address him nevertheless.
"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?"
said he.
"It's dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.
"We'll clear it out for you in a minute," said Timokhin,
and, still undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.
"The prince wants to bathe."
"What prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men
were in such haste to clear out that the prince could hardly stop
them. He decided that he would rather himself with water in the
barn.
"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and
he looked at his own naked body and shuddered, not from cold but
from a sense of disgust and horror he did not himself understand,
aroused by the sight of that immense number of bodies splashing
about in the dirty pond.
On the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows
from his quarters at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road:
Dear Count Alexis Andreevich- (He was writing to Arakcheev
but knew that his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore
weighed every word in it to the best of his ability.)
I expect the Minister [Barclay de Tolly] has already reported
the abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad,
and the whole army is in despair that this most important place
has been wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally
most urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce
him to consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in
such a fix as never before and might have lost half his army but
could not have taken Smolensk. Our troops fought, and are fighting,
as never before. With fifteen thousand men I held the enemy at
bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he would not hold
out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain on our
army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If
he reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps
about four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were
they ten thousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...
What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days?
They would have had to retire of their own accord, for they had
no water for men or horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat,
but suddenly sent instructions that he was retiring that night.
We cannot fight in this way, or we may soon bring the enemy to
Moscow...
There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid
that you should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane
retreats! You would set all Russia against you and every one of
us would feel ashamed to wear the uniform. If it has come to this-
we must fight as long as Russia can and as long as there are men
able to stand...
One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister
may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not
merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of
our whole country.... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive
my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the
conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the
army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all.
So I write you frankly: call out the militia. For the Minister
is leading these visitors after him to Moscow in a most masterly
way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the Imperial aide-de-camp
Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man than ours, and
he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil to him
but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is
painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only
I am sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such
as he. Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and
left in the hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we
attacked this would not have happened. Tell me, for God's sake,
what will Russia, our mother Russia, say to our being so frightened,
and why are we abandoning our good and gallant Fatherland to such
rabble and implanting feelings of hatred and shame in all our
subjects? What are we scared at and of whom are we afraid? I am
not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense,
dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army bewails it
and calls down curses upon him...
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