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Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it,
perhaps a fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained,
but it was empty. It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless
hive is empty.
In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial
glance it seems as much alive as other hives.
The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of
the midday sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance
it smells of honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in
the same way. But one has only to observe that hive to realize
that there is no longer any life in it. The bees do not fly in
the same way, the smell and the sound that meet the beekeeper
are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap on the wall of the sick
hive, instead of the former instant unanimous humming of tens
of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly compressed,
and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an aerial
living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from different
parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead
of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and
the warm whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and
decay mingling with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels
sounding the alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die
in defense of the hive. There is no longer the measured quiet
sound of throbbing activity, like the sound of boiling water,
but diverse discordant sounds of disorder. In and out of the hive
long black robber bees smeared with honey fly timidly and shiftily.
They do not sting, but crawl away from danger. Formerly only bees
laden with honey flew into the hive, and they flew out empty;
now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower part of
the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees- tamed by
toil, clinging to one another's legs and drawing out the wax,
with a ceaseless hum of labor- that used to hang in long clusters
down to the floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about
separately in various directions on the floor and walls of the
hive. Instead of a neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with
the fanning of their wings, there is a floor littered with bits
of wax, excrement, dying bees scarcely moving their legs, and
dead ones that have not been cleared away.
The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines
the super. Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap
in the combs and keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful
complex structures of the combs, but no longer in their former
state of purity. All is neglected and foul. Black robber bees
are swiftly and stealthily prowling about the combs, and the short
home bees, shriveled and listless as if they were old, creep slowly
about without trying to hinder the robbers, having lost all motive
and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps, and butterflies
knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their flight.
Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey
an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple
of bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells,
with efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead
bee or bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner
two old bees are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or
feeding one another, without themselves knowing whether they do
it with friendly or hostile intent. In a third place a crowd of
bees, crushing one another, attack some victim and fight and smother
it, and the victim, enfeebled or killed, drops from above slowly
and lightly as a feather, among the heap of corpses. The keeper
opens the two center partitions to examine the brood cells. In
place of the former close dark circles formed by thousands of
bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of generation,
he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of bees.
They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they
had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death.
Only a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle
on the enemy's hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the
rest are dead and fall as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper
closes the hive, chalks a mark on it, and when he has time tears
out its contents and burns it clean.
So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary,
uneasy, and morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski
rampart, awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal,
observance of the proprieties- a deputation.
In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people
aimlessly moving about, following their old habits and hardly
aware of what they were doing.
When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow
was empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and
silently continued to walk to and fro.
"My carriage!" he said.
He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove
into the suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself.
"What an incredible event!"
He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the
Dorogomilov suburb.
The coup de theatre had not come off.
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