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On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning
on his elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo
at the further end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap
in the broken wall he could see, beside the wooden fence, a row
of thirty year-old birches with their lower branches lopped off,
a field on which shocks of oats were standing, and some bushes
near which rose the smoke of campfires- the soldiers' kitchens.
Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now
seemed to him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated
and irritable as he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.
He had received and given the orders for next day's battle
and had nothing more to do. But his thoughts- the simplest, clearest,
and therefore most terrible thoughts- would give him no peace.
He knew that tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all
he had taken part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility
of death presented itself to him- not in relation to any worldly
matter or with reference to its effect on others, but simply in
relation to himself, to his own soul- vividly, plainly, terribly,
and almost as a certainty. And from the height of this perception
all that had previously tormented and preoccupied him suddenly
became illumined by a cold white light without shadows, without
perspective, without distinction of outline. All life appeared
to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been gazing
by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those
badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. "Yes,
yes! There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured,
and tormented me," said he to himself, passing in review
the principal pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding
them now in the cold white daylight of his clear perception of
death. "There they are, those rudely painted figures that
once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory, the good of society,
love of a woman, the Fatherland itself- how important these pictures
appeared to me, with what profound meaning they seemed to be filled!
And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the cold white light
of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The three
great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his
love for a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion
which had overrun half Russia. "Love... that little girl
who seemed to me brimming over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed,
I loved her. I made romantic plans of love and happiness with
her! Oh, what a boy I was!" he said aloud bitterly. "Ah
me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her faithful
to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in
the fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler
really.... It was all very simple and horrible."
"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place
was his: his land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and
swept him aside, unconscious of his existence, as he might brush
a chip from his path, and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell
to pieces. Princess Mary says it is a trial sent from above. What
is the trial for, when he is not here and will never return? He
is not here! For whom then is the trial intended? The Fatherland,
the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I shall be killed, perhaps
not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own men, by a soldier
discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them did yesterday,
and the French will come and take me by head and heels and fling
me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new
conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary
to others and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist..."
He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with
their motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To
die... to be killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That
all this should still be, but no me...."
And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds,
the smoke of the campfires, and all that was around him changed
and seemed terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine.
He rose quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.
After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed.
"Who's that?" he cried.
The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadron
commander, but now from lack of officers a battalion commander,
shyly entered the shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental
paymaster.
Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they
had come about, gave them some further instructions, and was about
to dismiss them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind
the shed.
"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling
over something.
Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had
tripped over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming
his way. It was unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of
his own set in general, and Pierre especially, for he reminded
him of all the painful moments of his last visit to Moscow.
"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings
you here? This is unexpected!"
As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness-
they expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had
approached the shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's
face he felt constrained and ill at ease.
"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests
me," said Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated
that word "interesting." "I wish to see the battle."
"Oh yes, and what do the Masonic brothers say about war?
How would they stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically.
"Well, and how's Moscow? And my people? Have they reached
Moscow at last?" he asked seriously.
"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went
to see them, but missed them. They have gone to your estate near
Moscow."
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