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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Chapter 5 - The retreat
From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On the tenth of August the regiment1 Prince Andrey commanded was marching along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist. Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was scorched2 and shed its grain. The marshes3 dried up. The cattle lowed from hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery4 and baggage wagons5 moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very hubs of the wheels, and the infantry6 sank ankle-deep in that soft, choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils7, and worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson8 ball in the unclouded sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.
Prince Andrey 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, engrossed9 him. The burning of Smolensk and its abandonment made an epoch10 in his life. A novel feeling of anger against the foe11 made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely12 devoted13 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 bristled14 up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical15, 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 Andrey, 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 pillage17 his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled. But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrey had something to think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously18 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 Andrey with a characteristic desire to foment19 his own grief decided20 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 chattering21 as they rinsed22 their linen23 or beat it with wooden beetles24, Prince Andrey noticed that there was not a soul about and that the little washing wharf25, torn from its place and half submerged, was floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper’s lodge26. 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 calves27 were straying in the English park. Prince Andrey rode up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes28 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 ornamental29 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 Andrey 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 Andrey 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 withered30 branch of a magnolia.
Prince Andrey rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had been cut down and a piebald mare31 and her foal were wandering in front of the house among the rosebushes. The shutters32 were all closed, except at one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrey, 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 Andrey 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 Andrey’s knee.
Then, vexed33 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 remarkable34 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 Andrey 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 Andrey, 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 allay36 his grief.
“Yes, let them have it,” replied Prince Andrey.
“If you noticed some disorder37 in the garden,” said Alpatych, “it was impossible to prevent it. Three regiments38 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 Andrey.
Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrey, 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 Andrey, 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 Andrey’s leg and burst into sobs39. Gently disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the avenue at a gallop40.
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 Andrey. On seeing the young master, the elder one 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 Andrey turned away with startled haste, unwilling41 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 irresistible42 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 aloof43 from his own and just as legitimate44 as those that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately45 desired one thing — to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught — and Prince Andrey 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 ambush46 and, chirruping something in their shrill47 little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned feet scampered48 merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.
Prince Andrey 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 Andrey smelled the ooze49 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 shrieks50 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 shrieking51, floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered it specially16 pathetic.
One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrey knew and who had a strap52 round the calf53 of one leg, crossed himself, stepped back to get a good run, and plunged54 into the water; another, a dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his waist in the water joyfully55 wriggling56 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 puffing57.
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, standing35 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.
“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 himself with water in the barn.
“Flesh, bodies, cannon59 fodder60!” he thought, and he looked at his own naked body and shuddered61, 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 another two days? They would have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow . . .
There is a rumor62 that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You would set all Russia against you and every one of us would feel ashamed to wear the uniform. If it has come to this — we must fight as long as Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand . . .
One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted63 the fate of our whole country. . . . I am really frantic64 with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly65: call out the militia66. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon’s man than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil to him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is painful, but, loving my benefactor67 and sovereign, I submit. Only I am sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts68 our fine army to such as he. Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue69 and left in the hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would not have happened. Tell me, for God’s sake, what will Russia, our mother Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our good and gallant70 Fatherland to such rabble71 and implanting feelings of hatred72 and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense73, dilatory74, and has all bad qualities. The whole army bewails it and calls down curses upon him ...
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1
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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5
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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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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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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pillage
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| v.抢劫；掠夺；n.抢劫，掠夺；掠夺物 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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foment
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| v.煽动，助长 | |
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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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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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22
rinsed
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| v.漂洗( rinse的过去式和过去分词 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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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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calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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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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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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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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allay
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| v.消除，减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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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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40
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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41
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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43
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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44
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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46
ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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47
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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scampered
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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50
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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51
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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52
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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53
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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54
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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57
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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66
militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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67
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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68
entrusts
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的第三人称单数 ) | |
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69
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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70
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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71
rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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72
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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73
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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74
dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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