tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's
ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later
on to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is
impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the
fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must
burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to
live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it
is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained
in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like
Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants
abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor
bring them the keys of the city.

CHAPTER XXVII

The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,
only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the
second of September.

After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed
by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had
taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,
understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to
him like a dream.

He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands
that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable
to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of
sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from
life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was
connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite
contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being
drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he
really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table
in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories
of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,
particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his
own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,
and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When
Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking
part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And
wi