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Chapter 33 - Pierre sets out to meet Napoleon
On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful1 he had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday’s conversation with Captain Ramballe.
It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors. Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved2 stock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered where he was and what lay before him that very day.
“Am I not too late?” he thought. “No, probably he won’t make his entry into Moscow before noon.”
Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but hastened to act.
After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out. But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. “No matter, dagger3 will do,” he said to himself, though when planning his design he had more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a green sheath which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol, and hid it under his waistcoat.
Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head, Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting the captain, and passed out into the street.
The conflagration4, at which he had looked with so much indifference5 the evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river, in the Bazaar7 and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges8 on the Moskva River and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were all ablaze9.
Pierre’s way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there to the church of St. Nikolai on the Arbat, where he had long before decided10 that the deed should should be done. The gates of most of the houses were locked and the shutters11 up. The streets and lanes were deserted12. The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both the Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his height and stoutness13, and the strange morose14 look of suffering in his face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with astonishment15 in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the other Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them, stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.
Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel standing16 beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man’s musket17 as he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night’s experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined18 to bring his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out, for Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four hours previously19 on his way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, and was now sitting in a very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Kremlin, giving detailed20 and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately to extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure21 the inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely22 absorbed in what lay before him, and was tortured — as those are who obstinately23 undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its difficulty but because of its incompatibility24 with their natures — by the fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.
Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskoy.
As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser26 and denser — he even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was approaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a wide-open space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens of Prince Gruzinski’s house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening27 from a dream and lifted his head.
By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons28, and trunks. On the ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long, prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman, swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs30. Two girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks, were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his old nurse’s arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk, and, having undone31 her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight and sniffing32 at her singed33 hair. The woman’s husband, a short, round-shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian34 official, with sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair smoothly35 brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging some garments from under them.
As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.
“Dear people, good Christians36, save me, help me, dear friends . . . help us, somebody,” she muttered between her sobs. “My girl . . . My daughter! My youngest daughter is left behind. She’s burned! Ooh! Was it for this I nursed you. . . . Ooh!”
“Don’t, Marya Nikolievna!” said her husband to her in a low voice, evidently only to justify37 himself before the stranger. “Sister must have taken her, or else where can she be?” he added.
“Monster! Villain38!” shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep. “You have no heart, you don’t feel for your own child! Another man would have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a man nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man,” she went on, addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. “The fire broke out alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out ‘Fire!’ and we rushed to collect our things. We ran out just as we were. . . . This is what we have brought away. . . . The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost. We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord! . . . ” and again she began to sob29. “My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!”
“But where was she left?” asked Pierre.
“Oh, dear sir!” she cried, seizing him by the legs. “My benefactor40, set my heart at ease. . . . Aniska, go, you horrid41 girl, show him the way!” she cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing her long teeth.
The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait, sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French soldiers stopped him.
“On ne passe pas!”* cried a voice.
* “You can’t pass!
“This way, uncle,” cried the girl. “We’ll pass through the side street, by the Nikulins’!”
Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her. She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and, passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.
“It’s here, close by,” said she and, running across the yard, opened a gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed43 out to him a small wooden wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from the openings of the windows and from under the roof.
“Which is it? Which is your house?” he asked.
“Ooh!” wailed45 the girl, pointing to the wing. “That’s it, that was our lodging46. You’ve burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little missy! Ooh!” lamented47 Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she too must give expression to her feelings.
Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around which swarmed48 a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely49 understood that looting was going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.
The sounds of crackling and the din6 of falling walls and ceilings, the whistle and hiss50 of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering51 into thick black clouds and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense25 sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced on Pierre the usual animating52 effects of a conflagration. It had a peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt young, bright, adroit53, and resolute54. He ran round to the other side of the lodge55 and was about to dash into that part of it which was still standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting and then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close beside him.
Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.
“What does this fellow want?” shouted one of them referring to Pierre.
“There’s a child in that house. Haven’t you seen a child?” cried Pierre.
“What’s he talking about? Get along!” said several voices, and one of the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved threateningly toward him.
“A child?” shouted a Frenchman from above. “I did hear something squealing56 in the garden. Perhaps it’s his brat57 that the fellow is looking for. After all, one must be human, you know. . . . ”
“Where is it? Where?” said Pierre.
“There! There!” shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the garden at the back of the house. “Wait a bit — I’m coming down.”
And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the garden.
“Hurry up, you others!” he called out to his comrades. “It’s getting hot.”
When they reached a gravel58 path behind the house the Frenchman pulled Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a three-year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.
“There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!” said the Frenchman. “Good-by, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you know!” and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his comrades.
Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away. Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed desperately59 and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre’s hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when touching60 some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however, impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the wet, painfully sobbing61 child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran with her through the garden seeking another way out.
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1
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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12
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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13
stoutness
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| 坚固，刚毅 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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19
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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24
incompatibility
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| n.不兼容 | |
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25
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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28
icons
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| n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像 | |
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29
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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32
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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33
singed
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| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
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34
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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36
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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37
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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38
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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40
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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41
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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42
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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43
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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44
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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47
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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49
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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50
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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51
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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52
animating
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| v.使有生气( animate的现在分词 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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53
adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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54
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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55
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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56
squealing
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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57
brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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58
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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59
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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60
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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