Page 2095 - war-and-peace

Chapter XIV

It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose
heap has been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap
dragging bits of rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to
the heap, or why they jostle, overtake one another, and fight,
and it would be equally difficult to explain what caused the
Russians after the departure of the French to throng to the
place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we watch
the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and
immense number of the delving insects prove that despite
the destruction of the heap, something indestructible,
which though intangible is the real strength of the colony,
still exists; and similarly, though in Moscow in the month
of October there was no government no churches, shrines,
riches, or housesit was still the Moscow it had been in Au-
gust. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet
powerful and indestructible.
The motives of those who thronged from all sides to
Moscow after it had been cleared of the enemy were most
diverse and personal, and at first for the most part savage
and brutal. One motive only they all had in common: a de-
sire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to apply
their activities there.
Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand in-
habitants, in a fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on.

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