Sonya gave a sigh, but said nothing. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss, Mavra and Vasilich trooped in, the doors were closed and they all sat down to spend a few moments in silence avoiding each other’s eyes.
The count was the first to stand up. He gave a deep sigh and crossed himself before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count proceeded to embrace Mavra and Vasilich, who were staying on in Moscow, and while they caught his hand and kissed him on the shoulder, he patted them on the back and mumbled a few vague words of affection and encouragement. The countess went off to the icon-shrine, where Sonya found her kneeling before the few holy images that were still left up on the walls. (All the best icons, family heirlooms, were going with them.)
Out on the steps and down in the courtyard the servants who were travelling with the family, armed to the teeth with swords and daggers issued by Petya, were standing around with their trousers tucked in their boots, belts and straps good and tight, saying goodbye to those who were staying behind.
As always at the start of a journey, many things had been forgotten or wrongly stowed, and the two grooms, one at each side of the open carriage door, had to stand there for quite some time waiting to help the countess up the steps, while maids flew back and forth with cushions and little bundles between house, carriages, coach and gig.
‘They’ll go on forgetting things as long as they live!’ said the countess. ‘Oh, you know I can’t sit like that.’ Dunyasha gritted her teeth and looked all offended, but instead of saying anything she got quickly up into the carriage to rearrange the cushions.
‘Oh, these servants!’ said the count, shaking his head.
Old Yefim, the only coachman the countess would trust as a driver, sat perched up on his box, not bothering to look round at what was happening at the back. Thirty years of experience had taught him it would be some time yet before he would hear the magic words, ‘Off we go, and God go with us!’ and even when they were uttered he would be stopped again at least twice to send back for something that had been forgotten, after which he would still have to pull up one last time for the countess herself to stick her head out of window and beg him for heaven’s sake to take care going downhill. Knowing all this, he waited philosophically, more patiently than his horses, especially the near one, Falcon, a chestnut who wouldn’t stop pawing the ground and champing the bit. At long last they all were on board, the steps were folded away, doors slammed, a forgotten travelling-case was sent for, and there was the countess with her head out the window saying what was expected of her. Only then did Yefim remove his hat with a deliberate gesture and make the sign of the cross. Likewise the postilion and all the servants.
‘Off we go, and God go with us!’ said Yefim, putting his hat back on. ‘Pull, me beauties!’
The postilion urged the horses. The right shaft-horse took the strain, the high springs creaked and the carriage rocked. A footman ran alongside and jumped up on the box. The carriage lumbered out of the courtyard on to the bumpy road, others jolted out behind and they set off down the street in a long procession. In carriages, coach and gig all the travellers made the sign of the cross towards the church opposite. The servants who were staying on walked along on both sides of the carriages to see them off.
Rarely had Natasha felt such a thrill of delight as the one she felt now, sitting in the carriage next to the countess and looking out at the slow-moving walls of poor, forsaken Moscow. From time to time she would stick her head out of the carriage window to glance back, and then look ahead at the long train of wagons full of wounded soldiers that were leading the way. Almost at the front she could see the raised hood of Prince Andrey’s carriage. She didn’t know who was inside, but every time she surveyed the procession of wagons her eyes searched for that coach. She knew it would be right in front.
In Kudrino, and from every street, from Nikitskaya, Presnya and Podnovinskaya, came other trains of vehicles, just like the Rostovs’, and by the time they got to Sadovaya the carriages and carts were two abreast all down the road.
As they turned past the Sukharev water-tower, Natasha, who was keeping a sharp eye on the walking crowds and passing vehicles, gave a cry of delight and surprise.
‘Good Heavens! Mamma, Sonya, look over there! It’s him!’
‘Who? Who?’
‘Look! For heaven’s sake, it’s Pierre Bezukhov,’ said Natasha, leaning right out to get a good look at a tall, corpulent figure in a coachman’s long coat, obviously, from his bearing and his walk, a gentleman in borrowed clothing. There he was, going through the Sukharev tower-arch, walking along with a sallow-faced, beardless little old man in a rough overcoat.
‘Saints above! Bezukhov dressed like a driver, with that funny old boy,’ said Natasha. ‘Look! Look!’
