War and Peace: Volume 3, Part 3: Chapters 23–26 Summary & Analysis

In a shabby pot-house, drunken factory workers sing off-key. When a fight breaks out between their landlord and some neighboring blacksmiths, everyone rushes out to the porch. When one of the blacksmiths claims the landlord has killed a man, a whole crowd of workers marches off in search of the police (the landlord himself sneaks back to the pot-house, unnoticed). Along the way, they argue about the rumored abandonment of Moscow.

The crowd stops and gathers around a man who’s reading an ukase, or government edict. The statement claims that the enemy will be eradicated by the following day. The crowd doesn’t find the proclamation convincing, and when they see a police droshky heading rapidly out of the city, they chase it. They know the city has been abandoned by the gentry and merchants and they’ve been left behind. In the crowd, people are heard to demand, “What, are we dogs or something?”

On the evening of September 1st, Count Rastopchin is upset. He wasn’t invited to the war council, and Kutuzov ignored his suggestions about defending the capital. Demoralized, he returns to Moscow. Just as he’s falling asleep that night, he receives a note requesting that he provide police escorts to the troops evacuating the city. Even though he knew that Moscow was going to be abandoned, he feels astonished that it’s happening.

Later, in his notes, Rastopchin wrote that he had two goals during this time: keeping peace in Moscow and getting inhabitants to leave. If this is true, then in retrospect, Rastopchin’s actions appear correct. Even the deception of citizens—in order to maintain calm—seems defensible. Indeed, one could say that even the Reign of Terror was justifiable for the sake of “public tranquility.”

By nine o’clock the following morning, nobody asks Rastopchin for orders anymore. Everyone who intends to evacuate Moscow has left already; everyone else is figuring out what to do on their own. This leads Rastopchin to the realization every administrator dreads: that he is no longer necessary. The police chief comes and informs Rastopchin that a large crowd wishes to see him. He looks out at the restless mob and angrily blames the whole situation on the French. He decides that the crowd must be appeased by a victim. This idea occurs to him because he feels the same way.

Rastopchin steps onto the balcony and assures the mob that they will punish the “villain who has brought ruin to Moscow.” Rastopchin reappears on the front porch with the political prisoner Vereshchagin whom he’s ordered brought to him. He tells the crowd that this man, having gone over to Bonaparte, is responsible for Moscow’s fall. The ragged young man smiles sadly at the silent crowd. Rastopchin shrilly declares that he puts this man in the mob’s hands. The crowd does nothing.

Finally, one of the soldiers standing on the porch strikes Vereshchagin over the head with the flat of his sword. When Vereshchagin utters a cry of pain, the suspenseful silence breaks. The crowd’s sympathetic murmurs turn into a wrathful roar, and people surround the prisoner, tearing at him and beating him. There’s a sense that the people have to finish what they started, but Vereshchagin proves difficult to kill. Eventually, the man’s bruised, bloodied remains are dragged away by a pair of soldiers. The people shrink back, horrified at what they’ve done.

Shaking, Count Rastopchin gets into his carriage and orders that he be driven to his country house. As his journey gets underway, he tells himself that the rabble had to be appeased. If it had been up to him as a private individual, he might have made a different choice, but as the commander in chief, acting on the tsar’s behalf, he did what was necessary for the public good. Throughout history, people who’ve committed similar crimes have placated themselves with the same justification. Besides, Rastopchin tells himself, Vereshchagin was a traitor (though the Senate had sentenced him to hard labor, not death).

By the time he reaches Sokolniki, Rastopchin has forgotten the events in Moscow and is planning how he’s going to yell at Kutuzov for abandoning the capital. Suddenly a robed madman, released from the madhouse, starts running after the carriage. He tells Rastopchin that he has been killed three times and rose from the dead three times. Rastopchin turns pale and orders his driver to go faster. He realizes he’ll be haunted by Vereshchagin’s bloody face for the rest of his life.

Rastopchin’s carriage gallops up to Kutuzov at the Yauzsky bridge. Rastopchin accuses Kutuzov of betrayal; he’d told Rastopchin that he would never give up Moscow without offering battle. Kutuzov gazes thoughtfully at Rastopchin’s expression and agrees with him—no, he wouldn’t give up Moscow without a battle. It’s not clear if he’s not thinking about what he’s saying, or if he’s aware that his words are meaningless. In a rage, Count Rastopchin takes a whip and starts dispersing the carts that are crowding the bridge.

By late afternoon, Murat’s troops enter Moscow. They ask some gathered citizens for directions to the Kremlin. At the Kremlin gates, French troops exchange fire with Russians within. The corpses of the Russian defenders, whose names are forgotten (they’d broken into the arsenal for guns), are moved aside. The French begin setting up camp in the Kremlin.

French soldiers disperse into various quarters and, when they leave weeks later, they’ve turned into looters. Though commanders issue orders forbidding this activity, all such measures prove fruitless. Soldiers squabble over houses and collect any valuables they can find. The city seems to absorb the French as sand absorbs water.

The French attribute the burning of Moscow to Rastopchin’s “fierce patriotism” and the Russians to French savagery. However, the burning can’t be attributed to any single person. The city burned as any wooden city would burn, especially when foreign troops are billeted there. If Russians hadn’t abandoned their town, it might have been a different story.