War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [550]
IX
Pierre had barely laid his head on the pillow when he felt himself falling asleep; but suddenly, with an almost lifelike clarity, he heard the boom-boom-boom of gunfire, heard groans, cries, the smack of projectiles, smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of terror and the fear of death seized him. Frightened, he opened his eyes and raised his head from under the greatcoat. All was quiet in the courtyard. Only some orderly came through the gate, talking with the yard porter and splashing through the mud. Some pigeons above Pierre’s head, in the dark under the wooden eaves, were roused by the movement he made as he raised himself. The whole courtyard was filled with the peaceful, strong smell of an inn, which gladdened Pierre at that moment, the smell of hay, dung, and tar. Between the two black sheds the clear, starry night could be seen.
“Thank God there’s no more of that,” thought Pierre, covering his head again. “Oh, how terrible fear is and how disgracefully I yielded to it! And they…they were firm, calm all the time, till the end…” They, to Pierre’s mind, were the soldiers—those who had been at the battery, and those who had fed him, and those who had prayed before the icon. They—these strange people, hitherto unknown to him—they were clearly and sharply separated in his mind from all other people.
“To be a soldier, simply a soldier!” thought Pierre, falling asleep. “To enter that common life with my whole being, to be pervaded by what makes them that way. But how to cast off all that’s superfluous, devilish, all the burden of the outer man? At one time I could have been that. I could have run away from my father, as I wanted to. I could have been sent off as a soldier after the duel with Dolokhov.” And there flashed in Pierre’s imagination the dinner at the club, when he had challenged Dolokhov, and his benefactor in Torzhok. And now Pierre pictures to himself the solemn dining room of the lodge. This lodge is meeting in the English Club. And someone familiar, close, dear, is sitting at the head of the table. It is he! It is his benefactor. “But isn’t he dead?” thought Pierre. “Yes, dead; but I didn’t know he was alive. How sorry I am that he’s dead; and how glad I am that he’s alive again!” On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitsky, Denisov, and others like them (in his dream the category of these people was as clearly defined in Pierre’s soul as the category of people he called they), and these people, Anatole, Dolokhov, were shouting and singing loudly; but from beyond their shouting the voice of his benefactor could be heard talking ceaselessly, and the sound of his words was as significant and constant as the noise of the battlefield, yet it was pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor was saying, but he knew (the categories of thought were just as clear in his dream) that the benefactor was speaking of the good, of the possibility of being what they were. And they surrounded his benefactor on all sides with their simple, kind, firm faces. But although they were kind, they were not looking at Pierre, they did not know him. Pierre wanted to attract their attention and speak. He rose a little, but just then his feet became cold and bare.
He was embarrassed and covered his feet with his hand, from which the overcoat had actually fallen. For a moment, as he straightened the overcoat, Pierre opened his eyes and saw the same sheds, posts, courtyard, but it was all bluish now, bright, and covered with sparkles of dew or frost.
“Day is breaking,” thought Pierre. “But that’s not it. I have to finish listening and understand the words of my benefactor.” He covered himself again with the overcoat, but the dining room lodge and his benefactor were no longer there. There were only thoughts, clearly expressed in words, thoughts which someone spoke or Pierre himself pondered.
Recalling these thoughts afterwards, Pierre was convinced that, even though they had been called up by the impressions of the day, someone outside him had