Moscow quickly came back to life as successive waves of Russian plunderers and other Russians returned and began repairing and rebuilding and engaging in trade. By the following year, the population of Moscow was bigger then ever.
Moscow quickly came back to life as successive waves of Russian plunderers and other Russians returned and began repairing and rebuilding and engaging in trade. By the following year, the population of Moscow was bigger then ever.
Book 15, Chapter 14
Moscow quickly came back to life as successive waves of Russian plunderers and other Russians returned and began repairing and rebuilding and engaging in trade. By the following year, the population of Moscow was bigger then ever.
Summary:
In this chapter, Tolstoy describes the process of Moscow coming back to life after the French depart. When the French left Moscow, all was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and indestructible – something like it’s spirit. The first people to return were Russian plunderers from near Moscow. These first people plundered what the French had left, carrying what they found back to their own villages or houses. As more and more plunderers came, plundering became more and more difficult for the new arrivals. But the more people came to plunder, the more rapidly was the wealth of the city and its regular life restored. All sorts of others, some drawn by curiosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest-house owners, clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants-streamed into Moscow. peasants who came to plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart corpses out of the town. Farmers came with grain to sell, carpenters came looking for work, police resumed trying to stop theft, and so on, as the city quickly came back to life. This regeneration happened very quickly. A week after the French left Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a fortnight twenty-five thousand. By the autumn of 1813 the number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in 1812.
quote from the chapter:
in Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches, shrines, riches, or houses-it was still the Moscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and indestructible.
The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to apply their activities there.
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