The Tsar looked down, and for some time he was silent. ‘Well, back to the army,’ he said, drawing himself up to his full height and wil a genial and majestic gesture addressing Michaud, ‘and tell our bra) fellows, tell all my good subjects wherever you go, that when I have ru a soldier left, I will put myself at the head of my dear nobility, of ir good peasants, and so use the last resources of my empire. It offers n still more than my enemies suppose,’ said the Tsar, more and moi stirred. ‘But if it should be written in the decrees of divine Providence he said, and his fine, mild eyes, shining with emotion, were raised towarc heaven, ‘that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of m ancestors, then after exhausting every means in my power, I would k my beard grow to here’ (the Tsar put his hand halfway down his breast ‘and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants rather tha sign the shame of my country and my dear people, whose sacrifice know how to appreciate.’ Uttering these words in a voice of much feelim the Tsar turned quickly away, as though wishing to conceal from Michau the tears that were starting into his eyes, and he walked to the further en of his study. After standing there some instants, he strode back t Michaud, and with a vigorous action squeezed his arm below the elbov The Tsar’s fine, mild face was flushed, and his eyes gleamed with energ and anger. ‘Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here; pel
hps one day we shall recall it with pleasure. . . . Napoleon or me,’ h said, touching his breast, ‘we can no longer reign together. I have li.rned to know him. He will not deceive me again . . .’ And the Tsar pused, frowning. Hearing these words, seeing the look of firm determina-' t n in the Tsar’s eyes, Michaud, though a foreigner, Russian in heart ad soul, felt (as he used to recount later) at that solemn moment moved t enthusiasm by what he had just heard; and in the following phrase 1 sought to give expression to his own feelings and those of the Russian fople, whose representative he considered himself to be.
‘Sire!’ he said, ‘your majesty is signing at this moment the glory of te nation and the salvation of Europe!’
With a motion of his head the Tsar dismissed Michaud.
IV
'hile half of Russia was conquered, and the inhabitants of Moscow ere fleeing to remote provinces, and one levy of militia after another was I ing raised for the defence of the country, we, not living at the time, can- ut help imagining that all the people in Russia, great and small alike, ere engaged in doing nothing else but making sacrifices, saving their untry, or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that riod without exception tell us of nothing but the self-sacrifice, the triotism, the despair, the grief, and the heroism of the Russians. In jality, it was not at all like that. It seems so to us, because we see out of e past only the general historical interest of that period, and we do not ie all the personal human interests of the men of that time. And yet in ality these personal interests of the immediate present are of so much ieater importance than public interests, that they prevent the public terest from ever being felt—-from being noticed at all, indeed. The ma- rity of the people of that period took no heed of the general progress of iblic affairs, and were only influenced by their immediate personal inrests. And those very people played the most useful part in the work the time.
Those who were striving to grasp the general course of events, and try- g by self-sacrifice and heroism to take a hand in it, were the most useless ;mbers of society; they saw everything upside down, and all that they d with the best intentions turned out to be useless folly, like Pierre's giment, and Mamonov’s, that spent their time pillaging the Russian vil- ges, like the lint scraped by the ladies, that never reached the wounded, id so on. Even those who, being fond of talking on intellectual subjects id expressing their feelings, discussed the position of Russia, uncon- iously imported into their talk a shade of hypocrisy or falsity or else of eless fault-finding and bitterness against persons, whom they blamed r what could be nobody’s fault.
In historical events we see more plainly than ever the law that forbids to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It is only unself-conscious
activity that bears fruit, and the man who plays a part in an historic drama never understands its significance. If he strives to comprehend he is stricken with barrenness.
