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🟡 War and Peace, Book 15: 1812-1813 (Full Audiobook) | Leo Tolstoy · Historical Adventure Audiobooks

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: War in Peace by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Elmer and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Louise Mode, book fifteen. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Remain War in Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Book fifteen, Chapter one.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: When seeing a dying animal, a man feels a sense
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of horror substance similar to his own is perishing before
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: his eyes. But when it is a beloved and intimate
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: human being that is dying, besides this horror at the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: extinction of life, there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: like a physical wound, is sometimes fatal and sometimes yields,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: After Prince Andrew's death, Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this,
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  Speaker 1: drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: cloud of death that overhung them. They dared not look
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: life in the face. The carefully guarded their open wounds
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: from any wrath and painful contact everything. A carriage passing
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: rapidly in the street a summons to Dimmer who made
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: its inquiry what dress to prepare? Or worse still, any
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: word of insincere or feeble sympathy seemed an insult painfully
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that still resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: into those mysterious, limitless roustas that for an instant had
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: opened out before them. Only when alone together were they
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  Speaker 1: free from such outrage and pain. They spoke little, even
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  Speaker 1: to one another, and when they did it was very
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  Speaker 1: unimportant matters. Both avoided any allusion to the future. To
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: admit the possibility of the future seemed to them to
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  Speaker 1: insult his memory. Still more carefully did they avoid anything
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  Speaker 1: relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that what they had lived through and experience could not
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: be expressed in words, and that any reference to the
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  Speaker 1: details of this life infringed the majesty and sacredness of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the mystery that had been accomplished before their eyes. Continued
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: abstention from speech and constant avoidance of everything that might
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: lead up to the subject. This halting on all sides
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: at the boundary of what they might not mention, brought
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: before their minds with still greater purity and clearness what
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: they were both feeling. But pure and complete sorrow is
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: as impossible as pure and complete joy. Princess Mary, in
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: her position as absolute and independent arbiture of her own
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fate and guardian an instructor of her nephew, was the
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  Speaker 1: first to be called back to life from that realm
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of sorrow in which she had dwelt. For the first fortnight,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: she received letters from her relations, to which she had
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to reply. The room in which little Nicholas had been
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: put was damp and began to cough Alpatiche came to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yuroslav with reports on the state of affairs, and with
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: advice and suggestions that they should return to Moscow, to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the house on the Rudsvenkastute, which would remain uninjured and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: needed only slight with Paris. Life did not stand still
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: until it was necessary to live hard, as it was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: for Princess Mary to emerged from this realm of secluded
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: contemplation in which she had lived till then, and sorry
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and almost ashamed, and she felt to leave Natasha alone.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yet the cares of life demanded her attention, and she
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with Alphatish,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: conferred with Dessalves about her nephew, and gave orders and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: made preparations for the journey to Moscow. Natasha remained alone,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and from the time Princess Mary began making preparations for
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: departure held a leaf from her too. Princess Mary asked
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  Speaker 1: the Countess to let Natasha go with her to Moscow,
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  Speaker 1: and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: their daughter losing strength every day and thought that a
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  Speaker 1: change of scene and the advice of Moscow doctors would
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: be good for her. I'm not going anywhere, Natasha replied
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: when this was proposed to her. Do you please just
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: leave me alone? And she ran out of the room
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: with difficulty, refraining from tears of vexation and irritation, rather
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: than so. After she left, herself deserted by Princess Mary
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and alone in her grief, Natasha spent most of the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: time in her room by herself, sitting huddled up feet
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  Speaker 1: and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and
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  Speaker 1: twisting something with her slender, nervous fingers, and gazing intently
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  Speaker 1: and fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: This solitude exhausted and tormented her that she was in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: absolute need of it. As soon as anyone entered, she
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: got up, quickly, changed her position and expression, and picked
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the intruguor to go. She felt all the time as
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: if she might at any moment penetrate that on which,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: with a terrible questioning too great for her strength, her
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: spiritual gaze was fixed. One day toward the end of December, Natasha,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: pale and thin, dressed in a black woolen gown, her
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  Speaker 1: plated hair negligently twisted into a knot, was crouched feet
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  Speaker 1: and on the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and
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  Speaker 1: smoothing out an end of her sash while she looked
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: at the corner of the door. She was gazing in
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the direction in which she had gone to the other
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: side of the life. And that other side of life
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of which she had never before thought, and which had
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: formerly seen to her so far away and improbable, was
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: now near and more akin, and more comprehensible than this
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: side of life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: or suffering and indignity. She was gazing where she knew
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: him to be, but she could not imagine him otherwise
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: than as she had been here. She now saw him
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: again as he had been at midst She at Troitsa,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: at Yaroslav. She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: his words and her own, and sometimes devised her words
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  Speaker 1: they might have spoken.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: There.
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  Speaker 1: He is lying in an unchair in his velvet cloak,
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  Speaker 1: leaning his head on his thin, pale hand. His chest
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  Speaker 1: is dreadfully hollow, and his shoulders raised. His lips are
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: firmly closed. His eyes glitter, and a wrinkle comes and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is struggling
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: with terrible pain. What is pain like? Why does he
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: have that pain? What does he feel? How does it
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: hurt him? About Natasha? He noticed her watching him, raised
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: his eyes and began to speak seriously. One thing would
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: be terrible, said he, To bind oneself forever to a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: suffering man, It would be continual torture, And he looked
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: searching at her. Natasha, as usual, answered, before she had
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  Speaker 1: time to think what she would say. She said, this
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  Speaker 1: can't go on. It won't you look it well? Quite well?
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  Speaker 1: She now saw him from the commencement of that scene
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  Speaker 1: and relieved what she had then felt. She recalled his long,
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  Speaker 1: sad and severe look at those words, and understood the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: meaning of the review to despair in that protracted grace,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I agreed. Natasha now said to herself that it would
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: be dreadful if he always continued to suffer. I said
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: it then only because it would have been dreadful for him,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: But he understood it differently. He thought it would have
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: been dreadful for me. He then still wished to live
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  Speaker 1: and feared deaf. And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't say what I meant. I thought quite differently.
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  Speaker 1: Had I said what I thought, I should have said,
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  Speaker 1: even if he had to go on dying, to die
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  Speaker 1: continually before my eyes, I should have been happy compared with.
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  Speaker 3: What I am now.
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  Speaker 1: Now there is nothing nobody did he know that. No,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: he didn't know and never will know it. And now
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  Speaker 1: it will never, never be possible to put it right.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And Now he again seemed to be saying the same
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  Speaker 1: words to her, only in her imagination. Natasha this time
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  Speaker 1: gave him a different answer. She stopped him and said,
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  Speaker 1: terrible for you, but not for me. You know that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: for me there's nothing in life but you, and to
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  Speaker 1: suffer with you is the greatest happiness for me. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: he took her hand and pressed it as he had
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  Speaker 1: pressed it in that terrible evening four days before his death.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: And in her imagination she said other tender and loving
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: words which she might have said then, but only spoke now.
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  Speaker 1: I love thee thee, I love love, she said, compulsively
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  Speaker 1: pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a desperate effort.
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  Speaker 1: She was overcome by sweet sorrow, and tears were already
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: rising in her eyes. Then she suddenly asked herself to
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  Speaker 1: whom she was saying this. Again, everything was strottered in hard,
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  Speaker 1: dry perplexity, and again, with a strained frown, she peered
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: towards the world where he was. And now it seemed
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  Speaker 1: to her she was penetrating the mystery. But at the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: instant when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to her in a loud rattle of the door handle
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  Speaker 1: struck painfully on her ears. Yanshaw, her maid, entered the
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  Speaker 1: room quickly and abruptly, with a frightened look on her
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  Speaker 1: face and showing no concern for her mistress. Come to you,
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  Speaker 1: Papa at once, please, she said, with a strange, excited look.
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  Speaker 1: A misfortune about Peter Illnitsch A letter she finished with
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  Speaker 1: a sob end of chapter.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: One, War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter two read le
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Brivox dot Org. Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: Natasha was feeling a special estrangement from the members of
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  Speaker 4: her own family. All of them, her father, mother, Sonya,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: were so near to her, so familiar, so commonplace, that
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  Speaker 4: all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the
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  Speaker 4: world in which she had been living of late, and
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  Speaker 4: she felt not merely indifferent to them, but regarded them
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  Speaker 4: with hostility. She heard Dunyasha's words about Peter Aleinnych and misfortune,
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  Speaker 4: but did not grasp them what misfortune, What misfortune can
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  Speaker 4: happen to them? They just lived their own old, quiet
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  Speaker 4: and commonplace life, thought Natasha. As she entered the ballroom.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Her father was hurriedly coming out of her mother's room.
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  Speaker 4: His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: had evidently run out of that room to give vent
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: to the sobs that were choking him. When he saw Natasha,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: he waved his arms despairingly and burst into convulsively painful
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: sobs that distorted his soft round face. Petya go, she's
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: calling and weeping like a child, and quickly shuffling on
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  Speaker 4: his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into it,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: covering his face with his hands. Suddenly, an electric shock
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: seemed to run through Natasha's whole being. Terrible anguish struck
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: her heart, and she felt a dreadful ache, as if
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  Speaker 4: something was being torn inside of her and she were dying.
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  Speaker 4: But the pain was immediately followed by a feeling of
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: release from the oppressive constraint that had prevented her taking
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: part in life. The sight of her father, the terribly
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: wild cries of her mother that she heard through the door,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: made her immediately forget herself in her own grief. She
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: pointing to her mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with
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  Speaker 4: quivering chin, came out from that room, and taking Natasha
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: by the arm, said something to her. Natasha neither saw
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: at the door for an instant, as if struggling with herself,
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: and then ran to her mother. The countess was lying
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: on an arm chair in a strange and awkward position,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: stretching out and beating her head against the wall, and
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: the maids were holding her arms Natasha. Natasha cried the countess.
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  Speaker 4: It's not true. It's not true. He's lying. Natasha, she shrieked,
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  Speaker 4: pushing those around her away, Go away, all of you.
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  Speaker 4: It's not true, killed Ha, It's not true. Natasha put
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: one knee on the armchair, stooped over. Her mother embraced her,
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  Speaker 4: and with unexpected strength, raised her, turned her face toward herself,
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  Speaker 4: and clung to her. Mommy, darling, I'm here, My dearest mommy.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: She kept on whispering, not pausing an instant. She did
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  Speaker 4: not let go of her mother, but struggled tenderly with her,
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  Speaker 4: demanded a pillow in hot water, and unfastened and tore
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  Speaker 4: open her mother's dress. My dearest darling, mommy, I'm precious,
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  Speaker 4: she whispered incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face,
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  Speaker 4: and feeling her own irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: nose and cheeks, the countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: her eyes, and became quiet for a moment. Suddenly she
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: sat up with unaccustomed swiftness, glanced vacantly around her, and,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: seeing Natasha, began to press her daughter's head with all
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  Speaker 4: her strength. Then she turned toward her daughter's face, which
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: was wincing with pain, and gazed along at it. Natasha,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: you love me, she said, in a soft, trustful whisper. Natasha,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: you would not deceive me. You'll tell me the whole truth.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: in her look there was nothing but love and an
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: entreaty for forgiveness. My darling mommy, she repeated, straining all
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  Speaker 4: the power of her love to find some way of
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: mother and again, in a feudal struggle with reality, her mother,
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: refusing to believe that she could live when her beloved
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: boy was killed in the bloom of life, escaped from
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: reality into a world of delirium. Natasha did not remember
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: how that day passed, nor that night, nor the next
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: day and night. She did not sleep and did not
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: leave her mother. Severing and patient love seemed completely to
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: surround the Countess at every moment, not explaining or consoling,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: but recalling her to life. During the third night, the
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: Countess kept very quiet for a few minutes, and Natasha
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: rested her head on the arm of her chair and
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: closed her eyes, but opened them again on hearing the
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: bedstead creek. The Countess was sitting up in bed and
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: speaking softly, How glad I am you've come. You are tired,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: won't you have some tea? Natasha went up to her.
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  Speaker 4: You have improved in looks and grown more manly, continued
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: the Countess, taking her daughter's hand. Mamma, what are you saying, Natasha?
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  Speaker 4: He is no more, no more? And embracing her daughter,
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  Speaker 4: the Countess began to weep for the first time. End
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  Speaker 4: of book fifteen, chapter two. This recording is in the
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: public domain. War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter three, red four,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: LibriVox dot Org. Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sonia and
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: the count tried to replace Natasha, but could not. They
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: saw that she alone was able to restrain her mother
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: from unreasoning despair. For three weeks, Natasha remained constantly at
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in her room,
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: Because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: her mother. The mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Petya's
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: death had torn from her half her life. When the
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: news of Petya's death had come, she had been a
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: fresh and vigorous woman of fifty. But a month later
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: she left her room a listless old woman, taking no
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: interest in life. But the same blow that almost killed
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: the countess, the second blow restored Natasha to life. A
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: is like a physical wound, and strange as it may seem.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Just as a deep wound may heal and its edges join,
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet heal completely only
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: as the result of a vital force from within. Natasha's
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: wound healed in that way, she thought her life was ended,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: the essence of life. Love was still active within her
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: love awoke, and so did life. Prince Andrew's last days
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: had bound Princess Mary and Natasha together. This new sorrow
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary put
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: off her departure and for three weeks looked after Natasha
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: as if she had been a sick child. The last
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: week's pasted in her mother's bedroom had strained Natasha's physical strength.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: One afternoon, noticing Natasha's shivering with fever, Princess Mary took
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: her to her own room and made her lie down
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: on the bed. Natasha lay down, but when Princess Mary
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: had drawn the blinds and was going away, she called
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: her back. I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: me a little. You are tired. Try to sleep. No, Now,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: why did you bring me away? She will be asking
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: for me. She is much better. She spoke so well
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: to day, said Princess Mary. Natasha lay on the bed
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: and in the semi darkness of the room, scanned Princess
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Mary's face. Is she like him? Thought Natasha? Yes, like
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: and yet not like. But she is quite original, strange,
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: new and unknown, and she loves me. What is it
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: in her heart? All that is good? But how what
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: is her mind like? What does she think about me? Yes?
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: She is splendid, Mary, she said, timidly, drawing Princess Mary's
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: hand to herself. Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No, Mary, darling,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: how I love you. Let us be quite quite friends,
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: and Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: making Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: of her feelings. From that day, a tender and passionate friendship,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: such as exists only between women, was established between Princess
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: Mary and Natasha. They were continually kissing and saying tender
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: things to one another, and spent most of their time together.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: When one went out, the other became restless and hastened
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: to rejoin her. Together, they felt more in harmony with
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: one another than either of them felt with herself when alone.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: A feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them, an
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: exclusive feeling of life being possible only in each other's presence.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Sometimes they were silent for hours. Sometimes after they were
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: already in bed, they would begin talking and go on
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: till morning. They spoke most of what was long past.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary spoke of her childhood of her mother, her father,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: and her day dreams. And Natasha, who with the passive
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: lack of understanding, had formerly turned away from that life
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: of devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self sacrifice, now,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: love her past too, and to understand a side of
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: life previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think of
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: applying submission and self abnegation to her own life, for
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For Princess Mary,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: listening to Natasha's tales of childhood and early youth, there
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of life,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: belief in life and its enjoyment. Just as before, they
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: never mentioned him, so as not to lower, as they thought,
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: their exalted feelings by words. But this silence about him
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: had the effect of making them gradually begin to forget
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: him without being conscious of it. Natasha had grown thin
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: and pale, and physically so weak that they all talked
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: about her health, and this pleased her, but sometimes she
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: was suddenly overcome by a fear not only of death,
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: but of sickness, weakness, and loss of good looks, And
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: involuntarily she exist and her bare arm carefully surprised at
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: its thinness, and in the morning noticed her drawn and
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: as it seemed to her piteous face in her glass,
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: it seemed to her that things must be so, and
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: yet it was dreadfully sad. One day, she went quickly
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: upstairs and found herself out of breath. Unconsciously, she immediately
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: invented a reason for going down, and then, testing her strength,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: ran upstairs again, observing the result. Another time, when she
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: called Dunyasha, her voice trembled, so she called her again.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Though she could hear Dunyasha coming, called her in the
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: deep chest tones in which she had been wont to sing, sing,
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: and listened attentively to herself. She did not know and
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: would not have believed it. But beneath the layer of
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which, taking root,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: would so cover with their living verdure the grief that
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: weighed her down, that it would soon no longer be
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: seen or noticed the wound had begun to heal from within.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: At the end of January, Princess Mary left for Moscow,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: and the Count insisted on Natasha's going with her to
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: consult the doctors end of section three. This recording is
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: in the public domain. War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter four,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: read for librevox dot org. After the encounter at Bayasma,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: where Kutuzov had been unable to hold back his troops
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: and so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: and of the Russians who pursued them continued as far
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: as Krasnoye without a battle. The flight was so rapid
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: that the Russian army pursuing the French could not keep
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: up with them. Cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: the information received of the movements of the French was
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: never reliable. The men in the Russian army were so
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: worn out by this continuous marching at the rate of
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: twenty seven miles a day that they could not go
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: any faster. To realize the degree of exhaustion of the
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Russian army, it is only necessary to grasp clearly the
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: meaning of the fact that, while not losing more than
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and less than
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: a hundred prisoners, the Russian army, which left that place
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: one hundred thousand strong, reached Krasnoye with only fifty thousand.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: to our army as the flight of the French was
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: to theirs. The only difference was that the Russian army
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction as hung
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: over the French, and that the sick frenchmen were left
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: behind in enemy hands, while the sick Russians left behind
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: were among their own people. The chief cause of the
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: wastage of Napoleon's army was the rapidity of its movement,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: and a convincing proof of this is the corresponding decrease
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: of the Russian army. Usov, as far as was in
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: his power, instead of trying to check the movement of
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: the French, as was desired in Petersburg and by the
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Russian army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: had done at Tarutino and Biasma, to hastening it on
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: while easing the movement of our army. But besides this,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the army caused
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutuzov.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: The road the French would take was unknown, and so
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: the closer our troops trod on their heels, the greater
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: distance they had to cover. Only by following it some
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: All the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: movements of the army and a lengthening of its marches,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: whereas the only reasonable aim was to shorten those marches.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: To that end, Kutuzov's activity was directed during the whole
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: camp from Moscow to Vilna, not casually or intermittently, but
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: so consistently that he never once deviated from it. So
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Kutuzov felt and knew, not by reasoning or science, but
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: with the whole of his Russian being what every Russian
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: soldier felt that the French were beaten, that the enemy
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: was flying and must be driven out. But at the
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: same time he liked the soldiers, realized all the hardship
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: of this march, the rapidity of which was unparalleled for
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: such a time of year. But to the generals, especially
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: the foreign ones in the Russian army, who wished to
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some reason, to
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: capture a king or a duke, it seemed that now,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: when any battle must be horrible and senseless, was the
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: very time to fight one and conquer somebody. Kutuzov merely
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: shrugged his shoulders when one after another they presented projects
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: of maneuvers be made with those soldiers, ill shod, insufficiently clad,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: and half starved, who within a month and without fighting
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: a battle, had dwindled to half their number, and who,
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: at the best, if the flight continued, would have to
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: go a greater distance than they had already traversed before
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: they reached the frontier. This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: to overthrow, and to cut off showed itself, particularly whenever
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: the Russians stumbled on the French army. So it was
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: at Krasnoye, where they expected to find one of three
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: French columns, and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: thousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: broken mob of French soldiers by worn out Russians continued
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: at Krasnoye for three days. Toll wrote a disposition, the
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: first column will march to so and so et cetera,
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: and as usual, nothing happened in accord with the disposition.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg fired from a hill over the
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: French crowds that were running past, and demanded reinforcements, which
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: did not arrive. The French avoiding, the Russians dispersed and
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: hid themselves in the forest by night, making their way
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: round as best they could, and continued their flight. Milorodovitch,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: who said he did not want to know anything about
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: the commissary to fairs of his detachment and could never
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: be found when he was wanted, that cheverierche knight without
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: fear and without reproach, as he styled himself, who was
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: fond of parleys with the French sent envoys demanding their surrender,
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: wasting time, and did not do what he was ordered
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: to do. I give you that column, lads, he said,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: riding up to the troops and pointing out the French
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: to the cavalry, And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: urging on horses that could scarcely move, trotted with much
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: effort to the column presented to them, that is to say,
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: to a crowd of frenchmen stark with cold, frostbitten and starving,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: and the column that had been presented to them threw
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: down its arms and surrendered, as it had long been
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: anxious to do. At Krasnoye, they took twenty six thousand prisoners,
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: several hundred cannon and a stick called a martial's staff,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: and disputed as to who had distinguished himself, and were
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: pleased with their achievement, though they much regretted not having
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: taken Napoleon, or at least a martial or a hero
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: of some sort, and reproached one another, and especially Kutuzov,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: for having failed to do so. These men, carried away
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: by their passions, were but blind tools of the most
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and imagined
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: of the campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon. That
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: he thought nothing but satisfying his passions, and would not
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: advance from the Lynn factories because he was comfortable there.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: That at Krasnoye he checked the advance because on learning
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: that Napoleon was there, he had quite lost his head,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: and that it was probable that he had an understanding
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: with Napoleon, had been bribed by him, and so on
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: and so on. Not only did his contemporaries, carried away
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: by their passions, talk this way, but posterity and history
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: have acclaimed Napoleon, while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: a crafty, dissolute, weak old courtier and by Russians is
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: something indefinite, a sort of puppet, useful only because he
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: had a Russian name. End of section four. This recording
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: is in the public domain.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: Warren Peace Book fifteen, Chapter five read for Lippervox dot
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: Org by Annossimon in eighteen twelve and eighteen thirteen, Kutuzov
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: was openly accused of blundering the Emperor was dissatisfied with him,
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: and in a history recently written by order of the
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: highest authorities, it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: court liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: by his blunders at Kasney and the Berezina, he deprived
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: the Russian army of the glory of complete victory over
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: the French. Note History of the year eighteen twelve, the
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: character of Kutuzov and reflections on the unsatisfactory results of
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: the battles at Kastnme by bogdanovitch En. Note. Such is
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: the fate not of great Man Grand Homme, whom the
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: Russian mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: always solitary individuals, who, discerning the will of Providence, submit
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: the crowd punish such men for discerning their higher laws.
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say Napoleon, that
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: most insignificant tool of history, who never anywhere, even in exile,
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: showed human dignity. Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: He is grand. But Kutuzov, the man who, from the
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: beginning to the end of his activity in eighteen twelve,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: never once swerving by word or deed, from Bordina to Vilna,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: presented an example exceptional in history of self sacrifice and
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: the present consciousness of the future importance of what was happening.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: Kutuzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and when
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: speaking of him and of the year eighteen twelve, they
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: always seem a little ashamed. And yet it is difficult
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: to imagine a historical character whose activity was so unswervingly
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: directed to a single aim, And it would be difficult
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: the will of the whole people. Still more difficult would
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: it be to find an instance in history of the
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: aim of a historical personage being so completely accomplished as
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were directed in eighteen twelve.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: Kutuzov never talked of forty centuries looking down from the pyramids,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished. In general,
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: he said nothing about himself, adopted no prose, always appeared
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: to be the simplest and most ordinary of man, and
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: said the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: to his daughters and to Madame de Stael, read novels
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: like the Society of Pretty Women, jested with generals, officers
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried to prove
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yozat Bridge
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: the destruction of Moscow, and said, how was it you
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: promised not to abandon Moscow without a battle, Kutuzov replied,
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: and I shall not abandon Moscow without a battle, though
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: Moscow was then already abandoned. When Arakchiev, coming to him
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: from the Emperor, said that Rmulov ought to be appointed
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied, yes, I was just
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: saying so myself, though a moment before he had said
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: quite the contrary. What did it matter to him, who
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: then alone omitted senseless crowd understood the whole tremendous significance
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: of what was happening. What did it matter to him
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: whether Austopskin attributed the calamities of Moscow to him or
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: to himself. Still less could it matter to him who
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: was appointed chief of the artillery. Not merely in these cases,
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: but continually did that old man, who by experience of
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the words
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: serving as their expression are not what move people use,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: quite meaningless words that happened to enter his head. But
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: that man, so heedless of his words, did not once,
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: during the whole time of his activity, utter one word
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: inconsistent with a single aim toward which he moved throughout
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: the whole war. Obviously in spite of himself in very
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: diverse circumstances. He repeatedly expressed his real thoughts, with the
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: bitter conviction that he would not be under stood, beginning
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: with the Battle of Borodino, from which time his disagreement
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: with those about him began. He alone said that the
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: Battle of Borodino was a victory, and repeated this both
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: verbally and in his dispatches and reports. Up to the
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: time of his death. He alone said that the loss
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: of Moscow is not the loss of Russia, and to
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: reply to Loreston's proposal of peace, he said, there can
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: be no peace, for such is the people's will. He alone,
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: during the retreat of the French, said that all our
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: maneuvers are useless. Everything is being accomplished of itself better
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: than we could desire. That the enemy must be offered
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: a golden bridge, that neither the Taratino, the Viasma, nor
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: the Casno battles were necessary. That we must keep some
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: force to reach the frontier with, and that he would
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: not sacrifice a single Russian for ten frenchmen. And this courtier,
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: as he is described to us, who lies to Archie
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: to please the Emperor, he alone, incurring thereby the Emperor's displeasure,
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: frontire is useless and harmful. Nor do words alone prove
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: that only he understood the meaning of the events. His actions,
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: without the smallest deviation, were all directed to one and
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: the same threefold end. One to brace all his strength
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: for conflict with the French, two to defeat them, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: three to drive them out of Russia, minimizing as far
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: as possible the sufferings of our people and of our army.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was patience and time, this
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: enemy of the size of action, gave battle at Borodino,
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: investing the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov, who,
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: before the Battle of Ausalids began said that it would
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: be lost, he alone, in contradiction to every one else,
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: declared till his death that Borodino was a victory. Despite
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: the assurance of generals that the battle was lost, and
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: despite the fact that for an army to have to
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: retire after winning a battle was unprecedented, he alone, during
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: the whole retreat, insisted that battles which were useless then
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: should not be fought, and that a new war should
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: not be begun, nor the frontires of Russia crossed. It is
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: easy now to understand the significance of these events if
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: only were abstained from attributing to the activity of the
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: mass aims that existed only in the heads of a
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: dozen individuals, for the events and results now lie before us.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: the general opinion, so truly discern the importance of the
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: people's view of the events That in all his activity,
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: he was never once untrue to it. The source of
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the events
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: then occurring lay in a national feeling, which he possessed
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: in full purity and strength. Only the recognition of the
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: fact that he possessed this feeling caused the people, in
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsire's wish, to
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: select him, an old man in this favor, to be
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: their representative in the national war. And only that feeling
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: placed him on that highest human pedestal, from which he,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: the Commander in Chief, devoted all his powers, not to
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: slaying and destroying men, but to saving and showing pity
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: on them. That simple, modest and therefore truly great figure
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: could not be cast in the false mold of a
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: European hero, the supposed ruler of men that history has
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: invented to a Lackey. No man can be great, for
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: a Lackey has his own conception of greatness. End of
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: chapter five. This recording is in the public domain War
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: and Peace Book fifteen, chapter six read for Lipprox dot
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: Org by Annosimon. The fifth of November was the first
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: day of what is called the Battle of Krasnae toward evening,
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: after much disputing and many mistakes made by generals who
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: did not go to their proper places, and after adjudance
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: had been sent about with counter orders, when it had
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: become plain that the enemy was everywhere in flight and
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: that there could and would be no battle, Kutuzov left
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Krasnay and went to do Boy, whither his headquarters had
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: that day been transferred. The day was clear, and frosty
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: Kutuzov rode to do Broy on his plump, little white horse,
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals, who whispered
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: among themselves behind his back. All along the road. Groups
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: of French prisoners captured that day there were seven thousand
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: of them, were crowding to warm themselves at camp fires.
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: Near Daboy. An immense crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: talk and wrapped and bandaged in anything they had been
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: able to get hold of, were standing in the road
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: beside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: approach of the commander in chief, the buzz of talk seized,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: and all eyes were fixed on Kutuzov, who wearing a
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: white cap with a red band and a patted overcoat
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: road on his white horse. One of the generals was
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: reporting to him where the guns and prisoners had been captured.
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listened to the general
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: was saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: look as he gazed attentively and fixedly at these prisoners,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: who presented a specially wretched appearance. Most of them were
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: disfigured by frost bitten noses and cheeks, and nearly all
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: had read swollen and festering eyes. One group of the
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: French stood close to the road, and two of them,
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: one of whom had his face covered with saws, were
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: tearing a piece of raw flesh with their hands. There
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: was something horrible and beastial in the fleeting glance they
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: threw at the rider's in the malevolent expression with which,
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the sauls
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: perckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: his head. At another spot, he noticed a Russian soldier
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: laughingly patting a frenchman on the shoulder, saying something to
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov, with the same
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: expression on his face, again swayed his head. What were
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: you saying? He asked the General. Hugh, continuing his report,
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: directed the Commander in Tiv's attention to some standards captured
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: from the French and standing in front of the Preer
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: Briget Regiment. Ah the standards, said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: with difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him, He looked
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: from all sides, awaiting a word from him. He stopped
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: in front of the Prebrush's regiment, sighed deeply, and closed
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: carrying the standards to advance and surround the Commander in
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: chief with them. Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds,
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: and then, submitting with evident reluctance to the duty imposed
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: by his position, raised his head and began to speak.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked attentively around
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: at the circle of officers, recognizing several of them. I
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: thank you all, he said, addressing the soldiers and then
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: again the officers. In the stillness around him, his slowly
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: uttered words were distinctly heard. I thank you all for
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: your hard and faithful service. The victory is complete, and
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: Russia will not forget you. Honor to you forever. He
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: paused and looked around. Lower its head, Lower it, he
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: said to a soldier who had accidentally lowered the French
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: eagle he was holding before the PERVASHENSK standards lower, lower,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: that's it, Hurrah, lads, he added, addressing the man with
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: a rapid movement of his chin. Hurrah, roared thousands of voices.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: While the soldiers were shouting. Kutuzov leant forward in his
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: saddle and bowed his head, and his eye lit up
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: with a mild and apparently ironic gleam. You see, brothers,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: said he When the shouts had seized and all at once,
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: his voice and the expression of his face changed. It
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: was no longer the commander in chief speaking, but an
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: ordinary old man who wanted to tell his comrades something
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: very important. There was a stir among the throng of
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: officers and in the ranks of the soldiers, who moved
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: that they might hear better what he was going to say.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: it can't be helped. Bear up. It won't be for long.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: Now we'll see our visitors off, and then we'll rest
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: that Sah won't forget your service. It is hard for you,
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: but still you are at home while they You see
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: what they have come to, said he, pointing to the prisoners,
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: worse off than our poorest beggars. While they were strong,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even pity them.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: They are human beings too, isn't it so? Lads? He
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: looked round, and in the direct respectful, wondering gaze fixed
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: upon him, he read sympathy with what he had said.
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: His face grew brighter and brighter, with an old man's
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: smiled smile, which drew the corners of his lips and
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking, ambode
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: his head as if in perplexity. But after all, who
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: asked them here serves them right? The bloody bastards, he cried,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: suddenly lifting his head and flourishing his whip, he rode
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: off at a gallop for the first time during the
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: laughing joyfully and shouting Hurrah. Kutuzov's words were hardly understood
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: by the troops. No one could have repeated the field
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: marshal's address, begun solemnly and then changing into an old
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: man's simple hearted talk. But the hearty sincerity of that speech,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: the feeling of majestic triumph, combined with pity for the foe,
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: by that old man's good natured expeditives, was not merely understood,
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: but lay in the soul of every soldier, and found
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: expression in their joyous and long sustained shouts. Afterwards, when
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: one of the generals addressed Kutuzov, asking whether he wished
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: his college to be sent t four, Kutuzov, in answering,
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved. End of
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: chapter six. This recording is in the public domain. War
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: and Peace Book fifteen, Chapter seven read for lip foxot
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: org by Anossimon. When the troops reached their night's halting
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: place on the eighth of November, the last day of
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: the Krosnoe battles, it was already growing dusk. All day,
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: it had been calm and frosty, with occasional lightly falling snow,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling snow,
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: a purple, black and starry sky showed itself, and the
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: frost grew keener. An infantry regiment which had left Doutino
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: three thousand strong but now numbered only nine hundred, was
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: one of the first to arrive that night at its
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: halting place, a village on the high road. The quarter
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: masters who met the regiment announced that all the huts
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: were full of sick and dead frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: of the staff. There was only one hut available for
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: the regimental commander. The commander rode up to his hut.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: The regiment passed through the village and stacked its arms
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: in front of the last huts like some huge, many
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: limbed animal. The regiment began to prepare its lair and
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: deep through the snow into a birch forest to the
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: right of the village, and immediately the sound of axes
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: and swords, the crashing of branches, and merry voices could
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: be heard from there. Another section, amid the regimental wagons
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: and horses, which were standing in a group, was busy
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: getting out cauldrons and rye biscuit and feeding the horses.
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: A third section scattered through the village, arranging quarters for
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: the staff officers, carrying out the French corpses or in
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: the huts, and dragging away boards, dry wood and thatched
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: from the room for the camphires, or rattle fences to
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: serve for shelter. Some fifteen men, with merry shouts, were
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: shaking down the high wattle wall of a shed, the
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: roof of which had already been removed. Now then all
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: together shove, cried the voices, and the huge surface of
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: seen swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: stakes cracked more and more, and at last the wall fell,
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: and with it the men who had been pushing it.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: Loud cause laughter and joyous shouts enchiwed now, then catch
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: hold in twos, hand up the lever. That's it. Where
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: are you shoving to? Now?
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: All together?
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: But wait a moment, boys with a song. All stood silent,
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: and a soft, pleasant, velvety voice began to sing. At
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: the end of the third verse. As the last note
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: died away, twenty voices roared out at once, Oh, that's it,
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: all together, heave away boys, But the spied their united efforts.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: The wattle hardly moved, and in the silence that followed,
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: the heavy breathing of the men was audible. Here you've
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: the sixth Company, Devils that you are. Lend a hand,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: will you? You may want us one of these days.
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: Some twenty men the sixth Company, who were on their
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: way into the village, joined the haulers, and a wattle wall,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: which was about thirty five feet long and seven feet high,
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: moved forward along the village street, swaying, pressing upon and
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: cutting the shoulders of the gasping man. Get along, falling.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: What are you stopping for there?
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: Now?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Merry?
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: Senseless words of abuse flowed freely. What are you up to?
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: Suddenly came the authoritative voice of a sergeant major, who
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: came upon the men who were hauling their burden. There
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: are gentry here. The general himself is in that hut,
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: and you foul mark the devils, you brutes. I'll give
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: it to you, shouted he, hitting the first man who
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: came in his way a swinging blow on the back.
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: Can't you make less noise? The men became silent. This
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped his face,
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: which had been scratched till it bled by his falling
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: against the wattle. There, how the devil it's out. He's
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: made my face all bloody, said he in a frightened whisper.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: When the sergeant major had passed on, don't you like it?
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: Said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones, the men
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: moved forward. When they were out of the village, they
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: began talking again as loud as before, into larding their
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: talk with the same aimless explosives. In the hut which
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: were an animated talk over their tea about the events
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: of the day and the maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: was proposed to make a flank march to the left,
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: cut off the vice King Murrah and capture him. By
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: its place, the campfires were blazing on all sides, ready
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: for cooking. The wood crackled, the snow was melting, and
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: black shadows of soldiers flitted to and fro all over
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: the occupied space where the snow had been trod down.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: without any orders being given. Stols of wood were brought
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: for the night, Shelters were rigged up for the officers,
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: cauldrons were being boiled, and muskets and accouterments put in order.
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: The wattle wall the men had brought was set up
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: in a semicircle by the eighth Company as a shelter
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: from the north, propped up by musket rests, and a
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: camphire was built before it. They beat the t two
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: called the roll, had supper and settled down round the
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: fires for the night, some repairing their foot gear, some
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: smoking pipes, and some stripping themselves naked to steam the
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: lice out of their shirts. End of chapter seven. This
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: recording is in the public domain.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter eight red for LibriVox
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: dot org. One would have thought that under the almost
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: incredibly wretched conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time,
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: lacking warm boots and sheepskin coats, without a roof over
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: their heads, in the snow, with eighteen degrees of frost,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: and without even full rations, the commissariat did not always
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: keep up with the troops. They would have presented a
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: very sad and depressing spectacle. On the contrary, the army
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: had never, under the best material conditions, presented a more
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who had
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: begun to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: out of the army day by day. All the physically
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: or morally weak had long since been left behind, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: only the flower of the army physically and mentally remained.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: More men collected behind the wattle fence of the eighth
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: the Company than anywhere else. Two Sergeants major were sitting
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: with them, and their camp fire blazed brighter than others.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: For leave to sit by their wattle, they did mandid
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: contributions of fuel. Hey, ma Kiv, what has become of you?
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: You son of a bitch? Are you lost? Of the wolves?
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Eaten?
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: You? Fetch some our wood, shouted a red haired and
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: red faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: of the smoke, but not moving back from the fire.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch some wood, said he
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: to another soldier. This red haired man was neither a
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: sergeant nor a corporal, but being robust, he ordered about
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: those weaker than himself. The soldier they called Jack Daw,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose obediently
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: and was about to go. But at that instant there
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: came into the light of the fire, the slender, handsome
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: figure of a young soldier carrying a load of wood.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: Bring it here, that's fine. They split up the wood,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats,
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: making the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: and lit their pipes. The handsome young soldier who had
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: brought the wood, setting his arms Akimbo, began stamping his
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: cold feet rapid and deftly on the spot where he stood. Mother.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: The dew's cold but clear. It's well that I'm a musketeer,
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: he sang, pretending to hiccup after each syllable. Look Out,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: your souls will fly off, shouted the red haired man,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: noticing that the soul of the dancer's boot was hanging loose.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: What a fellow you are for dancing. The dancer stopped,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: pulled off the loose piece of leather and threw it
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: on the fire. Right enough, friend, said he, and, having
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: sat down, took out of his knapsack a scrap of
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: blue French cloth and wrapped it round his foot. It's
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: the steam that spoils them, he added, stretching out his
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: feet toward the fire. They'll soon be issuing us new ones.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: They say that when we've finished hammering them, were to
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: receive double kits. And that son of a bitch Petrov
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: is leg behind after all, it seems, said one sergeant major.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: I've had an eye on him this long while, said another.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: Well he's a poor sort of soldier. But in the
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: third company they say nine men were missing yesterday. Yes,
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen,
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: how can you walk? Ey? Don't talk nonsense, said a
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: sergeant major. Do you want to be doing the same,
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: said an old soldier, turning reproachfully to the man who
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: had spoken of frozen feet. Well, you know, said the
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: sharp nosed man they called Jack Daw in a squeaky
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: the fire. A plump man gets thin, but for a
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: thin one, it's death. Take me now, I've got no
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: strength left, he added with a sudden resolution, turning to
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: the sergeant major. Tell them to send me up to hospital.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: I'm making all over anyway. I shan't be able to
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: keep up. That'll do, that'll do, replied the sergeant major. Quietly.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: The soldier said no more, and the talk went on.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: What a lot of those Frenchies were taken to day,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: and the fact is that not one of them had
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: what you might call real boots on, said a soldier,
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: starting a new theme. They were no more than make
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: believes the Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: the hut for the colonel and carried them out. It
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: was pitiful to see them boys put in the dancer.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: As they turned them over, one seemed still alive. And
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: would you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo.
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: But they're a clean folk, lads. The first man went on.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: He was white as white as birch bark. And some
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: of them are such fine fellows, you might think they
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: were nobles. Well, what do you think? They make soldiers
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: of all classes there. But they don't understand our talk
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: at all, said the dancer, with a puzzled smile. I
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: his own way, A queer lot. But it's strange, friends,
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: continued the man who had wondered at their whiteness. The
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: peasants at Moses were saying that when they began bearing
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: the dead where the battle was. You know, while those
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: dead had been lying there for nearly a month, And
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: says the peasant, they lie as white as paper, clean,
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: and not much smell as a puff powder smoke. Was
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: it from the cold? Asked someone, You're a clever fellow
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: from the cold. Indeed, why it was hot. If it
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: had been from the cold, ours would not have wrought
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: it either. But he says, go up to ours, and
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: they're all rotten, maggoty. So he says, we tie our
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: we drag them off. We can hardly do it, But
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: theres he says, are white as paper, and not so
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: much smell as a whiff of gunpowder. All were silent.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: It must be from their food, said the sergeant major.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: They used to gobble the same food as the gentry.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: No one contradicted him. That peasant near Mosic where the
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: battle was said the men were all called up from
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: ten villages around, and they cart it for twenty days
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: and still didn't finish carding the dead away. And as
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: for the wolves, he says, that was a real battle,
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: said an old soldier. It's the only one worth remembering.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: He's that it's only been tormenting folk. And do you know, daddy,
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: the day before yesterday, we ran at them. In my word,
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: they didn't let us get near before. They just threw
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: down their muskets and went on their knees. Pardon't they say?
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: That's only one case? They say Platop took Polion himself twice,
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: but he didn't know the right charm. He catches them,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: and catches them no good. He turns into a bird
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: in his hands and flies away, And there's no way
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: of killing him either. You're a first class liar, Kesslev.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: When I come to look at you, liar, Indeed, it's
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: the real truth. If he fell into my hands when
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: I caught him, I'd bury him in the ground with
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: of many's ruined. Well, anyhow we're going to end it.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: He won't come here again, remarked the old soldier, yawning.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine. You'd
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: think the women had spread out their linen, said one
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: of the men, gazing with admiration at the milky way.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: That's a sign of good harvest. Next year, we shall
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: want some more wood. You warm your back and the
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: belly gets frozen. That's queer. Oh lord, what are you
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: he's sprawling. In the silence that ensued, the snoring of
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: those who had fallen asleep could be heard. Others turned
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: over and warmed themselves now and again, exchanging a few
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: words from a camp fire. A hundred paces off came
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: a sound of general merry laughter. Hark at them roaring
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: there in the fifth company, said one of the soldiers.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: And what a lot of em there are. One of
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: the men got up and went over to the fifth company.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: They're having such fun, said he. Coming back. Two Frenchies
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: have turned up. One's quite frozen in the other's an
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: awful swaggerer. He's seeing songs. Oh, I'll go across and
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: have a look. And so several of the men went
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: over to the fifth company. End of Book fifteen, chapter eight.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: This recording is in the public domain. War and Peace
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Book fifteen, chapter nine, red for LibriVox dot org. The
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: fifth Company was bivouacing at the very edge of the forest.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: A huge campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: the snow, lighting up the branches of trees heavy with
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: hoar frost. About midnight, they heard the sound of steps
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: in the snow of the forest, and the crackling of
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: dried branches. A bear, lads, said one of the men.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: They all raised their heads to listen, and out of
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: the forest, into the bright firelight stepped two strangely clad
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: human figures, clinging to one another. These were two Frenchmen
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: who had been hiding in the forest. They came up
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: to the fire, hoarsely, uttering something in the language our
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: soldiers did not understand one was taller than the other.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: He wore an officer's hat and seemed quite exhausted. On
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: approaching the fire, he had been going to sit down,
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: but fell. The other, a short, sturdy soldier with a
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: shawl tied round his head, was stronger. He raised his
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: companion and said something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: surrounded the frenchman, spread a great coat on the ground
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: for the sick man, and brought some buckwheat, porridge and
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: vodka for both of them. The exhausted French officer was Rombald,
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: and the man with his head wrapped in the shawl
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: was Morrel. His orderly. When Morel had drunk some vodka
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: and finished his bowl of porridge, he suddenly became unnaturally
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: merry and chattered incessantly to the soldiers, who could not
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: understand him. Rombald refused food, and, resting his head on
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: his elbow, lay silent beside the camp fire, looking at
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. A casetionly,
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: he emitted a long drawn groan, and then again became silent. Morrel,
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: pointing to his shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: the fact that Rumbald was an officer and ought to
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up to
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: not take a French officer into his hut to warm him.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: And when the messenger returned and said that the colonel
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: wished the officer to be brought to him, Rombald was
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: staggered and would have fallen had not a soldier standing
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: by held him up. You won't do it again, eh,
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: said one of the soldiers, winking and turning mockingly to Rombald.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Oh you fool, why talk rubbish? Lout that you are
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: a real peasant? Came rebukes from all sides, addressed to
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: the jesting soldier. They surrounded Rumbald, lifted him on the
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: crossed arms of two soldiers and carried him to the hut.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: Rambald put his arms around their necks while they carried him,
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: and began wailing plaintively, Oh you fine fellows, my kind
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: kind friends, these are men, oh, my brave, kind friends.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: And he leaned his head against the shoulder of one
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: of them, like a child. Meanwhile, Morrel was sitting in
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: the best place by the fire, surrounded by the soldiers. Morrel,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: a short, sturdy frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: wearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: fashioned round his head over his cap. He was evidently
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: tipsy and was singing a French song and a hoarse
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him. Now, then, now,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: then teach us how it goes. I'll soon pick it up.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: How is it? Said the man, a singer and a wag,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: whom Morrel was embracing.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 7: Viv richet vive souvallon song, Morrel win King soudye rachet.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king, that roudy devil,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: vivar rica viv soufavaru zeb ya da bokaya, repeated the soldier,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: flourishing his arm and catching the tune. Bravo rose their
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: rough joyous laughter from all sides. Morrel, wrinkling up his face,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: laughed too well. Go On, go on, who had a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: triple talent for drinking, for fighting, and for being a
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: galliant old boy, it goes smoothly too well. Now zelatayev
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: ka zelatae have brought out with evert k a. He drawled, laboriously,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: pressing his lips. Le trip te la du dabada a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: dtra vag la la. He sang, fine, just like the frenchie.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: Do you want some more to eat? Give him some porridge.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: It takes a long time to get filled up after starving.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: They gave him some more porridge, and Morrel, with a laugh,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: set to work on his third bowl. All the young
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him. The older men,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such nonsense,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: but one would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: glance at Morrel with a smile. They are men, too,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: said one of them, as he wrapped himself in his coat.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: Even wormwood grows on its own root. Oh, lord lord,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: how starry it is tremendous. That means a hard frost.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: no one was looking at them, began to disport themselves
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: in the dark sky now flaring up. Now vanishing now trembling,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: they were busy whispering something gladsome and mysterious to one another.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: End of Book fifteen, chapter nine. This recording is in
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: the public.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Domain warrant Peace Book fifteen, chapter ten at Fullybrivoux dot
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Org by Ernst Patinama. The French army melted away at
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: the uniform rate of a mathematical progression, and that crossing
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: of Tiberrizina about which so much has been written was
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not at
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: has been and still is written about Tibirizina on the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: French side, this is only because at a broken bridge
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: across that river, the calamities their army had been previously
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment into a tragic
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: spectacle that remained in every memory. And on the Russian side,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: merely because in Petersburg, far from the seat of war,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: a plan, again one of fuels, had been devised to
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: catch Napoleon in a strategic trap the Brizina River. Everyone
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: assured himself that all would happen according to plan, and
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: therefore insisted that it was just the crossing of the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: Brizina that destroyed the French army. In reality, the results
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: in guns and men lost than Krasnoy had been. As
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: the figures show. The sole importance of the crossing of
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: the Brizina lies in the fact that it plainly and
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for cutting
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: off the enemy's retreat and the sountains of the only
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: possible line of action, the one Kutuzov and the general
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: mass of the army demanded, namely, simply to follow the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: enemy up. The French crowd fled at continually increasing speed,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: and all its energy was directed to reaching its goal.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: It fled like a wounded animal, and it was impossible
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: to block its path. This was shown not so much
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: by the arrangements it made for crossing as by what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: took place at the bridges. When the breeges broke down.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow, and women with children who
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: were with the French transport or carried on by vis
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: INETSIAI pressed forward into boats and into the ice covered water,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: and did not surrender. That impulse was reasonable. The condition
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: of fugitives and of pursuers was equally bad. As long
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: as they remained with their own people, each might hope
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: for help from his fellows and the definite place he
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: held among them, but those who surrendered while remaining in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: the same pitiful plight would be on a lower level
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: to claim a share in the necessities of life. The
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: French did not need to be informed of the fact
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: that half the prisoners, with whom the Russians did not
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: know what to do, perished of cold and hunger. Despite
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: the captor's desire to save them. They felt that it
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders, those
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: favorable to the French, and even the frenchmen in the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: Russian service could do nothing for the prisoners. The French
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: perished from the conditions to which the Russian army was
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: itself exposed. It was impossible to take bread and clothes
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: from our hungry and indispensable soldiers to give to the French, who,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: though not harmful or hated or guilty, were simply unnecessary.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: Some Russians even did that, but they were exceptions. Certain
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: destruction lay behind the French, but in front there was
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: hope the ships been burned, there was no salvation save
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: in collective flight, and on that the whole strength of
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: the French was concentrated. The farther they fled, the more
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: wretched became the plight of the remnant, especially after the Berezina,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: on which in consequence of the Petersburg Plan, special hopes
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: had been placed by the Russians, and the keener grew.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: The passions of the Russian commanders blamed on another and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Petersburg Beresina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to dissatisfaction, contempt,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: and ridicule more and more strongly expressed. The ridicule and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: contempt were, of course expressed in a respectful form, making
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to blame.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: They did not talk seriously to him, one reporting to
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: him or asking for his sanction. They appeared to be
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: fulfilling a regrettable formality. But they winked behind his back
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: and tried to mislead him at every turn. Because they
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: could not understand him. All these people assumed that it
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: was useless to talk to the old man, that he
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: would never grasp the profundity of their plans, that he
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: would answer with his phrases, which they thought were mere
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: phrases about a golden bridge, about the impossibility of crossing
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: the frontier with a crowd of tattered imalions, and so
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: forth they had hurt all that before, and all he
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: said that it was necessary to await provisions, or that
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: the men had no boots, were so simple, while what
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: they proposed was so complicated and clever that it was
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: evident that he was old and stupid, and that they,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: though not in power, were commanders so genius. After the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: junction with the army of the brilliant Admiral and Petersburg
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: reached their maximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the affair of the Berezina,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: did he get angry and write to Benixen, who reported
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: separately to the Emperor the following letter. On account of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: your spells of ill health, will your excellency please be
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: of this, And there await further commands and appointments from
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: his Imperial majesty. But after Benisen's departure to Grand Duke Tsarevitch,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: Konstantin Pavlovitch joined the army. He had taken part in
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the campaign, but had subsequently been removed
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: from the army by Kutuzov. Now having come to the army,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: he informed Kutuzov of the Emperor's displeasure at the poor
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: success of our forces and the slowness of their advance.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: few days time. The old man experienced in court as
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: well as in military affairs. The same Kutuzov, who in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: August had been chosen commander in chief against the Sovereign's wishes,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: and who had removed the Grand Duke and heir apparent
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: from the army, who on his own authority and contrary
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: to the Emperor's will, had decided on the abandonment of Moscow,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: now realized at once that his day was over, that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: his part was played, and that the power he was
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: this not merely from the attitude of the court. He saw,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: on the one hand that the military business in which
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: he had played his part was ended, and felt that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: this mission was accomplished. And at the same time he
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: began to be conscious of the physical weariness of his
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: aged body and of the necessity of physical rest. On
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: the twenty ninth of November, Kutuzov entered Vilna, his dear Vilna,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: as he caught it twice during his career, Kutuzov had
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: been governor of Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: not been injured, he found old friends and associations, besides
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: the comforts of life of which he had so long
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: been deprived, and he suddenly turned from the cares of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: army and state, and as far as the passions that
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: seethed around him aloud, immersed himself in the quiet life
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: to which he had formerly been accustomed, as if all
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: that was taking place and all that had still to
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: be done in the realm of history did not concern
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: him at all. Chichegov, one of the most zealous cut
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: us off and break us up, who had first wanted
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsau,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: but never wished to go where he was sent. Chichigov
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: noted for the boldness with which he spoke to the Emperor,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: and who considered Kutuzov to be under an obligation to him,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: because when he was sent to make peace with Turkey
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: in eighteen eleven independently of Kutuzov, and found that peace
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: had already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: the merit of securing that peace was really Kutuzov's. This
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Chichigov was the first to meet Kutuzov at the castle
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: where the latter was to stay. In Andre's naval uniform,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: with a dirk and holding his cup under his arm,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: he handed Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: the town. The contemptuously respectful attitude of the younger men
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: to the old man in his dotage was expressed in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: the highest degree by the behavior of Chichigov, who knew
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: of the accusations that were being directed against Kutuzov. When
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: speaking to Chichigov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that the vehicles packed
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: with china that had been captured from him at Borisov
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: had been recovered and would be restored to him. You
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: On the contrary, I can supply you with everything, even
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: if you want to give dinner parties, warmly replied Chichikov,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: who tried, by every word he spoke to prove his
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov to be animated by
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: the same desire. Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with a subtle,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: penetrating smile. I meant merely to say what I said.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Contrary to the Emperor's wish, Kutuzov detained the greater part
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: of the army at Vilna. Those about him said that
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: he became extraordinarily slack and physically feeble. During his stay
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: in that town. He attended to army affairs, reluctantly left
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: everything to his generals, and while awaiting the emperor's arrival,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: led a dissipated life. Having left Petersburg on the seventh
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: of December with his suite, Count alstoy Binswolkonski, Alekcheyev and others,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: the Emperor reached Vilna on the eleventh, and in his
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: traveling sleigh, drove straight to the castle. In spite of
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: this severe frost. Some hundred generals and staff officers in
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: well as a guard of honor of de Semyonov Regiment.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: A courier who galloped to the castle in advance in
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: a troika with three the foam flecked horses shouted coming,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: and Konovnitsim rushed into the vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: was waiting in the hall porter's little lodge. A minute later,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: the old man's large, stout figure in full dress uniform,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: his stomach, waddled out into the porch. He put on
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: his hat with its peaks to the sides, and holding
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: his gloves in his hand, and walking with an effort
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: sideways down the steps to the level of the street,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: took in his hand the report he had prepared for
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: the Emperor. There was running to and fro and whispering.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: Another truker flew furiously up, and then all eyes were
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: turned on an approaching sleigh, in which the figures of
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: the Emperor and Volkonski could already be descried. From the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: habit of fifty years, all this had physically the agitating
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: effect on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: himself all over, readjusted his hat, and, pulling himself together,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: drew himself up, and at the very moment when the Emperor,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: having alighted from the sleigh, lifted his eyes to him,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: handed him the report and began speaking in his smooth
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: ingratiating voice. The Emperor, with a rapid glance, scanned Kutuzov
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: from head to foot, frowned for an instant, but immediately
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: mastering himself, went up to the old man, extended his
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: arms and embraced him. And this embrace, too, owing to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: a long standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: its usual effect on Kutuzov, and he gave a sob.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: The Emperor greeted the officers and the semon of God,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: and again pressing the old man's hand, went with him
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: into the castle. When alone with the field Marshal, the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Emperor expressed his dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: and at the mistakes made at Krasnoye and Ibyzina, and
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: informed him of his intentions for a future campaign abroad.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same submissive, expressionless
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: look with which he had listened to the Emperor's commands
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: on the field of Austerlitz seven years before, settled on
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: his face. Now. When Kutuzov came out of the study
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: and with lowered head, was crossing the ballroom with his
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: heavy wardling gait, he was arrested by someone's voice, saying,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: your serene highness. Kutuzov raised his head and looked for
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: a long while into the eyes of Count Alstoy, who
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: stood before him holding a silver salver, on which lay
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: a small object. Kutuzov seemed not to underst stand what
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: was expected of him. Suddenly he seemed to remember, A
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: scarcely perceptible smile flashed across his puffy face, and, bowing
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: low and respectfully, he took the object that lay on
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: the salva. It was the order of Saint George for
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: the first Class. End of chapter ten. Recording by against Patinama.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: This recording is in the public domain.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 8: War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter eleven read flibberbox dot org.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 8: Next day, the Field Marshal gave a dinner and ball
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 8: which the Emperor honored by his presence. Kutuzov had received
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 8: the Order of Saint George of the first Class, and
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 8: the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but everyone knew
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 8: of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties were observed,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 8: and the Emperor was the first to set that example,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 8: but everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: good for nothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 8: Catherine's day, ordered the standards that had been captured to
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 8: be lowered at the Emperor's feet on his entering the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 8: ball room, the Emperor made a wry face and muttered
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 8: something in which some people caught the words the old comedian.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 8: The Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased in Vilna
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 8: by the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 8: not understand the importance of the coming campaign. When on
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 8: the following morning, the Emperor said to the officers assembled
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 8: about him, you have not only saved Russia, you have
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 8: saved Europe, they all understood that the war was not ended.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 8: Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 8: opinion that no fresh war could improve the position or
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 8: add to the glory of Russia, but could only spoil
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 8: and lower the glorious position that Russia had gained. He
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 8: tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 8: fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 8: of the possible billy of failure, and so forth. This
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 8: being the Field Marshal's frame of mind, he was naturally
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 8: regarded as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 8: To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 8: method was to do what had been done with him
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 8: at Austerlitz and with a barclay at the beginning of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 8: the Russian campaign, to transfer the authority to the Emperor himself,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 8: thus cutting the ground from under the Commander in chief's feet,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 8: without upsetting the old man by informing him of the change.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 8: With this object, his staff was gradually reconstructed and its
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 8: real strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll Kornevistin
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 8: and Emeralov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 8: Field Marshal's great weakness and failing health. His health had
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 8: to be bad for his place to be taken away
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 8: and given to another, and in fact his health was poor.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 8: So naturally, simply and gradually, just as he had come
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 8: from Turkey to the treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 8: and then to the army when he was needed there,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 8: now in his part was played out. Kutuzov's place was
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 8: taken by a new and necessary performer. The War of
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 8: eighteen twelve, besides its national significance dear to every Russian heart,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 8: was now to assume another a European significance. The movement
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 8: of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 8: by a movement of peoples from east to west, and
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 8: for this fresh war, another leader was necessary, having qualities
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 8: and views differing from Kutuzov's and animated by different motives.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 8: Alexander the First was as necessary for the movement of
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 8: people from east to west and for the refixing of
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 8: national frontiers as Kutuzov had been for the salvation and
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 8: glory of Russia. Kutuzov did not understand what europe, the
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 8: balance of power, or Napoleon meant. He could not understand it.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 8: For the representative of the Russian people. After the enemy
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: had been destroyed and Russia had been liberated and raised
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 8: to the summit of her glory, there was nothing left
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 8: to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 8: of the national war but to die, and Kutuzov died
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 8: end of chapter eleven. Recording by Karin Giesbrecht, Christ Church, Barbados.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 8: This recording is in the public domain.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 7: War and Peace Book fifteen, chapter twelve. Read for librevox
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 7: dot org. Chapter twelve. As generally happens, Pierre did not
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 7: feel the full effects of the physical privation and strain
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 7: he had suffered as prisoner until after they were over.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 7: After his liberation, he reached Orel, and on the third
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 7: day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he felt
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 7: ill and was laid up for three months. He had
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 7: what the doctor's termed bilious fever, but despite the fact
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 7: that the doctors treated him, led him and gave him
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 7: medicines to drink, he recovered scarcely any impression was left
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 7: on Pierre's mind by all that happened to him. From
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 7: the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 7: only the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 7: internal physical distress and pains in his feet and side.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 7: He remembered a general impression of the misfortunes and sufferings
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 7: of people, and of being worried by the curiosity of
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 7: officers and generals who questioned him. He also remembered his
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 7: difficulty in procuring a conveyance in horses, and above all,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 7: he remembered his inadequacy to think and feel all that time.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 7: On the day of his rescue, he had seen the
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 7: body of Petya Rostov. That same day, he had learned
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 7: that Prince Andrew, after surviving the Battle of Borodino for
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 7: more than a month, had recently died in the Rostov's
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 7: house at Yaroslavl. And Denisov, who told him this news,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 7: also mentioned Helene's death, supposing that Pierre had heard of
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 7: it long before. All this at the time seemed merely
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 7: strange to Pierre. He felt he could not grasp its significance.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 7: Just then, he was only anxious to get away as
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 7: quickly as possible from places where people were killing one another,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 7: to some peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 7: and think over all the strange new facts He had learned,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: but on reaching arrel, he immediately fell ill. When he
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 7: came to himself after his illness, he saw in attendance
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 7: on him two of his servants, Taranty and Vascua, who
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 7: had come from Moscow, and also his cousin, the eldest Princess,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 7: who had been living on his estate at Ello's, and,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 7: hearing of his rescue and illness, had come to look
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 7: after him. It was only gradually during his convalescence that
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 7: Pierre lost the impression he had become accustomed to during
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 7: the last few months, and got used to the idea
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 7: that no one would oblige him to go anywhere tomorrow,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 7: that no one would deprive him of his warm bed,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 7: and that he would be s sure to get his dinner,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 7: tea and supper. But for a long time, in his
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 7: dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 7: In the same way, Little by little he came to
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 7: understand the news he had been told after his rescue,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 7: about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of his wife,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 7: and the destruction of the French. A joyous feeling of freedom,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 7: that complete, inalienable freedom natural to man, which he had
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 7: first experienced at the first halt outside Moscow filled Pierre's soul.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 7: During his convalescence, he was surprised to find that this
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 7: inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions, now had,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 7: as it were, an additional setting of external liberty. He
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 7: was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 7: demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere. He had
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 7: all he wanted. The thought of his wife, which had
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 7: been a continual torment to him, was no longer there,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 7: since she was no more. Oh how good, how splendid,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 7: said he to himself, when a cleanly laid table was
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 7: moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 7: he lay down for a night on a soft, clean bed,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 7: or when he remembered that the French had gone and
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 7: that his wife was no more. Oh, how good, how splendid?
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 7: And by old habit. He asked himself the question, well,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 7: and what then, what am I going to do? And
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 7: he immediately gave himself the answer, well, I shall live. Ah,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 7: how splendid. The very question that had formerly tormented him,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 7: The thing he had continually sought to find, the aim
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 7: of life, no longer existed for him. Now that search
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 7: for the aim of life had not merely disappeared temporarily.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 7: He felt that it no longer existed for him and
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 7: could not present itself again. And this very absence of
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 7: an aim gave him the complete, joyous sense of freedom
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 7: which constituted his happiness. At this time, he could not
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 7: see an aim, for he now had faith, not faith
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 7: in any kind of rule or words or ideas, but
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 7: faith in an ever living, ever manifest God. Formerly he
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 7: had sought him in aims. He set himself that search
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 7: for an aim had been simply a search for God.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 7: And suddenly, in his captivity he had learned, not by
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 7: words or reasoning, but by direct feeling what his nurse
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 7: had told him long ago, that God is here and everywhere.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 7: In his captivity he had learned that in Karachev God
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 7: was greater, more infinite and unfathomable than in the architect
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 7: of the universe recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 7: a man who, after straining his eyes to see into
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 7: the far distance, finds what he sought at his very feet.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 7: All his life he had looked over the heads of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 7: the men around him, when he should have merely looked
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 7: in front of him, without straining his eyes. In the past,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 7: he he had never been able to find that great, inscrutable,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 7: infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 7: and had looked for it in everything near and comprehensible.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 7: He had only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 7: He had equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 7: into remote space, where petty worldliness, hiding itself in misty distance,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 7: had seemed to him great and infinite, merely because it
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 7: was not clearly seen. And such had European life, politics, freemasonry, philosophy,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 7: and philanthropy seemed to him. But even then, at moments
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 7: of weakness, as he had accounted them, his mind had
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 7: penetrated to those distances, and he had there seen the
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 7: same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he had learned
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 7: to see the great, eternal and infinite in everything, and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 7: therefore to see it and enjoy its contemplation. He naturally
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 7: threw away the tele telescope through which he had till
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 7: now gazed over men's heads, and gladly regarded the ever changing,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 7: eternally great, unfathomable and infinite life around him. And the
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 7: closer he looked, the more tranquil and happy. He became
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 7: that dreadful question. What for which had formerly destroyed all
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 7: his mental edifices, no longer existed for him to that question?
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 7: What for a simple answer was now always ready in
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 7: his soul. Because there is a God, that God, without
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 7: whose will not one hair falls from a man's head.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 7: End of chapter twelve. This recording is in the public domain.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: War and Peace Book fifteen, Chapter thirteen. This is a
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: Read by Jersey City Frankie In external as, Pierre had
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: hardly changed at all. In appearance, he was just what
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: he used to be, as before. He was absent minded
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: and seemed occupied not with what was before his eyes,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: but with something special of his own. The difference between
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: its former and present self was that formerly, when he
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: did not grasp what lay before him or was said
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: to him, he had puckered his forehead painfully, as if
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: vainly seeking to distinguish something at a distance. At present,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: he still forgot what was said to him, and he
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: still did not see what was before his eyes. But
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: now looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: at what was before him, and listened to what was said,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: though evidently seeing and hearing something quite different. Formerly he
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: had appeared to be a kind hearted but unhappy man,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: and so people had been inclined to avoid him. Now,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: a smile at the joy of life always played around
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: his lips, and sympathy for others shone in his eyes
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: with a questioning look as to whether they were as
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 3: contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his presence. Previously,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: and seldom listened. Now he was seldom carried away in conversation,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: and knew how to listen, so that people readily told
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 3: him their most intimate secrets. The Princess, who had never
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: liked Pierre and had been particularly hostile to him since
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: she had felt herself under obligation to him after the
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: old Count's death. Now, after staying a short time in Aurel,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: where she had come intending to show Pierre that, in
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: spite of his ingratitude, she considered it her duty to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: nurse him, felt to her surprise and vexation that she
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: way seek her approval. He merely studied her with interest. Formerly,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: she had felt that he regarded her with indifference in irony,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: and so had shrunk into herself as she did with others,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: and had shown him only the combative side of her nature.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: But now he seemed to be trying to understand the
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: most intimate places of her heart, and mistrustfully at first,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: but afterwards gratefully she let him see the hidden, kindly
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: sides of her character. The most cunning man could not
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: have crept into her confidence more successfully, evoking memories of
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: the best times of her youth and showing sympathy with them.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply of in finding pleasure, in
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: drawing out the human qualities of the embittered heard and,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: in her own way, proud Princess, Yes, he is a very,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: very kind man when he is not under the influence
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: of bad people, but of people such as myself, thought
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: she His servants too. Taranty and Vaska, in their own way,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: noticed the change that had taken place in Pierre. They
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: considered that he had become much simpler Trenty, when he
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: had held him undress and wished him good night, often
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: lingered with his master's boots in his hands and clothes
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: over his arm to see whether he would not start
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: a talk, and Pierre, noticing that Trenty wanted a chat,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: generally kept him there. Well, tell me now, how did
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: you get food, he would ask, and ene he would
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: begin talking of the destruction of Moscow and of the
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: old count, and would stand for a long time, holding
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: the clothes and talking or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: and then would go out into the hall with a
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and affection for him.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: though he considered it his duty as a doctor to
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: pose as a man whose every moment was of value
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre, telling
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the characters
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: of his patients in general, especially of the ladies. It's
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to talk to a man like that. He
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: is not like our provincials, he would say. There were
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: several prisoners from the French army in Orl and the
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: The officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: make fun of the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: see Pierre talk with him, tell him about his past,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: his life at home, and his love, and pour out
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: to him his indignation against the French, and especially against Napoleon.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 3: If all Russians are in the least like you, it
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 3: is a sacrilege to fight such a nation, he said
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: to Pierre, You, who have suffered so from the French,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: do not even feel animosity towards them. Pierre had evoked
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: the passionate affection of the Italian merely by evoking the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: so doing. During the last day of Pierre's stay in Ourel,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: his old Masonic acquaintance, Count Wilarski, who had introduced him
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: to the lodge in eighteen o seven, came to see him.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: Wlarski was married to a Russian heiress who had a
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: large estate in Aurel province, and he occupied a temporary
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: post in the commisserat department in that town. Hearing that
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: Bezukhov was in Ourel, Wlarski, though they had never been intimate,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: that people who meet in a desert general expressed for
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: one another. Wolarski felt dull in Ourel and was pleased
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: to meet a man of his own circle, and as
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: he supposed, of similar interests. But to his surprise, Wllarski
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much behind the times,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: and it sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: apathy and egotism. You're letting yourself go, my dear fellow,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: he said. But for all that, Wlarski found it pleasanter
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: now than it had been formerly to be with Pierre,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: and came to see him every day. To Pierre, as
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 3: he looked at and listened to Wlarski, it seemed strange
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: to think that he had been like that himself. But
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: a short time before. Willarski was a married man with
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: a family, busy with his family affairs, his wife's affairs,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: and his official duties. He regarded all these occupations as
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: hindrances to life, and considered that they were all contemptible,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: because their aim was the welfare of himself and his family. Military, administrative, political,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: and Masonic interests continually absorbed his attention, and Pierre, without
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: trying to change the other's views and without condemning him,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: but with the quiet, joyful and amused smile now habitual
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 3: to him, was interested in this strange, though very familiar phenomenon.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: with the princess, with the doctor, and with all the
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: people he now met, which gained for him the general
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: good will. This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: changing a man's convictions by words, and his recognition of
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things, each
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: each individual, which used to excite and irritate Pierre, now
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: became a basis of the sympathy he felt for and
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: the interest he took in other people. The difference and
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: sometimes complete contradiction between men's opinions and their lives, and
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: between one man and another, pleased him and drew from
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: him an amused and gentle smile. In practical matters, Pierre
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: unexpectedly felt within himself a center of gravity he had
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: previously lacked. Formerly, all pecuniary questions, especially request from money,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: to which as an extremely wealthy man he was very exposed,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: produced in him a state of hopeless, agitation and perplexity.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: To give or not to give? He asked himself, I
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: have it, and.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 6: He needs it, but some one else needs it still
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 6: more who needs it most? And perhaps they are both impostors.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 6: In the old days, he had been unable to find
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 6: a way out of all these surmises, and had given
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 6: to all who asked, as long as he had anything
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 6: to give. Formerly, he had been in a similar state
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 6: of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his property,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 6: when one person advised one thing and another something else. Now,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 6: to his surprise, he found that he no longer felt
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 6: either doubt or perplexity about these questions. There was now
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 6: within him a judge who, by some rule unknown to him,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 6: decided what should or should not be done. He was
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 6: as indifferent as here too for to money matters, but
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 6: now he felt certain of what ought and what ought
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 6: not to be done. The first time he had recourse
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 6: to his new judge was when a French prisoner. A
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 6: colonel came to him, and, after talking a great deal
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 6: about his exploits, concluded by making what amounted to a
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 6: demand that Pierre should give him four thousand francs to
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 6: send to his wife and children. Pierre refused without the
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 6: least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards surprised how simple
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 6: and easy had been what used to appear so insurmountably difficult.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 6: At the same time that he refused the colonel's demand,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 6: he made up his mind that he must have recourse
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 6: to artifice when leaving Orrel, to induce the Italian officer
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 6: to accept some money of which he was evidently in need.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 6: A further proof to Pierre of his own more settled
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 6: outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision with
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 6: regard to his wife's debts and to the rebuilding of
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 6: his houses in and near Moscow. His head steward came
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 6: to him at Orrel, and Pierre reckoned up with him
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 6: his diminished income the burning of Moscow had cost him,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 6: according to the head steward's calculation, about two million roubles.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 6: To console Pierre for these losses, the head steward gave
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 6: him an estimate showing that despite these losses, his income
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 6: would not be diminished, but would even be increased if
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 6: he refused to pay his wife's debts, which he was
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 6: under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 6: Moscow house and the country house on his Moscow estate,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 6: which had cost him eighty thousand roubles a year and
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 6: brought in nothing. Yes, of course that's true, said Pierre,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 6: with a cheerful smile. I don't need all that at all.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 6: By being ruined, I've become much richer. But in January
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 6: Savelitch came from Moscow and gave him an account of
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 6: the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 6: an architect had made of the cost of rebuilding the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 6: town and country houses, speaking of this as of a
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 6: settled matter. About the same time, he received letter from
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 6: Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife's debts,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 6: and Pierre decided that the steward's proposals, which had so
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 6: pleased him, were wrong, and that he must go to
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 6: Petersburg and settle his wife's affairs, and must rebuild in Moscow.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 6: Why this was necessary he did not know, but he
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 6: knew for certain that it was necessary. His income would
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 6: be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 6: be done. Larski was going to Moscow, and they agreed
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 6: to travel together. During the whole time of convalescence on Aurel,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 6: Pierre had experienced a feeling of joy freedom in life,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 6: but when during his journey he found himself in the
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 6: open world and saw hundreds of new faces, that feeling
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 6: was intensified. Throughout his journey, he felt like a schoolboy
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 6: on holiday. Everyone, the stagecoach driver, the post house overseers,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 6: the peasants on the roads and in the villages had
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 6: a new significance for him. The presence and remarks of Wolarski,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 6: who continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 6: its backwardness compared with Europe, only heightens Pierre's pleasure. Where
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 6: Wallarski saw deadness, Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and vitality,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 6: the strength which, in that vast space amid the snows,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 6: maintained the life of this original, peculiar and unique people.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 6: He did not contradict Wlllarski, and even seemed to agree
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 6: with him in apparent agreement. Being the simplest way to
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 6: avoid discussions that could lead to nothing, And he smiled
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 6: joyfully as he listened to him. End of chapter thirteen,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 6: recording by Jersey City Frankie.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 9: War and Peace Book fifteen, Chapter fourteen read for Liberos
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 9: dot Org by Kate McKenzie. It would be difficult to
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 9: explain why and whither ants whose heap has been destroyed
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 9: are hurrying some from the heap, dragging bits of rubbish,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 9: lava and corpses others back to the heap, or why
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 9: they jostle, overtake one another and fight. And it would
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 9: be equally difficult to explain what caused the Russians, after
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 9: the departure of the French, to throng to the place
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 9: that had formerly been Moscow. But when we watch the
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 9: ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy and immense
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 9: number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 9: of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible, is the
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 9: real strength of the colony, still exists. And Similarly, though
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 9: in Moscow in the month of October there was no government,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 9: no churches, shrines, riches or houses, it was still the
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 9: Moscow it had been in August, all was destroyed except
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 9: something intangible, yet powerful and indestructible. The motives of those
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 9: who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 9: been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 9: and at first, for the most part savage and brutal.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 9: One motive only. They all had in common a desire
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 9: to get to the place that had been called Moscow
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 9: to apply their activities there. Within a week, Moscow already
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 9: had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a fortnight, twenty five thousand,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 9: and so on. By the autumn of eighteen thirteen, the number,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 9: ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 9: eighteen twelve. The first Russians to enter Moscow were the
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 9: Cossacks of Vinzingerode's detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 9: residents who had fled from Moscow and had been hiding
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 9: in its vicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 9: plundered it in their turn. They continued what the French
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 9: had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to Moscow to
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 9: carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 9: the ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 9: what they could to their camps, and the householders seized
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 9: all they could find in other houses and moved it
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 9: to their own, pretending that it was their property. But
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 9: the first plunderers were followed by a second and a
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 9: third contingent, and with increasing numbers, plundering became more and
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 9: more difficult and assumed more definite forms. The French found
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 9: Moscow abandoned, but with all the organizations of regular life,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 9: with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with luxury, and
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 9: governmental and religious institutions. These forms were lifeless but still existed.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 9: There were bazaars, shops, warehouses, market stalls, granaries for the
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 9: most part still stopped with goods, and there were factories
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 9: and workshops, pallaces and wealthy houses filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 9: government offices, churches and cathedrals. The longer the French remained,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 9: the more these forms of town life perished, until finally
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 9: all was merged into one confused, lifeless scene of plunder.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 9: The more the plundering by the French continued, the more
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 9: both the wealth of Moscow and the strength of its
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 9: plunderers was destroyed, but plundering by the Russians with which
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 9: the reoccupation of the city began had an opposite effect.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 9: The longer it continued, and the greater the number of
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 9: people taking part in it, the more rapidly was the
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 9: wealth of the city and its regular life restored. Besides
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 9: the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity, some
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 9: by official duties, some by self interest. Houseowners, clergy officials
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 9: of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants streamed into Moscow
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 9: as blood flows to the heart. Within a week, the
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 9: peasants who came with empty carts to carry off plunder
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 9: were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 9: corpses out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 9: their comrade's discomfiture, came to town bringing rye oats and hay,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 9: and beat down one another's prices to below what they
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 9: had been in former days. Gangs of carpenters, hoping for
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 9: high pay, arrived in Moscow every day, and on all sides.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 9: Logs were being hewn, new houses built and old charred
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 9: ones repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths, cook shops and
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 9: taverns were opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 9: the services in many churches that had not been burned.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 9: Donors contributed church property that had been stolen. Government clerk
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 9: set up their bayse covered tables and their pigeonholes of
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 9: documents in small rooms. The higher authorities in the police
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 9: organized the distribution of goods left behind by the French.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 9: The owners of houses in which much property had been
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 9: left brought there from other houses complained of the injustice
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 9: of taking everything to the faceted palace in the Kremlin.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 9: Others insisted that as the French should gather things from
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 9: different houses into this saw that house, it would be
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 9: unfair to allow its owner to keep all that was
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 9: found there. They abused the police and bribed them, made
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 9: out estimates at ten times their value for government stores
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 9: that had perished in the fire, and demanded relief, and
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 9: Count Rostopchin wrote proclamations end of chapter fourteen. This recording
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 9: is in the public domain.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 10: War in Peace Book fifteen, Chapter fifteen, read for LibriVox
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 10: dot org by Nathan King. At the end of January,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 10: Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 10: his house which had not been burned. He called on
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 10: Count Rostopchin and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 10: and he intended to leave for Petersburg two days later.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 10: Everybody was celebrating the victory. Everything was bubbling with life
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 10: in the ruined but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 10: see Pierre. Every one wished to meet him, and every
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 10: one questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 10: particularly well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 10: on his guard for fear of binding himself in any
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 10: way to all questions put to him, whether important or
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 10: quite trifling, such as where would he live, was he
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 10: going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg? And
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 10: would he mind taking a parcel for some one? He replied, yes, perhaps,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 10: or I think so, and so on. He had heard
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 10: that the Rostovs were at Kostroma, but the thought of
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 10: Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did, it was
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 10: only as a pleasant memory of the distant past. He
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 10: felt himself not only free from social obligations, but also
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 10: from that feeling which it seemed to him he had
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 10: aroused in himself. On the third day after his arrival,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 10: he heard from the Drubretskoys that Princess Mary was in Moscow.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 10: The death, sufferings, and last days of Prince Andrew had
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 10: often occupied Pierre's thoughts, and now re hearred to him
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 10: with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 10: was in Moscow and living in her house, which had
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 10: not been burned in Voshenka Street, he drove that same
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 10: evening to see her. On his way to the house,
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 10: Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their friendship, of
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 10: his various meetings with him, and especially of the last
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 10: one at Borodino. Is it possible that he died in
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 10: the bitter frame of mind he was then in. Is
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 10: it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 10: to him before he died? Thought Pierre. He recalled Karatev
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 10: and his death, and involuntarily began to compare these two men,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 10: so different and yet so similar in that they had
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 10: both lived and both died, and in the love he
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 10: felt for both of them. Pierre drove up to the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 10: house of the old Prince in a most serious mood.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 10: The house had escaped the fire. It showed signs of damage,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 10: but its general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 10: met Pierre with a stern face, as if wishing to
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 10: make the visitor feel that the absence of the old
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 10: prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 10: informed him that the princess had gone to her own
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 10: apartments and that she received on Sundays. Announce me. Perhaps
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 10: she will see me, said Pierre, Yes, sir, said the man,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 10: Please step into the portrait gallery. A few minutes later,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 10: the footman returned with Dessalis, who brought a word from
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 10: the princess that she would be very glad to see
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 10: Pierre if he would excuse her want of ceremony and
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 10: come upstairs to her apartment. In a rather low room
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 10: lit by one candle, sat the princess and with her
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 10: another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 10: always had lady companions, but who they were and what
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 10: they were like he never knew or remembered. This must
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 10: be one of her companions, he thought, glancing at the
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 10: lady in the black dress. The princess rose quickly to
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 10: meet him and held out her hand. Yes, she said,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 10: looking at his altered face. After he had kissed her hand,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 10: so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 10: Even at the very last, She went on, turning her
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 10: eyes from Pierre to her companion with a shyness that
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 10: surprised him for an instant. I was so glad to
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 10: hear of your safety. It was the first piece of
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 10: good news we had received for a long time. Again,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 10: the princess glanced around at her companion with even more
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 10: uneasiness in her manner, and was about to add something,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 10: but Pierre interrupted her. Just imagine, I knew nothing about him,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 10: he said, I thought he had been killed. All I
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 10: know I heard at second hand from others. I only
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 10: know that he fell in with the Rostovs. What a
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 10: strange coincidence. Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 10: once at the companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 10: gaze fixed on him, and, as often happens when one
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 10: is talking, felt somehow that this companion in the black
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 10: dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 10: hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary. But when he
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 10: mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed still greater embarrassment.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 10: She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to that of
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 10: the lady in the black dress, and said, do you
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 10: really not recognize her? Pierre looked again at the companion's pale,
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 10: delicate face with its black eyes and peculiar mouth, and
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 10: something near to him, long forgotten and more than sweet,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 10: looked at him from those attentive eyes. But no, it
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 10: can't be, he thought, this stern, thin, pale face that
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 10: looked so much older, It cannot be she. It merely
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 10: reminds me of her. But at that moment, Princess Mary
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 10: said Natasha, And with difficulty, effort, and stress, like the
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 10: opening of a door grown rusty on its hinges, a
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 10: smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, And
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 10: from that opening door came a breath of fragrance, which
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 10: suffused Pierre with a happiness he had long forgotten and
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 10: of which he had not even been thinking, Especially at
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 10: that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and enveloped him completely.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 10: When she smiled, doubt was no longer possible. It was Natasha,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 10: and he loved her. At that moment, Pierre involuntarily betrayed
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 10: to her. To Princess Mary, and above all to himself,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 10: a secret of which he himself had been unaware. He
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 10: flushed joyfully, yet with painful distress. He tried to hide
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 10: his agitation, But the more or he tried to hide it,
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 10: the more clearly clearer than any words could have done.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 10: Did he betray to himself, to her and to Princess
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 10: Mary that he loved her? No, it's only the unexpectedness
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 10: of it, thought Pierre. But as soon as he tried
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 10: to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary,
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 10: he again glanced at Natasha, and a still deeper flush
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 10: suffused his face, and a still stronger agitation of mingling
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 10: joy and fear seized his soul. He became confused in
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 10: his speech and stopped in the middle of what he
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 10: was saying. Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 10: did not at all expect to see her there. But
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 10: he had failed to recognize her because the change in
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 10: her since he last saw her was immense. She had
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 10: grown thin and pale, but that was not what made
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 10: her unrecognizable. She was unrecognizable at the moment he entered
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 10: because on that face, whose eyes had always shone with
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 10: a suppressed smile of the joy of life now. When
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 10: he first entered and glanced at her, there was not
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 10: the least shadow of a smile. Only her eyes were
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 10: kindly attentive and sadly interrogative. Pierre's confusion was not reflected
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 10: by any confusion on Natasha's part, but only by the
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 10: pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face. End
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 10: of chapter fifteen. This recording is in the public domain.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 4: War and Peace Book fifteen, Chapter sixteen, Read for LibriVox
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 4: dot org. She has come to stay with me, said
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary. The count and Countess will be here in
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 4: a few days. The Countess is in a dreadful state,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 4: but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 4: They insisted on her coming with me. Yes, is there
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 4: a family free from sorrow? Now? Said Pierre, addressing Natasha.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 4: You know it happened the very day we were rescued.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 4: I saw him. What a delightful boy he was. Natasha
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 4: looked up at him, and, by way of answer to
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 4: his words, her eyes widened and lit up. What can
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 4: one say or think of as a consolation, said Pierre. Nothing.
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 4: Why has such a splendid boy, so full of life
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 4: to die yes, in these days it would be hard
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 4: to live without faith, remarked Princess Mary. Yes, yes, that
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 4: is really true. Pierre hastily interrupted her. Why is it true,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 4: Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes. How can you
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 4: ask why, said Princess Mary, the thought alone of what
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 4: awaits Natasha, without waiting for Princess Mary to finish, again,
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 4: looked inquiringly at Pierre, and, because Pierre continued, only one
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 4: who believes that there is a God ruling us can
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 4: bear a loss such as hers and yours. Natasha had
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 4: already opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly stopped. Pierre
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 4: hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 4: asking about his friend's last days. Pierre's confusion had now
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 4: almost vanished, but at the same time, he felt that
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 4: his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 4: was now a judge of his every word, an action
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 4: whose judgment mattered more to him than of all the
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 4: rest of the world. As he spoke now, he was
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 4: considering what impression his words would make on Natasha. He
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 4: did not purposely say things to please her, but whatever
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 4: he was saying, he regarded from her standpoint Princess Mary reluctantly,
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 4: as is usual in such cases, began telling of the
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 4: condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's face,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 4: quivering with emotion, his questions, and his eager, restless expression
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 4: gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 4: to recall for her own sake. Yes, yes, and so
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 4: Pierre kept saying, as he leaned toward her with his
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 4: whole body and eagerly listened to her story. Yes, yes,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 4: so he grew tranquil and softened with all his soul.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 4: He had always sought one thing to be perfectly good,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 4: so he could not be afraid of death. The faults
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 4: he had if he had any word, not of his making.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 4: So he did soften. What a happy thing that he
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 4: saw you again, he added, suddenly turning to Natasha and
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 4: looking at her with eyes full of tears. Natasha's face twitched,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 4: she frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment. She
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 4: hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not. Yes,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 4: that was happiness, she then said, in her quiet voice
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 4: with its deep chest notes. For me, certainly was happiness.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 4: She paused, and he he said he was wishing for
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 4: it at the very moment I entered the room, Natasha's
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 4: voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her knees,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 4: and then, controlling herself with an evident effort, lifted her
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 4: head and began to speak rapidly. We knew nothing of
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 4: it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 4: even ask about him. Then suddenly Sonia told me he
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 4: was traveling with us. I had no idea and could
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 4: not imagine what state he was in. All I wanted
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 4: was to see him and be with him, she said,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 4: trembling and breathing quickly, and not letting them interrupt her.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 4: She went on to tell what she had never yet
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 4: mentioned to anyone, all she had lived through during those
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 4: three weeks of their journey and life at yaroslavel Pierre
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 4: listened to her, with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 4: full of tears. As he listened, he did not think
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 4: of Prince Andrew, nor of death, nor of what she
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 4: for her for what she was suffering. Now while she
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 4: was speaking, Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 4: back tears, sat beside Natasha and heard for the first
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 4: time the story of those last days of her brother's
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 4: and Natasha's love. Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 4: yet joyful tale. She spoke, mingling the most trifling details
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 4: with the intimate secrets of her soul, and it seemed
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 4: as if she could never finish. Several times she repeated
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 4: the same thing. Twice. Dessala's voice was heard outside the door,
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 4: asking whether little Nicholas might come in to say good night. Well,
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 4: that's all everything, said Natasha. She got up quickly just
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 4: as Nicholas entered, almost ran into the door, which was
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 4: hidden by the curtains, struck her head against it, and
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 4: rushed from the room with a moan either of pain
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 4: or sorrow. Pierre gazed at the door through which she
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 4: had disappeared, and did not understand why he suddenly felt
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 4: all alone in the world. Princess Mary roused him from
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 4: his abstraction by drawing his attention to her nephew, who
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 4: had entered the room at that moment of emotional tenderness.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 4: Young Nicholas's face, which resembled his father's, affected Pierre so
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 4: much that when he had kissed the boy, he got
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 4: up quickly took out his handkerchief and went to the window.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 4: He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 4: would not let him go. No, Natasha and I sometimes
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: don't go to sleep till after two, so please don't go.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 4: I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come. Immediately
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 4: before Pierre left the room, Princess Mary told him this
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 4: is the first time she has talked of him like that.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: End of War in Peace Book fifteen, chapter sixteen, War
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 4: and Peace Book fifteen, chapter seventeen, read for LibriVox dot org.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 4: Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room.
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 4: A few minutes later, he heard footsteps and Princess Mary
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 4: entered with Natasha. Natasha was calm, though a severe and
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 4: grave expression had again settled on her face. They all
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 4: three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness which
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 4: usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 4: impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 4: of trifles as awkward, and yet the desire to speak
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 4: is there, and silence seems like affectation. They went silently
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 4: to the table. The footmen drew back the chairs and
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 4: pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin, and,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 4: resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha and Princess Mary.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 4: They had evidently both formed the same resolution. The eyes
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 4: of both shone with satisfaction and a confession that, besides sorrow,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 4: life also has joy. Do you take vodka? Count asked
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary, and those words suddenly banished the shadows of
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 4: the past. Now tell us about yourself, she said. One
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 4: hear such improbable wonders about you, Yes, replied Pierre, with
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 4: a smile of mild irony, now habitual to him. They
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 4: even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of. Mary
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 4: Abramova invited me over to her house and kept telling
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 4: me what had happened or ought to have happened to me.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 4: Stephan Stepanitch also instructed me how I ought to tell
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 4: of my experiences. In general, I have noticed that it
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 4: is very easy to be an interesting man. I am
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 4: an interesting man. Now people invite me out and tell
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 4: me all about myself. Natasha smiled and was on the
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 4: point of speaking. We have been told, Princess Mary interrupted her,
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 4: that you lost two million in Moscow? Is that true?
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 4: But I am three times as rich as before, returned Pierre.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 4: Though the position was now altered by his decision to
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 4: pay his wife's debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 4: still maintained that he had become three times as rich
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 4: as before. What I have certainly gained is freedom, he
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 4: began seriously, but did not continue, noticing that this theme
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 4: was too egotistic. Are you building? Yes, Savellich says, I
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 4: must tell me. Did you not know of the Countess's
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 4: death when you decided to remain in Moscow? Asked Princess Mary,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 4: and immediately blushed, noticing that her question, following his mention
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 4: of freedom, ascribed to his words a meaning he had
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 4: perhaps not intended. No, answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 4: the meaning Princess Mary had given to his words. I
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 4: heard of it in Arielle, and you cannot imagine how
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 4: it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple, he added, quickly,
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 4: glancing at Natasha, noticing on her face curiosity as to
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 4: how he would speak of his wife. But her death
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 4: shocked me terribly. When two people quarrel, they are always
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 4: both at fault, and one's own guilt suddenly becomes terribly
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 4: serious when the other is no longer alive, and then
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 4: such a death without friends and without consolation. I am
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 4: very very sorry for her, he concluded, and was pleased
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 4: to notice a look of glad approval on Natasha's face. Yes,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 4: and so you are once more an eligible bachelor, said
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary. Pierre suddenly flushed Crimson and for a long
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 4: time tried not to look at Natasha. When he ventured
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 4: to glance her way again, her face was cold, stern,
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 4: and he fancied even contemptuous. And did you really see
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 4: and speak to Napoleon as we have been told, said
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary. Pierre laughed, no, not once. Everybody seems to
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 4: imagine that being taken prisoner means being Napoleon's guest. Not
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 4: only did I never see him, but I heard nothing
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 4: about him. I was in much lower company. Supper was over,
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 4: and Pierre, who at first declined to speak about his captivity,
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 4: was gradually led on to do so. But is it
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 4: true that you remained in go to kill Napoleon? Natasha asked,
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 4: with a slight smile. I guessed it when we met
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 4: at the succor of Tower, do you remember? Pierre admitted
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 4: that it was true, and from that was gradually led
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 4: by Princess Mary's questions, and especially by Natasha's, into giving
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 4: a detailed account of his adventures. At first, he spoke
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 4: with the amused and mild irony now customary with him
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 4: toward everybody and especially toward himself. But when he came
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 4: to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed, he
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 4: was unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 4: emotion of a man re experiencing in recollection strong impressions
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 4: he has lived through. Princess Mary, with a gentle smile,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 4: looked now at Pierre and now at Natasha. In the
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 4: whole narrative, she saw only Pierre and his goodness. Natasha,
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 4: leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 4: changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 4: never wandered, evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 4: only her look, but her exclamation and the brief questions
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 4: she put showed Pierre that she understood just what he
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 4: wished to convey. It was clear that she understood not
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 4: only what he said, but also what he wished to
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 4: but could not express. In words. The account Pierre gave
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 4: of the incident with the child and the woman for
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 4: protecting whom he was arrested was this. It was an
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 4: awful sight. Children abandoned, some in the flames. One was
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 4: snatched out before my eyes, and there were women who
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 4: had their things snatched off and their earrings torn out.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 4: He flushed and grew confused. Then a patrol arrived and
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 4: all the men, all those who were not looting, that is,
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 4: were arrested, and I among them. I am sure you
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 4: are not telling us everything. I am sure you did something,
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 4: said Natasha, pausing and added something fine, Pierre continued. When
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 4: he spoke of the execution, he wanted to pass over
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 4: the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 4: omit anything. Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 4: By this time he had risen from the table and
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 4: was pacing the room, Natasha following him with her eyes.
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 4: Then he added, no, you cannot understand what I learned
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 4: from that illiterate man, that simple fellow. Yes, yes, go on,
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 4: said Natasha.
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 5: Where is he?
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 4: They killed him almost before my eyes? And Pierre, his
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 4: voice trembling, continually went on to tell of the last
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 4: days of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death.
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 4: He told of his adventures as he had never yet
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 4: recalled them. He now, as it were, saw a new
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 4: meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 4: was telling it all to Natasha, he experienced that pleasure
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 4: which a man has when women listened to him. Not
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 4: clever women, who, when listening, either try to remember what
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 4: they hear to enrich their minds, and when opportunity offers,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 4: to retell it, or who wished to adopt it to
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 4: some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 4: clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop, But the
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 4: pleasure given by real women, gifted with a capa to
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 4: select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself. Natasha,
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 4: without knowing it was all attention. She did not lose
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 4: a word, no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look,
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 4: no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 4: single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its flight
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 4: and took it straight into her open heart, divining the
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 4: secret meaning of all Pierre's mental travail. Princess Mary understood
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 4: his story and sympathized with him, But she now saw
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 4: something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 4: possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 4: the first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 4: It was three o'clock in the morning. The footman came
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 4: in with sad and stern faces to change the candles,
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 4: but no one noticed them. Pierre had finished his story.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 4: Natasha continued to look at him intently, with bright, attentive
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 4: and animated eyes, as if trying to understand something more
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 4: which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre, in shamefaced and
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 4: happy confusion, glanced occasionally at her and tried to think
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 4: what to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 4: Mary was silent. It occurred to none of them that
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 4: it was three o'clock and time to go to bed.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 4: People speak of misfortunes and sufferings, remarked Pierre. But if
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 4: at this moment I were asked, would you rather be
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 4: what you were before you were taken prisoner or go
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 4: through all this again, then, for Heaven's sake, let me
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 4: have captivity and horseflesh. We imagine that when we are
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 4: thrown out of our usual ruts, all is lost. But
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 4: it is only then that what is new and good begins.
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 4: While there is life, there is happiness, There is much
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 4: much before us. I say this to you, he added,
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 4: turning to Natasha. Yes, yes, she said, answering something quite different.
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 4: I too should wish nothing but to relive all of
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 4: it from the beginning. Pierre looked intently at her. Yes
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 4: and nothing more, said Natasha. It's not true, not true,
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 4: cried Pierre. I am not to blame for being a
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 4: live and wishing to live, nor you either. Suddenly Natasha
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 4: bent her head, covered her face with her hands and
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 4: began to cry. What is it, Natasha said Princess Mary, nothing, nothing.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 4: She smiled at Pierre through her tears. Good night, it
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 4: is time forbid. Pierre rose and took his leave. Princess
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 4: Mary met Natasha as usual in the bedroom. They talked
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 4: of what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 4: express her opinion of Pierre, nor did Natasha speak of him. Well,
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 4: good night, Mary said Natasha. Do you know I'm often
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 4: afraid by not speaking of him, she meant, Prince Andrew,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 4: for fear of not doing justice to our feelings, we
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 4: forget him. Princess Mary sighed deeply, and thereby acknowledged the
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 4: justice of Natasha's remark, but she did not express agreement
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 4: in words. Is it possible to forget? She said? It
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 4: did me so much good to tell all about it today.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 4: It was a hard and painful, but good, very good,
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 4: said Natasha. I am sure he really loved him, That's
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 4: why I told him. Was it all right, she added,
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 4: suddenly blushing to tell Pierre. Oh, yes, what a splendid
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 4: man he is, said Princess Mary. Do you know, Mary,
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 4: Natasha suddenly said, with a mischievous smile such as Princess
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 4: Mary had not seen on her face for a long time.
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 4: He has somehow grown so clean, smooth and fresh, as
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 4: if he had just come out of a Russian bath.
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 4: Do you understand out of a moral bath? Isn't it true? Yes,
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 4: replied Princess Mary. He has greatly improved, with a short
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 4: coat and his hair cropped just as if well, just
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 4: as if he had come straight from the bath. Papa
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 4: used to I understand why he, meaning, Prince Andrew, like
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 4: no one so much as him, said Princess Mary. Yes,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 4: and yet he is quite different. They say men are
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 4: friends when they are quite different. That must be true.
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 4: Really he is quite unlike him in everything. Yes, but
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 4: he's wonderful. Well, good night, said Natasha, and the same
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 4: mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face,
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 4: as if it had been forgotten there and of war
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 4: in Peace Book fifteen, chapter seventeen. War in Peace Book fifteen,
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 4: chapter eighteen. It was a long time before Pierre could
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 4: fall asleep that night. He paced up and down his room,
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 4: now turning his thoughts in a different problem, and frowning,
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 4: now suddenly shrugging his shoulders, and wincing, and now smiling happily.
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 4: He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 4: their love, at one moment jealous of her past, then
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 4: reproaching himself for that feeling. It was already six in
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 4: the morning, and he still paced up and down the room. Well,
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 4: what's to be done? If it cannot be avoided, what's
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 4: to be done? Evidently it has to be, so, said
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 4: he to himself, and hastily undressing, he got into bed,
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 4: happy and agitated, but free from hesitation or indecision. Strange
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 4: and impossible as such happiness seems. I must do everything
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 4: that she and I may be man and wife. He
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 4: told himself. A few days previously, Pierre had decided to
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 4: go to Petersburg on the Friday. When he awoke on
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 4: the Thursday, Suviyelitch came to ask him about packing for
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 4: the journey. What to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 4: there in Petersburg? He asked, involuntarily, though only to himself. Oh, yes,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 4: long ago, before this happened, I did, for some reason
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 4: mean to go to Petersburg, he reflected. Why, but perhaps
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 4: I shall go. What a good fellow he is, and
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 4: how attentive and how he remembers everything, he thought, looking
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 4: at Savillich's old face, and what a pleasant smile he has. Well, Savelich,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 4: do you still not wish to accept your freedom? Pierre
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 4: asked him. What's the good of freedom to me? Your excellency,
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 4: We lived under the late Count the Kingdom of Heaven
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 4: be his, and we have lived under you too, without
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 4: ever being wronged. And your children, the children will live
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 4: just the same with such master as one can live.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 4: But what about my heirs, said Pierre. Supposing I suddenly marry,
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 4: it might happen, he added, with an involuntary smile. If
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 4: I may take liberty your excellency, it would be a
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 4: good thing. How easy he thinks it, thought Pierre. He
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 4: doesn't know how terrible it is and how dangerous. Too
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 4: soon or too late? It is terrible. So what are
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 4: your orders? Are you starting tomorrow? Asked Savelich. No, I'll
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 4: put it off for a bit. I'll tell you. You
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 4: must forgive the trouble I have put you to, said Pierre,
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 4: And seeing Savelt smile, he thought, but how strange it
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 4: is that he should not know now that there is
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 4: no Petersburg for me, and that must be settled first
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 4: of all. But probably he knows it well enough and
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 4: is only pretending. Shall I have a talk with him
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 4: and see what he thinks? Pierre reflected No. Another time,
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 4: at breakfast, Pierre told the princess his cousin, that he
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 4: had been to see Princess Mary the day before and
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 4: had there met whom do you think, Natasha Rostova? The
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 4: princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 4: as if he had seen Anna Semyonovna. Do you know her,
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 4: asked Pierre. I have seen the princess, She replied, I
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 4: have heard that they were arranging a match for her
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 4: with young Rostov. It would be a very good thing
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 4: for the Rostovs. They are said to be utterly ruined. No,
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, do you know Natasha Rostova. I heard about
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 4: that affair of hers at the time. It was a
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 4: great pity. No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending,
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 4: thought Pierre. Better not say anything to her either. The
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 4: princess too, had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey. How kind
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 4: they all are, thought Pierre. What is surprising is that
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 4: they should trouble about all these things now when it
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 4: can no longer be of interest to them and all
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 4: for me. On the same day, the chief of Police
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 4: came to Pierre, inviting him to send a representative to
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 4: the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 4: returned to their owners that day. And this man too,
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 4: thought Pierre, looking into the face of the chief of police.
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 4: What a fine, good looking officer, and how kind fancy
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 4: bothering about such trifles now? And they actually say he
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 4: is not honest and takes bribes. What nonsense. Besides, why
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 4: shouldn't he take bribes? That's the way he was brought up,
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 4: and everybody does it. But what a cun pleasant face
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 4: and how he smiles as he looks at me. Pierre
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 4: went to Princess Mary's to dinner. As he drove through
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 4: the streets past the houses that had been burned down,
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 4: he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 4: picturesqueness of the chimney stacks and tumble down walls of
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 4: the burned out quarters of the town, stretching out and
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 4: concealing one another, reminded him of the Rhine and the Colosseum.
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 4: The cabmen he met and their passengers, the carpenters cutting
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 4: the timber for new houses with axes, the women hawkers,
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 4: the shopkeepers all looked at him with cheerful, beaming eyes
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 4: that seemed to say, Ah, there he is, Let's see
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 4: what will come of it. At the entrance to Princess
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 4: Mary's house, Pierre felt doubtful whether he had actually been
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 4: there the night before and really seen Natasha and talked
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 4: to her. Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I shall go
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 4: in and find no one there. But he had hardly
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 4: entered the room before he felt her presence, with his
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 4: whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom.
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 4: She was in the same black dress with soft folds
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 4: and her hair was done the same way as the
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 4: day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 4: like this when he entered the day before, he could not,
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 4: for a moment have failed to recognize her. She was
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 4: as he had known her, almost as a child, and
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 4: later on as Prince Andrew's fiancee. A bright, questioning light
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 4: shone in her eyes, and on her face was a
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 4: friendly and strangely roguish expression. Pierre dined with them and
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 4: would have spent the whole evening there, but Princess Mary
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 4: was going to Vesper's, and Pierre left the house with her.
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 4: Next day, he came early, dined and stayed the whole evening.
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 4: Though Princess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 4: their visitor, and though all Pierre's interests was now centered
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 4: in that house, by the evening they had talked over everything,
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 4: and the conversation passed from one trivial topic to another
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 4: and repeated liberal GoF. He stayed so long that Princess
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 4: Mary and Natasha exchanged glances, evidently wondering when he would go.
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 4: Pierre noticed this, but could not go. He felt uneasy
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 4: and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 4: get up and take his leave. Princess Mary, for seeing
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 4: no end to this, rose first and complaining of a headache,
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 4: began to say good night. So you are going to
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 4: Petersburg tomorrow, she asked, No, I am not going, Pierre
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 4: replied hastily in a surprised tone, as though offended. Yes,
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 4: no to Petersburg tomorrow. But I won't say good bye yet.
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 4: I will call round in case you have any commissions
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 4: for me, said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red,
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 4: but not taking his departure. Natasha gave him her hand
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 4: and went out. Princess Mary, on the other hand, instead
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 4: of going away, sank into an arm chair and looked
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 4: sternly and intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes.
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 4: The weariness she had plainly shown before had now quite
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 4: passed off. With a deep and long drawn sigh, she
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 4: seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk. When Natasha
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 4: left the room, Pierre's confusion and awkwardness immediately vanished and
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 4: were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly moved an armchair
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 4: toward Princess Mary. Yes, I wanted to tell you, said he,
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 4: answering her look as if she had spoken, Princess helped me.
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 4: What am I to do? Can I hope, Princess, my
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 4: dear friend, listen, I know all I know. I am
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 4: not worthy of her. I know it's impossible to speak
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 4: of it now, but I want to be a brother
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 4: to her. No, not that I don't. I can't. He
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 4: paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands. Well,
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 4: he went on, with an evident effort at self control
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 4: and coherence. I don't know when I began to love her,
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 4: but I have loved her and her alone all my life,
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 4: and I love her so that I cannot imagine without her.
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 4: I cannot propose to her at present. But the thought
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 4: that perhaps she might some day be my wife, and
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 4: that I may be missing that possibility, that possibility is terrible.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 4: Tell me, can I hope? Tell me what I am
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 4: to do, dear princess, he added, after a pause and
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 4: touched her hand as she did not reply. I am
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 4: thinking of what you have told me, answered Princess Mary.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 4: This is what I will say. You are right that
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 4: to speak of her love at present. Princess Mary stopped.
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 4: She was going to say that to speak of love
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 4: was impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 4: the sudden change in Natasha two days before that she
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 4: would not only not be hurt if Pierre spoke of
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 4: his love, but that it was the very thing she
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 4: wished for to speak to her now, wouldn't do, said
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary. All the same, But what am I to do?
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 4: Leave it to me, said Princess Mary. I know, was
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 4: looking into Princess Mary's eyes. Well, well, he said, I
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 4: know that she loves will love you, Princess Mary corrected herself.
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 4: Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and,
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 4: with a frightened expression, seized Princess Mary's hand. What makes
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 4: you think so? You think I may hope you think? Yes,
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 4: I think so, said Princess Mary with a smile. Write
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 4: to her parents and leave it to me. I will
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 4: tell her when I can. I wish it to happen,
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 4: and my heart tells me it will. No, it cannot be.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 4: How happy I am. But it can't be how happy
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 4: I am. No, it can't be, Pierre kept saying, as
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 4: he kissed Princess Mary's hands. Go to Petersburg. That will
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 4: be best, and I will write to you, she said.
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 4: To Petersburg, go there very well, I'll go, but I
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 4: may come again tomorrow. Next day Pierre came to say goodbye.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 4: Natasha was less animated than she had been the day before,
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 4: But that day, as he looked at her, Pierre sometimes
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 4: felt as if he was vanishing, and that neither he
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 4: nor she existed any longer, that nothing existed. But happiness.
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 4: Is it possible? No, it cannot be, he told himself,
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 4: at every look, gesture and word that filled his soul
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 4: with joy. When I'm saying goodbye, he took her thin,
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 4: slender hand. He could not help holding it a little
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 4: longer in his own. Is it possible that this hand,
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 4: that face, those eyes, all this treasure of feminine charms
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 4: so strange to me? Now? Is it possible that it
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 4: will one day be mine forever? As familiar to me
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 4: as I am to myself? How that's impossible? Goodbye, count,
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 4: she said aloud. I shall look forward very much to
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 4: your return, she added in a whisper, And these simple words,
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 4: her look, and the expression on her face which accompanied them,
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 4: formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible memory, interpretations
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 4: and happy meditations for Pierre. I shall look forward very
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 4: much to your return. Yes, yes, How did you say it. Yes,
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 4: I shall look forward very much to your return. Oh
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 4: how happy I am? What is happening to me? How
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 4: happy I am? Said Pierre to himself End of War
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 4: in Peace Book fifteen, Chapter eighteen. War in Peace Book fifteen,
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 4: chapter nineteen, read for LibriVox dot Org. There was nothing
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 4: in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 4: it during his courtship of Helene. He did not repeat
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 4: himself with a sickening feeling of shame at the words
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 4: he had spoken, or say, oh why did I say that?
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 4: And whatever made me say ja huamee. On the contrary,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 4: he now repeated in imagination every word that he or
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 4: Natasha had spoken, and pictured every detail of her face
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 4: and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything,
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 4: but only to repeat it again and again. There was
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 4: now not a shadow of doubt in his mind as
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 4: to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 4: Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind. Wasn't it
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 4: all a dream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 4: too conceited and self confident? I believe all this? And
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 4: suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, and she will be
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 4: sure to smile and say, how strange he must be
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 4: deluding himself. Doesn't he know that he is a man,
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 4: just a man, while I I am something altogether different
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 4: and higher. That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre.
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 4: He did not now make any plans. The happiness before
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 4: him appeared so inconceivable that if only he could attain it,
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 4: it would be the end of all things. Everything ended
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 4: with that. A joyful, unexpected frenzy of which he had
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 4: thought himself incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life,
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 4: not for him alone, but for the whole world. Seemed
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 4: to him centered and his love and the possibility of
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 4: being loved by her. At times, everybody seemed to him
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 4: to be occupied with one thing, only his future happiness.
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 4: Sometimes it seemed to him that other people were all
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 4: as pleased as he was himself, and merely tried to
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 4: hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests.
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 4: In every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness.
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 4: He often surprised those he met by his significantly happy
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 4: looks and smiles, which seemed to express a secret understanding
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 4: between him and them. And when he realized that people
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 4: might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied them
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 4: with his whole heart, and felt a desire somehow to
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 4: explain to them that all that occupied them was a mere,
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 4: frivolous trifle, unworthy of attention. When it was suggested to
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 4: him that he should enter the civil service, or when
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 4: the war or any general political affairs were discussed, on
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 4: the assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 4: issue of events, he would listen with a mild pitying
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 4: smile and surprise people by his strange comments. But at
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 4: this time he saw everybody, both those who, as he imagined,
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 4: understood the real meaning of life, that is, what he
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 4: was feeling, and those unfortunates who evidently did not understand it.
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 4: In the bright light of the emotion that shone within himself,
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 4: and at once, without any effort, saw in every one
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 4: he met everything that was good and worthy of being loved.
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 4: When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife,
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 4: her memory aroused in him no feeling but pity that
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 4: she had not known the bliss he now knew. Prince Vasili, who,
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 4: having obtained a new post and some fresh decorations, was
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 4: particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a pathetic,
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 4: kindly old man, much to be pitied. Often in after life,
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 4: Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All the views
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 4: he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 4: true for him always. He not only did not renounce
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 4: them subsequently, but when he was in doubt or inwardly
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 4: at variance, he referred to the views he had held
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 4: at this time of his madness, and they always proved correct.
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 4: I may have appeared strange and queer, then, he thought,
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 4: but I was not so mad as I seemed. On
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 4: the contrary, I was then wiser and had more insight
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 4: than at any other time, and understood all that is
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 4: worth understanding in life, because because I was happy. Pierre's
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 4: insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do,
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 4: to discover personal attributes, which he termed good qualities in
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 4: people before loving them. His heart was now overflowing with love,
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 4: and by loving people without cause, he discovered indubitable causes
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 4: for loving them. End of chapter nineteen. War and Peace
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 4: Book fifteen, Chapter twenty read for LibriVox dot org. After
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 4: Pierre's departure. That first evening, when Natasha had said to
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 4: Princess Mary with a gaily, mocking smile, he looks just yes,
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 4: just as if he had come out of a Russian
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 4: path in a short coat, with his hair cropped. Something
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 4: hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible, awoke in Natasha's soul.
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 4: Everything her face, walk, look, and voice was suddenly altered.
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 4: To her own surprise, a power of life and hope
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 4: of happiness rose to the surface and demanded satisfaction. From
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 4: that evening, she seemed to have forgotten all that had
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 4: happened to her. She no longer complained of her position,
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 4: did not say a word about the past, and no
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 4: longer feared to make happy plans for the future. She
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 4: spoke little of Pierre, but when Princess Mary mentioned him,
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 4: a long, extinguished light once more kindled in her eyes,
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 4: and her lips curbed with a strange smile. The change
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 4: that took place in Natasha at first prized Princess Mary,
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 4: but when she understood its meaning, it grieved her. Can
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 4: she have loved my brother so little as to be
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 4: able to forget him so soon? She thought when she
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 4: reflected on the change. But when she was with Natasha,
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 4: she was not vexed with her and did not reproach her.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 4: The reawakened power of life that had seized Natasha was
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 4: so evidently irrepressible and unexpected by her that in her
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 4: presence Princess Mary felt that she had no right to
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 4: reproach her, even in her heart. Natasha gave herself up
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 4: so fully and frankly to this new feeling that she
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 4: did not try to hide the fact that she was
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 4: no longer sad, but bright and cheerful. When Princess Mary
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 4: returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with Pierre,
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 4: Natasha met her at the threshold. Has he spoken? Yes?
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 4: Has he spoken? She repeated, and a joyful yet pathetic
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 4: expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for her joy, settled
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 4: on Natasha's face. I wanted to listen at the door,
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 4: but I knew you would tell me. Understandable and touching
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 4: as the look with which Natasha gazed at her seemed
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 4: to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 4: her agitation, these words pained her. For a moment. She
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 4: remembered her brother and his love. But what's to be done?
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 4: She can't help it, thought the princess, and with a
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 4: sad and rather stern look, she told Natasha all that
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 4: Pierre had said on hearing that he was going to Petersburg.
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 4: Natasha was astounded. To Petersburg, she repeated, as if unable
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 4: to understand, But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face,
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 4: she guessed the reason of that sadness, and suddenly began
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 4: to cry. Mary, she said, tell me what I should do.
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 4: I'm afraid of being bad. Whatever you tell me, I
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 4: will do. Tell me you love him, yes, whispered Natasha.
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 4: Then why are you crying? I'm happy for your sake,
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 4: said Princess Mary, who, because of those tears quite forgave
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 4: Natasha's joy. It won't be just yet. Some day, Think
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 4: what fun it will be when I am his wife,
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 4: and you Mary Nicholas, Natasha, I have asked you not
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 4: to speak of that. Let us talk about you. They
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 4: were silent, awhile. But why go to Petersburg, Natasha suddenly asked,
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 4: and hastily replied to her own question. But no, no, no,
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 4: he must, Yes, Mary, he must. End of Book fifteen,
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 4: Chapter twenty