At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd round the Lobnoye Place, Pierre had so unhesitatingly decided that he could stay no longer in Moscow, and must that very day set off to join the army, that it seemed to him either that he had told the coachman so, or that the coachman ought to know it of himself.
On reaching home Pierre told his omniscient and omnipotent head- coachman, Yevstafitch, who was known to all Moscow, that he was going to drive that night to Mozhaisk to the army, and gave orders for his saddle horses to be sent on there. All this could not be arranged in one day, and therefore by Yevstafitch’s representations Pierre was induced
to defer his departure till next day to allow time for relays of horses to be sent on ahead.
The 24th was a bright day after a spell of bad weather, and after dinner on that day Pierre set out from Moscow. Changing horses in the night at Perhushkovo, Pierre learned that a great battle had been fought that evening. He was told that the earth had been vibrating there at Perhushkovo from the cannon. No one could answer Pierre’s question whether the battle was a victory or a defeat. This was the battle (#f the 24th at Shevardino. Towards dawn Pierre approached Mozhaisk.
Troops were quartered on all the houses in Mozhaisk, and at the inn, where Pierre was met by his coachman and postillion, there was not a room to spare; the whole place was full of officers.
From Mozhaisk onwards troops were halting or marching everywhere. Cossacks, foot soldiers, horse soldiers, waggons, gun-carriages, and cannons were evetywhere.
Pierre pushed on as fast as possible, and the further he got and the more deeply he plunged into this ocean of soldiers, the stronger became the thrill of uneasiness and of a new pleasurable sensation. It was a feeling akin to what he had felt at the Slobodsky Palace on the Tsar’s visit, a sense of the urgent necessity of taking some step and making some sacrifice. He was conscious now of a glad sense that all that constitutes the happiness of life, comfort, wealth, even life itself, were all dust and ashes, which it was a joy to fling away in comparison with something else. . . . What that something else was Pierre could not have said, and indeed he did not seek to get a clear idea, for whose sake and for what object he found such peculiar joy in sacrificing all. He was not interested in knowing the object of the sacrifice, but the sacrifice itself afforded him a new joyful sensation.
XIX
On the 24lh was fought the battle before the redoubt of Shevardino; on the 25th not a shot was fired on either side; on the 26th was fought the battle of Borodino.
How and with what object were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino fought? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the slightest sense in it, either for the French or for the Russians. The immediate result of it was, and was bound to be, for the Russians, that we were brought nearer to the destruction of Moscow (the very thing we dreaded above everything in the world); and for the French, that they were brought nearer to the destruction of their army (which they, too, dreaded above everything in the world). That result was at the time perfectly obvious, and yet Napoleon offered battle, and Kutuzov accepted it.
If military leaders were guided by reasonable considerations only, it would seem that it must have been clear to Napoleon that in advancing
712 WAR AND PEACE
two thousand versts into the heart of the country and giving battle, with the probable contingency of losing a quarter of his men, he was going to certain destruction; and that it must have been equally clear to Kutuzov that in accepting that battle and risking the loss of a fourth of his army, he would infallibly lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was mathematically clear, as clear as it is at chess, that if I have one piece less than my adversary and I exchange pieces, I am certain to be a loser by it, and therefore must avoid exchanging pieces. When my adversary has sixteen pieces and I have fourteen, I am only one-eighth weaker than he; but when we have exchanged thirteen pieces, he is three times as strong as I am.
