【有声英语文学名著】战争与和平 Book 10（38）

 Chapter 38 - Napoleon's interpretation¹ of the war

 

The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded, together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty² arm, produced an unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the killed and wounded, thereby³, he considered, testing his strength of mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the Shevardino knoll⁴, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen⁵ and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse⁶, involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing. With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity⁷, and freedom. But when he had been on the Semenovsk heights the artillery⁸ commander had proposed to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo. Napoleon had assented⁹ and had given orders that news should be brought to him of the effect those batteries produced.

An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns had been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they still held their ground.

“Our fire is mowing¹⁰ them down by rows, but still they hold on,” said the adjutant.

“They want more! . . . ” said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.

“Sire?” asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.

“They want more!” croaked¹¹ Napoleon frowning. “Let them have it!”

Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him, was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary greatness, and again — as a horse walking a treadmill¹² thinks it is doing something for itself — he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy, and inhuman¹³ role predestined for him.

And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate¹⁴ truth, goodness, and all humanity.

Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and, deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that “the battle field was superb,” because fifty thousand corpses¹⁵ lay there, but even on the island of St. Helena in the peaceful solitude¹⁶ where he said he intended to devote his leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:

The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and security of all; it was purely¹⁷ pacific and conservative.

It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties¹⁸ and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors¹⁹ were opening out, full of well-being²⁰ and prosperity for all. The European system was already founded; all that remained was to organize it.

Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to the peoples as clerk to master.

Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that the great standing²² armies should be reduced henceforth to mere²³ guards for the sovereigns.

On returning to France, to the bosom²⁴ of the great, strong, magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her frontiers immutable²⁵; all future wars purely defensive²⁶, all aggrandizement²⁷ antinational. I should have associated my son in the Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional reign²¹ would have begun.

Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of the nations!

My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted²⁸, in company with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship²⁹ of my son, to leisurely³⁰ visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple, every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing³¹ wrongs, and scattering³² public buildings and benefactions on all sides and everywhere.

Napoleon, predestined by Providence³³ for the gloomy role of executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the peoples’ welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by the employment of power confer benefactions.

“Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,” he wrote further of the Russian war, “half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly³⁴ speaking, was one third composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke³⁵ French. The Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men; the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the the time it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less than eighteen thousand.”

He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found justification³⁶ in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

1 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

2 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

3 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

4 knoll   

n.小山，小丘

参考例句：

• Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll.对于希尔弗来说，爬上那小山丘真不是件容易事。
• He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect.他慢腾腾地登上一个小丘，看了看周围的地形。

5 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

6 hoarse   

adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的

参考例句：

• He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
• He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动，嗓子都喊哑了。

7 tranquillity   

n. 平静, 安静

参考例句：

• The phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished. 这个令人惶惑不安的现象，扰乱了他的旷达宁静的心境。
• My value for domestic tranquillity should much exceed theirs. 我应该远比他们重视家庭的平静生活。

8 artillery   

n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队)

参考例句：

• This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
• The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。

9 assented   

同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The judge assented to allow the prisoner to speak. 法官同意允许犯人申辩。
• "No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women -- they're too noble. “对，”汤姆表示赞同地说，“他们不杀女人——真伟大！

10 mowing   

n.割草，一次收割量，牧草地v.刈，割( mow的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The lawn needs mowing. 这草坪的草该割了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• "Do you use it for mowing?" “你是用它割草么？” 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

11 croaked   

v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说

参考例句：

• The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢，”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

12 treadmill   

n.踏车；单调的工作

参考例句：

• The treadmill has a heart rate monitor.跑步机上有个脉搏监视器。
• Drugs remove man from the treadmill of routine.药物可以使人摆脱日常单调的工作带来的疲劳。

13 inhuman   

adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的

参考例句：

• We must unite the workers in fighting against inhuman conditions.我们必须使工人们团结起来反对那些难以忍受的工作条件。
• It was inhuman to refuse him permission to see his wife.不容许他去看自己的妻子是太不近人情了。

14 repudiate   

v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行

参考例句：

• He will indignantly repudiate the suggestion.他会气愤地拒绝接受这一意见。
• He repudiate all debts incurred by his son.他拒绝偿还他儿子的一切债务。

15 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

16 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

17 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

18 uncertainties   

无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物

参考例句：

• One of the uncertainties of military duty is that you never know when you might suddenly get posted away. 任军职不稳定的因素之一是你永远不知道什么时候会突然被派往它处。
• Uncertainties affecting peace and development are on the rise. 影响和平与发展的不确定因素在增加。 来自汉英非文学 - 十六大报告

19 labors   

v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• He was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labors. 他老为他自己劳动的价值而争强斗胜，令人生厌。 来自辞典例句
• Farm labors used to hire themselves out for the summer. 农业劳动者夏季常去当雇工。 来自辞典例句

20 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

21 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

22 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

23 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

24 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

25 immutable   

adj.不可改变的，永恒的

参考例句：

• Nothing in the world is immutable.世界没有一成不变的东西。
• They free our minds from considering our world as fixed and immutable.它们改变着人们将世界看作是永恒不变的观点。

26 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

27 aggrandizement   

n.增大，强化，扩大

参考例句：

• Her sole aim is personal aggrandizement. 她唯一的目的就是扩大个人权势。
• His sole aim is personal aggrandizement. 他唯一的目标就是要扩充个人的权势。 来自辞典例句

28 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

29 apprenticeship   

n.学徒身份；学徒期

参考例句：

• She was in the second year of her apprenticeship as a carpenter. 她当木工学徒已是第二年了。
• He served his apprenticeship with Bob. 他跟鲍勃当学徒。

30 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

31 redressing   

v.改正( redress的现在分词 )；重加权衡；恢复平衡

参考例句：

• Do use despot traditional Chinese medicine shampoo a drug after finishing redressing hair? 用霸王中药洗发水，洗完头发后有药味吗？ 来自互联网

32 scattering   

n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散

参考例句：

• The child felle into a rage and began scattering its toys about. 这孩子突发狂怒，把玩具扔得满地都是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The farmers are scattering seed. 农夫们在播种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

33 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

34 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

35 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

36 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。