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As soon as the tired chanters, who were singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God we all flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again kindled in all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back, and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.
On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey his head coachman who knew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow that he would leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk, and that his saddle horses should be sent there.
A third has advanced along the Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the twenty-fifth.
We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as well we must manage as best we can!" "They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?" And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozhaysk hill, the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind.
In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk. By the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep hill into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill and that he had already passed it.
As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence. "Where have you to go to? Tell us!" said one of them. "To Mozhaysk." "You're a gentleman, aren't you?" "Yes." "And what's your name?" "Peter Kirilych." "Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there."
That's necessary for the people," said the first. "What is it?" asked Pierre. "Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet." Pierre took it and began reading. His Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where the enemy will not soon attack him.
The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick of the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim.
The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions, which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into line with the rest of the forces. The Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk, September, 6, 1812.
At dawn next day Pierre was approaching Mozhaysk. Every house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be had. It was full of officers. Everywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon were everywhere.
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