The officers are about to take leave, but Andrew, apparently reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asks them to stay and have tea. They gaze with surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listen to his talk of Moscow and of the position round which he has ridden. Andrew remains silent, his expression so forbidding that Pierre addresses the good-natured battalion commander. So you understand the whole position of our troops? Not being a military man I can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general position. Well then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may. Pierre looks over his spectacles. What does he think of Kutuzov's appointment? He was very glad, that's all he knows. And Barclay de Tolly? In Moscow they are saying heaven knows what. Ask them, Andrew says, indicating the officers. Timokhin glances at his colonel: We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed. When we were retreating from Sventsiani we dared not touch a stick or a wisp of hay. Two officers were court-martialed. Now everything became straightforward. Why was it forbidden? Andrew answers with venomous irony: so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the enemy. Very sound. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might outflank us. But he could not understand that there, for the first time, we were fighting for Russian soil, that there was a spirit in the men Andrew had never seen, that we had held the French two days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He ordered a retreat, and all efforts went for nothing. He had no thought of betraying us. He is unsuitable now just because he plans everything as every German has to. If your father has a splendid German valet, let him serve while the father is well. If the father is mortally sick you send the valet away and attend with your own unpracticed hands. So it has been with Barclay. They slander him as a traitor, and afterwards, ashamed, they will make him a hero, which will be still more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German.
Pierre says they call him a skillful commander, one who foresees all contingencies and the adversary's intentions. That's impossible, Andrew replies as if settled long ago. And yet they say war is like chess? Yes, with this little difference: in chess you may think over each move as long as you please, and a knight is always stronger than a pawn, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known. If things depended on staff arrangements, Andrew would be there making them. Instead he serves in the regiment, and he considers that on us tomorrow's battle will depend. Success never depends on position, equipment, or even numbers. On what then? On the feeling that is in me and in him, he points to Timokhin, and in each soldier. A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it. Why did we lose Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal, but very early we said we were losing, and we lost, because we had nothing to fight for there. Tomorrow we shan't say it. Talk of the left flank weak and the right too extended is nonsense. What awaits us is a hundred million diverse chances decided on the instant by whether our men or theirs run, and by who is killed. Those men with whom you rode round the position not only do not help but hinder. They are concerned with petty interests, extra crosses and ribbons. For me tomorrow means a hundred thousand Russians and a hundred thousand French, and the side that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. Whatever muddles those at the top may make, we shall win. That's the truth, says Timokhin. The soldiers in my battalion wouldn't drink their vodka. It's not the day for that.
Wolzogen and Clausewitz ride past. Andrew hears: Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. The only aim is to weaken the enemy, so one cannot take into account the loss of private individuals. Extend widely! In that extend were my father, son, and sister at Bald Hills. Those German gentlemen won't win tomorrow but will only make all the mess they can, because they have nothing in their heads but theories not worth an empty eggshell, and haven't in their hearts what Timokhin has. They have yielded up all Europe and now come to teach us. One thing Andrew would do if he had the power: he would not take prisoners. Why take prisoners? It's chivalry. The French have destroyed his home and are on their way to destroy Moscow. They are criminals. They should be executed. Magnanimity in war is like a lady who faints at a calf being killed and enjoys eating it with sauce. Flags of truce in 1805 humbugged us and we humbugged them. Take no prisoners, but kill and be killed. Then we should go to war only when it was worth going to certain death, and Westphalians and Hessians would not follow Napoleon into Russia. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life. Get rid of falsehood and let war be war. As it is, war is the favourite pastime of the idle. The aim of war is murder; the methods are spying, treachery, ruin, fraud termed military craft. The habits of the military class are discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness, and it is the highest class. They meet to murder one another, then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many. How does God above look at them? It has of late become hard for Andrew to live. He has begun to understand too much. It doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Ah, well, it's not for long. Go back to Gorki. Before a battle one must have one's sleep out. He embraces Pierre: Whether we meet again or not. Pierre cannot tell if the face is angry or tender. He concludes Andrew does not want him, knows this is their last meeting, and rides back. Andrew lies on a rug and cannot sleep. He dwells joyfully on Natasha in Petersburg telling him how she lost her way looking for mushrooms, interrupting herself: No, I can't, you don't understand, though he had understood. He loved that inner force, that soul fettered by her body. Suddenly he remembers how his love ended. He, Anatole, saw only a pretty girl, and he is still alive and gay. Andrew jumps up as if burned and paces in front of the shed.
