War And Peace полностью

‘What prince? Ours?’ several voices cried, and they were all so keen to get out of the way that Prince Andrey could hardly manage to pacify them. He could not help feeling it would have been better to have a sponge-down in a shed.

‘Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder . . .’ he thought, looking down at his own naked body and shuddering, not so much from the cold as from an inexplicable feeling of revulsion and horror that had come over him at the sight of that great throng of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.

On the 7th of August Prince Bagration, halting at Mikhaylovka on the Smolensk road, had written in the following terms to Arakcheyev:

Dear Count Aleksey Andreyevich,

[He was writing to Arakcheyev, but he knew the letter would be read by the Tsar, so he weighed every word, to the best of his ability.]

I imagine the minister [Barclay de Tolly] will have reported the abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is painful, it is sad, and the whole army is in despair that such a crucially important place has been so wantonly abandoned. I for my part tried to persuade him in the most urgent terms, and in the end I wrote to him, but he was not to be convinced. On my word of honour, Napoleon was in deeper trouble than ever before, and he might have lost half his army, but he would never have taken Smolensk. Our troops have fought and are fighting as never before. I kept the enemy at bay with fifteen thousand men for thirty-five hours and beat them, but he wouldn’t hold out for fourteen hours. It is shameful, a stain on our army, and as far as he is concerned, I don’t think he should still be in the land of the living. If he reports that we sustained great losses, it is not true; four thousand maybe, not even that. And if it had been ten thousand, what then? We’re at war. And besides, the enemy’s losses were incalculable.

What would it have cost him to hold out for a couple of days? To say the least, they would have gone away of their own accord, for they hadn’t a drop of water for man or horse. He gave me his word he would not retreat, then all of a sudden he sends a dispatch that he is withdrawing that very night. You cannot fight like this, and we may soon have brought the enemy right through to Moscow . . .

Rumour has it that you are thinking of suing for peace. God forbid that you should! After all those sacrifices and so many insane retreats – in suing for peace you will turn the whole of Russia against you, and every man jack of us will be too ashamed to wear the uniform. If it comes to it, we must go out and fight while ever Russia can, while ever there’s a man still standing . . .

There must be one man in charge, not two. Your minister may be a good man in the ministry, but as a general he’s not just useless, he’s beneath contempt, and the destiny of all our country has been left in his hands . . . I really am going insane with frustration; you must forgive me for putting it so strongly. It is quite clear that anyone who recommends suing for peace and putting this minister in charge of the army does not love his sovereign, and wants to see us all ruined. So, what I say is right and proper: get the militia ready. For the minister is exercising the greatest skill in leading our visitor on to the capital. Aide-de-camp Wolzogen is looked on with great suspicion by the whole army. They say he is Napoleon’s man more than ours and the minister follows his advice in all things. I am always civil to him, in fact I obey him like a corporal, even though I am his senior. It hurts me to do so, but out of love for my sovereign and benefactor, I obey him. But I grieve for the Tsar that he entrusts a gallant army to men like this. Don’t forget that by retreating we have lost more than fifteen thousand men, through fatigue or left sick in the hospitals, and if we had gone on the attack this would not have happened. Tell me for God’s sake, what will our mother Russia have to say about this defeatism, and why are we abandoning our good and gallant country to such rabble and sowing the seeds of hatred and shame in every Russian? Have we no guts? Who are we afraid of? Don’t blame me if the minister is a dithering idiot, a yellow-bellied, dilatory fool with the worst character defects. There is weeping and wailing throughout the army; they curse him and wish he was dead . . .

CHAPTER 6

All the infinite sub-divisions into which the phenomena of life can be broken down can be reduced into those in which content predominates and those in which form predominates. To the latter group we may safely assign life in Petersburg, especially in the salon, as distinct from the life in the country, the district, the province, even in Moscow. Salon life does not change.