Prince Andrey, making no reply, took out his note-book, and raising his knee, scribbled in pencil on a leaf he had torn out. He wrote to his sister:
‘Smolensk has surrendered,’ he wrote. ‘Bleak Hills will be occupied by the enemy within a week. Set off at once for Moscow. Let me know at once when you start; send a messenger to Usvyazh.’
Scribbling these words, and giving Alpatitch the paper, he gave him further directions about sending off the old prince, the princess and his son with his tutor, and how and where to let him hear, as soon as they had gone. Before he had finished giving those instructions, a staff officer, followed by his suite, galloped up to him.
‘You a colonel,’ shouted the staff officer, in a voice Prince Andrey knew, speaking with a German accent. ‘Houses are being set on fire in your presence and you stand still! What’s the meaning of it? You will answer for it,’ shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant of the chief officer of the staff of the commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a very agreeable and prominent position, so Berg said.
Prince Andrey stared at him, and without making any reply went on addressing Alpatitch:
‘Tell them then that I shall wait for an answer till the ioth, and if I don’t receive news by the ioth, that they have all gone away, I shall be obliged to throw up everything and go myself to Bleak Hills.’
‘Prince,’ said Berg, recognising Prince Andrey, ‘I only speak because it’s my duty to carry out my instructions, because I always do exactly carry out ... You must please excuse me,’ Berg tried to apologise.
There was a crash in the fire. The flames subsided for an instant; black clouds of smoke rolled under the roof. There was another fearful crash, and the falling of some enormous weight.
‘Ooo-roo!’ the crowd yelled, as the ceiling of the granary fell in, and a smell of baked cakes rose from the burning wheat. The flames flared up again, and lighted up the delighted and careworn faces of the crowd around it.
The man in the frieze coat, brandishing his arms in the air, was shouting:
66i
WAR AND PEACE ‘First-rate! Now she’s started! First-rate, lads! . . ‘That’s the owner himself,’ murmured voices.
‘So you tell them everything I have told you,’ said Prince Andrey, addressing Alpatitch. And without bestowing a word on Berg, who stood mute beside him, he put spurs to his horse and rode down the lane.
V
From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat. The enemy followed them. On the ioth of August the regiment of which Prince Andrey was in command was marching along the high-road past the avenue that led to Bleak Hills. The heat and drought had lasted more than three weeks. Every day curly clouds passed over the sky, rarely covering the sun; but towards evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in a glowing, red mist. But a heavy dew refreshed the earth at night. The wheat left in the fields was burnt up and dropping out of the ear. The marshes were dry. The cattle lowed from hunger, finding nothing to graze on in the sun-baked meadows. Only at night and in the woods, as long as the dew lasted, it was cool. But on the road, on the high-road along which the troops marched, there was no coolness even at night, not even where the road passed through the woods. The dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust of the road, more than a foot deep. As soon as it was daylight, the soldiers began to move The transports and artillery moved noiselessly, buried up to their axles, and the infantry sank to their ankles in the soft, stifling, burning dust, that never got cool even at night. The sandy dust clung to their legs and to the wheels, rose in a cloud over their heads, and got into the eyes and hair and nostrils and lungs of the men and beasts that moved along the road. The higher the sun rose, the higher rose the cloud of dust, and through the fine, burning dust the sun in the cloudless sky looked like a purple ball, at which one could gaze with undazzled eyes. There was no wind, and the men gasped for breath in the stagnant atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their mouths and noses. When they reached the villages, there was a rush for the wells. They fought over the water and drank it down to the mud.
