‘Well, off you go back to the army,’ he said at last, drawing himself up to his full height and addressing Michaud with a warm, regal gesture, ‘and tell our good men, tell all our loyal subjects wherever you go, that when I am left without a single soldier I shall put myself at the head of my beloved nobility and my splendid peasants, and drain the last resources of my empire. I have more at my disposal than my enemies imagine,’ said the Tsar, getting more and more excited. ‘But if it were ever to be written in the decrees of Divine Providence,’ he said, with his gentle, handsome eyes shining with emotion and raised towards heaven, ‘that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting every means in my power I shall grow my beard down to here’ (the Emperor placed his hand half-way down his chest) ‘and go and eat potatoes with the humblest of my peasants rather than underwrite the shame of my country and my dear people, whose sacrifice I fully appreciate.’
Uttering these words in a voice full of feeling, the Tsar turned away brusquely as if he didn’t want Michaud to see his eyes filling with tears, and walked to the other end of the study. After standing there for a while, he strode back to Michaud, and gripped his arm warmly below the elbow. The Tsar’s gentle and handsome face was flushed, and his eyes smouldered with determination and fury.
‘Colonel Michaud, don’t forget what I am saying to you here. One day, perhaps, we shall recall it with pleasure . . . It’s Napoleon or me,’ he said, touching his breast. ‘We can no longer rule together. I have come to know him. He will not deceive me again . . .’ And the Tsar paused, frowning. At these words, seeing the look of gritty determination in the Tsar’s eyes, Michaud, the foreigner who was a Russian heart and soul, felt truly inspired at that solemn moment by what he had heard (as he would later recount), and he felt he was expressing not only his own feelings but those of the Russian people as a whole, since he considered himself to be their representative, as he coined the following phrases:
‘Sire! At this moment your Majesty is underwriting the glory of the nation and the salvation of Europe!’
The Tsar dismissed Michaud with a slight nod.
CHAPTER 4
With half of Russia in enemy hands, the inhabitants of Moscow scurrying away to remote provinces, and one levy of militia after another being raised for the defence of the country, we who were not living at that time are bound to think that all the Russian people, great and small, were wholly occupied in sacrificing themselves, saving their country, or weeping over its downfall. Every last story and description that has come down to us from that period tells of nothing but self-sacrifice, patriotism, despair, grief and heroic conduct on the part of the Russians. In real life, of course, it wasn’t like that. It seems so to us, because all we see from the past is the general historical interest of the period; what we don’t see are all the personal human concerns of people at that time. Yet in real life personal concerns of immediate relevance are so much more important than the general public interest that they prevent the public interest from ever being sensed, or even noticed. Most people at that time ignored the general course of events because they were wrapped up in their immediate personal concerns. And these same people were the prime movers of their day.
The ones who were actually making an effort to follow the general course of events, and trying to get involved through self-sacrifice and heroic conduct, were the least useful members of society; they looked at things the wrong way round, and everything they did, with the best of intentions, turned out to be useless and absurd, like the regiments provided by Pierre and Mamonov that went off to loot Russian villages, like the lint scraped by the ladies that never got through to the wounded, and so on. Even people who just liked to think things through and talk them over couldn’t discuss the current situation of Russia without unconsciously lapsing into hypocrisy, falsehood or useless victimization and animosity levelled against individuals they were eager to blame for things that weren’t anybody’s fault.
Historical events illustrate more clearly than anything the injunction against eating of the Tree of Knowledge. The only activity that bears any fruit is subconscious activity, and no one who takes part in any historical drama can ever understand its significance. If he so much as tries to understand it, his efforts are fruitless.
