During the whole march from Moscow no fresh orders had been issued concerning the party of prisoners among whom was Pierre. By the twenty-second of October they were no longer with the same troops and baggage trains. Half the wagons of hardtack had been captured by Cossacks; the other half had gone ahead. The dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in front had all disappeared. The artillery of the first days was replaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage train, convoyed by Westphalians; behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train. From Vyazma onwards the French army, which had moved in three columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder Pierre had noticed at the first halt had reached the utmost limit. The road was bordered on both sides by dead horses. Ragged men from various regiments joined the column and lagged again. Several times false alarms were given; the escort raised muskets, fired, ran headlong crushing one another, then reassembled and abused each other for causeless panic.
The three groups still constituted a united whole, though each was rapidly melting away. Of a hundred and twenty artillery wagons not more than sixty remained. Some of Junot's wagons had been captured or abandoned; three had been raided by stragglers from Davout's corps. From the Germans Pierre learned that a larger guard had been allotted to that baggage than to the prisoners, and that a German soldier had been shot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the marshal had been found in his possession. The prisoners had melted most of all. Of three hundred and thirty who set out from Moscow, fewer than a hundred remained. They were more burdensome than saddles or Junot's spoon. That cold hungry soldiers should guard equally cold hungry Russians, and shoot them if they lagged, was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. The escort, as if afraid of giving way to pity and so rendering their own plight worse, treated them with particular moroseness. At Dorogobuzh, while convoy soldiers locked the prisoners in a stable and went off to pillage their own stores, several tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were recaptured and shot.
The separation of officer prisoners had long been abandoned. After the third stage Pierre rejoined Karataev and the grey-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen Karataev for its master. On the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with the fever from the Moscow hospital, and as he grew weaker Pierre kept away. He did not know why, but the subdued moaning at the halts and the stronger odor cost him an effort; he moved farther off and did not think about him. In the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being that man is created for happiness, that happiness lies in the satisfaction of simple needs, and that unhappiness arises from superfluity. Now, during three weeks of march, he learned another consolatory truth: nothing in this world is terrible. There is no condition in which a man can be entirely free and happy, and none in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom. Suffering and freedom have limits very near together. The person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now on damp earth, one side chilled, the other warming. Tight dancing shoes had hurt as bare scab-covered feet hurt now. Marrying his wife, of his own free will as it had seemed, he had been no more free than when they locked him in a stable at night. Horseflesh was appetizing; saltpeter gunpowder used as salt was even pleasant; walking warmed him by day; lice warmed his body. The one hard thing at first was his feet. After the second day's march he thought it impossible to walk on them; when everybody got up he limped, warmed, and went on without feeling the pain. He did not look at them now. The saving power of transferring attention is like a boiler's safety valve. He did not see them shoot the laggards, though more than a hundred perished that way. He did not think of Karataev, who grew weaker every day. Still less did he think about himself. The harder the position and the more terrible the future, the more independent of that position were the joyful memories that came to him.
Coming Up in Chapter 311
At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre goes uphill along the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of the way. A blue-grey bandy-legged dog runs merrily beside him, hopping on three legs, then rushing to bark at the crows that sit on the carrion.
