Chương Chương 234 · 第234章

At that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating

without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow,

Rostopchín, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that

event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutúzov.

After the battle of Borodinó the abandonment and burning of Moscow was

as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting.

Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the

feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.

The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns

and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolénsk, without the

participation of Count Rostopchín and his broadsheets. The people

awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear

anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to

find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the

enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property,

while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left.

The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and

is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this,

and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian

Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July

and at the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who

went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half

their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses

itself not by phrases or by giving one’s children to save the fatherland

and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically,

and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.

“It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running

away from Moscow,” they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchín

impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed

to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing

it had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that

Rostopchín had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had

committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the

rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had

remained intact and that during Napoleon’s occupation the inhabitants

had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen

whom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so

much.

They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to

whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was

out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing

that could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodinó and

still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchín’s calls to defend Moscow

or the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of

the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were

to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchín wrote in

his broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that

if it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house

serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that

they must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property

to destruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous

significance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to

destruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when

abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his

own account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away

that the momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the

greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being

stopped by Count Rostopchín’s orders, had already in June moved with her

Negroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Sarátov estate, with

a vague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte’s servant, was really,

simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But

Count Rostopchín, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the

government offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to

the drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now

forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now

seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six

of them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now

hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his

own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding

them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of

having hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed;

now ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now

reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from

Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalmé (the center of the whole

French colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old

postmaster Klyucharëv to be arrested and exiled for no particular

offense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French

and now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed

and himself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would

not survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums

concerning his share in the affair—this man did not understand the

meaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself

that would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic

feat; and like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable

event—the abandonment and burning of Moscow—and tried with his puny hand

now to speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him

along with it.