War and Peace

Prince Bagration was just trying to pretend that everything they were being forced to do, every accidental development or anything brought about by individual commanders, was happening, if not according to his orders, then at least as part of his plan. Prince Andrey noticed, on the other hand, that even though everything was happening by pure chance and had nothing to do with the commander’s volition, the tact shown by Prince Bagration meant that his presence there was of enormous value. (Location 4625)

One thing and one thing only emerged from Pierre’s understanding as he read: he experienced a pleasure he had never known before – a belief in the possibility of attaining perfection and the feasibility of practical brotherly love between men, as revealed to him by Bazdeyev. (Location 8407)

He had mastered the unwritten code that had pleased him so much at Olmütz, which allows for a junior officer to outrank a general and says that what you need to succeed in the service is not effort, hard work, gallantry or perseverance, but simply the art of getting on well with people who have promotion and awards in their gift. (Location 8669)

He often marvelled at his own rapid advancement, and the fact that other people couldn’t see how it was done. This discovery had altered everything beyond recognition – his whole manner of life, his relationships with old friends, all his plans for the future. (Location 8672)

Though not well off he would spend his last kopeck to look better turned out than anyone else. (Location 8673)

He would have deprived himself of many a pleasure sooner than permit himself to drive in an inferior carriage or be seen on the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He sought out and cultivated only people in higher positions who might be of use to him. He loved Petersburg and despised Moscow. (Location 8674)

Rostov was pleased and relieved to submit once again to the clearcut conditions of regimental life; he felt like a weary man lying down to rest. (Location 9338)

‘He’s right, that tree, a thousand times right,’ mused the prince. ‘Other people, young people, they can keep that sham going, but he and I know what life is. Our lives are over and done with!’ The tree had stirred up a host of new ideas in the prince’s soul which held no hope, though their bitterness was sweet. On the journey there he seemed to have reconsidered his entire life and come right back to his first conclusion, which was as reassuring as it was devoid of hope – that he needn’t bother with anything new, all he had to do was live out his life without doing any harm, free from worry and any kind of desire. (Location 9875)

Now, in fact, he could not begin to understand how he could ever have doubted the necessity of leading an active life, whereas a month before he would not have believed that the idea of ever leaving the country might occur to him. It now seemed absolutely clear that all his life experience would count for nothing if he failed to make practical use of it by starting to lead an active life again. He could not understand how such weak arguments could once have convinced him that he would be debasing himself if, after all he had learnt about life, he were to carry on believing in the possibility of doing something useful and the possibility of happiness and of love. Reason now spoke otherwise. After his journey to Ryazan Prince Andrey found country life tedious. His former interests had lost their appeal, and when he sat alone in his study he would often get to his feet, go over to the mirror and stare at his own face for minutes on end. Then he would turn to the portrait of Liza, looking out at him so sweetly and happily from her gilt frame with her Grecian hairstyle. Now, instead of saying those terrible words to her husband, she just looked at him with cheerful curiosity. Then he would clasp his hands behind his back and spend long minutes pacing up and down the room, frowning one moment and smiling the next, brooding on a series of strange ideas that lay beyond words, as secret as a hidden crime, ideas connected with Pierre, glory, the girl at the window, the oak-tree, the beauty of women, love – all the things that had changed the course of his life. And at moments like this if anyone came into his room his manner would be particularly abrupt, harsh, decisive, logical to a fault. (Location 9952)

It was also the general opinion of all who knew him from days gone by that over the last five years he had changed a good deal for the better, softening his character and coming to full maturity. He was said to have lost his old affectation, pride and caustic cynicism, and to have gained the serenity that comes with years. (Location 10041)

In the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrey sensed that the way of thinking he had worked out in his solitary life had been completely eclipsed by the petty concerns that now beset him in Petersburg. (Location 10121)

In Prince Andrey’s eyes Speransky was just what he wanted to be – a man with a rational explanation for every aspect of human life, accepting reason as the only yardstick of validity and fully capable of applying this standard of reason to everything that came along. (Location 10143)

Everything came out so clear and straightforward in Speransky’s exposition that Prince Andrey couldn’t help agreeing with every word he said. (Location 10145)

If he raised objections and put up arguments it was only to assert his own independence and avoid being swamped by Speransky’s ideas. (Location 10146)

Speransky would never even think of acknowledging the idea that we all have thoughts beyond our power to express them, though this concept came naturally to Prince Andrey. Speransky never had any nagging doubts that everything he thought and believed in might be rubbish. And it was this quality of Speransky’s mind that attracted Prince Andrey most of all. (Location 10157)

For the first time in his life Pierre was struck by the endless variety of men’s minds, which guarantees that no truth is ever seen the same way by any two persons. (Location 10240)

‘A mason’s first duty, as I have told you, consists in self-perfection. But we often imagine that the best way to achieve this aim is to remove all the difficulties from our lives. Sir, it is the other way round,’ he said. ‘Only amidst the cares of this world can we achieve the three great aims of (1) self-knowledge, for a man can know himself only through comparison; (2) greater perfection, and this can be achieved only through struggle; and (3) the attainment of the greatest virtue – the love of death. (Location 10279)

Like all men who have grown up in society Prince Andrey was pleased when he encountered something in that world that did not carry the usual society stamp. And Natasha was exactly that, with her sense of wonder, her enthusiasm, her diffidence and even the mistakes she made when she spoke French. (Location 10804)

Prince Andrey listened to this account of the opening of the State Council, which he had been looking forward to so keenly and had valued so much, amazed that now it had happened this event made no impact on him and struck him as less than insignificant. He listened to Bitsky’s eloquent enthusiasm with secret scorn. The simplest idea in the world was taking over his mind. ‘Why should I bother? Why should Bitsky?’ he thought. ‘Why should we bother about what the Emperor was pleased to say to the Council? Can any of that make me happier or better than I am?’ (Location 10848)

Everything in Speransky that had seemed mysterious and attractive suddenly struck Prince Andrey as patently obvious and unpleasant. (Location 10873)

After dinner Natasha went over to the clavichord at Prince Andrey’s request and began to sing. Prince Andrey stood by one of the windows talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of one phrase Prince Andrey stopped talking and suddenly felt close to tears, with a lump in his throat, something he had never known before. He watched Natasha as she sang, with a new and blissful sensation stirring in his soul. He was so happy, and at the same time so sad. He had nothing at all to weep about, but here he was on the verge of tears. What for? Past love? The little princess? Lost illusions? … Future hopes? … Yes and no. The main thing that was bringing him to the verge of tears was a sudden, vivid awareness of the dreadful disparity between something infinitely great and eternal that existed within him and something else, something constraining and physical that constituted him and even her. The disparity struck him with a mixture of anguish and bliss while she was singing. (Location 10926)

He was aware of her only as an image, but this opened up the whole of his life before him in a new light. ‘Why do I go on struggling? Why do I keep on toiling at this narrow, cramped drudgery, when life lies open before me, the whole of life, with all its joys?’ he kept asking himself. And now, for the first time in ages, he began to make happy plans for the future. (Location 10939)

This morning she was back at last in her favourite situation, that of loving herself and being her own best admirer. ‘There goes Natasha – such a charming creature!’ she said, referring to herself once again in the words of some third-person collective male (Location 11172)

According to biblical tradition the absence of work – idleness – was a condition of the first man’s state of blessedness before the Fall. The love of idleness has been preserved in fallen man, but now a heavy curse lies upon him, not only because we have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, but also because our sense of morality will not allow us to be both idle and at ease. Whenever we are idle a secret voice keeps telling us to feel guilty. If man could discover a state in which he could be idle and still feel useful and on the path of duty, he would have regained one aspect of that primitive state of blessedness. And there is one such state of enforced and irreproachable idleness enjoyed by an entire class of men – the military class. It is this state of enforced and irreproachable idleness that forms the chief attraction of military service, and it always will. (Location 11425)

‘Uncle’ sang like a true peasant, with one simple thought in mind – in any song the words are the only thing that matters, the tune follows on, a tune on its own is nothing, a tune just brings it all together. And this gave ‘Uncle’s’ natural way of singing a special charm, not unlike birdsong. (Location 12029)

‘Do you ever get that feeling,’ said Natasha to her brother once they were settled in the sitting-room, ‘that nothing’s ever going to happen to you again, nothing at all, and anything good is in the past? And you don’t feel bored exactly, but very, very sad?’ ‘I’ll say!’ he replied. ‘It’s happened to me. Everything’s fine, everyone’s happy, and suddenly you get this feeling of being fed up with everything, and realizing everybody’s going to die. Once in the regiment I stayed in while they all went out celebrating. I could hear the music playing … and I had this empty feeling (Location 12193)

It took him a long time to become reconciled to the idea that he was the very model of a retired Moscow gentleman-in-waiting, a type he had found so profoundly repellent seven years ago. (Location 12576)

Sometimes he consoled himself with the idea that it didn’t matter – this was only a passing phase – only to be struck by the horrifying thought that plenty of others had gone through the same ‘passing phase’, embarking on this kind of life and joining this club with all their teeth and hair and leaving when they were toothless and bald. (Location 12577)

Whatever he tried to be, whatever he decided to do, he found himself repelled by evil and falsehood, with every avenue of activity blocked off. And meanwhile he had to live on and find things to do. It was too horrible to be ground down by life’s insoluble problems, so he latched on to any old distraction that came along, just to get them out of his mind. He tried all kinds of society, drank a lot, bought pictures, built things and, most of all, he read. He read and reread everything he could get his hands on. When he got home at night he would pick up a book and start on it before his valets had finished undressing him, and then read himself to sleep. (Location 12610)

There in the middle of the front stalls, leaning back against the orchestra-rail, stood Dolokhov, in Persian costume, with his curls brushed up into a huge shock of hair. He was standing in full view, deliberately inviting the attention of the whole audience, yet as casual as if he had been at home standing alone in his room. (Location 13111)

The most brilliant set of young Muscovites thronged round him, and he was clearly the cock of the roost. (Location 13113)

‘Didn’t you recognize him?’ he asked. ‘But what’s he doing here?’ he asked, turning to Shinshin. ‘I thought he’d gone off somewhere.’ ‘Yes, he did,’ answered Shinshin. ‘He went down to the Caucasus, then he ran away, and I believe he became a minister with some sort of ruling prince down in Persia, and he went and killed the Shah’s brother. Anyway, all the Moscow ladies are crazy about him! “Dolokhov – the man from Persia” – that’s all you need to say. Nowadays you hear nothing but Dolokhov. They all kowtow to him. It’s a rare treat to be asked to meet him,’ said Shinshin. ‘Dolokhov and Anatole Kuragin, they’ve got the ladies swooning all right.’ (Location 13114)

Just back from the country, and now in a serious frame of mind, Natasha saw all this as astonishingly grotesque. She couldn’t follow the opera and couldn’t hear any music; all she could see was painted cardboard and oddly dressed men and women, talking, singing and prancing about just as oddly under bright lights. She knew what it was supposed to represent, but it was all so grotesquely forced and unnatural that she found herself alternating between embarrassment and amusement at the actors’ expense. She glanced round at faces in the audience, looking for signs of the same amusement and bewilderment that she was feeling. But all the faces were absorbed in what was happening on the stage, and they displayed a kind of rapture that Natasha could only assume to be affected. (Location 13143)

She gazed ahead, letting her thoughts wander, and the weirdest of disconnected ideas suddenly flashed through her mind. One moment she felt like leaping over the footlights and singing along with the actress; then she felt an urge to dig an old gentleman sitting near by with her fan, or lean over towards Hélène and tickle her. (Location 13153)

Anatole was quite happy with his situation, himself and other people. With every fibre of his being he was convinced of what his instincts told him: there was no other way to live than the way he was living, and he had never done anything wrong in his life. He had no capacity for reflecting on how his actions might affect other people, or what the consequences of this or that action might be. He took it for granted that just as the duck was created to live on water, he was created by God to live on thirty thousand a year and occupy a high station in society. So strong was this conviction that when other people looked at him they accepted it and wouldn’t have dreamt of denying him either his high station in society or the money that he borrowed right and left, obviously with no thought of paying it back. (Location 13301)

‘Now that’s what I call worldly wisdom!’ thought Pierre. ‘He can’t see beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing worries him, so he’s always happy and contented. What wouldn’t I give to be like him?’ he mused, full of envy. (Location 13830)

Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to get what he wants, and he feels with every fibre of his being that at any particular time he is free to perform an action or refrain from doing so, but the moment any action is taken it becomes an irrevocable piece of history, with a significance which has more to do with predetermination than freedom. (Location 14131)

There are two sides to life for every individual: a personal life, in which his freedom exists in proportion to the abstract nature of his interests, and an elemental life within the swarm of humanity, in which a man inevitably follows laws laid down for him. (Location 14134)

Although on a conscious level a man lives for himself, he is actually being used as an unconscious instrument for the attainment of humanity’s historical aims. A deed once done becomes irrevocable, and any action comes together over time with millions of actions performed by other people to create historical significance. The higher a man stands on the social scale, the more contact he has with other men and the greater his impact on them, the more obvious are the inevitability and the element of predestination involved in everything he does. (Location 14136)

When a ripe apple falls, what makes it fall? Is it gravity, pulling it down to earth? A withered stalk? The drying action of the sun? Increased weight? A breath of wind? Or the boy under the tree who wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause of it. It is just the coming together of various conditions necessary for any living, organic, elemental event to take place. And the botanist who finds that the apple has fallen because of the onset of decay in its cellular structure, and all the rest of it, will be no more right or wrong than the boy under the tree who says the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it to fall. (Location 14152)

Anyone who claims that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and eventually lost because Alexander wanted him to lose, will be no more right or wrong than the man who claims that thousands of tons of earth in an undermined hill collapsed because of the last blow from the last pick-axe of the last workman. When it comes to events in history, so-called ‘great men’ are nothing but labels attached to events; like real labels, they have the least possible connection with events themselves. (Location 14157)

Every action they perform, which they take to be self-determined and independent, is in a historical sense quite the opposite; it is interconnected with the whole course of history, and predetermined from eternity. (Location 14161)

Euripides once said, ‘Those whom God wishes to destroy he first drives mad.’ (Location 14227)

It was obvious that Balashev’s personality was of no interest to him. Clearly, the only thing that held any interest for him was anything going on in his own mind. Nothing outside his person held any significance because, as he saw it, everything in the world was dependent on his will. (Location 14430)

After his fiancée’s unfaithfulness, which hurt him more and more as he strove to conceal the effect it was having on him, the very circumstances that had recently made him so happy now became unbearable, especially the freedom and independence he had come to value so much. (Location 14605)

Prince Andrey asked to be transferred to the western army. Kutuzov, by now thoroughly sick of Bolkonsky’s constant activity, which he took personally as an accusation of idleness, was only too ready to let him go, and sent him off with a commission to Barclay de Tolly. (Location 14620)

Thoroughly absorbed in being at the centre of a huge, burgeoning war, he was glad to enjoy a brief respite from the vexation caused by the very thought of Kuragin. (Location 14714)

For four days no demands were made on him so he spent his time riding right around the entire fortified camp, gathering intelligence and talking to people in the know so that he could form a sound overall impression of things. But he couldn’t decide whether a camp like this was of any use or not. If he had learnt one lesson from his military experience it was that in matters of war the most carefully considered plans count for nothing (as he had seen at Austerlitz); everything depends on how you react to unexpected and unpredictable enemy action; (Location 14715)

everything depends on who takes charge, and how. (Location 14719)

Pfuel was there because he had created the plan of action against Napoleon and persuaded Alexander of its validity, and he was now running the whole campaign. Pfuel was assisted by Wolzogen, a specialist in translating Pfuel’s ideas into a more accessible form than Pfuel himself ever could, he being an abrasive academic theorist, full of his own importance and contempt for everyone else. (Location 14740)

The first party consisted of Pfuel and his disciples, military theorists who believed there was such a thing as a science of warfare, a science with its own immutable laws – the law of oblique movement, the law of outflanking, etc. Pfuel and his disciples demanded that the army should retreat into the depths of the country in accordance with the precise laws laid down by the pseudo-science of warfare, any departure from which they saw as outright barbarity, ignorance or evil intent. (Location 14746)

The second party was diametrically opposed to the first one. As always, where there was one extreme, the opposite extreme found its own representatives. Ever since Vilna men of this party had been demanding the invasion of Poland and the abandonment of all previous plans. Representatives of this party were also representatives of strong action, and beyond that representatives of nationalism, which (Location 14751)

because only a German could be self-assured on the basis of an abstract idea – science, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. (Location 14863)

Pfuel was one of those theorists who love their theory so dearly they lose sight of the aim of all theory, which is to work out in practice. He was so much in love with theory that he hated all practice and didn’t want to know about it. He (Location 14876)

A good military commander has no need of genius or any outstanding qualities; quite the reverse, he needs to be devoid of the finest and noblest of human attributes – love, poetry, affection, a philosophical spirit of inquiry and scepticism. He needs to be narrow-minded, totally convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he would never have enough staying-power), and only then will he become a valiant military commander. God forbid that he should be like a human being, a prey to love and compassion, hesitating over right and wrong. It is obvious why a theory of genius should have been fabricated for them by people of old – such men and power are the same thing. (Location 14961)

In earlier days Rostov had always felt scared as he rode into battle; now he felt not a flicker of fear. He was fearless not because he had got used to being under fire (you never get used to danger) but because he had learnt how to master his own spirit in the face of danger. He had formed the habit, when riding into battle, of thinking about anything except the one thing that ought to have been more fascinating than anything else – the danger that lay ahead. However earnestly he had struggled to do this, and however many times he had bitterly called himself a coward in the early days, he had never been able to manage it. But it had come by itself with the passing years. (Location 15121)

What would they have done, Sonya, the count and countess – they couldn’t just stand there watching their feeble Natasha fade away – if they hadn’t been able to minister to her with hourly pills, warm drinks, little cuts of chicken, and all the vital necessities laid down by the doctors that kept them so busy and consoled them one and all? As the rules laid down became ever more strict and complicated, so their consolation grew. How could the count have borne his beloved daughter’s illness without knowing it was costing him a thousand roubles and being ready to find thousands more if it would do her any good; without knowing that, if by any chance she didn’t get better, he would find thousands more again to take her abroad to consult foreign doctors; without being able to tell people in great detail how Métivier and Feller had got it all wrong, but Friez had got it right, and Mudrov had produced an even better diagnosis? (Location 15239)

As usual on Sundays the Rostovs were having a few close friends in for dinner. (Location 15484)

They talked him down, jostled him aside and turned their backs on him as if he was the common enemy, not because they didn’t like what he had said (which had been lost by now in the torrent of further speeches), but because a crowd is always at its liveliest when it has a tangible object to love and another one to hate. (Location 15775)

Alexander refused all negotiations because he felt personally insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army as best he could so as to do his duty and earn a glorious reputation as a great general. Rostov attacked the French because he could not resist the temptation to gallop across a flat field. And all the countless numbers of people involved in this war acted like this, each according to his own peculiarities, habits, circumstances and aims. Moved ostensibly by fear or vanity, pleasure, indignation or reason, and acting on the assumption they knew what they were doing and were doing it for themselves, they were actually nothing more than unwitting tools in the hands of history, performing a function hidden from themselves but comprehensible to us. This is the unavoidable fate of all men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less freedom they have. (Location 15835)

Russian historians are even keener to claim that from the outset there existed a plan of campaign borrowed from the Scythians which involved luring Napoleon into the heart of Russia, and some writers attribute this plan to Pfuel, some to an unknown Frenchman, some to Toll, while others attribute it to the Emperor Alexander himself, on the basis of notes, draft schemes and letters containing real hints at this course of action. But all these hints that what eventually happened was foreseen on both sides, the French and the Russian, are put forward now only because they have been justified by subsequent events. If the events had not occurred these hints would have been forgotten like the thousands, nay millions, of other contradictory hints and speculative ideas prevalent at the time that turned out to be wrong and were soon forgotten. The outcome of any event is always accompanied by such a range of speculative ideas about its cause that irrespective of the outcome there will always be somebody who can say, ‘Look, I told you that’s how it would turn out,’ conveniently forgetting the vast number of other speculative ideas, many of which predicted the exact opposite. (Location 15857)

just outside Smolensk he had seen a splendid field of oats being mown down by some soldiers apparently for fodder, and they had pitched camp in the middle of it. This really worried him, but he soon forgot it when his mind went back to his own business. (Location 16084)

All the interests in Alpatych’s life had been bounded by the will of the prince for over thirty years, and he had never strayed beyond those bounds. As far as Alpatych was concerned anything not connected with carrying out the prince’s orders was of no interest, in fact it didn’t exist. (Location 16086)

Note: Study in human nature

As Alpatych was driving out through the gate he saw a dozen loudmouthed soldiers in Ferapontov’s open shop helping themselves to wheat flour and sunflower seeds, and filling their bags and knapsacks. Ferapontov chose this moment to arrive home and come back into his shop. When he saw the soldiers his first impulse was to yell at them, but he stopped himself, clutched at his hair, and broke down, half-laughing, half-sobbing. ‘Help yourselves, boys! Don’t leave it for those devils,’ he shouted, grabbing sacks with his own hands and hurling them into the street. Some of the soldiers ran away because they were scared; others went on filling their bags. Ferapontov caught sight of Alpatych and turned in his direction. (Location 16208)

‘What are you doing here?’ Prince Andrey repeated. The flames flared up and in the bright light Alpatych caught a momentary glimpse of his young master’s face, pale and worn. Alpatych told him the full story of how he had been sent to town and was now finding it hard to get away. ‘Anyway, your Excellency, do you think we’ve had it?’ he asked again. Instead of replying Prince Andrey took out his note-book, propped up one knee, and scribbled a pencilled message on a torn-out page. He wrote this to his sister: Smolensk is surrendering. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy within a week. Go to Moscow immediately. Let me know the moment you leave. Send special messenger to Usvyazh. (Location 16232)

good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced that he lost because he made a mistake, and he goes back to the opening gambits to find what the mistake was, forgetting that his every move throughout the whole game involved similar errors, no move being perfect. The mistake that he concentrates on attracts his attention only because it was exploited by his opponent. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which has to be played out within specific time-limits, and where there is no question of one man’s will directing events through his (Location 16463)

‘But what did I expect? What did I want? I want him to die,’ she cried in a fit of self-loathing. She washed and dressed, ran through her prayers, and went out on to the steps. There were carriages at the entrance, without the horses, and their luggage was being stowed. (Location 16580)

These thoughts did not come naturally to Princess Marya, but it was now her bounden duty to think like her father and brother. As far as she was concerned she could stay anywhere and do anything, but no, she must think like a true representative of her dead father and Prince Andrey. Instinctively she had begun to think their thoughts and feel their feelings. She felt the inevitability of saying and doing whatever they would have said or done. She went into Prince Andrey’s study, tried to get right inside his way of thinking, and considered her predicament. The practicalities of life that had seemed so insignificant since her father’s death rose up again before Princess Marya with new, unparalleled intensity, and became an obsession. (Location 16807)

The bitter-sweet memory brought back the heart ache he hadn’t even thought about in recent days, though it still lay buried in his soul. (Location 17131)

the first approach of danger two voices always speak out with equal force in a man’s heart: one tells him very sensibly to consider the exact extent of the danger and any means of avoiding it; the other says even more sensibly that it’s too wearisome and agonizing to contemplate the danger, since it is not in a man’s power to anticipate future events and avoid the general run of things, so you might as well turn away from the nastiness until it hits you, and dwell on things that are pleasant. Left to himself a man will usually listen to the first voice; out in society he listens to the second one. This is what was now happening to the good people of Moscow. It was years since there had been so much fun in the city. (Location 17290)

Pierre pressed on as fast as he could, and the further he moved away from Moscow and the more deeply he became immersed in this ocean of troops, the stronger he was gripped by a thrilling sense of excitement and a totally new feeling of exhilaration. It was not unlike the sensation he had experienced at the Sloboda palace during the Tsar’s visit, a sense of the urgent need to do something positive and make sacrifices. He rejoiced in a new awareness that everything that makes for happiness in life – comfort, wealth, even life itself – was nothing but trash to be thrown away with pleasure when you compare it with … well, something else … What that something else was Pierre could not have said, and he didn’t even try to work out who or what he was taking such exquisite pleasure in honouring by the ultimate sacrifice. He wasn’t at all worried about why he wanted to start making sacrifices, but the idea of sacrifice itself was a source of new delight. (Location 17454)

The actions of Kutuzov and Napoleon in offering and accepting battle at Borodino were involuntary and meaningless. But later on, with the battle a fait accompli, historians have come forward with every kind of specious argument to demonstrate the foresight and genius of these generals, who of all the involuntary agents in the history of the world were surely the most enslaved and involuntary. The ancients have left us examples of epics with all the historical interest focused on particular heroes, and nowadays we cannot get used to the idea that this kind of history is meaningless at the present stage of human development. (Location 17481)

After Kaysarov Pierre was joined by other people that he knew, and he was powerless to deal with all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon him, or listen to all the tales they had to tell. Every face was a picture of excitement and worry. But what struck Pierre was that the reason for all the excitement on some of the faces had to do with questions of personal success, and he could not get out of his mind a different kind of excitement seen on other faces that had to do with universal questions rather than personal ones, questions of life and death. Kutuzov noticed the figure of Pierre and the group gathered round him. (Location 17734)

He was well aware that tomorrow’s engagement would be the most ghastly battle he had ever taken part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death presented itself, not in relation to the living world, or any effect it might have on other people, but purely in relation to himself and his own soul, and it seemed so vivid, almost a dependable certainty, stark and terrible. And from the heights of this vision everything that had once tormentingly preoccupied him seemed suddenly bathed in a cold, white light with no shadows, no perspective, no outline. His whole life seemed like a magic-lantern show that he had been staring at through glass by artificial light. Now suddenly the glass was gone, and he could see those awful daubings in the clear light of day. ‘Yes, yes, here they are, these false images that I used to find so worrying, enthralling and agonizing,’ he told himself, giving his imagination a free rein to run over the main pictures in the magic lantern of his life, looked at anew in the cold, white daylight brought on by a clear vision of death. (Location 17813)

‘Here they are, these crudely daubed figures that used to seem so magnificent and mysterious. Honour and glory, philanthropy, love of a woman, love of Fatherland – how grand these pictures used to seem, filled with such deep meanings! And now it all looks so simple, colourless and crude in the cold light of the morning I can feel coming upon me.’ There were three main regrets in his life that had a special claim on his attention: his love for a woman, the death of his father, and the invasion of the French, who now held half of Russia. ‘Love! … That little girl who seemed to be overflowing with mysterious energies. Oh, how I loved her! And I made all those romantic plans about love and happiness with her! Oh, what a nice little boy I was!’ he spat out aloud. ‘To think I believed in some ideal kind of love that would keep her faithful while I went away for a whole year! Like the gentle turtle-dove in the fable, she was supposed to pine away waiting for me! And now everything’s so much simpler … it’s all so horribly simple and ghastly!’ (Location 17820)

Believe me,’ he went on, ‘if anything really depended on what gets done at headquarters, I’d be up there with them, doing things, but no, I have the honour of serving here in this regiment along with these gentlemen, and I’m convinced that tomorrow’s outcome depends on us, not on them … Success never has depended, never will depend, on dispositions or armaments, not even numbers, and position least of all.’ ‘Well, what does it depend on?’ ‘On the gut feeling inside me and him,’ he indicated Timokhin, ‘and every soldier.’ (Location 17901)

Prince Andrey glanced across at Timokhin, who was staring at his commanding officer in alarm and bemusement. In contrast to his former silence and reserve, Prince Andrey now seemed to be all worked up. He seemed unable to stop himself blurting out every thought that came into his head. ‘A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost. And we said that because then we had nothing to fight for. (Location 17906)

German head like that man’s contains nothing but calculations no more useful than a sucked egg, and his heart lacks the one thing that’s needed for tomorrow, the thing that Timokhin has. They’ve given him the whole of Europe, and they come over here to give us lessons – wonderful teachers!’ he added, his voice rising again to screaming pitch. (Location 17934)

‘Taking no prisoners,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘That alone would transform the whole war and would make it less cruel. But playing at war, that’s what’s so vile, being magnanimous and all that sort of thing. That kind of magnanimity and sensitivity reminds me of the magnanimity and sensitivity of a posh lady who feels sick at the sight of a calf being slaughtered – she’s such a nice person she can’t stand the sight of blood, but she does enjoy a nice dish of fricasséed veal. They go on and on about the rules of war, chivalry, flags of truce, showing mercy to the afflicted, and so on. It’s a load of rubbish. I saw enough chivalry and flags of truce in 1805. They cheated us, and we cheated them. They loot people’s homes, issue counterfeit money and, worst of all, they kill my children and my father, and they still go on about the rules of war, and being magnanimous in victory. Don’t take any prisoners! Kill and be killed! Anyone who has got this far, as I have, through suffering …’ (Location 17948)

‘If we didn’t have all this business of magnanimity in warfare, we would only ever go to war when there was something worth facing certain death for, as there is now. Nobody would go to war just because Pavel Ivanych had insulted Mikhail Ivanych. (Location 17958)

When they heard Napoleon’s proclamation offering consolation for getting themselves maimed or killed in the knowledge that posterity would say they had been at the battle before Moscow, they shouted, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ in the same way that they had shouted, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ at the sight of the picture with the little boy skewering the earth on a stick, and would have shouted, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ at any bit of nonsense he might care to pronounce. They had nothing left to do but shout, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ and go off to fight in order to get themselves the victor’s food and rest in Moscow. It was not as a result of orders from Napoleon, therefore, that they set about the business of killing their fellow men. (Location 18167)

And it was not Napoleon who determined the course of the battle, because none of his instructions were carried out, and during the battle he had no knowledge of what was happening out in front of him. This is to say that the manner in which these men slaughtered one another was not the result of Napoleon’s will; the killing went on independently, resulting from the will of all the participants in their hundreds of thousands. It only seemed to Napoleon that everything was due to his will. For this reason the question whether Napoleon did or didn’t have a cold that day is of no greater interest to history than whether the humblest soldier in transport command had a cold or not. Napoleon’s health on the 26th of August gains no greater significance from the quite unjustified contention of some writers that his cold rendered his instructions and dispositions on the day less effective than before. The instructions reproduced above are certainly no worse, indeed they are better, than many a similar disposition that had brought him victory in the past. The instructions he is supposed to have issued in mid-battle were certainly no worse than any orders he had given before; they were much the same as usual. But these instructions and dispositions are now seen as inferior, for the simple reason that Borodino was the first battle that Napoleon didn’t win. (Location 18172)

The finest and profoundest of orders and dispositions will seem very weak, and open to criticism with a knowing air by every last student of military history, when the battle they were written for hasn’t been won. Conversely, the stupidest of orders and dispositions will seem very shrewd, and serious authors will write volume after volume to demonstrate their virtues, if only the battle they were written for has been won. (Location 18182)

Napoleon’s marshals and generals were nearer the battle scene but, like him, they were not actually involved, and only now and then did they find themselves under fire; these men issued their own instructions without consulting Napoleon, telling people where to stand and what to fire at, where the cavalry should ride and the infantry run. But even these instructions, just like Napoleon’s, were almost never followed, and if they were it was only to a tiny extent. More often than not, what happened was the opposite of what had been ordered. Soldiers told to advance would suddenly find themselves under a hail of grapeshot, and come running back. Soldiers told to stand still would suddenly see the Russians right in front of them, and either run away or surge forward, and the cavalry would charge off unbidden to catch up with any running Russians. (Location 18508)

Long years of military experience, confirmed by the wisdom of old age, had told him that one person cannot control hundreds of thousands of men fighting to the death, and he knew that the fate of battles is not decided by orders from the commander-in-chief, nor by the stationing of troops, nor the number of cannons or enemies killed, it is decided by a mysterious force known as the ‘spirit of the army’, and his lot was to keep track of that force and direct it as best he could. (Location 18620)

And back he went once again into his old world of artificiality with its fantasies of greatness, and once again (like a horse on a treadmill that thinks it’s doing something for itself) he humbly resumed the cruel, unhappy, burdensome, inhuman role that was his destiny. (Location 18846)

Why didn’t Kutuzov do this or that when he was forced to retreat? Why didn’t he dig in somewhere before Fili? Why didn’t he miss out on Moscow and go straight down the Kaluga road? And so on … People who think like that forget – or maybe they never knew – the extent to which commanders-in-chief are constrained by circumstances. (Location 19027)

At first the elderly dignitary was just as shocked as his younger counterpart had been to receive a proposal of marriage from a wife with a husband who was still alive. But Hélène’s absolute certainty that the whole thing was as simple and natural as marrying a young girl had its effect on him too. If she had shown the slightest twinge of hesitation, embarrassment or reticence her case would undoubtedly have been lost, but not only did she avoid showing any such twinge, she spoke openly about this business to her intimate friends (and that meant all Petersburg), informing them with disarming innocence that the prince and the dignitary had proposed to her, and since she loved both men she was afraid of hurting either of them. (Location 19286)

The servants gathered round Natasha, reluctant to believe the curious instructions she was giving out, until the count himself appeared and on behalf of his wife confirmed that all the carts were to be made available for the wounded and the boxes put into storage. Once they understood this, the servants set to with a new will and much enthusiasm. The new development no longer seemed strange; it seemed the most natural thing in the world, just as a quarter of an hour earlier they hadn’t thought it the least bit strange to be leaving wounded men behind and taking the furniture – that too had seemed the most natural thing in the world. (Location 19878)