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Prince
Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that
regiment,
the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving and
giving
orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its
abandonment
made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against
the
foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to
the
affairs
of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and
officers.
In the regiment they called him "our prince," were proud of
him
and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his
regiment,
to Timokhin and the like--people quite new to him, belonging
to
a different world and who could not know and understand his past.
As
soon
as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff,
he
bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and
contemptuous.
Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to
him,
and so in his relations with that former circle he confined
himself
to
trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.
In
truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to
Prince
Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the sixth
of
August (he considered that it could and should have been
defended)
and
after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to
pillage
his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.
But
despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something
to
think
about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously
he
had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for
Moscow;
and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince
Andrew
with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that
he
must ride there.
He
ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the
march,
rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his
childhood.
Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of
women
chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden
beetles,
Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that
the
little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was
floating
on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's
lodge.
No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door
stood
open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and
horses
and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode
up
to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the
trees
in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for
Taras
the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of
the
hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden
fence
was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with
the
fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had
often
seen
at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast
shoe.
He
was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting
on
the
seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips
of
bast
were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.
Prince
Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had
been
cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front
of
the
house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except
at
one
window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew,
ran
into
the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was alone at
Bald
Hills
and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On
hearing
that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on
his
nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a
word
began
weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.
Then,
vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report on
the
position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been
removed
to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted
away.
The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there had
been
a
remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops
and
mown
down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them
too
had
gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained.
Without
waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:
"When
did my father and sister leave?" meaning when did they leave for
Moscow.
Alpatych,
understanding the question to refer to their departure for
Bogucharovo,
replied that they had left on the seventh and again went
into
details concerning the estate management, asking for
instructions.
"Am
I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for
them?
We
have still six hundred quarters left," he inquired.
"What
am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the
old
man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression
on
his
face that the old man himself understood how untimely such
questions
were
and only asked them to allay his grief.
"Yes,
let them have it," replied Prince Andrew.
"If
you noticed some disorder in the garden," said Alpatych, "it was
impossible
to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the
night,
dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their
commanding
officer, to hand in a complaint about it."
"Well,
and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy
occupies
the place?" asked Prince Andrew.
Alpatych
turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly
with
a solemn gesture raised his arm.
"He
is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.
A
group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow
toward
the
prince.
"Well,
good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. "You must
go
away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the
Ryazan
estate or to the one near Moscow."
Alpatych
clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently
disengaging
himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the
avenue
at a gallop.
The
old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly
impassive
on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on
which
he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out
from
the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked
from
the
trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,
the
elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by
the
hand
and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up
some
green
plums they had dropped.
Prince
Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see
that
they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened
little
girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible
desire
to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him
when,
seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human
interests
entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those
that
occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one
thing-
-to
carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and
Prince
Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He
could
not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger
past,
they
sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their
shrill
little
voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned
feet
scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.
Prince
Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty
highroad
along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills
he
again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its
halting
place
by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a
red
ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably
through
his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz
of
talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he
crossed
the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the
pond.
He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and
he
glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and
laughter.
The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a
foot,
flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies
of
soldiers
with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing
about
in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking,
floundered
about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering
can,
and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered
it
specially pathetic.
One
fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince
Andrew
knew
and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself,
stepped
back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a
dark
noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his
waist
in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted
with
satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands
blackened
to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another,
yelling,
and puffing.
Everywhere
on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy,
white,
muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his red little nose,
standing
on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing
the
prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.
"It's
very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?" said he.
"It's
dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.
"We'll
clear it out for you in a minute," said Timokhin, and, still
undressed,
ran off to clear the men out of the pond.
"The
prince wants to bathe."
"What
prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men were in such haste
to
clear
out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he
would
rather wash himself with water in the barn.
"Flesh,
bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own
naked
body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and
horror
he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that
immense
number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.
On
the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his
quarters
at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road:
Dear
Count Alexis Andreevich--(He was writing to Arakcheev but knew
that
his
letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every
word
in it to the best of his ability.)
I
expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the
abandonment
of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the
whole
army is in despair that this most important place has been
wantonly
abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently
and
finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I
swear
to
you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before
and
might
have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our
troops
fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand
men
I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but
he
would
not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain
on
our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live.
If
he
reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about
four
thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten
thousand,
that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...
What
would it have cost him to hold out
for
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