War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was mistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow.

“What are you disputing about?” said the major angrily. “What does it matter whether it is St. Nikoláy or St. Blasius? You see it’s burned down, and there’s an end of it.⁠ ⁠… What are you pushing for? Isn’t the road wide enough?” said he, turning to a man behind him who was not pushing him at all.

“Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?” the prisoners on one side and another were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. “All beyond the river, and Zúbova, and in the Krémlin.⁠ ⁠… Just look! There’s not half of it left. Yes, I told you⁠—the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it is.”

“Well, you know it’s burned, so what’s the use of talking?” said the major.

As they passed near a church in the Khamóvniki (one of the few unburned quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.

“Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is⁠ ⁠… And smeared with something!”

Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright against the palings with its face smeared with soot.

“Go on! What the devil⁠ ⁠… Go on! Thirty thousand devils!⁠ ⁠…” the convoy guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence, drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at the dead man.

XIV

Through the cross streets of the Khamóvniki quarter the prisoners marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with private vehicles.

At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across. From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kalúga road turns near Neskúchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the distance. These were troops of Beauharnais’ corps which had started before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the Stone Bridge, were Ney’s troops and transport.

Davout’s troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kalúga road. But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais’ train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kalúga road when the vanguard of Ney’s army was already emerging from the Great Ordýnka Street.

When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces that separated the bridge from the Kalúga road, taking more than an hour to do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the Transmoskvá ward and the Kalúga road converge, and the prisoners jammed close together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.

To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.

“What crowds! Just look at the crowds!⁠ ⁠… They’ve loaded goods even on the cannon! Look there, those are furs!” they exclaimed. “Just see what the blackguards have looted.⁠ ⁠… There! See what that one has behind in the cart.⁠ ⁠… Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by heaven!⁠ ⁠… Oh, the rascals!⁠ ⁠… See how that fellow has loaded himself up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they’ve even grabbed those chaises!⁠ ⁠… See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.⁠ ⁠… Heavens! They’re fighting.”

“That’s right, hit him on the snout⁠—on his snout! Like this, we shan’t get away before evening. Look, look there.⁠ ⁠… Why, that must be Napoleon’s own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It’s like a portable house.⁠ ⁠… That fellow’s dropped his sack and doesn’t see it. Fighting again⁠ ⁠… A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either! Yes, I dare say, that’s the way they’ll let you pass.⁠ ⁠… Just look, there’s no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In carriages⁠—see how comfortably they’ve settled themselves!”

Again, as at the church in Khamóvniki, a wave of general curiosity bore all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.

From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression on him⁠—as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to receive impressions that might weaken it.

The women’s vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers, wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts, more soldiers, and now and then women.

Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.

All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly;