War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [587]
After the past two days, spent solitarily and unusually, Pierre was in a state close to madness. His whole being was possessed by one importunate thought. He did not know how or when himself, but this thought had now taken such possession of him that he remembered nothing of the past, understood nothing of the present; and everything he saw and heard went on before him as in a dream.
Pierre had left his house only so as to be rid of the complicated tangle of life’s demands which had taken hold of him, and which he, in the state he was in then, had been unable to disentangle. He had gone to Iosif Alexeevich’s house under the pretext of sorting the books and papers of the deceased, only because he was seeking rest from life’s anxieties, and the memory of Iosif Alexeevich was connected in his soul with the world of eternal, calm, and solemn thoughts, the complete opposite of the anxious tangle he felt himself being pulled into. He had sought a quiet refuge, and indeed had found one in Iosif Alexeevich’s study. When, in the dead silence of the study, he sat down, resting his elbow on the deceased man’s dusty writing table, memories of the last days began to appear calmly and meaningfully, one after another, in his imagination, especially of the battle of Borodino and of that indefinable feeling of his own insignificance and falseness in comparison with the truth, simplicity, and strength of that category of people imprinted in his soul under the name of they. When Gerasim roused him from his reflections, the thought came to Pierre that he would take part in the people’s defense of Moscow, which he knew was projected. And with that purpose he had at once asked Gerasim to obtain a kaftan and a pistol for him, and announced to him his intention of concealing his name and staying in Iosif Alexeevich’s house. Later, in the course of his first day spent in solitude and idleness (Pierre tried several times, but was unable to fix his attention on Masonic manuscripts), a thought had vaguely presented itself to him several times, the same thought he had had before about the cabalistic connection between his name and the name of Bonaparte; but this thought that he, l’Russe Besuhof, was destined to set a limit to the power of the beast, still came to him only as one of those fantasies that, without cause or trace, flit through one’s imagination.
When, having bought a kaftan (only with the aim of participating in the people’s defense of Moscow), Pierre had met the Rostovs, and Natasha had said to him, “You’re staying? Ah, that’s so good!”—the thought had flashed through his head that it would indeed be good, even if Moscow were to be taken, for him to stay there and carry out what had been predestined.
The next day, with the one thought of not sparing himself and not lagging behind them in anything, he went out of the Three Hills gate with the people. But when he returned home, convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he suddenly felt that what formerly had been only a possibility had now turned into a necessity and an inevitability. He had to remain in Moscow, concealing his name, meet Napoleon, and kill him, so as either to perish, or to put an end to the misfortunes of all Europe, which proceeded, in Pierre’s opinion, solely from Napoleon.
Pierre knew all the details of a German student’s attempt on the life of Bonaparte in Vienna in 1809 and knew that this student had been shot.19 And the danger to which he would subject his life while carrying out his intention excited him still more.
Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to his intention. The first was the feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering in the awareness of the general calamity, that feeling on account of which he had gone to Mozhaisk on the twenty-fifth and ended up in the very heat of battle, and had now run away from his home and, instead of the habitual luxury and comforts of life, slept on a hard couch without undressing, and ate the same food as Gerasim; the other was that vague, exclusively Russian feeling of disdain