Book 3 Part 2 Chapter 7 (Chapter 194 overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Was Napoleon lured on to Moscow? Thiers's opinion. Napoleon order. Moscou! Napoleon's conversation with Lavrushka. Thiers's version of the interview.
Briggs: Napoleon orders the advance on Moscow. An encounter with Lavrushka.
Maude: Napoleon orders an advance on Moscow. Napoleon's conversation with Lavrushka
Pevear and Volokhonsky: The French advance on Moscow. Nikolai's orderly Lavrushka taken prisoner. Napoleon's talk with him, plus quotations from Thiers. Lavrushka freed.

Translation:

VII.

At that time as this was happening in Petersburg, the French had now passed Smolensk and all nearer and nearer moved to Moscow. The historian of Napoleon Thier so the same as other historians of Napoleon, says, trying to justify their hero, that Napoleon was attracted to the walls of Moscow unwittingly. He is right, as right as all historians, seekers of explanations of historical events in the will of one human; he is right so the same as Russian historians, approving of how Napoleon was attracted to Moscow by the art of the Russian generals. Here besides the retrospective law (recurrence), all present verified the preparation to the accomplished fact, is more reciprocity, confusing all the business. A good player, losing at chess, is sincerely convinced that his losing occurred from his mistakes, and he seeks out this mistake at the beginning of his game, but forgets that in each of his steps, in continuing throughout game, were such the same mistakes, that not one of his moves were perfect. The error in which he draws his attention is noticeable to him only because of how the enemy took advantage of it. In how much more difficult is this in the game of war, going on in famous conditions of time, where not alone will lead the lifeless machines, but where all follows from countless collisions of institutions in arbitrariness?

After Smolensk Napoleon sought battle behind Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, then at Tsarev-Zaymishch; but it came out that by a countless collision of circumstances before Borodino, at 112 versts from Moscow, the Russians could not accept battle. From Vyazma was made a disposition of Napoleon for the movements of all to Moscow.

Moscow, the Asian capital of this great empire, the sacred city of the people of Aleksandr, Moscow — with its own countless churches in the shape of Chinese pagodas!636 This Moscou (Moscow) did not give peace to the imagination of Napoleon. In the transition from Vyazma to Tsarev-Zaymishch, Napoleon on horseback rode on his nightingale Englised pacer, accompanied by a guard, cavalry, pages and adjutants. Chief of staff Berthier was behind so that to interrogate the taken cavalry Russian captive. He, galloping, was accompanied by translator Lelorme d’Ideville, caught up with Napoleon and with a fun face stopped his horse.

— Well? — said Napoleon.

— Platov’s Cossack637 speaks that the corps of Platov unites with the large army, and that Kutuzov is assigned commander in chief. Very smart and a chatterbox!638

Napoleon smiled and told to give this Cossack a horse and bring him to himself. He himself desired to talk with him. A few adjutants jumped, and in an hour the serf person of Denisov, yielded by him to Rostov, Lavrushka, in a batman jacket on a French cavalry saddle, with a rogue and drunk, fun face, drove to Napoleon. Napoleon told him to go nearby with himself and started to ask:

— Are you a Cossack?

— A Cossack, your nobleness.

"The Cossack, not knowing the society in which he was found because of that simplicity Napoleon had nothing that could open for the eastern imagination the presence of the sovereign, talked with extreme familiarity about the circumstances of the present war,"639 speaks Thier, telling this episode. Really, Lavrushka, drinking until drunk and leaving the baron without dinner, was carved on the eve and sent into the village for chickens, where he carried away looting and was taken into the captivity of the French. Lavrushka was one of those rude, arrogant lackeys, experienced in all sorts of views, that considered it his duty to do all with meanness and cunning, that was ready to serve all his service to the master, and that slyly guessed the master’s bad thoughts, in particular vanity and pettiness.

Hit in the society of Napoleon, whose personality he very well easily recognized, Lavrushka was not embarrassed at all and only tried to against throughout his soul deserve his new master.

He very well knew that this was Napoleon himself, and the presence of Napoleon could not embarrass him more than the presence of Rostov, or the master sentinel with rods, because of how neither could deprive him, the master sentinel, or Napoleon.

He lied to all that was interpreted between the orderlies. Much of this was real. Yet when Napoleon asked him, how again the Russians thought they would conquer Bonaparte, or if they would not, Lavrushka squinted and thought.

He saw here thin cunning, as always and to all see the cunning of people similar to Lavrushka, who frowned and was silent.

— If it means: when there will be a battle, — he said thoughtfully, — and in speed, so this is so exactly. Well but if will pass three days, but after these numbers themselves, then this means the very battle will go in a quickdraw.

Napoleon translated this so: "If a battle will happen before three days, then the French win it, but if it is after three days, then God knows what will happen,"640 smiling delivered Lelorme d’Ideville. Napoleon did not smile, although he apparently was in the most fun location of spirit and told to repeat to himself these words.

Lavrushka saw this, and, so that to cheer him up, said, pretending that he did not know who he was.

— We know, in you is Bonaparte, he all in the world has beat, well yes about us is another article... — he said, himself not knowing, how and from what under the end slipped through in his words boastful patriotism. The translator delivered these words to Napoleon without graduation, and Bonaparte smiled. The young Cossack made his powerful interlocutor smile,641 spoke Thier. Driving a few steps silently, Napoleon turned to Berthier and said that he wanted to test the action which will be produced on this child of the Don642, the news about how the person with whom speaks this enfant du Don (child of the Don) is the Emperor himself, that very Emperor, which wrote on the pyramids his immortal victorious name.

The news was delivered.

Lavrushka (realizing that this was done so to perplex him, and that Napoleon thought that he was frightened), so to please his new master, immediately again pretended to be astonished, dazed, with a bulged eye and made such the same face, which he did habitually, when he was led to be flogged. “Barely had the translator of Napoleon said this to the Cossack, as the Cossack, embracing and somehow dumbfounded, did not utter another single word and continued to ride, not lowering his eye from the conqueror, the name of whom reached to his back oriental steppe. All his talkativeness suddenly stopped and was replaced by naive and a silent feeling of delight. Napoleon, rewarding the Cossack, ordered to give his freedom, as a bird, which returns to its relatives’ fields.”643

Napoleon went farther, dreaming about that Moscou (Moscow), which so occupied his imagination, the bird, returning to its relatives’ fields644 galloped to the advance posts, thinking up forward all that what was not and how he would tell it. This again, that was not really by him, he did not want to tell because of how this seemed to him an unworthy story. He left to the Cossacks, asked where was the regiment held in the detachment of Platov, and in the evening again found his baron Nikolay Rostov, standing in Yankov, and only then he sat down on horseback, so that to with Ilyin do a walk by of the surrounding village. He gave another horse to Lavrushka and took his for himself.

636 Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacrée des peuples d’Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables églises en forme de pagodes chinoises! (Moscow, the Asian capital of this great empire the sacred city of the peoples of Alexander, Moscow with its innumerable churches in the form of Chinese pagodas!)

637 Eh bien?

Un cosaque de Platow

(Well? A Platow Cossack)

638 Très intelligent et bavard! (Very intelligent and talkative!)

639 "Le cosaque ignorant la compagnie dans laquelle il se trouvait, car la simplicité de Napoléon n’avait rien qui put révéler à une imagination orientale la présence d’un souverain, s'entretint avec la plus extrême familiarité des affaires de la guerre actuelle", ("The Cossack was ignorant of the company in which he was, because the simplicity of Napoleon had nothing that could reveal to an oriental imagination the presence of a sovereign, conversed with the most extreme familiarity on the affairs of the present war, ")

640 Si la bataille est donnée avant trois jours, les Français la gagneraient, mais que si elle serait donnée plus tard, Dieu sait ce qui en arriverait, (If the battle is given before three days, the French would win it, but that if it would be given later, God knows what would happen)

641 "Le jeune Cosaque fit sourire son puissant interlocuteur", ("The young Cossack made his powerful interlocutor smile",)

642 sur cet enfant du Don (on this child of the Don)

643 "A peine l’іпtеrрrètе de Napoléon, speaks Thier, avait-il parlé, que le Cosaque, saisi d’une sorte d’ébahissement ne proféra plus une parole et marcha les yeux constamment attachés sur ce conquérant, dont le nom avait pénétré jusqu’à lui, à travers les steppes de l’Orient. Toute sa loquacité s’était subitement arrêtée, pour faire place à un sentiment d’admiration naïve et silencieuse. Napoléon, après l’avoir récompensé, lui fit donner la liberté, comme à un oiseau qu’on rend aux champs qui l’ont vu naître". ("Scarcely had Napoleon's interpreter, speaks Thier, spoken, that the Cossack, seized with a sort of astonishment no longer spoke a word and walked with his eyes constantly attached to this conqueror, whose name had penetrated him through the steppes of the Orient. All his eloquence had suddenly stopped, to make a place for a naive and silent sense of admiration. Napoleon, after rewarding him, gave him freedom, like a bird returned to the fields where it was born."

644 a l’oiseau qu’on rendit aux champs qui l’on vu naître (to the bird that was returned to the fields where it was born)

Time: towards evening
Mentioned: day before

Location: Yankovo (Jankow in Bell. Yankova in Dunnigan.)
Mentioned: St. Petersburg, French, Smolensk, Moscow (also Moscou), Russian, Dorogobuzh, Vyamza, Tsarevo-Zaymishche (...Zaimishche in Pevear and Volokhonsky and Dole. Csarevo-Zaimichtche in Bell.), a village, Don, Orient, Chinese (chinoises in the French), Asiatic (asiatique in the French), Borodino

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: A meanwhile (“While this was going on”) cut to the French passing Smolensk and heading towards Moscow. Again, a focus on the historical interpretations of Napoleon’s movement to Moscow. “A good player who loses at chess (an analogy important later considering what Napoleon says) is genuinely convinced that he has lost because of a mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of his game, but forgets that there were also mistakes at every step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect.”

Tolstoy uses Thiers in the chapter to counter him, inserting Lavrushka as Thiers probably fictional Cossack and then reinterpreting the scene.

Notable that Nikolai had beaten Lavrushka for not serving him dinner.

The scene is extremely satirical, fitting in tone with the previous chapter.

Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):

Thiers (mentioned by name in the chapter 44 footnote.)

Napoleon (and his “English-groomed bay ambler”. Also called “nobility” and “emperor”.)

Alexander (“d’Alexandre” in the French.)

Platof

Kutuzof

Lavrushka (also “Cossack”, “Denisof’s Serf”, and “enfant du Don”.)

Denisof

Nikolai Rostof

Lelorme d’Ideville (“Lelorgne d’Ideville” in Bell in an alternate reading. “Napoleon’s interpreter”.)

Berthier

Ilyin (not mentioned in Dole.)

(there is a mention of a sergeant that whipped Lavrushka.)

Abridged Versions: End of Chapter 15 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 7.

Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.

Komroff: Entire chapter is cut.

Kropotkin: Entire chapter is cut.

Bromfield: Chapter 4: The only real difference lies in the final paragraph, which works somewhat as an apology for the chapter. I’ll quote it in full:

“Let me not be reproached with selecting trivial details to describe the actions of people who are acknowledged as great, like this Cossack like the bridge at Arole, and so on. If there were no accounts attempting to portray the most banal details as great, then my descriptions would not exist either. In a description of Newton’s life, the details of his food, the fact that he stumbled, cannot have the slightest impact on his significance as a great man - they are extraneous; but in this case the opposite is true. God knows what would be left of great men, rulers and warriors if all of their actions were translated into ordinary, everyday language.”
Simmons: Chapter 7: entire chapter is cut and replaced with "Napoleon's imagination is fired at the thought of reaching Moscow. Tolstoy shows how the historian Thiers misrepresents the questioning of Rostov's captured orderly by Napoleon.

Additional Notes: Walter/Carruthers: "On August 19, the entire army moved forward, and pursued the Russians with all speed....From Smolensky to Moshaisk the war displayed its horrible work of destruction: all the roads, fields, and woods lay as though sown with people, horses, wagons, burned villages and cities; everything looked like the complete ruin of all that lived. In particular, we saw ten dead Russians to one of our men, although every day our numbers fell off considerably...In such numbers were the Russians lying around that it seemed as if they were all dead. The cities in the meantime were Dorogobush, Semlevno, Viasma, and Gshatsk. The march up to there, as far it was a march, is indescribable and inconceivable for people who have not seen anything of it....Many cried out in despair, "If only my mother had not borne me!" Some demoralized men even cursed their parents and their birth...On September 7...the signal to attack was given."

Roberts: Page 371: “The word ‘impatience’ recurs often in Segur’s narrative, and might almost be considered the most constant of all Napoleon’s military, indeed personal, traits. Of those closest to him on this campaign - Berthier, Mortier, Duroc, Caulaincourt, Rapp and Segur - all mention his great impatience throughout, even when his plans were ahead of schedule.”

Kahn, Lipovetsky, and Reyfman mark the Lavrushka story as an example of Tolstoy undermining Thiers and establishing trust in his own narrative.