It was eleven o’clock by his watch, but it was very dark outside. Pierre got to his feet, rubbed his eyes, and the moment he saw the pistol with its engraved stock back on the desk where Gerasim had put it he remembered where he was and what was in store for him that day.
‘I wonder if I’m too late,’ he thought. ‘No, surely that man won’t make his entry into Moscow before midday.’
Without stopping to think about what was in store for him he got down to business straightaway.
Pierre straightened his clothes, picked up the pistol and was on the point of leaving when he realized for the first time he couldn’t just walk down the street brandishing a pistol, so how could he carry it? Even under his loose coat it would be difficult to hide a big pistol. It couldn’t be tucked in his belt or under his arm without being noticeable. Besides, the pistol had been fired, and Pierre hadn’t had time to reload it. ‘Never mind, I’ll have to use a dagger,’ Pierre decided, even though he had told himself repeatedly when wondering how to fulfil his mission that in 1809 the student’s biggest mistake had been to try and kill Napoleon with a dagger. But by now Pierre’s main aim seemed to be not so much to carry out his mission as to prove to himself that instead of backing away from it he was doing all he could to see it through. Pierre grabbed the blunt, jagged dagger in a green scabbard that he had bought with the pistol at the Sukharev tower, and hid it under his waistcoat.
Pierre tightened the sash round his peasant’s coat, pulled his cap down over his eyes, and walked down the corridor, trying not to make a noise or run into the captain, and slipped out into the street.
The fire he had watched so indifferently yesterday evening had spread noticeably during the night. Moscow was blazing at several different points. The buildings in Carriage Row, the Bazaar, across the river and on Povarsky Street, as well as the barges on the river Moskva and down at the timber yards near the Dorogomilov bridge were all on fire.
Pierre’s route was to take him down various side-streets to Povarsky Street, and then on to St Nicholas’ church on the Arbat, where he had long before picked out in his mind a suitable spot for the doing of his deed. Most of the houses had their gates locked and shutters up. The streets and alleys were deserted. The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he had come across Russians looking all anxious and apprehensive, and Frenchmen with an out-of-town look of camp-life about them, walking down the middle of the road. Both sorts of people looked surprised when they saw Pierre. It wasn’t just his height and his fat body, or the sombre look of concentrated suffering that affected his face and whole figure; the Russians stared at Pierre because they couldn’t work out what class he belonged to. As for the French, they were surprised to see that, whereas all the other Russians stared at them with curiosity and trepidation, Pierre simply ignored them.
At the gates of one house three Frenchmen trying to communicate with some Russians who couldn’t understand what they were saying stopped Pierre to ask if he spoke French. Pierre shook his head and walked on. Down a side-street a sentry guarding a green caisson hailed him, and it was only when his menacing shout was repeated and his gun rattled as he picked it up that Pierre suddenly realized he was supposed to be walking on the other side of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing. He hurried along, horrified to be harbouring such a strange and terrible intention, yet dreading – if last night’s experience was anything to go by – that he might lose his grip on it. But he was not destined to get to the place he was heading for without a new shock to his frame of mind. As it happened, even if he hadn’t been distracted en route he could never have carried out his plan, because Napoleon had gone down the Arbat four hours earlier on his way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, where he was now ensconced in the royal study in a foul mood, issuing detailed instructions for immediate steps to be taken to put the fire out, stop any looting and reassure the citizens. But Pierre knew nothing of this. Totally absorbed in what lay ahead, he was agonizing as men do when they attempt the impossible, and the thing is impossible not because of any intrinsic difficulty, but because it requires them to act out of character. He was tormented by a terrible dread that he would weaken at the critical moment, and then lose all self-respect.
Even without seeing or hearing anything he was finding his way by instinct, and he moved unerringly down the back-streets leading to Povarsky.
