The sudden collapse of normal life made little impact on the staid, old-fashioned house of the Rostovs. In relation to people, it is true that three servants from their immense retinue had disappeared overnight, but nothing had been stolen; in relation to prices, it transpired that the Rostovs with their thirty carts brought in from the country now owned something of enormous value that many people envied and some were offering to purchase for enormous sums of money. And it was not only a question of being offered enormous sums of money; all the previous evening and now early in the morning of the 1st of September orderlies and servants started turning up in the Rostovs’ courtyard, sent there by wounded officers, and wounded men themselves would come limping in from the Rostovs’ own house and other houses nearby to implore the servants to try and get them a lift out of Moscow. The butler who received these requests, although sympathetic, turned them all down point-blank, saying that he would never even dare pass this on to the count. However grievous the situation of these abandoned casualties, it was obvious that if you gave them one cart there would be nothing to stop you giving them another, and another, until they were all gone – and the carriages too. Thirty wagons weren’t enough to save all the wounded, and in a general catastrophe you had to put you and yours first. This was how the butler reasoned on his master’s behalf.
Count Rostov woke up that morning and slipped quietly out of his bedroom so as not to disturb the countess, who had been awake most of the night, and walked out on to the front steps in his lilac silk dressing-gown. The wagons were standing there in the courtyard loaded and roped. The carriages waited at the bottom of the steps. The butler was out at the entrance talking to an old orderly and a pale-faced young officer with his arm in a sling. The moment the butler caught sight of his master he made it clear in no uncertain terms that they had better be on their way.
‘Ah, Vasilich, is everything ready, then?’ asked the count, rubbing his bald head as he gave the officer and the orderly a friendly glance and a quick nod. (The count liked seeing new faces.)
‘We can harness immediately, your Excellency.’
‘Splendid. Once the countess is up and about we’ll be on our way, God willing! What can I do for you two gentlemen?’ he said, addressing the officer. ‘Are you staying in the house?’
The officer came nearer. His pallid face had suddenly flushed crimson.
‘Count, would you do me a great favour? Please . . . for God’s sake . . . could you squeeze me into one of your wagons? I’ve nothing with me . . . I could get in with the luggage . . .’
Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly was there with a similar request for his master.
‘Oh, yes, yes, yes,’ gabbled the count. ‘Only too glad to help. Vasilich, see to this, will you? Have one or two wagons cleared. Er, that one maybe? What’s, er . . . Oh . . . just do what’s necessary . . .’ The count’s instructions consisted of vague ramblings. But the warm glow of gratitude on the officer’s face instantly set the seal on his order. The count took a look round. On all sides – in the courtyard, at the gates, at the lodge windows – he could see wounded men and orderlies. They were all looking his way and beginning to head for the steps.
‘Sir, I wonder if you would mind coming with me to the gallery. We need you to decide about the pictures,’ said the butler. And the count went indoors with him, repeating his instructions that any wounded men who wanted a lift were not to be refused.
‘Well, we can take a few things out, can’t we?’ he added in a low, conspiratorial voice, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
The countess woke at nine, and Matryona, who had been her maid before her marriage and now guarded her like a police-chief, came in to report that Madame Schoss was most annoyed, and the young ladies’ summer dresses couldn’t possibly be left behind. When the countess wanted to know what had upset Madame Schoss it emerged that this lady’s trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the carts were being unroped and the luggage was being taken out to make room for wounded men who had been invited along by the count, in all his innocence. The countess sent for her husband.
‘What’s this I hear, my dear? They’re unloading the luggage?’
‘Oh yes, my love. I’ve . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you . . . Dear little countess . . . This officer came up to me asking for a couple of carts for the wounded. I know it’s our property, but think about them being left behind! . . . They’re out there in the yard. We invited them in. Some of them are officers . . . You see, my love . . . The way I see it . . . I mean . . . I think we should take them. We’re not in too much of a hurry.’
