‘Aie, aie, aie, what have they been doing?’ the voices of the prisone could be heard crying on one side and on another as they looked at t burnt districts. ‘Zamoskvoryetche, too, and Zubovo, and in the Kreml . . . Look, there’s not half left. Why, didn’t I tell you all Zamoskv< yetche was gone, and so it is.’
“Well, you know it is burnt, well, why argue about it?’ said the maji
Passing through Hamovniky (one of the few quarters of Moscow m had not been burnt) by the church, the whole crowd of prisoners he died suddenly on one side, and exclamations of horror and aversion we heard.
‘The wretches! The heathens! Yes; a dead man; a dead man; it; . . . They have smeared it with something.’
Pierre, too, drew near the church, where was the object that had call! forth these exclamations, and he dimly discerned something leani; against the fence of the church enclosure. From the words of his co- panions, who saw better than he did, he learnt that'it was the dead bo r of a man, propped up in a standing posture by the fence, with the fi: smeared with soot.
‘Move on, damn you! Go on, thirty thousand devils!’ . . . Th: heard the escort swearing, and the French soldiers, with fresh vindictn- ness, used the flat sides of their swords to drive on the prisoners, w) had lingered to look at the dead man.
XIV
Through the lanes of Hamovniky, the prisoners marched alone wi their escort, a train of carts and waggons, belonging to the soldiers f the escort, following behind them. But as they came out to the provisn shops they found themselves in the middle of a huge train of artiM moving with difficulty, and mixed up with private baggage-waggons;
At the bridge itself the whole mass halted, waiting for the foreim to get across. From the bridge the prisoners got a view of endless tnjs of baggage-waggon' in front and behind. On the right, where the Kalla
iad turns by Neskutchny Gardens, endless files of troops and waggons fetched away into the distance. These were the troops of Beauharnais’s nrps, which had set off before all the rest. Behind, along the riverside, ad across Kamenny bridge, stretched the troops and transport of Ney’s crps.
Davoust’s troops, to which the prisoners belonged, were crossing by the trimean Ford, and part had already entered Kaluga Street. But the bag- j.ge-trains were so long that the last waggons of Beauharnais’s corps lid not yet got out of Moscow into Kaluga Street, while the vanguard i Ney’s troops had already emerged from Bolshaya Ordynka.
After crossing the Crimean Ford, the prisoners moved a few steps at ; time and then halted, and again moved forward, and the crowd of hides and people grew greater and greater on all sides. After taking over ,1 hour in crossing the few hundred steps which separates the bridge :om Kaluga Street and getting as far as the square where the Zamosk- 'iryetche streets run into Kaluga Street, the prisoners were jammed in ;dose block and kept standing for several hours at the cross-roads. On ;1 sides there was an unceasing sound, like the roar of the sea, of rum- ling wheels, and tramping troops, and incessant shouts of anger and kid abuse. Pierre stood squeezed against the wall of a charred house, I tening to that sound, which in his imagination melted off into the roll ( drums.
Several of the Russian officers clambered up on to the wall of the lirnt house by which Pierre stood so as to get a better view.
‘The crowds! What crowds! . . . They have even loaded goods on |e cannons! Look at the furs! . . .’ they kept saying. ‘I say, the vermin, rey have been pillaging. . . . Look at what that one has got behind, i the cart. . . . Why, they are holy pictures, by God! . . . Those i|ust be Germans. And a Russian peasant; by God! ... Ah; the ’•etches! . . . See, how he’s loaded; he can hardly move! Look, I jy, chaises; they have got hold of them, too! . . . See, he has perched < the boxes. Heavens! . . . They have started fighting! . . . That’s i;ht; hit him in the face! We shan’t get by before evening like this, ftok, look! . . . Why, that must surely be Napoleon himself. Do you a the horses! with the monograms and a crown! That’s a portable 1 use. He has dropped his sack, and doesn’t see it. Fighting again. . . .
. woman with a baby, and good-looking, too! Yes, I dare say; that’s ft way they will let you pass. . . . Look; why, there’s no end to it. lassian wenches, I do declare they are. See how comfortable they are in ft carriages!’
Again a wave of general curiosity, as at the church in Hamovniky, crried all the prisoners forward towards the road, and Pierre, thanks 1 his height, saw over the heads of the others what attracted thtf pris- c|ers’ curiosity. Three carriages were blocked between caissons, and i, them a number of women with rouged faces, decked out in flaring (Jiours, were sitting closely packed together, shouting something in shrill
fees-
958 WAR AND PEACE
