News spread of the battle of Borodino.11 Everyone talked about it; each one had his own most accurate information; each one had a list of the dead and wounded. My brother did not write to us. We were extremely alarmed. Finally one of those purveyors of all sorts of stuff came to inform us that he had been taken prisoner, and meanwhile announced in a whisper to Polina that he was dead. Polina was deeply upset. She was not in love with my brother and was often annoyed with him, but at that moment she saw him as a martyr, a hero, and she mourned for him in secret from me. Several times I found her in tears. That did not surprise me; I knew how painfully concerned she was with the fate of our suffering fatherland. I did not suspect that the cause of her grief was something else.
One morning I went for a stroll in the garden; Sénicourt walked beside me; we talked about Polina. I had noticed that he deeply sensed her extraordinary qualities and that her beauty had made a strong impression on him. I laughingly observed that his situation was most romantic. A wounded knight captured by the enemy falls in love with the noble mistress of the castle, touches her heart, and finally wins her hand.
“No,” Sénicourt said to me, “the princess sees me as an enemy of Russia and will never agree to leave her fatherland.”
Just then Polina appeared at the end of the alleé; we went to meet her. She approached with quick steps. Her pallor struck me.
“Moscow is taken,” she said to me, ignoring Sénicourt’s bow. My heart was wrung, tears poured down in streams. Sénicourt kept silent, his eyes lowered. “The noble, enlightened French,” she went on in a voice trembling with indignation, “celebrated their triumph in a worthy way. They set fire to Moscow. Moscow has been burning for two days now.”
“What are you saying?” cried Sénicourt. “It can’t be.”
“Wait till night,” she replied drily. “Maybe you’ll see the glow.”
“My God! He’s done for,” said Sénicourt. “Can’t you see that the burning of Moscow is the ruin of the whole French army, that Napoleon will have nothing to hold on to anywhere, that he will be forced to retreat quickly through the devastated, deserted land at the approach of winter with a disorderly and discontented army! And you could think that the French dug such a hell for themselves! No, no, the Russians, the Russians set fire to Moscow. What terrible, barbaric magnanimity! Now it’s all decided: your fatherland is no longer in danger; but what will happen to us, what will happen to our emperor…”
He left us. Polina and I could not collect our wits.
“Can it be,” she said, “that Sénicourt is right, that the burning of Moscow is the work of our own hands? If so…Oh, I can take pride in the name of the Russian woman! The whole universe will be amazed at so great a sacrifice! Now even our downfall doesn’t frighten me, our honor is saved; never again will Europe dare to fight with a people who cut off their own hands and burn their capital.”
Her eyes shone, her voice rang. I embraced her, we mingled tears of noble rapture with ardent prayers for our fatherland.
“You don’t know?” Polina said to me with an inspired look. “Your brother…He’s a happy man, he’s not a prisoner. Rejoice: he was killed for the salvation of Russia.”
I cried out and fell unconscious into her arms…
*1 My dear child, I am quite sick. It would be very nice of you to come and revive me. Try to get madame your mother’s permission and give her the respects of your friend
*2 The words are apparently Chateaubriand’s.
Dubrovsky
Volume One
CHAPTER ONE
