________________________________________________
_ The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it
did, only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the
evening of the second of September.
After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely
obsessed by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this
thought had taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of
the past, understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and
heard appeared to him like a dream.
He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's
demands that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was
unable to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the
plea of sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of
rest from life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph
Alexeevich was connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm
thoughts, quite contrary to the restless confusion into which he
felt himself being drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph
Alexeevich's study he really found it. When he sat with his elbows
on the dusty writing table in the deathlike stillness of the study,
calm and significant memories of the last few days rose one after
another in his imagination, particularly of the battle of Borodino and
of that vague sense of his own insignificance and insincerity compared
with the truth, simplicity, and strength of the class of men he
mentally classed as they. When Gerasim roused him from his reverie the
idea occurred to him of taking part in the popular defense of Moscow
which he knew was projected. And with that object he had asked Gerasim
to get him a peasant's coat and a pistol, confiding to him his
intentions of remaining in Joseph Alexeevich's house and keeping his
name secret. Then during the first day spent in inaction and
solitude (he tried several times to fix his attention on the Masonic
manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea that had previously
occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of his name in
connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented itself.
But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a limit
to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that
often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.
When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part
among the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the
Rostovs and Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining in
Moscow?... How splendid!" the thought flashed into his mind that it
really would be a good thing, even if Moscow were taken, for him to
remain there and do what he was predestined to do.
Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not
lagging in any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate.
But when he returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be
defended, he suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a
possibility had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He
must remain in Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and
kill him, and either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe-
which it seemed to him was solely due to Napoleon.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in
1809 by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been
shot. And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out
his design excited him still more.
Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this
purpose. The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and
suffering in view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had
caused him to go to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way
to the very thick of the battle and had now caused him to run away
from his home and, in place of the luxury and comfort to which he
was accustomed, to sleep on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the
same food as Gerasim. The other was that vague and quite Russian
feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, and
human- for everything the majority of men regard as the greatest
good in the world. Pierre had first experienced this strange and
fascinating feeling at the Sloboda Palace, when he had suddenly felt
that wealth, power, and life- all that men so painstakingly acquire
and guard- if it has any worth has so only by reason the joy with
which it can all be renounced.
It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his
last penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for
no apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money
he possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions
which from an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it
were, his personal power and strength, affirming the existence of a
higher, nonhuman criterion of life.
From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the
first time at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its
influence, but only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at
this moment Pierre was supported in his design and prevented from
renouncing it by what he had already done in that direction. If he
were now to leave Moscow like everyone else, his flight from home, the
peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement to the Rostovs that
he would remain in Moscow would all become not merely meaningless
but contemptible and ridiculous, and to this Pierre was very
sensitive.
Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded
to his mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he
drank during those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty
unchanged linen, two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa
without bedding- all this kept him in a state of excitement
bordering on insanity.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already
entered Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only
thought about his undertaking, going over its minutest details in
his mind. In his fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either
the striking of the blow or the death of Napoleon, but with
extraordinary vividness and melancholy enjoyment imagined his own
destruction and heroic endurance.
"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he
thought. "Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol
or dagger? But that is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of
Providence that punishes thee,' I shall say," thought he, imagining
what he would say when killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and
execute me!" he went on, speaking to himself and bowing his head
with a sad but firm expression.
While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to
himself in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold
appeared the figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but
now quite transformed.
His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He was
obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but
noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and,
staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.
"They're frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I
say I won't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?"
He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it
with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.
Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped
him in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre,
coming out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the
half-crazy old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held
on to the pistol and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic
fancy in his head.
"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he yelled.
"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness- please, sir,
to let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to
steer Makar Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door.
"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.
"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow
me to have the pistol."
"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar
Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!"
"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.
They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the
door.
The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle
and of a tipsy, hoarse voice.
Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated
from the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.
"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she
cried.
Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now
silent corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front
door could be heard. _
Read next: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 28
Read previous: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 26
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