Briggs: Moscow is empty, like a dead beehive. Napoleon's grand coup de theatre has failed.
Pevear and Volokhonsky: Moscow as an abandoned beehive.
Maude (chapters 20-23): Moscow compared to a queenless hive. The army's departure. Looting by Russian soldiers. The Moskva bridge blocked, and cleared by Ermolov. A brawl among workmen. Reading a Rostopchin broadsheet to a crowd. Scene with the superintendent of police
Translation:
XX.
Moscow between that was empty. In it were still people, in it stayed still a fiftieth part of all the former inhabitants, but it was empty. It was empty, as empty as a dying dewatered hive.
In a dewatered hive now is no life, but to a superficial look it seems so the same alive as others.
So the same funny, in the hot rays of the midday sun, curl the bees around the dewatered hive, as around other alive hives; so the same from afar smells from it honey, so the same fly in and take off from it bees. Yet it is worth taking a closer look at it, so that to understand that in this hive now is no life. There is not so as in alive hives fly bees, not that smell, not that sound to defeat the beekeeper. To the knock of the beekeeper on the wall of the sick hive, instead of the former, momentarily, friendly answer, the hiss of a dozen thousand bees, menacingly pressing their backside and quick battle wings producing this air of vital sound, he is answered with scattered buzzing, booming outgoing in different places of the empty hive. From the taphole are not smells, as before, the spirited, fragrant smell of honey and poison, there are not bears from the completely warm, but with the smell of honey merges the smell of emptiness and rot. At the taphole are no more preparing for death to defend, ascending up the backside, trumpeting the alarm of the guards. No more of this even quiet sound, trembling labor, like that sound of boiling, but heard is an awkward, scattered noise of disorder. In the hive and from the hive timidly and shifty fly in and take off black, oblong, oiled honey robber bees; they do not sting, but slip away from dangers. Before only with burdens they flew in, but taking off the empty bees, now taking off with burdens. The beekeeper opens the lower well and peers in the lower part of the hive. Instead of the before hanging to the ties (the bottom of the floor) the black, pacified by labor lashes of the juicy bee, holding behind its legs each other and with a continuous whisper of labor pulling the foundation, — the sleepy, shriveled bees in different parties wander absent-mindedly by the bottom and the walls of the hive. Instead of the purely covered up in glue and swept away by the fans of wings floor, on the bottom lies crumbs of wax, feces of the bees, half-dead, little bit stirring legs, and completely dead, untidy bees.
The beekeeper opens the upper well and examines the head of the hive. Instead of the solid ranks of bees, stuck to all the gaps of the honeycomb and warming the kids, seeing the skillful, complex work of the honeycomb, now not in this does he see the virginity, in which it had before. All is launched and fouled. Robbers — black bees snooping around fast and stealthily by the workers; his bees, shriveled, short, sluggish, as if old, slowly wander, not hindering anyone, not wishing and having lost the consciousness of life. Drones, hornets, bumblebees, and butterflies goofily knock on the flying about walls of the hive. Somewhere between the waxes with dead children and honey occasionally is heard from different parties an angry grunt; somewhere two bees, by old habit and memory cleansing the nest of the hive, carefully with excess forces drag away a dead bee or bumblebee, themselves not knowing for what they do this. In another corner two other old bees lazily fight, or clean, or feed one another, themselves not knowing if this is hostile or friendly to do. In the third location, a crowd of bees, crushing each other, attacks some victim and beats and chokes it. And the weakening or killed bee slowly, easily as fluff, subsides from the top to the lot of corpses. The beekeeper unfolds the two middle waxes, so that to see the nest. Instead of the formerly solid, black circles of a thousand bees, seated back with back and watching the higher secrets of native affairs, he sees hundreds of sad, half-dead, and asleep skeleton bees. They almost all have died, themselves not knowing this, sitting on the shrine which they guard, which now is no more. From them smells rot and death. Only some of them stir, rising, sluggishly flying and sitting down on the arm of the enemy, not in their forces to deadly sting him, — the rest, dead as fish scales, are easily pouring in downwards. The beekeeper closes the well, marks it in chalk block and chooses a time to break it out and burn it out.
So empty was Moscow, when Napoleon, tired, anxiously frowning, went back and forward in his office of the collegiate shaft, although expecting this outside, but necessary, by his concepts, compliance of decency, — deputations.
In the different corners of Moscow only pointlessly still moved people, observing old habits and not understanding what they did.
When to Napoleon with care it was announced that Moscow was empty, he angrily looked at the informing him about this, and turning away, continued to walk silently.
— Give a crew, — he said. He sat down on a carriage nearby with the duty adjutant and went in the suburb.
"Moscow is bare. What an incredible event!"782 — he spoke with himself.
He did not go in the city, but stopped at an inn in the courtyard of the Dorogomilovsky suburb.
Did not fail the resolution of the theatrical presentation.783
782 "Moscou déserte. Quel événement invraisemblable!" ("Moscow deserted. What an unbelievable event!"
783 Le coup de théâtre avait raté. (The spectacular turn of events had failed.)
Time: see previous chapter
Locations: Moscow (also Moscou in the French), Kammer-kolleg rampart, Dorogomilov suburb
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: We flip to Moscow, which now has only about 2 percent of its inhabitants in it and is like "a dying-out, queenless beehive."
Tolstoy spends a significant amount of time on the analogy of the beehive and the beekeeper, describing what a dead hive looks like to a beekeeper.
"in one one place two bees, cleaning the nest by old habit and memory, assiduous, overstraining, drag away a dead bee or a bumblebee, not knowing themselves why they are doing it."
"The beekeper closes the frames, marks the hive with chalk, and, when he finds time, breaks it open and burns it out...In various corners of Moscow only a few people still stirred meaninglessly, keeping to old habits and not understanding what they were doing."
Napoleon is told that Moscow is empty and decides to stay in a suburb. Tolstoy ends the chapter in French, not in dialogue, but as with the Latin phrase at the end of the Polish drowning soldiers episode, as a comment on the chapter, translated as "The coup de theatre had not come off."
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 *):
Napoleon
(also the inhabitants of Moscow, including those who decided to stay, as well as the hypothetical bee-master and bees. Also Napoleon's "informant" and his aide-de-camp, which appear to be two different people.)
Abridged Versions: End of Chapter 16 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 11: line break instead of chapter break.
Fuller: The extended bee analogy is removed, keeping on the singular simile. The Napoleon section of the chapter is preserved and is followed by a line break.
Komroff: Only the Napoleon section of the chapter is preserved. Followed by a line break.
Kropotkin: Entire chapter is cut.
Bromfield: No apparent corresponding episode.
Simmons: Chapter 11: entire chapter is cut and replaced with: "Except for some tradesmen, workers, and released criminals, Moscow is deserted. Tolstoy compares the city to a queenless hive. Some of the retreating Russian troops begin looting and the remaining rabble show signs of mob violence."
Additional Notes:
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