Bab Bab 249 · 第249章

Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a

fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.

It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.

In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it

seems as much alive as other hives.

The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday

sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of

honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one

has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any

life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound

that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper’s tap on the

wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous

humming of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly

compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an

aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from

different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead

of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm

whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling

with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the

alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the

hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,

like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of

disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with

honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from

danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they

flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower

part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees—tamed by

toil, clinging to one another’s legs and drawing out the wax, with a

ceaseless hum of labor—that used to hang in long clusters down to the

floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in

various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a

neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,

there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees

scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared

away.

The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.

Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and

keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the

combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected

and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about

the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they

were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,

having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,

and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their

flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey

an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of

bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with

efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or

bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees

are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,

without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile

intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack

some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or

killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap

of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine

the brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by

thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery

of generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of

bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they

had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only

a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy’s

hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall

as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark

on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.

So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and

morose, paced up and down in front of the Kámmer-Kollézski rampart,

awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of

the proprieties—a deputation.

In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly

moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they

were doing.

When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was

empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently

continued to walk to and fro.

“My carriage!” he said.

He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the

suburb. “Moscow deserted!” he said to himself. “What an incredible

event!”

He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomílov

suburb.

The coup de théâtre had not come off.