CHAPTER XX

Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a
fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was
empty. It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.

In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance
it seems as much alive as other hives.

The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday
sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of
honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But
one has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer
any life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the
sound that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap
on the wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous
humming of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly
compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an
aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from
different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board,
instead of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom,
and the warm whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and
decay mingling with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels
sounding the alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in
defense of the hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of
throbbing activity, like the sound of boiling water, but diverse
discordant sounds of disorder. In and out of the hive long black
robber bees smeared with honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not
sting, but crawl away from danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey
flew into the hive, and they flew out empty; now they fly out laden.
The beekeeper opens the lower part of the hive and peers in. Instead
of black, glossy bees--tamed by toil, clinging to one another's legs
and drawing out the wax, with a ceaseless hum of labor--that used to
hang in long clusters down to the floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled
bees crawl about separately in various directions on the floor and
walls of the hive. Instead of a neatly glued floor, swept by the bees
with the fanning of their wings, there is a floor littered with bits
of wax, excrement, dying bees scarcely moving their legs, and dead
ones that have not been cleared away.

The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the
super. Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the
combs and keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex
structures of the combs, but no longer in their former state of
purity. All is neglected and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and
stealthily prowling about the combs, and the short home bees,
shriveled and listless as if they were old, creep slowly about without
trying to hinder the robbers, having lost all motive and all sense
of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps, and butterflies knock awkwardly
against the walls of the hive in their flight. Here and there among
the cells containing dead brood and honey an angry buzzing can
sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of bees, by force of habit
and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with efforts beyond their
strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or bumblebee without knowing
why they do it. In another corner two old bees are languidly fighting,
or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another, without themselves
knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile intent. In a third
place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack some victim and
fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or killed, drops
from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap of corpses.
The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the brood cells.
In place of the former close dark circles formed by thousands of
bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of generation,
he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of bees. They
have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they had
guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only a
few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the
enemy's hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are
dead and fall as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the
hive, chalks a mark on it, and when he has time tears out its contents
and burns it clean.

So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy,
and morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski
rampart, awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal,
observance of the proprieties--a deputation.

In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people
aimlessly moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of
what they were doing.

When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was
empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently
continued to walk to and fro.

"My carriage!" he said.

He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into
the suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible
event!"

He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the
Dorogomilov suburb.

The coup de theatre had not come off.