Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen

It is difficult to explain for what purpose the ants rush out of the destroyed nest, some come out of the nest dragging fine particles of food, ant eggs and dead ant carcasses, others return to the nest - why They rushed, chased, and killed each other, and it was similarly difficult to explain what caused the Russian people to gather again in that place that was formerly called Moscow after the retreat of the French.In a similar vein, however, when we observe the ants scattered about a ruined colony, although the colony is completely destroyed, the unrelenting, vigorous, and infinite energy of the burrowing insects It can be seen that although everything is destroyed, all the indestructible, immaterial things that created the ant nest still exist--such is the case in Moscow, October Even though there was no government, no churches, no sacred things, no wealth, no houses, it was still Moscow in August.Everything is destroyed, but that immaterial, yet powerful, indestructible remains.

After Moscow was cleared of the enemy, people flocked to Moscow from all directions with various personal motives—most of them initially had a savage animal motive.There is but one motive which is common to all men, and that is to hasten to that place which was formerly called Moscow, and to go about their business there. A week later Moscow had fifteen thousand inhabitants, two weeks later two million five thousand, and so on.This number continued to increase and increase, until in the autumn of 1813 it surpassed the population of 1812. The first Russians to enter Moscow were Cossacks from Winzengerode's troops, peasants from villages near Moscow, and residents who escaped from Moscow and hid in the suburbs of Moscow.The Russians who entered the ruined Moscow and found that Moscow had been sacked, they also began to loot.They continue to do what the French did.The peasants drove their wagons to Moscow to bring back to the country everything that had been abandoned in the ruined houses and streets of Moscow.The Cossacks moved into their barracks everything they could; the original owners removed anything they found in other people's houses, which they falsely claimed to be their property.

However, immediately after the first group of looters came to the city to rob, a second group and a third group came.However, as the number of looters has multiplied, it has become increasingly difficult to loot things, and more certain ways have developed. After the French occupied Moscow, although it was found to be a ghost city, it still had all the organizational forms of an organically and normally lived city, with all kinds of commerce and handicrafts, luxury goods, and Government governing bodies and religious groups.The institution is completely paralyzed, yet it still exists.There are shopping malls, small shops, stores, grain stores, bazaars - most of which still have goods; there are factories and workshops; there are magnificent palaces and mansions of rich and powerful; Government offices, houses of worship, cathedrals.The longer the French occupation lasted, the more these forms of urban life were destroyed, until at last they became a mess, and after suffering disaster, they presented themselves as a lifeless ruin.

The longer the plundering of the French went on, the more ruined Moscow's wealth was, and the more power was lost to the looters.After the Russians occupied their own capital, they began their own looting. The more this kind of looting continued, the more people participated in the looting, and the faster the wealth of Moscow and the normal life of the city recovered. In addition to the looters, there were all sorts of people, some driven by curiosity, some for the public service of the government, and some for personal purposes: landowners, monks, officials large and small, merchants, craftsmen People, peasants, they poured into Moscow from all directions like blood to the heart.

A week later, the peasants who were driving their empty wagons to get their stuff away were detained by the authorities and forced to take the dead bodies out of the city.Other farmers, when they heard that their fellows could not get anything in the city, brought grain, oats, and hay into the city, and they lowered each other's prices even lower than before.In order to earn more wages, carpenters who could only do rough carpentry in the countryside poured into Moscow from all directions. For a while, wooden houses were being built everywhere and houses that had been scorched by the fire were being repaired.The merchants put up their sheds and went about their business.Restaurants and inns are open in burned houses.Priests resumed worship in many churches that were not affected by the fire.Donors donate what was looted in the church.Officials set up baize-covered desks and filing cabinets in the huts, and senior officers and police officers distributed the remains of looted goods by the French.Homeowners who had brought a lot of stuff from other people's houses complained that it was unfair to move everything to the Kremlin hall, the Dolen Palace; It's not fair to give all these things to the French homeowners who store things; people curse and bribe the police; value ten times more on ordinary things that are burned, demand compensation from the government, pull Count Stopchin is at it again to write his notice.