Chapter 7

“One!” they heard the word of command. Number one bounded back nimbly. The cannon boomed with a deafening metallic sound, and whistling over the heads of our men under the mountainside, the grenade flew across, and falling a long way short of the enemy showed by the rising smoke where it had fallen and burst.

The faces of the soldiers and officers lightened up at the sound. Every one got up and busily watched the movements of our troops below, which could be seen as in the hollow of a hand, and the movements of the advancing enemy. At the same instant, the sun came out fully from behind the clouds, and the full note of the solitary shot and the brilliance of the bright sunshine melted into a single inspiriting impression of light-hearted gaiety.

OVER THE BRIDGE two of the enemy’s shots had already flown and there was a crush on the bridge. In the middle of the bridge stood Nesvitsky. He had dismounted and stood with his stout person jammed against the railings. He looked laughingly back at his Cossack, who was standing several paces behind him holding the two horses by their bridles. Every time Nesvitsky tried to move on, the advancing soldiers and waggons bore down upon him and shoved him back against the railings. There was nothing for him to do but to smile.

“Hi there, my lad,” said the Cossack to a soldier in charge of a waggon-load who was forcing his way through the foot-soldiers that pressed right up to his wheels and his horses; “what are you about? No, you wait a bit; you see the general wants to pass.”

But the convoy soldier, taking no notice of the allusion to the general, bawled to the soldiers who blocked the way: “Hi! fellows, keep to the left! wait a bit!” But the fellows, shoulder to shoulder, with their bayonets interlocked, moved over the bridge in one compact mass. Looking down over the rails, Prince Nesvitsky saw the noisy, rapid, but not high waves of the Enns, which, swirling in eddies round the piles of the bridge, chased one another down stream. Looking on the bridge he saw the living waves of the soldiers, all alike as they streamed by: shakoes with covers on them, knapsacks, bayonets, long rifles, and under the shakoes broad-jawed faces, sunken cheeks, and looks of listless weariness, and legs moving over the boards of the bridge, that were coated with sticky mud. Sometimes among the monotonous streams of soldiers, like a crest of white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer forced his way through, in a cloak, with a face of a different type from the soldiers. Sometimes, like a chip whirling on the river, there passed over the bridge among the waves of infantry a dismounted hussar, an orderly, or an inhabitant of the town. Sometimes, like a log floating down the river, there moved over the bridge, hemmed in on all sides, a baggage-waggon, piled up high and covered with leather covers.

“Why, they’re like a river bursting its banks,” said the Cossack, stopping hopelessly. “Are there many more over there?”

“Wouldn’t your excellency take some lunch?” he said.

“Look, prince,” said another, who would dearly have liked to take another pie, but was ashamed to, and therefore affected to be gazing at the countryside; “look, our infantry have just got in there. Over there, near the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They will clean out that palace nicely,” he said, with evident approval.

“No doubt,” said Nesvitsky. “No; but what I should like,” he added, munching a pie in his moist, handsome mouth, “would be to slip in there.” He pointed to the turreted nunnery that could be seen on the mountainside. He smiled, his eyes narrowing and gleaming. “Yes, that would be first-rate, gentlemen!” The officers laughed.

“One might at least scare the nuns a little. There are Italian girls, they say, among them. Upon my word, I’d give five years of my life for it!”

“They must be bored, too,” said an officer who was rather bolder, laughing.

Meanwhile the officer of the suite, who was standing in front, pointed something out to the general; the general looked through the field-glass.

“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, taking the field-glass away from his eye and shrugging his shoulders; “they are going to fire at them at the crossing of the river. And why do they linger so?”

With the naked eye, looking in that direction, one could discern the enemy and their batteries, from which a milky-white smoke was rising. The smoke was followed by the sound of a shot in the distance, and our troops were unmistakably hurrying to the place of crossing.

Nesvitsky got up puffing and went up to the general, smiling.

“Wouldn’t your excellency take some lunch?” he said.

“It’s a bad business,” said the general, without answering him; “our men have been too slow.”

“Shouldn’t I ride over, your excellency?” said Nesvitsky.

“Yes, ride over, please,” said the general, repeating an order that had already once before been given in detail; “and tell the hussars that they are to cross last and to burn the bridge, as I sent orders, and that they’re to overhaul the burning materials on the bridge.”

“Very good,” answered Nesvitsky. He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to pick up the knapsack and flask, and lightly swung his heavy person into the saddle.

“Upon my word, I am going to pay a visit to the nuns,” he said to the officers who were watching him, smiling, and he rode along the winding path down the mountain.

“Now then, captain, try how far it’ll carry,” said the general, turning to the artillery officer. “Have a little fun to pass the time.”

“Men, to the guns!” commanded the officer, and in a moment the gunners ran gaily from the camp fires and loaded the big guns.

"It is affectation."

He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man was on the point of dying in despair.

　　Death was an abyss to him. As he stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery of things, and which we call life.

　　He gazed incessantly beyond this world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness.

　　The Bishop made him see light.

　　On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the Bishop was still there.

　　He followed him, and exhibited himself to the eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords.

　　He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was radiant.

　　He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God.

　　The Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, he said to him:

　　"God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he whom his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more.

　　Pray, believe, enter into life:

　　the Father is there." When he descended from the scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people draw aside to let him pass.

　　They did not know which was most worthy of admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to his sister, "I have just officiated pontifically."

　　Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on this conduct of the Bishop, "It is affectation."

　　This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms. The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and admired him.

　　As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, and it was a long time before he recovered from it.

　　In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision.

　　The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords.

　　It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on.

　　The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted.

"Where are this man and woman to be tried?"

　It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging things:

　　I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel.

　　One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested in the act of passing the first false piece made by the man.

　　She was held, but there were no proofs except against her.

　　She alone could accuse her lover, and destroy him by her confession.

　　She denied; they insisted.

　　She persisted in her denial.

　　Thereupon an idea occurred to the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly presented, in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival, and that the man was deceiving her.

　　Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all.

　　The man was ruined.

　　He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his accomplice.

　　They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had educed the justice of revenge.

　　The Bishop listened to all this in silence.

　　When they had finished, he inquired,--

　　"Where are this man and woman to be tried?"

　　"At the Court of Assizes."

　　He went on, "And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?"

　　A tragic event occurred at D---- A man was condemned to death for murder.

　　He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the public.

　　The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the day fixed for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the prison fell ill.

　　A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his last moments.

　　They sent for the cure. It seems that he refused to come, saying, "That is no affair of mine.

　　I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank:

　　I, too, am ill; and besides, it is not my place." This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, "Monsieur le Cure is right:

　　it is not his place; it is mine."

　　He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the "mountebank," called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the condemned man for his own.

　　He told him the best truths, which are also the most simple.

　　He was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to bless.

“I’ve seen him myself.”

Zherkov walked into the room.

“How do you come here?” the officers cried to the newcomer at once.

“To the front, gentlemen. Mack has surrendered with his whole army.”

“Nonsense!”

“I’ve seen him myself.”

“What? Seen Mack alive, with all his arms and legs?”

“To the front! to the front! Give him a bottle for such news. How did you come here?”

“I’ve been dismissed back to the regiment again on account of that devil, Mack. The Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack’s arrival. … What is it, Rostov, you look as if you’d just come out of a hot bath?”

“We’ve been in such a mess these last two days, old boy.”

The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.

“To the front, gentlemen!”

“Well, thank God! we’ve been sticking here too long.”

Chapter 6

KUTUZOV fell back to Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over the river Inn (in Braunau) and the river Traun (in Linz). On the 23rd of October the Russian troops crossed the river Enns. The Russian baggage-waggons and artillery and the columns of troops were in the middle of that day stretching in a long string across the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge. The day was warm, autumnal, and rainy. The wide view that opened out from the heights where the Russian batteries stood guarding the bridge was at times narrowed by the slanting rain that shut it in like a muslin curtain, then again widened out, and in the bright sunlight objects could be distinctly seen in the distance, looking as if covered with a coat of varnish. The little town could be seen below with its white houses and its red roofs, its cathedral and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed masses of Russian troops, crowded together. At the bend of the Danube could be seen ships and the island and a castle with a park, surrounded by the waters formed by the Enns falling into the Danube, and the precipitous left bank of the Danube, covered with pine forest, with a mysterious distance of green tree-tops and bluish gorges. Beyond the pine forest, that looked wild and untouched by the hand of man, rose the turrets of a nunnery; and in the far distance in front, on the hill on the further side of the Enns, could be seen the scouts of the enemy.

Between the cannons on the height stood the general in command of the rear-guard and an officer of the suite scanning the country through a field-glass. A little behind them, there sat on the trunk of a cannon, Nesvitsky, who had been despatched by the commander-in-chief to the rear-guard. The Cossack who accompanied Nesvitsky had handed him over a knapsack and a flask, and Nesvitsky was regaling the officers with pies and real doppel-k?mmel. The officers surrounded him in a delighted circle, some on their knees, some sitting cross-legged, like Turks, on the wet grass.

“Yes, there was some sense in that Austrian prince who built a castle here. It’s a magnificent spot. Why aren’t you eating, gentlemen?” said Nesvitsky.

“Thank you very much, prince,” answered one of the officers, enjoying the opportunity of talking to a staff-official of such importance. “It’s a lovely spot. We marched right by the park; we saw two deer and such a splendid house!”

"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.

My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of you!"

　　Born a Provencal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south.

　　He said, "En be! moussu, ses sage?" as in lower Languedoc; "Onte anaras passa?" as in the Basses-Alpes; "Puerte un bouen moutu embe un bouen fromage grase," as in upper Dauphine.

　　This pleased the people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all spirits.

　　He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the mountains.

　　He understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar of idioms.

　　As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.

　　Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the lower classes.

　　He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account.

　　He said, "Examine the road over which the fault has passed."

　　Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows:--

　　"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.

　　He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity.

　　There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer.

　　"To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.

　　"The least possible sin is the law of man.

　　No sin at all is the dream of the angel.

　　All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation."

　　When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very quickly, "Oh! oh!" he said, with a smile; "to all appearance, this is a great crime which all the world commits.

　　These are hypocrisies which have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put themselves under shelter."

　　He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society rest.

　　He said, "The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise."

　　He said, moreover, "Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed.

　　The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow."

All very bad, very bad!'

`I do not quite understand,' returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. `Dare I ask you to explain?'

`I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.'

`It is possible,' said the uncle, with great calmness. `For the honour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. Pray excuse me!'

`I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,' observed the nephew.

`I would not say happily, my friend,' returned the uncle, with refined politeness; `I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter--his daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad!'

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.

`We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also,' said the nephew, gloomily, `that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France.'

`Let us hope so,' said the uncle. `Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.'

`There is not,' pursued the nephew, in his former tone, `a face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery.'