War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [722]
But after the first looters came another wave, a third, and looting, in time with the increasing number of looters, became harder and harder every day and took on more definite forms.
The French had found Moscow empty but with all the forms of a city leading an organically regular life, with its various functions of trade, crafts, luxury, state government, religion. These forms were lifeless, but they still existed. There were rows of stalls, shops, storehouses, granaries, bazaars—most of them with stock; there were factories, workshops; there were palaces, wealthy houses filled with luxury objects; there were hospitals, jails, government offices, churches, cathedrals. The longer the French stayed, the more these forms of city life were obliterated, and in the end it all merged into one indistinct, lifeless field for looting.
The longer the looting of the French went on, the more it destroyed the wealth of Moscow and the strength of the looters. The longer the looting of the Russians, with which they began their takeover of the capital, went on, and the greater the number of people taking part in it, the more quickly it restored the wealth of Moscow and the regular life of the city.
Besides looters, the most varied people, some drawn by curiosity, some by official duties, some by calculation—house owners, clergy, high- and low-ranking officials, tradesmen, artisans, muzhiks—flowed into Moscow from all sides, like blood to the heart.
Within a week, muzhiks coming with empty carts to carry things off were stopped by the authorities and forced to cart the dead bodies out of the city. Other muzhiks, hearing of their comrades’ failure, came to the city with wheat, oats, hay, and beat each other down to prices lower than before. Teams of carpenters, hoping for high pay, entered Moscow every day, and on all sides there were new houses under construction and burned-down houses being repaired. Merchants opened their stalls for trade. Cookshops and inns were set up in burnt houses. The clergy resumed services in many churches that had not burned down. Donors brought looted church objects. Officials set up their baize-covered tables and file cabinets in small rooms. The higher authorities and police took charge of distributing the goods left by the French. The owners of those houses in which many things had been brought together from other houses, complained of the unfairness of bringing them all to the Faceted Palace;5 others insisted that the French had brought things together in one place from various houses, and therefore it was unfair to give the owner of the house the things found in it. The police were abused; they were bribed; the estimates of burned-down government property were inflated tenfold; there were demands for relief. Count Rastopchin wrote his proclamations.
XV
At the end of January, Pierre arrived in Moscow and settled in the surviving wing of his house. He called on Count Rastopchin and on some acquaintances who had returned to Moscow, and intended to go to Petersburg in two days. Everyone was celebrating the victory; everything was boiling with life in the destroyed and reviving capital. Everyone was glad to have Pierre back; everyone wanted to see him, and everyone asked him about what he had seen. Pierre felt especially amicably disposed towards all the people he met; but now he involuntarily kept himself on guard with all people, so as not to bind himself by anything. To all the questions put to him, important or quite trifling, he replied with equal vagueness. To whatever he was asked—where was he going to live? was he going to build? when would he be going to Petersburg and might he take a little box with him?—he replied: yes, maybe, I think so, and so on.
Of the Rostovs