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partly because there was a vague feeling that in the main it 
was going badly.
Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their fur-
lough they had become more friendly than ever. Denisov 
never spoke of Rostov’s family, but by the tender friend-
ship his commander showed him, Rostov felt that the elder 
hussar’s luckless love for Natasha played a part in strength-
ening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose 
Rostov to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action 

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greeted his safe return with evident joy. On one of his for-
aging expeditions, in a deserted and ruined village to which 
he had come in search of provisions, Rostov found a family 
consisting of an old Pole and his daughter with an infant in 
arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak to get away on 
foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostov 
brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodg-
ing, and kept them for some weeks while the old man was 
recovering. One of his comrades, talking of women, began 
chaffing Rostov, saying that he was more wily than any of 
them and that it would not be a bad thing if he introduced 
to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov took the 
joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things 
to the officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a 
duel. When the officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not 
himself know what Rostov’s relations with the Polish girl 
might be, began to upbraid him for his quickness of temper, 
and Rostov replied:
‘Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can’t 
tell you how it offended me... because... well, for that rea-
son...’
Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly 
pacing the room without looking at Rostov, as was his way 
at moments of deep feeling.
‘Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!’ he muttered, 
and Rostov noticed tears in his eyes.

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Chapter XVI
In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emper-
or’s arrival, but Rostov had no chance of being present at the 
review he held at Bartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the 
outposts far beyond that place.
They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living 
in an earth hut, dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed 
with branches and turf. The hut was made in the follow-
ing manner, which had then come into vogue. A trench was 
dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep, 
and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut 
out and these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench 
itself was the room, in which the lucky ones, such as the 
squadron commander, had a board, lying on piles at the end 
opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On each side of 
the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two 
and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. 
The roof was so constructed that one could stand up in the 
middle of the trench and could even sit up on the beds if one 
drew close to the table. Denisov, who was living luxuriously 
because the soldiers of his squadron liked him, had also a 
board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece of (broken 
but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold, 
embers from the soldiers’ campfire were placed on a bent 
sheet of iron on the steps in the ‘reception room’as Denisov 

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called that part of the hutand it was then so warm that the 
officers, of whom there were always some with Denisov and 
Rostov, sat in their shirt sleeves.
In April, Rostov was on orderly duty. One morning, be-
tween seven and eight, returning after a sleepless night, he 
sent for embers, changed his rain-soaked underclothes, said 
his prayers, drank tea, got warm, then tidied up the things on 
the table and in his own corner, and, his face glowing from 
exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his shirt, lay 
down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was 
pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in 
a few days for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was 
awaiting Denisov, who had gone out somewhere and with 
whom he wanted a talk.
Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice 
behind the hut, evidently much excited. Rostov moved to 
the window to see whom he was speaking to, and saw the 
quartermaster, Topcheenko.
‘I ordered you not to let them that Mashka woot stuff!’ 
Denisov was shouting. ‘And I saw with my own eyes how 
Lazarchuk bwought some fwom the fields.’
‘I have given the order again and again, your honor, but 
they don’t obey,’ answered the quartermaster.
Rostov lay down again on his bed and thought compla-
cently: ‘Let him fuss and bustle now, my job’s done and I’m 
lying downcapitally!’ He could hear that Lavrushkathat sly, 
bold orderly of Denisov’swas talking, as well as the quar-
termaster. Lavrushka was saying something about loaded 
wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone 

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out for provisions.
Then Denisov’s voice was heard shouting farther and 
farther away. ‘Saddle! Second platoon!’
‘Where are they off to now?’ thought Rostov.
Five minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed 
with muddy boots on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scat-
tered his things about, took his leaded whip, buckled on his 
saber, and went out again. In answer to Rostov’s inquiry 
where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly that 
he had some business.
‘Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!’ 
said Denisov going out, and Rostov heard the hoofs of sev-
eral horses splashing through the mud. He did not even 
trouble to find out where Denisov had gone. Having got 
warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the 
hut till toward evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The 
weather had cleared up, and near the next hut two officers 
and a cadet were playing svayka, laughing as they threw 
their missiles which buried themselves in the soft mud. 
Rostov joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers 
saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their 
skinny horses behind them. The wagons escorted by the 
hussars drew up to the picket ropes and a crowd of hussars 
surrounded them.
‘There now, Denisov has been worrying,’ said Rostov, 
‘and here are the provisions.’
‘So they are!’ said the officers. ‘Won’t the soldiers be 
glad!’
A little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied 

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by two infantry officers with whom he was talking.
Rostov went to meet them.
‘I warn you, Captain,’ one of the officers, a short thin 
man, evidently very angry, was saying.
‘Haven’t I told you I won’t give them up?’ replied Den-
isov.
‘You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutinyseizing the 
transport of one’s own army. Our men have had nothing to 
eat for two days.’
‘And mine have had nothing for two weeks,’ said Den-
isov.
‘It is robbery! You’ll answer for it, sir!’ said the infantry 
officer, raising his voice.
‘Now, what are you pestewing me for?’ cried Denisov, 
suddenly losing his temper. ‘I shall answer for it and not 
you, and you’d better not buzz about here till you get hurt. 
Be off! Go!’ he shouted at the officers.
‘Very well, then!’ shouted the little officer, undaunted 
and not riding away. ‘If you are determined to rob, I’ll..’
‘Go to the devil! quick ma’ch, while you’re safe and 
sound!’ and Denisov turned his horse on the officer.
‘Very well, very well!’ muttered the officer, threateningly, 
and turning his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.
‘A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!’ 
shouted Denisov after him (the most insulting expression 
a cavalryman can address to a mounted infantryman) and 
riding up to Rostov, he burst out laughing.
‘I’ve taken twansports from the infantwy by force!’ he 
said. ‘After all, can’t let our men starve.’

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The wagons that had reached the hussars had been con-
signed to an infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka 
that the transport was unescorted, Denisov with his hussars 
had seized it by force. The soldiers had biscuits dealt out 
to them freely, and they even shared them with the other 
squadrons.
The next day the regimental commander sent for Denis-
ov, and holding his fingers spread out before his eyes said:
‘This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it 
and won’t begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over 
to the staff and settle the business there in the commissariat 
department and if possible sign a receipt for such and such 
stores received. If not, as the demand was booked against 
an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair may 
end badly.’
From the regimental commander’s, Denisov rode straight 
to the staff with a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the 
evening he came back to his dugout in a state such as Ros-
tov had never yet seen him in. Denisov could not speak and 
gasped for breath. When Rostov asked what was the mat-
ter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a 
hoarse, feeble voice.
Alarmed at Denisov’s condition, Rostov suggested that 
he should undress, drink some water, and send for the doc-
tor.
‘Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them 
twy me, but I’ll always thwash scoundwels... and I’ll tell the 
Empewo’... Ice...’ he muttered.
The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was abso-

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lutely necessary to bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black 
blood was taken from his hairy arm and only then was he 
able to relate what had happened to him.
‘I get there,’ began Denisov. ‘‘Now then, where’s your 
chief’s quarters?’ They were pointed out. ‘Please to wait.’ 
‘I’ve widden twenty miles and have duties to attend to and 
no time to wait. Announce me.’ Vewy well, so out comes 
their head chiefalso took it into his head to lecture me: ‘It’s 
wobbewy!’‘Wobbewy,’ I say, ‘is not done by man who seizes 
pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them 
to fill his own pockets!’ ‘Will you please be silent?’ ‘Vewy 
good!’ Then he says: ‘Go and give a weceipt to the commis-
sioner, but your affair will be passed on to headquarters.’ I 
go to the commissioner. I enter, and at the table... who do 
you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it that’s starving us?’ 
shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his newly 
bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and 
the tumblers on it jumped about. ‘Telyanin! ‘What? So it’s 
you who’s starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!’ 
and I hit him so pat, stwaight on his snout... ‘Ah, what a... 
what...!’ and I sta’ted fwashing him... Well, I’ve had a bit of 
fun I can tell you!’ cried Denisov, gleeful and yet angry, his 
showing under his black mustache. ‘I’d have killed him if 
they hadn’t taken him away!’
‘But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself,’ said Ros-
tov. ‘You’ve set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie 
it up again.’
Denisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day 
he woke calm and cheerful.

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But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Ros-
tov’s and Denisov’s dugout with a grave and serious face 
and regretfully showed them a paper addressed to Major 
Denisov from the regimental commander in which inqui-
ries were made about yesterday’s occurrence. The adjutant 
told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: 
that a court-martial had been appointed, and that in view 
of the severity with which marauding and insubordination 
were now regarded, degradation to the ranks would be the 
best that could be hoped for.
The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, 
after seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, 
went to the chief quartermaster and without any provoca-
tion called him a thief, threatened to strike him, and on 
being led out had rushed into the office and given two offi-
cials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.
In answer to Rostov’s renewed questions, Denisov said, 
laughing, that he thought he remembered that some other 
fellow had got mixed up in it, but that it was all nonsense 
and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear any kind of tri-
al, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he would 
give them an answer that they would not easily forget.
Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but 
Rostov knew him too well not to detect that (while hid-
ing it from others) at heart he feared a court-martial and 
was worried over the affair, which was evidently taking a 
bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices from the 
court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered 
to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and ap-

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pear before the staff of his division to explain his violence at 
the commissariat office. On the previous day Platov recon-
noitered with two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of 
hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode out in front of the 
outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a French 
sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at 
another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for 
so slight a wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse 
himself from appearing at the staff and went into hospital.

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Chapter XVII
In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the 
Pavlograds did not take part, and after that an armistice 
was proclaimed. Rostov, who felt his friend’s absence very 
much, having no news of him since he left and feeling very 
anxious about his wound and the progress of his affairs, 
took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov 
in hospital.
The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been 
twice devastated by Russian and French troops. Because it 
was summer, when it is so beautiful out in the fields, the 
little town presented a particularly dismal appearance with 
its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets, tattered inhabit-
ants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.
The hospital was in a brick building with some of the 
window frames and panes broken and a courtyard sur-
rounded by the remains of a wooden fence that had been 
pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale swol-
len faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in 
the yard.
Directly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a 
smell of putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met 
a Russian army doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was fol-
lowed by a Russian assistant.
‘I can’t tear myself to pieces,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Come 

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to Makar Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there.’
The assistant asked some further questions.
‘Oh, do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?’ The doctor 
noticed Rostov coming upstairs.
‘What do you want, sir?’ said the doctor. ‘What do you 
want? The bullets having spared you, do you want to try ty-
phus? This is a pesthouse, sir.’
‘How so?’ asked Rostov.
‘Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and 
I’ (he pointed to the assistant), ‘keep on here. Some five of us 
doctors have died in this place.... When a new one comes he 
is done for in a week,’ said the doctor with evident satisfac-
tion. ‘Prussian doctors have been invited here, but our allies 
don’t like it at all.’
Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of 
the hussars, who was wounded.
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone 
in charge of three hospitals with more than four hundred 
patients! It’s well that the charitable Prussian ladies send 
us two pounds of coffee and some lint each month or we 
should be lost!’ he laughed. ‘Four hundred, sir, and they’re 
always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?’ 
he asked, turning to the assistant.
The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed 
and impatient for the talkative doctor to go.
‘Major Denisov,’ Rostov said again. ‘He was wounded at 
Molliten.’
‘Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?’ queried the doctor, in a tone 
of indifference.

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The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor’s 
words.
‘Is he tall and with reddish hair?’ asked the doctor.
Rostov described Denisov’s appearance.
‘There was one like that,’ said the doctor, as if pleased. 
‘That one is dead, I fancy. However, I’ll look up our list. We 
had a list. Have you got it, Makeev?’
‘Makar Alexeevich has the list,’ answered the assistant. 
‘But if you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for your-
self,’ he added, turning to Rostov.
‘Ah, you’d better not go, sir,’ said the doctor, ‘or you may 
have to stay here yourself.’
But Rostov bowed himself away from the doctor and 
asked the assistant to show him the way.
‘Only don’t blame me!’ the doctor shouted up after him.
Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The 
smell was so strong there that Rostov held his nose and had 
to pause and collect his strength before he could go on. A 
door opened to the right, and an emaciated sallow man on 
crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped out and, 
leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envi-
ous eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, 
Rostov saw that the sick and wounded were lying on the 
floor on straw and overcoats.
‘May I go in and look?’
‘What is there to see?’ said the assistant.
But, just because the assistant evidently did not want 
him to go in, Rostov entered the soldiers’ ward. The foul air, 
to which he had already begun to get used in the corridor, 

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was still stronger here. It was a little different, more pun-
gent, and one felt that this was where it originated.
In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the 
large windows, the sick and wounded lay in two rows with 
their heads to the walls, and leaving a passage in the middle. 
Most of them were unconscious and paid no attention to the 
newcomers. Those who were conscious raised themselves or 
lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at Ros-
tov with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, 
and envy of another’s health. Rostov went to the middle of 
the room and looking through the open doors into the two 
adjoining rooms saw the same thing there. He stood still, 
looking silently around. He had not at all expected such a 
sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the pas-
sage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack 
to judge by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his 
huge arms and legs outstretched. His face was purple, his 
eyes were rolled back so that only the whites were seen, and 
on his bare legs and arms which were still red, the veins 
stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of his head 
against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he 
kept repeating. Rostov listened and made out the word. It 
was ‘drink, drink, a drink!’ Rostov glanced round, looking 
for someone who would put this man back in his place and 
bring him water.
‘Who looks after the sick here?’ he asked the assistant.
Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came 
in from the next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in 
front of Rostov.

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‘Good day, your honor!’ he shouted, rolling his eyes at 
Rostov and evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital 
authorities.
‘Get him to his place and give him some water,’ said Ros-
tov, pointing to the Cossack.
‘Yes, your honor,’ the soldier replied complacently, and 
rolling his eyes more than ever he drew himself up still 
straighter, but did not move.
‘No, it’s impossible to do anything here,’ thought Ros-
tov, lowering his eyes, and he was going out, but became 
aware of an intense look fixed on him on his right, and 
he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat, sat an old, 
unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with 
a stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostov. The 
man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to him, 
pointing at Rostov, who noticed that the old man wanted to 
speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the old man had 
only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputat-
ed above the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay 
motionless some distance from him with his head thrown 
back, was a young soldier with a snub nose. His pale waxen 
face was still freckled and his eyes were rolled back. Rostov 
looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran down his 
back.
‘Why, this one seems...’ he began, turning to the assis-
tant.
‘And how we’ve been begging, your honor,’ said the old 
soldier, his jaw quivering. ‘He’s been dead since morning. 
After all we’re men, not dogs.’

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‘I’ll send someone at once. He shall be taken awaytaken 
away at once,’ said the assistant hurriedly. ‘Let us go, your 
honor.’
‘Yes, yes, let us go,’ said Rostov hastily, and lowering his 
eyes and shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the 
rows of reproachful envious eyes that were fixed upon him, 
and went out of the room.

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Chapter XVIII
Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to 
the officers’ wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of 
which stood open. There were beds in these rooms and the 
sick and wounded officers were lying or sitting on them. 
Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing 
gowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers’ ward was 
a thin little man with one arm, who was walking about the 
first room in a nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a 
pipe between his teeth. Rostov looked at him, trying to re-
member where he had seen him before.
‘See where we’ve met again!’ said the little man. ‘Tushin, 
Tushin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon 
Grabern? And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see...’ he went on 
with a smile, pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing 
gown. ‘Looking for Vasili Dmitrich Denisov? My neighbor,’ 
he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted. ‘Here, here,’ 
and Tushin led him into the next room, from whence came 
sounds of several laughing voices.
‘How can they laugh, or even live at all here?’ thought 
Rostov, still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that 
had been so strong in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming 
to see fixed on him those envious looks which had followed 
him out from both sides, and the face of that young soldier 
with eyes rolled back.

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Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the 
blanket, though it was nearly noon.
‘Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?’ he called out, 
still in the same voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed 
sadly that under this habitual ease and animation some 
new, sinister, hidden feeling showed itself in the expression 
of Denisov’s face and the intonations of his voice.
His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even 
now, six weeks after he had been hit. His face had the same 
swollen pallor as the faces of the other hospital patients, but 
it was not this that struck Rostov. What struck him was that 
Denisov did not seem glad to see him, and smiled at him 
unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about 
the general state of affairs, and when Rostov spoke of these 
matters did not listen.
Rostov even noticed that Denisov did not like to be re-
minded of the regiment, or in general of that other free life 
which was going on outside the hospital. He seemed to try 
to forget that old life and was only interested in the affair 
with the commissariat officers. On Rostov’s inquiry as to 
how the matter stood, he at once produced from under his 
pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the 
rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when 
he began reading his paper and specially drew Rostov’s at-
tention to the stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. 
His hospital companions, who had gathered round Rostova 
fresh arrival from the world outsidegradually began to dis-
perse as soon as Denisov began reading his answer. Rostov 
noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already 

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heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only 
the man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued 
to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, 
and little one-armed Tushin still listened, shaking his head 
disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan in-
terrupted Denisov.
‘But what I say is,’ he said, turning to Rostov, ‘it would 
be best simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say 
great rewards will now be distributed, and surely a pardon 
would be granted...’
‘Me petition the Empewo’!’ exclaimed Denisov, in a voice 
to which he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but 
which sounded like an expression of irritable impotence. 
‘What for? If I were a wobber I would ask mercy, but I’m 
being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book. Let 
them twy me, I’m not afwaid of anyone. I’ve served the Tsar 
and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I 
to be degwaded?... Listen, I’m w’iting to them stwaight. This 
is what I say: ‘If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...’’
‘It’s certainly well written,’ said Tushin, ‘but that’s not 
the point, Vasili Dmitrich,’ and he also turned to Rostov. 
‘One has to submit, and Vasili Dmitrich doesn’t want to. 
You know the auditor told you it was a bad business.
‘Well, let it be bad,’ said Denisov.
‘The auditor wrote out a petition for you,’ continued 
Tushin, ‘and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to 
take it. No doubt he’ (indicating Rostov) ‘has connections 
on the staff. You won’t find a better opportunity.’
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rupted him, went on reading his paper.
Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though 
he instinctively felt that the way advised by Tushin and the 
other officers was the safest, and though he would have been 
glad to be of service to Denisov. He knew his stubborn will 
and straightforward hasty temper.
When the reading of Denisov’s virulent reply, which 
took more than an hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and 
he spent the rest of the day in a most dejected state of mind 
amid Denisov’s hospital comrades, who had round him, 
telling them what he knew and listening to their stories. 
Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he 
asked Denisov whether he had no commission for him.
‘Yes, wait a bit,’ said Denisov, glancing round at the of-
ficers, and taking his papers from under his pillow he went 
to the window, where he had an inkpot, and sat down to 
write.
‘It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!’ 
he said, coming from the window and giving Rostov a large 
envelope. In it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up 
by the auditor, in which Denisov, without alluding to the 
offenses of the commissariat officials, simply asked for par-
don.
‘Hand it in. It seems..’
He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.

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Chapter XIX
Having returned to the regiment and told the com-
mander the state of Denisov’s affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit 
with the letter to the Emperor.
On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Em-
perors arrived in Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the 
important personage on whom he was in attendance, to in-
clude him in the suite appointed for the stay at Tilsit.
‘I should like to see the great man,’ he said, alluding to 
Napoleon, whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always 
called Buonaparte.
‘You are speaking of Buonaparte?’ asked the general, 
smiling.
Boris looked at his general inquiringly and immediately 
saw that he was being tested.
‘I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,’ he 
replied. The general patted him on the shoulder, with a 
smile.
‘You will go far,’ he said, and took him to Tilsit with 
him.
Boris was among the few present at the Niemen on the 
day the two Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with 
monograms, saw Napoleon pass before the French Guards 
on the farther bank of the river, saw the pensive face of the 
Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern on the 

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bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both 
Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleonreaching 
the raft firststepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and 
held out his hand to him, and how they both retired into the 
pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the highest circles 
Boris had made it his habit to watch attentively all that went 
on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meet-
ing at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with 
Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened 
attentively to words spoken by important personages. At 
the moment the Emperors went into the pavilion he looked 
at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again when Al-
exander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and 
fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, 
among other facts he felt to be of historic importance. As the 
Emperor’s suite was a very small one, it was a matter of great 
importance, for a man who valued his success in the ser-
vice, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this interview between 
the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Boris felt 
that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not 
only become known, but people had grown accustomed to 
him and accepted him. Twice he had executed commissions 
to the Emperor himself, so that the latter knew his face, and 
all those at court, far from cold-shouldering him as at first 
when they considered him a newcomer, would now have 
been surprised had he been absent.
Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count 
Zhilinski. Zhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, 
and passionately fond of the French, and almost every day 

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of the stay at Tilsit, French officers of the Guard and from 
French headquarters were dining and lunching with him 
and Boris.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhi-
linski arranged a supper for his French friends. The guest of 
honor was an aide-de-camp of Napoleon’s, there were also 
several French officers of the Guard, and a page of Napo-
leon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family. That 
same day, Rostov, profiting by the darkness to avoid being 
recognized in civilian dress. came to Tilsit and went to the 
lodging occupied by Boris and Zhilinski.
Rostov, in common with the whole army from which 
he came, was far from having experienced the change of 
feeling toward Napoleon and the Frenchwho from being 
foes had suddenly become friendsthat had taken place at 
headquarters and in Boris. In the army, Bonaparte and the 
French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, 
contempt, and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Pla-
tov’s Cossack officers, Rostov had argued that if Napoleon 
were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a sovereign, 
but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wound-
ed French colonel on the road, Rostov had maintained 
with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate 
sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostov was there-
fore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers 
in Boris’ lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been accus-
tomed to see from quite a different point of view from the 
outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, 
who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of 

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hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the en-
emy suddenly seized him. He stopped at the threshold and 
asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there. Boris, 
hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet 
him. An expression of annoyance showed itself for a mo-
ment on his face on first recognizing Rostov.
‘Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,’ he said, 
however, coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov had 
noticed his first impulse.
‘I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, 
but I have business,’ he said coldly.
‘No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from 
your regiment. Dans un moment je suis a vous,’* he said, 
answering someone who called him.
*”In a minute I shall be at your disposal.’
‘I see I’m intruding,’ Rostov repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from 
Boris’ face: having evidently reflected and decided how to 
act, he very quietly took both Rostov’s hands and led him 
into the next room. His eyes, looking serenely and steadily 
at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by something, as if screened 
by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Ros-
tov.
‘Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!’ 
said Boris, and he led him into the room where the supper 
table was laid and introduced him to his guests, explaining 
that he was not a civilian, but an hussar officer, and an old 
friend of his.
‘Count Zhilinskile Comte N. N.le Capitaine S. S.,’ said he, 

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naming his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the French-
men, bowed reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian per-
son very willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. 
Boris did not appear to notice the constraint the newcomer 
produced and, with the same pleasant composure and the 
same veiled look in his eyes with which he had met Rostov, 
tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, 
with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, ad-
dressed the obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the 
latter had probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
‘No, I came on business,’ replied Rostov, briefly.
Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he no-
ticed the look of dissatisfaction on Boris’ face, and as always 
happens to those in a bad humor, it seemed to him that 
everyone regarded him with aversion and that he was in ev-
erybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he alone took 
no part in the conversation which again became general. 
The looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: ‘And what 
is he sitting here for?’ He rose and went up to Boris.
‘Anyhow, I’m in your way,’ he said in a low tone. ‘Come 
and talk over my business and I’ll go away.’
‘Oh, no, not at all,’ said Boris. ‘But if you are tired, come 
and lie down in my room and have a rest.’
‘Yes, really..’
They went into the little room where Boris slept. Rostov, 
without sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris 
were to blame in some way) telling him about Denisov’s 
affair, asking him whether, through his general, he could 

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and would intercede with the Emperor on Denisov’s behalf 
and get Denisov’s petition handed in. When he and Boris 
were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not 
look Boris in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Bo-
ris, with one leg crossed over the other and stroking his left 
hand with the slender fingers of his right, listened to Rostov 
as a general listens to the report of a subordinate, now look-
ing aside and now gazing straight into Rostov’s eyes with 
the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostov felt 
uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.
‘I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty 
is very severe in such affairs. I think it would be best not to 
bring it before the Emperor, but to apply to the commander 
of the corps.... But in general, I think..’
‘So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!’ 
Rostov almost shouted, not looking Boris in the face.
Boris smiled.
‘On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought..’
At that moment Zhilinski’s voice was heard calling Bo-
ris.
‘Well then, go, go, go...’ said Rostov, and refusing supper 
and remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and 
down for a long time, hearing the lighthearted French con-
versation from the next room.
CHAPTER XX
Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a pe-
tition on Denisov’s behalf. He could not himself go to the 
general in attendance as he was in mufti and had come to 
Tilsit without permission to do so, and Boris, even had he 

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wished to, could not have done so on the following day. On 
that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were signed. 
The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received 
the Cross of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order 
of St. Andrew of the First Degree, and a dinner had been ar-
ranged for the evening, given by a battalion of the French 
Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The Emperors were 
to be present at that banquet.
Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris 
that, when the latter looked in after supper, he pretended 
to be asleep, and early next morning went away, avoiding 
Boris. In his civilian clothes and a round hat, he wandered 
about the town, staring at the French and their uniforms 
and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French 
Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set 
up and preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Rus-
sian and French colors draped from side to side of the 
streets, with hugh monograms A and N. In the windows of 
the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.
‘Boris doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask 
him. That’s settled,’ thought Nicholas. ‘All is over between 
us, but I won’t leave here without having done all I can for 
Denisov and certainly not without getting his letter to the 
Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!’ thought Rostov, who 
had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander 
lodged.
Saddled horses were standing before the house and the 
suite were assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor 
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‘I may see him at any moment,’ thought Rostov. ‘If only I 
were to hand the letter direct to him and tell him all... could 
they really arrest me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He 
would understand on whose side justice lies. He understands 
everything, knows everything. Who can be more just, more 
magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for 
being here, what would it matter?’ thought he, looking at an 
officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. 
‘After all, people do go in.... It’s all nonsense! I’ll go in and 
hand the letter to the Emperor myself so much the worse 
for Drubetskoy who drives me to it!’ And suddenly with a 
determination he himself did not expect, Rostov felt for the 
letter in his pocket and went straight to the house.
‘No, I won’t miss my opportunity now, as I did after 
Austerlitz,’ he thought, expecting every moment to meet 
the monarch, and conscious of the blood that rushed to his 
heart at the thought. ‘I will fall at his feet and beseech him. 
He will lift me up, will listen, and will even thank me. ‘I am 
happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the 
greatest happiness,’’ Rostov fancied the sovereign saying. 
And passing people who looked after him with curiosity, he 
entered the porch of the Emperor’s house.
A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to 
the right he saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, 
was a door leading to the lower floor.
‘Whom do you want?’ someone inquired.
‘To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,’ said Nich-
olas, with a tremor in his voice.
‘A petition? This way, to the officer the officer on duty’ 

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(he was shown the door leading downstairs), ‘only it won’t 
be accepted.’
On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened 
at what he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emper-
or at any moment was so fascinating and consequently so 
alarming that he was ready to run away, but the official who 
had questioned him opened the door, and Rostov entered.
A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and 
high boots and a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just 
put on, standing in that room, and his valet was button-
ing on to the back of his breeches a new pair of handsome 
silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason, attracted 
Rostov’s attention. This man was was speaking to someone 
in the adjoining room.
‘A good figure and in her first bloom,’ he was saying, but 
on seeing Rostov, he stopped short and frowned.
‘What is it? A petition?’
‘What is it?’ asked the person in the other room.
‘Another petitioner,’ answered the man with the braces.
‘Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly, we 
must go.’
‘Later... later! Tomorrow. It’s too late..’
Rostov turned and was about to go, but the man in the 
braces stopped him.
‘Whom have you come from? Who are you?’
‘I come from Major Denisov,’ answered Rostov.
‘Are you an officer?’
‘Lieutenant Count Rostov.’
‘What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. 

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And go along with you... go,’ and he continued to put on the 
uniform the valet handed him.
Rostov went back into the hall and noticed that in the 
porch there were many officers and generals in full parade 
uniform, whom he had to pass.
Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of 
finding himself at any moment face to face with the Em-
peror and being put to shame and arrested in his presence, 
fully alive now to the impropriety of his conduct and re-
penting of it, Rostov, with downcast eyes, was making his 
way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a fa-
miliar voice called him and a hand detained him.
‘What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?’ asked a 
deep voice.
It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor’s 
special favor during this campaign, and who had formerly 
commanded the division in which Rostov was serving.
Rostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing 
the kindly, jocular face of the general, he took him aside and 
in an excited voice told him the whole affair, asking him 
to intercede for Denisov, whom the general knew. Having 
heard Rostov to the end, the general shook his head grave-
ly.
‘I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.’
Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished 
explaining Denisov’s case, when hasty steps and the jingling 
of spurs were heard on the stairs, and the general, leaving 
him, went to the porch. The gentlemen of the Emperor’s 
suite ran down the stairs and went to their horses. Hayne, 

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the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the Em-
peror’s horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostov knew 
at once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of 
being recognized, Rostov went close to the porch, together 
with some inquisitive civilians, and again, after two years, 
saw those features he adored: that same face and same look 
and step, and the same union of majesty and mildness.... 
And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign 
rose again in Rostov’s soul in all its old force. In the uni-
form of the Preobrazhensk regimentwhite chamois-leather 
breeches and high bootsand wearing a star Rostov did not 
know (it was that of the Legion d’honneur), the monarch 
came out into the porch, putting on his gloves and carrying 
his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him, 
brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a 
few words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the for-
mer commander of Rostov’s division, smiled and beckoned 
to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostov saw the general talk-
ing for some time to the Emperor.
The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step 
toward his horse. Again the crowd of members of the suite 
and street gazers (among whom was Rostov) moved nearer 
to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with his hand on 
the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and 
said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:
‘I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is 
stronger than I,’ and he raised his foot to the stirrup.
The general bowed his head respectfully, and the mon-

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arch mounted and rode down the street at a gallop. Beside 
himself with enthusiasm, Rostov ran after him with the 
crowd.

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Chapter XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one anoth-
er, a battalion of the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the 
right and a battalion of the French Guards in their bearskin 
caps on the left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which 
presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to 
the opposite flank, and at the head of them Rostov recog-
nized Napoleon. It could be no one else. He came at a gallop, 
wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a white vest, 
and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding 
a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson 
gold-embroidered saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander 
he raised his hat, and as he did so, Rostov, with his cavalry-
man’s eye, could not help noticing that Napoleon did not sit 
well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions shouted ‘Hur-
rah!’ and ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Napoleon said something to 
Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each 
other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and ar-
tificial smile. Alexander was saying something affable to 
him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ hors-
es, which were pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes 
on every movement of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck 
him as a surprise that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an 

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equal and that the latter was quite at ease with the Tsar, as 
if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter 
to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their 
suites, approached the right flank of the Preobrazhensk bat-
talion and came straight up to the crowd standing there. 
The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close to the Em-
perors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was afraid he 
might be recognized.
‘Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Hon-
or to the bravest of your soldiers,’ said a sharp, precise voice, 
articulating every letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up 
straight into Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentive-
ly to what was said to him and, bending his head, smiled 
pleasantly.
‘To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last 
war,’ added Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with 
a composure and assurance exasperating to Rostov, he ran 
his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up before him, who 
all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their Emperor.
‘Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?’ said 
Alexander and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Ko-
zlovski, the commander of the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his 
small white hand, tore it in doing so, and threw it away. 
An aide-de-camp behind him rushed forward and picked 
it up.
‘To whom shall it be given?’ the Emperor Alexander 

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asked Koslovski, in Russian in a low voice.
‘To whomever Your Majesty commands.’
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, 
glancing back, remarked:
‘But we must give him an answer.’
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included 
Rostov in his scrutiny.
‘Can it be me?’ thought Rostov.
‘Lazarev!’ the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, 
the first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
‘Where are you off to? Stop here!’ voices whispered to 
Lazarev who did not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, 
casting a sidelong look at his colonel in alarm. His face 
twitched, as often happens to soldiers called before the 
ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump 
little hand out behind him as if to take something. The 
members of his suite, guessing at once what he wanted, 
moved about and whispered as they passed something from 
one to another, and a pagethe same one Rostov had seen the 
previous evening at Boris’ran forward and, bowing respect-
fully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting 
a moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, 
without looking, pressed two fingers together and the badge 
was between them. Then he approached Lazarev (who rolled 
his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch), looked 
round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was 
now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small 
white hand holding the Order touched one of Lazarev’s but-

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tons. It was as if Napoleon knew that it was only necessary 
for his hand to deign to touch that soldier’s breast for the 
soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and distinguished 
from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the 
cross on Lazarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned to-
ward Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere 
there. And it really did.
Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized 
the cross and fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced 
morosely at the little man with white hands who was doing 
something to him and, still standing motionless present-
ing arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s eyes, as 
if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do 
something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for 
some time in that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobra-
zhensk battalion, breaking rank, mingled with the French 
Guards and sat down at the tables prepared for them.
Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French 
officers embraced him, congratulated him, and pressed his 
hands. Crowds of officers and civilians drew near merely to 
see him. A rumble of Russian and French voices and laugh-
ter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two officers 
with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by 
Rostov.
‘What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,’ one of 
them was saying. ‘Have you seen Lazarev?’
‘I have.’
‘Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them 

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a dinner.’
‘Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs’ 
pension for life.’
‘Here’s a cap, lads!’ shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, 
donning a shaggy French cap.
‘It’s a fine thing! First-rate!’
‘Have you heard the password?’ asked one Guards’ offi-
cer of another. ‘The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoleon, 
France, bravoure’; yesterday, ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’ 
One day our Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. To-
morrow our Emperor will send a St. George’s Cross to the 
bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must 
respond in kind.’
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Pre-
obrazhensk banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov 
standing by the corner of a house.
‘Rostov! How d’you do? We missed one another,’ he said, 
and could not refrain from asking what was the matter, so 
strangely dismal and troubled was Rostov’s face.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ replied Rostov.
‘You’ll call round?’
‘Yes, I will.’
Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching 
the feast from a distance. a distance. In his mind, a painful 
process was going on which he could not bring to a conclu-
sion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he remembered 
Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and 
the whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt 
and disease. So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of 

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dead flesh that he looked round to see where the smell came 
from. Next he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte, with 
his small white hand, who was now an Emperor, liked and 
respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and 
legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Laza-
rev rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He 
caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was 
frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating 
and a sense of hunger recalled him from these reflections; 
he had to get something to eat before going away. He went 
to a hotel he had noticed that morning. There he found so 
many people, among them officers who, like himself, had 
come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting 
a dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The 
conversation naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his 
comrades, like most of the army, were dissatisfied with the 
peace concluded after the battle of Friedland. They said that 
had we held out a little longer Napoleon would have been 
done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammuni-
tion. Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. 
He finished a couple of bottles of wine by himself. The pro-
cess in his mind went on tormenting him without reaching 
a conclusion. He feared to give way to his thoughts, yet 
could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the officers’ 
saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Ros-
tov began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore 
much to the surprise of the officers:
‘How can you judge what’s best?’ he cried, the blood sud-

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denly rushing to his face. ‘How can you judge the Emperor’s 
actions? What right have we to argue? We cannot compre-
hend either the Emperor’s or his actions!’
‘But I never said a word about the Emperor!’ said the of-
ficer, justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov’s 
outburst, except on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov did not listen to him.
‘We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and 
nothing more,’ he went on. ‘If we are ordered to die, we 
must die. If we’re punished, it means that we have deserved 
it, it’s not for us to judge. If the Emperor pleases to recog-
nize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance 
with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once 
we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing 
sacred will be left! That way we shall be saying there is no 
Godnothing!’ shouted Nicholas, banging the tablevery little 
to the point as it seemed to his listeners, but quite relevantly 
to the course of his own thoughts.
‘Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! 
That’s all....’ said he.
‘And to drink,’ said one of the officers, not wishing to 
quarrel.
‘Yes, and to drink,’ assented Nicholas. ‘Hullo there! An-
other bottle!’ he shouted.
In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh 
interview with the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper cir-
cles of Petersburg there was much talk of the grandeur of 
this important meeting.

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Chapter XXII
In 1809 the intimacy between ‘the world’s two arbiters,’ as 
Napoleon and Alexander were called, was such that when 
Napoleon declared war on Austria a Russian corps crossed 
the frontier to co-operate with our old enemy Bonaparte 
against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in court 
circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and 
one of Alexander’s sisters was spoken of. But besides consid-
erations of foreign policy, the attention of Russian society 
was at that time keenly directed on the internal changes 
that were being undertaken in all the departments of gov-
ernment.
Life meanwhilereal life, with its essential interests of 
health and sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual in-
terests in thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, 
hatred, and passionswent on as usual, independently of and 
apart from political friendship or enmity with Napoleon 
Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.

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Chapter I
Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the 
country.
All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estatesand 
constantly changing from one thing to another had never 
accomplishedwere carried out by Prince Andrew without 
display and without perceptible difficulty.
He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which 
Pierre lacked, and without fuss or strain on his part this set 
things going.
On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liber-
ated and became free agricultural laborersthis being one of 
the first examples of the kind in Russia. On other estates 
the serfs’ compulsory labor was commuted for a quitrent. 
A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo at his ex-
pense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to 
the children of the peasants and household serfs.
Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his 
father and his son, who was still in the care of nurses. The 
other half he spent in ‘Bogucharovo Cloister,’ as his father 
called Prince Andrew’s estate. Despite the indifference to 
the affairs of the world he had expressed to Pierre, he dili-
gently followed all that went on, received many books, and 
to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visi-
tors from Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people 

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lagged behind himselfwho never left the countryin knowl-
edge of what was happening in home and foreign affairs.
Besides being occupied with his estates and reading 
a great variety of books, Prince Andrew was at this time 
busy with a critical of survey our last two unfortunate cam-
paigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a reform of the 
army rules and regulations.
In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates 
which had been inherited by his son, whose guardian he 
was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche 
looking at the new grass, the first leaves on the birches, and 
the first puffs of white spring clouds floating across the clear 
blue sky. He was not thinking of anything, but looked ab-
sent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.
They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre 
the year before. They went through the muddy village, past 
threshing floors and green fields of winter rye, downhill 
where snow still lodged near the bridge, uphill where the 
clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of stubble 
land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into 
a birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the for-
est it was almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with 
their sticky green leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored 
flowers and the first blades of green grass were pushing up 
and lifting last year’s leaves. The coarse evergreen color of 
the small fir trees scattered here and there among the birch-
es was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the 
forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.

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Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; 
the latter assented. But apparently the coachman’s sym-
pathy was not enough for Peter, and he turned on the box 
toward his master.
‘How pleasant it is, your excellency!’ he said with a re-
spectful smile.
‘What?’
‘It’s pleasant, your excellency!’
‘What is he talking about?’ thought Prince Andrew. ‘Oh, 
the spring, I suppose,’ he thought as he turned round. ‘Yes, 
really everything is green already.... How early! The birches 
and cherry and alders too are coming out.... But the oaks 
show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!’
At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times 
the age of the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times 
as thick and twice as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its 
girth twice as great as a man could embrace, and evidently 
long ago some of its branches had been broken off and its 
bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling un-
symmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an 
aged, stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch 
trees. Only the dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about 
in the forest, and this oak, refused to yield to the charm of 
spring or notice either the spring or the sunshine.
‘Spring, love, happiness!’ this oak seemed to say. ‘Are 
you not weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly re-
peated fraud? Always the same and always a fraud? There 
is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those cramped 
dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my bro-

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ken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether 
from my back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, 
and I do not believe in your hopes and your lies.’
As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned 
several times to look at that oak, as if expecting something 
from it. Under the oak, too, were flowers and grass, but it 
stood among them scowling, rigid, misshapen, and grim as 
ever.
‘Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,’ thought 
Prince Andrew. ‘Let othersthe youngyield afresh to that 
fraud, but we know life, our life is finished!’
A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mourn-
fully pleasant, rose in his soul in connection with that tree. 
During this journey he, as it were, considered his life afresh 
and arrived at his old conclusion, restful in its hopelessness: 
that it was not for him to begin anything anewbut that he 
must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not dis-
turbing himself or desiring anything.

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Chapter II
Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for 
the district in connection with the affairs of the Ryazan es-
tate of which he was trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya 
Rostov, and in the middle of May Prince Andrew went to 
visit him.
It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was 
already clothed in green. It was dusty and so hot that on 
passing near water one longed to bathe.
Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the 
business about which he had to speak to the Marshal, was 
driving up the avenue in the grounds of the Rostovs’ house 
at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind some 
trees on the right and saw group of girls running to cross 
the path of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him 
ran a dark-haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow 
chintz dress, with a white handkerchief on her head from 
under which loose locks of hair escaped. The girl was shout-
ing something but, seeing that he was a stranger, ran back 
laughing without looking at him.
Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day 
was so beautiful, the sun so bright, everything around so 
gay, but that slim pretty girl did not know, or wish to know, 
of his existence and was contented and cheerful in her own 
separateprobably foolishbut bright and happy life. ‘What is 

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she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the mili-
tary regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs’ 
quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?’ 
Prince Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as 
he had done in former years, that is, entertaining almost the 
whole province with hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. 
He was glad to see Prince Andrew, as he was to see any new 
visitor, and insisted on his staying the night.
During the dull day, in the course of which he was enter-
tained by his elderly hosts and by the more important of the 
visitors (the old count’s house was crowded on account of an 
approaching name day), Prince Andrew repeatedly glanced 
at Natasha, gay and laughing among the younger members 
of the company, and asked himself each time, ‘What is she 
thinking about? Why is she so glad?’
That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long un-
able to sleep. He read awhile and then put out his candle, but 
relit it. It was hot in the room, the inside shutters of which 
were closed. He was cross with the stupid old man (as he 
called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring him that 
some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, 
and he was vexed with himself for having stayed.
He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as 
he opened the shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been 
watching for this, burst into the room. He opened the case-
ment. The night was fresh, bright, and very still. Just before 
the window was a row of pollard trees, looking black on one 
side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the trees 

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grewsome kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit 
leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the 
dark trees a roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy 
tree with brilliantly white trunk and branches, and above it 
shone the moon, nearly at its full, in a pale, almost starless, 
spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the window 
ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.
His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above 
were also awake. He heard female voices overhead.
‘Just once more,’ said a girlish voice above him which 
Prince Andrew recognized at once.
‘But when are you coming to bed?’ replied another 
voice.
‘I won’t, I can’t sleep, what’s the use? Come now for the 
last time.’
Two girlish voices sang a musical passagethe end of some 
song.
‘Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there’s an end of 
it.’
‘You go to sleep, but I can’t,’ said the first voice, com-
ing nearer to the window. She was evidently leaning right 
out, for the rustle of her dress and even her breathing could 
be heard. Everything was stone-still, like the moon and its 
light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared not stir, 
for fear of betraying his unintentional presence.
‘Sonya! Sonya!’ he again heard the first speaker. ‘Oh, how 
can you sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glori-
ous! Do wake up, Sonya!’ she said almost with tears in her 
voice. ‘There never, never was such a lovely night before!’

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Sonya made some reluctant reply.
‘Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! 
Come here.... Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you 
see? I feel like sitting down on my heels, putting my arms 
round my knees like this, straining tight, as tight as pos-
sible, and flying away! Like this...’
‘Take care, you’ll fall out.’
He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya’s disapproving 
voice: ‘It’s past one o’clock.’
‘Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!’
Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was 
still sitting there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle 
and at times a sigh.
‘O God, O God! What does it mean?’ she suddenly ex-
claimed. ‘To bed then, if it must be!’ and she slammed the 
casement.
‘For her I might as well not exist!’ thought Prince Andrew 
while he listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet 
fearing that she might say something about him. ‘There she 
is again! As if it were on purpose,’ thought he.
In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected tur-
moil of youthful thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole 
tenor of his life, that unable to explain his condition to him-
self he lay down and fell asleep at once.

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Chapter III
Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the 
count, and not waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince An-
drew set off for home.
It was already the beginning of June when on his return 
journey he drove into the birch forest where the gnarled old 
oak had made so strange and memorable an impression on 
him. In the forest the harness bells sounded yet more muf-
fled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was 
thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about 
in the forest did not jar on the general beauty but, lending 
themselves to the mood around, were delicately green with 
fluffy young shoots.
The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was 
gathering, but only a small cloud had scattered some rain-
drops lightly, sprinkling the road and the sappy leaves. The 
left side of the forest was dark in the shade, the right side 
glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely swayed 
by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales 
trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far 
away.
‘Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed,’ 
thought Prince Andrew. ‘But where is it?’ he again wondered, 
gazing at the left side of the road, and without recognizing 
it he looked with admiration at the very oak he sought. The 

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old oak, quite transfigured, spreading out a canopy of sap-
py dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly trembling in 
the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor old 
scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evi-
dence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where 
there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could 
hardly believe the old veteran could have produced.
‘Yes, it is the same oak,’ thought Prince Andrew, and all 
at once he was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling 
of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life sud-
denly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with the lofty heavens, 
his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl 
thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and 
the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.
‘No, life is not over at thirty-one!’ Prince Andrew sud-
denly decided finally and decisively. ‘It is not enough for me 
to know what I have in meeveryone must know it: Pierre, 
and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky, ev-
eryone must know me, so that my life may not be lived for 
myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that 
it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in 
harmony!’
On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Pe-
tersburg that autumn and found all sorts of reasons for this 
decision. A whole serics of sensible and logical consider-
ations showing it to be essential for him to go to Petersburg, 
and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up in his 
mind. He could not now understand how he could ever 
even have doubted the necessity of taking an active share 

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in life, just as a month before he had not understood how 
the idea of leaving the quiet country could ever enter his 
head. It now seemed clear to him that all his experience of 
life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to some 
kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did 
not even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar 
wretched logical arguments, it had seemed obvious that he 
would be degrading himself if he now, after the lessons he 
had had in life, allowed himself to believe in the possibility 
of being useful and in the possibility of happiness or love. 
Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey 
to Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no 
longer interested him, and often when sitting alone in his 
study he got up, went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at 
his own face. Then he would turn away to the portrait of his 
dead Lise, who with hair curled a la grecque looked tenderly 
and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did not now say 
those former terrible words to him, but looked simply, mer-
rily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing 
his arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, 
now smiling, as he reflected on those irrational, inexpress-
ible thoughts, secret as a crime, which altered his whole life 
and were connected with Pierre, with fame, with the girl at 
the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty and love. And if 
anyone came into his room at such moments he was partic-
ularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.
‘My dear,’ Princess Mary entering at such a moment 
would say, ‘little Nicholas can’t go out today, it’s very cold.’
‘If it were hot,’ Prince Andrew would reply at such times 

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very dryly to his sister, ‘he could go out in his smock, but as 
it is cold he must wear warm clothes, which were designed 
for that purpose. That is what follows from the fact that it is 
cold; and not that a child who needs fresh air should remain 
at home,’ he would add with extreme logic, as if punish-
ing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred 
within him.
At such moments Princess Mary would think how intel-
lectual work dries men up.

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Chapter IV
Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. 
It was the time when the youthful Speranski was at the ze-
nith of his fame and his reforms were being pushed forward 
with the greatest energy. That same August the Emperor 
was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and remained 
three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and 
no one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being 
prepared that so agitated societyabolishing court ranks and 
introducing examinations to qualify for the grades of Col-
legiate Assessor and State Councilorand not merely these 
but a whole state constitution, intended to change the ex-
isting order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, 
and financial, from the Council of State down to the district 
tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the 
Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he 
had tried to put into effect with the aid of his associates, 
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonovwhom 
he himself in jest had called his Comite de salut publicwere 
taking shape and being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the 
civil side, and Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his 
arrival Prince Andrew, as a gentleman of the chamber, pre-
sented himself at court and at a levee. The Emperor, though 
he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word. It 

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had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was an-
tipathetic to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face 
and personality generally, and in the cold, repellent glance 
the Emperor gave him, he now found further confirmation 
of this surmise. The courtiers explained the Emperor’s ne-
glect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure at Bolkonski’s not 
having served since 1805.
‘I know myself that one cannot help one’s sympathies 
and antipathies,’ thought Prince Andrew, ‘so it will not do 
to present my proposal for the reform of the army regula-
tions to the Emperor personally, but the project will speak 
for itself.’
He mentioned what he had written to an old field mar-
shal, a friend of his father’s. The field marshal made an 
appointment to see him, received him graciously, and prom-
ised to inform the Emperor. A few days later Prince Andrew 
received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of War, 
Count Arakcheev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count 
Arakcheev’s waiting room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen 
him, and all he had heard of him inspired him with but little 
respect for the man.
‘He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, 
and I need not concern myself about his personal quali-
ties: he has been commissioned to consider my project, so 
he alone can get it adopted,’ thought Prince Andrew as he 
waited among a number of important and unimportant 
people in Count Arakcheev’s waiting room.

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During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince An-
drew had seen the anterooms of many important men, and 
the different types of such rooms were well known to him. 
Count Arakcheev’s anteroom had quite a special charac-
ter. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn 
for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the 
faces of those of higher rank expressed a common feeling 
of awkwardness, covered by a mask of unconcern and ridi-
cule of themselves, their situation, and the person for whom 
they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, 
others whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the 
nickname ‘Sila Andreevich’ and the words, ‘Uncle will give 
it to us hot,’ in reference to Count Arakcheev. One general 
(an important personage), evidently feeling offended at hav-
ing to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing his legs and 
smiling contemptuously to himself.
But the moment the door opened one feeling alone 
appeared on all facesthat of fear. Prince Andrew for the sec-
ond time asked the adjutant on duty to take in his name, but 
received an ironical look and was told that his turn would 
come in due course. After some others had been shown in 
and out of the minister’s room by the adjutant on duty, an 
officer who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and 
frightened air was admitted at that terrible door. This offi-
cer’s audience lasted a long time. Then suddenly the grating 
sound of a harsh voice was heard from the other side of the 
door, and the officerwith pale face and trembling lipscame 
out and passed through the waiting room, clutching his 
head.

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After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and 
the officer on duty said in a whisper, ‘To the right, at the 
window.’
Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the 
table a man of forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped 
head, deep wrinkles, scowling brows above dull greenish-
hazel eyes and an overhanging red nose. Arakcheev turned 
his head toward him without looking at him.
‘What is your petition?’ asked Arakcheev.
‘I am not petitioning, your excellency,’ returned Prince 
Andrew quietly.
Arakcheev’s eyes turned toward him.
‘Sit down,’ said he. ‘Prince Bolkonski?’
‘I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the 
Emperor has deigned to send your excellency a project sub-
mitted by me..’
‘You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,’ inter-
rupted Arakcheev, uttering only the first words amiably 
and thenagain without looking at Prince Andrewrelaps-
ing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt. ‘You are 
proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no 
one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs 
laws, it is easier writing than doing.’
‘I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from 
your excellency how you propose to deal with the memo-
randum I have presented,’ said Prince Andrew politely.
‘I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum 
and sent it to the committee. I do not approve of it,’ said 
Arakcheev, rising and taking a paper from his writing table. 

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‘Here!’ and he handed it to Prince Andrew.
Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital 
letters, misspelled, and without punctuation: ‘Unsoundly 
constructed because resembles an imitation of the French 
military code and from the Articles of War needlessly de-
viating.’
‘To what committee has the memorandum been re-
ferred?’ inquired Prince Andrew.
‘To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have rec-
ommended that your honor should be appointed a member, 
but without a salary.’
Prince Andrew smiled.
‘I don’t want one.’
‘A member without salary,’ repeated Arakcheev. ‘I have 
the honor... Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?’ he 
shouted, bowing to Prince Andrew.

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Chapter V
While waiting for the announcement of his appointment 
to the committee Prince Andrew looked up his former ac-
quaintances, particularly those he knew to be in power 
and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now expe-
rienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, 
when troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attract-
ed to the ruling circles where the future, on which the fate 
of millions depended, was being shaped. From the irrita-
tion of the older men, the curiosity of the uninitiated. the 
reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation of ev-
eryone, and the innumerable committees and commissions 
of whose existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 
1809, here in Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in prepa-
ration, the commander in chief of which was a mysterious 
person he did not know, but who was supposed to be a man 
of geniusSperanski. And this movement of reconstruction 
of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski 
its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the 
question of the army regulations quickly receded to a sec-
ondary place in his consciousness.
Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good 
reception in the highest and most diverse Petersburg cir-
cles of the day. The reforming party cordially welcomed 
and courted him, the first place because he was reputed to 

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be clever and very well read, and secondly because by lib-
erating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a 
liberal. The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured 
the innovations, turned to him expecting his sympathy in 
their disapproval of the reforms, simply because he was the 
son of his father. The feminine society world welcomed him 
gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a good match, 
and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account 
of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Be-
sides this the general opinion of all who had known him 
previously was that he had greatly improved during these 
last five years, having softened and grown more manly, lost 
his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony, and 
acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talk-
ed about him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet 
him.
The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince 
Andrew spent the evening at Count Kochubey’s. He told 
the count of his interview with Sila Andreevich (Kochubey 
spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname with the same vague 
irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War’s 
anteroom).
‘Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Michael 
Mikhaylovich Speranski. He manages everything. I’ll speak 
to him. He has promised to come this evening.’
‘What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?’ 
asked Prince Andrew.
Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at 
Bolkonski’s simplicity.

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‘We were talking to him about you a few days ago,’ 
Kochubey continued, ‘and about your freed plowmen.’
‘Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?’ said an 
old man of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward 
Bolkonski.
‘It was a small estate that brought in no profit,’ replied 
Prince Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to 
irritate the old man uselessly.
‘Afraid of being late...’ said the old man, looking at 
Kochubey.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ he continued. 
‘Who will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to 
write laws, but difficult to rule.... Just the same as nowI ask 
you, Countwho will be heads of the departments when ev-
erybody has to pass examinations?’
‘Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,’ replied 
Kochubey, crossing his legs and glancing round.
‘Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splen-
did man, a priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for 
examination?’
‘Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general, 
but..’
Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince An-
drew by the arm, and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of 
about forty with a large open forehead and a long face of 
unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just entering. The 
newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross sus-
pended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was 
Speranski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt 

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a throb within him, as happens at critical moments of life. 
Whether it was from respect, envy, or anticipation, he did 
not know. Speranski’s whole figure was of a peculiar type 
that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which 
Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who to-
gether with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such 
calmness and self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute 
yet gentle an expression as that in those half-closed, rather 
humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing; nor 
had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all 
he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hand-
shands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. 
Such whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen 
on the faces of soldiers who had been long in hospital. This 
was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor 
and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once 
met and talked with Napoleon.
Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another 
as people involuntarily do on entering a large company and 
was in no hurry to speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance 
that he would be listened to, and he looked only at the per-
son with whom he was conversing.
Prince Andrew followed Speranski’s every word and 
movement with particular attention. As happens to some 
people, especially to men who judge those near to them se-
verely, he always on meeting anyone newespecially anyone 
whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputationexpected to 
discover in him the perfection of human qualities.
Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been un-

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able to come sooner as he had been detained at the palace. He 
did not say that the Emperor had kept him, and Prince An-
drew noticed this affectation of modesty. When Kochubey 
introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned his 
eyes to Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at 
him in silence.
‘I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard 
of you, as everyone has,’ he said after a pause.
Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev 
had given Bolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly.
‘The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations 
is my good friend Monsieur Magnitski,’ he said, fully ar-
ticulating every word and syllable, ‘and if you like I can put 
you in touch with him.’ He paused at the full stop. ‘I hope 
you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-operate in 
promoting all that is reasonable.’
A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man 
who had talked about his subordinate Pryanichnikov ad-
dressed a question to him.
Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation 
watched every movement of Speranski’s: this man, not long 
since an insignificant divinity student, who now, Bolkonski 
thought, held in his handsthose plump white handsthe fate 
of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the extraordinarily 
disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the 
old man. He appeared to address condescending words to 
him from an immeasurable height. When the old man be-
gan to speak too loud, Speranski smiled and said he could 
not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of what pleased 

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the sovereign.
Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Sper-
anski rose and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along 
to the other end of the room. It was clear that he thought it 
necessary to interest himself in Bolkonski.
‘I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the 
animated conversation in which that venerable gentleman 
involved me,’ he said with a mildly contemptuous smile, 
as if intimating by that smile that he and Prince Andrew 
understood the insignificance of the people with whom he 
had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. ‘I have 
known of you for a long time: first from your action with 
regard to your serfs, a first example, of which it is very de-
sirable that there should be more imitators; and secondly 
because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who 
have not considered themselves offended by the new decree 
concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing 
so much gossip and tittle-tattle.’
‘No,’ said Prince Andrew, ‘my father did not wish me to 
take advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the 
lower grade.’
‘Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands 
above our contemporaries who so condemn this measure 
which merely reestablishes natural justice.’
‘I think, however, that these condemnations have some 
ground,’ returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speran-
ski’s influence, of which he began to be conscious. He did 
not like to agree with him in everything and felt a wish to 
contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he felt 

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a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with 
Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the fa-
mous man’s personality.
‘Grounds of personal ambition maybe,’ Speranski put in 
quietly.
‘And of state interest to some extent,’ said Prince An-
drew.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Speranski quietly, lowering 
his eyes.
‘I am an admirer of Montesquieu,’ replied Prince Andrew, 
‘and his idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur 
me parait incontestable. Certains droits et privileges de la 
noblesse me paraissent etre des moyens de soutenir ce sen-
timent.’*
*”The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me in-
contestable. Certain rights and privileges for the aristocracy 
appear to me a means of maintaining that sentiment.’
The smile vanished from Speranski’s white face, which 
was much improved by the change. Probably Prince An-
drew’s thought interested him.
‘Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,’* he 
began, pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and 
speaking even slower than in Russian but quite calmly.
*”If you regard the question from that point of view.’
Speranski went on to say that honor, l’honeur, cannot 
be upheld by privileges harmful to the service; that hon-
or, l’honneur, is either a negative concept of not doing what 
is blameworthy or it is a source of emulation in pursuit of 
commendation and rewards, which recognize it. His argu-

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ments were concise, simple, and clear.
‘An institution upholding honor, the source of emula-
tion, is one similar to the Legion d’honneur of the great 
Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but helpful to the success 
of the service, but not a class or court privilege.’
‘I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court 
privileges have attained the same end,’ returned Prince An-
drew. ‘Every courtier considers himself bound to maintain 
his position worthily.’
‘Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, 
Prince,’ said Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished 
to finish amiably an argument which was embarrassing 
for his companion. ‘If you will do me the honor of calling 
on me on Wednesday,’ he added, ‘I will, after talking with 
Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall 
also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you.’
Closing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking 
leave, and trying to attract as little attention as possible, he 
left the room.

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Chapter VI
During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince 
Andrew felt the whole trend of thought he had formed dur-
ing his life of seclusion quite overshadowed by the trifling 
cares that engrossed him in that city.
On returning home in the evening he would jot down in 
his notebook four or five necessary calls or appointments 
for certain hours. The mechanism of life, the arrangement of 
the day so as to be in time everywhere, absorbed the greater