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The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise
as it did, only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by
the evening of the second of September.
After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely
obsessed by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when
this thought had taken such possession of him, but he remembered
nothing of the past, understood nothing of the present, and all
he saw and heard appeared to him like a dream.
He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's
demands that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition
he was unable to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house,
on the plea of sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in
search of rest from life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory
of Joseph Alexeevich was connected with a world of eternal, solemn,
and calm thoughts, quite contrary to the restless confusion into
which he felt himself being drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and
in Joseph Alexeevich's study he really found it. When he sat with
his elbows on the dusty writing table in the deathlike stillness
of the study, calm and significant memories of the last few days
rose one after another in his imagination, particularly of the
battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his own insignificance
and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity, and strength
of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When Gerasim
roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking
part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected.
And with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's
coat and a pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining
in Joseph Alexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then
during the first day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried
several times to fix his attention on the Masonic manuscripts,
but was unable to do so) the idea that had previously occurred
to him of the cabalistic significance of his name in connection
with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented itself. But
the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a limit
to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that
often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.
When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking
part among the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met
the Rostovs and Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining
in Moscow?... How splendid!" the thought flashed into his
mind that it really would be a good thing, even if Moscow were
taken, for him to remain there and do what he was predestined
to do.
Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not
lagging in any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills
gate. But when he returned to the house convinced that Moscow
would not be defended, he suddenly felt that what before had seemed
to him merely a possibility had now become absolutely necessary
and inevitable. He must remain in Moscow, concealing his name,
and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and either perish or put
an end to the misery of all Europe- which it seemed to him was
solely due to Napoleon.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's
life in 1809 by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the
student had been shot. And the risk to which he would expose his
life by carrying out his design excited him still more.
Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this
purpose. The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice
and suffering in view of the common calamity, the same feeling
that had caused him to go to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and
to make his way to the very thick of the battle and had now caused
him to run away from his home and, in place of the luxury and
comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on a hard sofa without
undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim. The other was that
vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional,
artificial, and human- for everything the majority of men regard
as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had first experienced
this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda Palace, when
he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life- all that men
so painstakingly acquire and guard- if it has any worth has so
only by reason the joy with which it can all be renounced.
It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend
his last penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or
glasses for no apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him
all the money he possesses: the feeling which causes a man to
perform actions which from an ordinary point of view are insane,
to test, as it were, his personal power and strength, affirming
the existence of a higher, nonhuman criterion of life.
From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for
the first time at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously
under its influence, but only now found full satisfaction for
it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre was supported in his design
and prevented from renouncing it by what he had already done in
that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like everyone else,
his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement
to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all become
not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to
this Pierre was very sensitive.
Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded
to his mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he
drank during those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty
unchanged linen, two almost sleepless nights passed on a short
sofa without bedding- all this kept him in a state of excitement
bordering on insanity.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already
entered Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only
thought about his undertaking, going over its minutest details
in his mind. In his fancy he did not clearly picture to himself
either the striking of the blow or the death of Napoleon, but
with extraordinary vividness and melancholy enjoyment imagined
his own destruction and heroic endurance.
"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!"
he thought. "Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly...
with pistol or dagger? But that is all the same! 'It is not I
but the hand of Providence that punishes thee,' I shall say,"
thought he, imagining what he would say when killing Napoleon.
"Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on, speaking
to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.
While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking
to himself in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold
appeared the figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before
but now quite transformed.
His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted.
He was obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first,
but noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold
and, staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of
the room.
"They're frightened," he said confidentially in
a hoarse voice. "I say I won't surrender, I say... Am I not
right, sir?"
He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table
seized it with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.
Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich,
stopped him in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from
him. Pierre, coming out into the corridor, looked with pity and
repulsion at the half-crazy old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning
with exertion, held on to the pistol and screamed hoarsely, evidently
with some heroic fancy in his head.
"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he
yelled.
"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness-
please, sir, to let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim,
trying carefully to steer Makar Alexeevich by the elbows back
to the door.
"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.
"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and
rest. Allow me to have the pistol."
"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?"
shouted Makar Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board
them!"
"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.
They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to
the door.
The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle
and of a tipsy, hoarse voice.
Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated
from the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.
"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!"
she cried.
Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the
now silent corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the
front door could be heard.
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