Moscow’s streets are crammed on the day of the French evacuation. The prisoners see the French overloaded with plunder. In the evening, looking at the stars, Pierre has an epiphany and realizes that no human being can ever truly be captured.
Moscow’s streets are crammed on the day of the French evacuation. The prisoners see the French overloaded with plunder. In the evening, looking at the stars, Pierre has an epiphany and realizes that no human being can ever truly be captured.
Book 13, Chapter 14
Moscow’s streets are crammed on the day of the French evacuation. The prisoners see the French overloaded with plunder. In the evening, looking at the stars, Pierre has an epiphany and realizes that no human being can ever truly be captured.
Summary:
In this chapter, Tolstoy describes the bedlam on the streets of Moscow on the eve of the French evacuation. The prisoners can barely move, so full are the streets with vehicles, wagons and artillery. Everyone and everything is loaded down with plunder. The French seem to want to carry off anything of value from Moscow, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the distance. Often, hemmed in, the prisoners have to stop and wait for long periods, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men crowded closer and closer together. Tempers flare and they see fighting on the road. They hear shouts of anger and abuse. The prison guards become crueler than ever. They have been told to shoot any prisoner who tries to escape. That evening, when they have finally stopped for the night, having only moved a short distance within the city, Pierre is told that he may not cross the road to speak to some other prisoners. Pierre is overcome with a sudden epiphany and begins to laugh. Looking at the stars in the sky, he realizes that it is not really possible for any human being to hold another captive, people being so limitless.
quote from the chapter:
Ha-ha-ha! laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: The soldier did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive. What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!… and he laughed till tears started to his eyes. A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from the inquisitive man, and looked around him. The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its faraway depths. And all that is me, all that is within me, and it is all I! thought Pierre. And they caught all that and put it into a shed boarded up with planks! He smiled, and went and lay down to sleep beside his companions.
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