Notes on WAR AND PEACE Petya's Demise

 

Notes on War and Peace: Petya’s Demise

Sixteen years old, Petya Rostov is a young officer, eager for baptism in battle. “Petya, having left his family on their departure from Moscow, had joined his regiment, and soon after that he was attached as an orderly to a general in command of a large detachment. Since the time of his promotion to officer, and especially since going on active duty, where he had taken part in the Battle of Vyazma, Petya had constantly been in a state of happily excited joy that he was grown up, and in constantly rapturous haste not to miss any occasion for real heroism. He was happy with what he had seen and experienced in the army, but at the same time it seemed to him all the time that he was not present where the most real and heroic things were happening. And he hurried to get where he was not."

 A telling sentence, that last one, which in the Russian reads, “И он торопился поспеть туда, где его не было.” Literally, “And he was in a hurry to arrive on time at the place where he was not” (Vol. 4, Part 3, Ch. 7). The following chapters (Ch. 7-11) describe Petya’s path toward arriving where he would be not— i.e., in the condition of the Big Not. While sitting with the other officers at the table eating, he is described as being “in a rapturous, childlike state of tender love for all people, and consequently of certainty that other people had the same love for him.” He expresses this love in his kind treatment of a French prisoner, a drummer boy roughly the same age as him.

 Later he volunteers to go with the reckless Dolokhov on an unnecessary mission to reconnoiter the French forces. They dress in French uniforms and ride directly into the French camp, where Dolokhov converses with the French soldiers. Keep in mind that the Russian upper classes spoke French as well as they did Russian. Luckily, they escape from this episode unscathed, but the very presence of Dolokhov—who has proven no friend of the Rostov family in the past—suggests more bad vibrations for the action ahead.

 Back in the Russian camp with the attachment of Denisov, Petya cannot sleep. He has begged Denisov to let him take part in the next day’s battle, and Denisov has reluctantly agreed, after forcing Petya to promise he won’t do anything rash. That evening Petya drifts off to the accompaniment of his sword being sharpened by a Cossack. At this point Tolstoy provides Petya with a kind of threnody in a dream, set to a background of sword-sharpening.

 “Petya began to close his eyes and rock.

 Drops dripped. Quiet talk went on. Horses neighed and scuffled. Someone snored.

Ozhik, zhik, ozhik, zhik, whistled the saber being sharpened. And suddenly Petya heard a harmonious chorus of music, playing some unknown, solemnly sweet hymn. Petya was musical, like Natasha, and more so than Nikolai, but he had never studied music or thought about music, and therefore the melodies that abruptly entered his head were especially new and attractive to him. The music played more and more audibly. The melody grew, passing from one instrument to another. What is known as a fugue was going on, though Petya had not the slightest idea of what a fugue was. Each instrument, now resembling a violin, now trumpets—each instrument played its own part and, before finishing its motif, merged with another, starting out almost the same, and with a third, and with a fourth, and they all merged into one and scattered again, and merged again, now solemn and churchly, now brightly coruscating and victorious.

 ‘Ah, yes, it’s just me dreaming,’ Petya said to himself, rocking forward. ‘It’s in my ears. And maybe it’s my music. Well, play again. Go on, my music! Go to it!’ . . .

 He closed his eyes. And on all sides, as if from afar, sounds trembled, began to harmonize, scattered, merged, and again all were joined in the same sweet and solemn hymn. ‘Ah, how lovely that is! As much as I like and however I like it,’ Petya said to himself. He attempted to conduct this huge chorus of instruments.

 ‘Softer, softer now, fade away,’ And the sounds obeyed him. ‘Fuller now, merrier. More, still more joyful.’ And swelling, solemn sounds rose from an unknown depth. ‘Now, voices, join in!’ Petya ordered. And voices, first men’s, then women’s, came from far away. The voices grew, grew in a measured, solemn effort. Petya felt frightened and joyful as he hearkened to their uncommon beauty.

 The song merged with the solemn, victorious march, and drops dripped, and bzhik, zhik, zhik . . . whistled the saber, and again the horses scuffled and neighed, not disrupting the chorus, but entering into it.”

 

So it is that Petya conducts the music that is something like his own imminent funeral march, for on the following day he rides recklessly into battle, forgetting his promises to Denisov, and is struck by a stray bullet.

 “‘Hurrah,’ shouted Petya, and, not losing a moment, he galloped toward the place from which the shots were coming and where the powder smoke was thickest. A volley of shots rang out, stray bullets whined and splatted into something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya through the gates of the house. In the dense, undulating smoke some of the French dropped their weapons and ran out of the bushes towards the Cossacks, other ran down the hill to the pond. Petya galloped on his horse across the manor courtyard, and, instead of holding the reins, waved both arms somehow strangely and quickly, and kept slipping further and further to one side in his saddle. Running up onto the campfire smoldering in the morning light, the horse balked, and Petya fell heavily onto the wet ground. The Cossacks saw how his arms and legs jerked rapidly, though his head did not move. His head had been pierced by a bullet” (Vol. 4, Part 3, Ch. 7-11).