War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [596]
XXX
The glow of the first fire that started on the second of September was watched from different roads and with different feelings by the inhabitants fleeing Moscow in carriages and on foot and by the retreating soldiers.
The Rostovs’ train stopped that night in Mytishchi, thirteen miles from Moscow. On the first of September they had set out so late, the road had been so encumbered with carts and troops, so many things had been forgotten, for which people had to be sent back, that it had been decided to spend that night three miles from Moscow. The next morning they started late and again stopped so many times that they only reached Great Mytishchi. At ten o’clock the Rostov family and the wounded who were traveling with them, all settled in the yards and cottages of the big village. The servants, the Rostovs’ drivers, and the orderlies of the wounded, after taking care of the masters, had supper, fed the horses, and went out to the porch.
In a cottage next door lay Raevsky’s wounded adjutant with a shattered hand, and the terrible pain he felt made him moan pitifully, ceaselessly, and those moans had a terrible sound in the autumnal darkness of the night. This adjutant had spent the first night in the same courtyard as the Rostovs. The countess said she had not slept a wink on account of that moaning, and in Mytishchi they took an inferior cottage only so as to be further away from this wounded man.
One of the servants noticed, in the dark of the night, above the high body of a carriage that stood by the porch, another small glow of a fire. One glow had been visible for a long time already, and everyone knew it was Little Mytishchi, set on fire by Mamonov’s Cossacks.
“But that, brothers, is a different fire,” said an orderly.
They all turned their attention to the glow.
“Didn’t they say Mamonov’s Cossacks set fire to it?”
“Them! No, that’s not Mytishchi, it’s further away.”
“Looks like it’s in Moscow.”
Two of the men stepped off the porch, went around the carriage, and sat on the footboard.
“It’s more to the left! Come on, Mytishchi’s over there, and that’s on a completely different side.”
Several people joined the first ones.
“Look at it blazing up,” said one. “That, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow: either in Sushchevskaya or in Rogozhskaya.”
Nobody replied to this observation. And for some time all these people silently watched the flames of the new fire blazing up in the distance.
Old Danilo Terentyich, the count’s valet (as he was called), went up to the crowd and called out to Mishka.
“What are you gaping at, you halfwit…The count will ask, and there’ll be nobody. Go get the clothes ready.”
“I just ran to fetch some water,” said Mishka.
“And what do you think, Danilo Terentyich, might that glow be in Moscow?” asked one of the servants.
Danilo Terentyich made no reply, and again everyone was silent for a long time. The glow spread and wavered farther and farther.
“Lord have mercy!…it’s windy and dry…” a voice spoke again.
“Look how it’s got going. Oh, Lord! you can even see the sparks flying! Lord, have mercy on us sinners!”
“They’ll put it out, no fear.”
“Who is there to put it out?” came the voice of Danilo Terentyich, who had been silent until then. His voice was calm and slow. “That’s our Moscow, brothers,” he said, “she, our dear mother of white st…”22 His voice broke, and he suddenly gave an old man’s sob. And it was as if they had only been waiting for that to understand the meaning which this glow they were looking at had for them. Sighs were heard, words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count’s old valet.
XXXI
The valet, coming back in, told the count that Moscow was burning. The count put on his dressing gown and went to look. Madame Schoss and Sonya, who had not undressed yet, went with him. Only Natasha and the countess stayed in the room (Petya was no longer with the family; he had gone ahead with his regiment, which was marching towards the Trinity monastery23).
The countess began to cry on hearing the news about the Moscow fire. Natasha,