CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
BOOK TWO: 1805
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
BOOK THREE: 1805
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
BOOK FOUR: 1806
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
BOOK NINE: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
BOOK TEN: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
BOOK ELEVEN: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
BOOK TWELVE: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
SECOND EPILOGUE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER I
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war,
if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my
‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I
have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna
Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna.
With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high
rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna
Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering
from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used
only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered
by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,
I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette
Schérer.”
“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince, not in the
least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and
with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance
who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,
kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,
and complacently seated himself on the sofa.
“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s
mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone, beneath the
politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony
could be discerned.
“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times
like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?”
“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I
must put in an appearance there,” said the prince. “My daughter is
coming for me to take me there.”
“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess all these
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”
“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have
been put off,” said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force
of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.
“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s
dispatch? You know everything.”
“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a cold, listless
tone. “What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.”
Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale
part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had
become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not
feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the
expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it
did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,
as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,
which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to
correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst
out:
“Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand
things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She
is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign
recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one
thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform
the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will
not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of
revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of
this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just
one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial
spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s
loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to
find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer
did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot
understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for
himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they
promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not
perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and
that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don’t believe a
word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian
neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty
destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!”
She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.
“I think,” said the prince with a smile, “that if you had been
sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King
of Prussia’s consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me
a cup of tea?”
“In a moment. À propos,” she added, becoming calm again, “I am
expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who
is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best
French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And
also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been
received by the Emperor. Had you heard?”
“I shall be delighted to meet them,” said the prince. “But
tell me,” he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just
occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief
motive of his visit, “is it true that the Dowager Empress wants
Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all
accounts is a poor creature.”
Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were
trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for
the baron.
Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor
anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was
pleased with.
“Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her
sister,” was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly assumed an
expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with
sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious
patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke
beaucoup d’estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.
The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and
courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna
wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man
recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she
said:
“Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came
out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly
beautiful.”
The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.
“I often think,” she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer
to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political
and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate
conversation—“I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life
are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children?
I don’t speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,” she
added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows.
“Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than
anyone, and so you don’t deserve to have them.”
And she smiled her ecstatic smile.
“I can’t help it,” said the prince. “Lavater would have said I
lack the bump of paternity.”
“Don’t joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know
I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves” (and her
face assumed its melancholy expression), “he was mentioned at Her
Majesty’s and you were pitied....”
The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
awaiting a reply. He frowned.
“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I did all
a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.
Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That
is the only difference between them.” He said this smiling in a way
more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round
his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and
unpleasant.
“And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with,” said Anna
Pávlovna, looking up pensively.
“I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
is how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!”
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.
“Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?” she
asked. “They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I
don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who
is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess
Mary Bolkónskaya.”
Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and
perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of
the head that he was considering this information.
“Do you know,” he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
current of his thoughts, “that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
rubles a year? And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in
five years, if he goes on like this?” Presently he added: “That’s
what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours
rich?”
“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is
the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under
the late Emperor, and was nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He is
very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy.
She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately.
He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s and will be here tonight.”
“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe
with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich
and of good family and that’s all I want.”
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the
maid of honor’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro
as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
“Attendez,” said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to
Lise, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the
thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family’s behalf that I’ll
start my apprenticeship as old maid.”
CHAPTER II
Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her
father to the ambassador’s entertainment; she wore a ball dress and
her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya,
known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, * was also there.
She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did
not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince
Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced.
The Abbé Morio and many others had also come.
* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.
To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, “You have not yet seen my
aunt,” or “You do not know my aunt?” and very gravely conducted
him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her
cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests
began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her
aunt, Anna Pávlovna mentioned each one’s name and then left them.
Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not
one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them
cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and
solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in
the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her
Majesty, “who, thank God, was better today.” And each visitor,
though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman
with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not
return to her the whole evening.
The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a
gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a
delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth,
but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she
occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case
with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her
upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and
peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty
young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and
carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones
who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a
little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life
and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile
and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a
specially amiable mood that day.
The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying
steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat
down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a
pleasure to herself and to all around her. “I have brought my work,”
said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.
“Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me,”
she added, turning to her hostess. “You wrote that it was to be quite
a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed.” And she
spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray
dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.
“Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone
else,” replied Anna Pávlovna.
“You know,” said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in
French, turning to a general, “my husband is deserting me? He is going
to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?” she
added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.
“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” said Prince
Vasíli to Anna Pávlovna.
One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with
close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable
at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout
young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known
grandee of Catherine’s time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man
had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only
just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his
first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she
accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of
this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight
of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face
when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than
the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to
the clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which
distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.
“It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor
invalid,” said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her
aunt as she conducted him to her.
Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as
if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little
princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.
Anna Pávlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty’s health.
Anna Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words: “Do you know the
Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.”
“Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very
interesting but hardly feasible.”
“You think so?” rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something
and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now
committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before
she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to
another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet
spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé’s
plan chimerical.
“We will talk of it later,” said Anna Pávlovna with a smile.
And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she
resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready
to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As
the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes
round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that
creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the
machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her
drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a
word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,
proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about
Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached
the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and
again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbé.
Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna
Pávlovna’s was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all
the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a
child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing
any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident
and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always
expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio.
Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an
opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.
CHAPTER III
Anna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed
steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,
beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face
was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had
settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round
the abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful
Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess
Bolkónskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age.
The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.
The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished
manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of
politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in
which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as
a treat to her guests. As a clever maître d’hôtel serves up as a
specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in
the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to
her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice
morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the
murder of the Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien
had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular
reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.
“Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,” said Anna Pávlovna,
with a pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the
sound of that sentence: “Contez nous çela, Vicomte.”
The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to
comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to
listen to his tale.
“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to
one of the guests. “The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,” said she
to another. “How evidently he belongs to the best society,” said she
to a third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest
and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef
on a hot dish.
The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.
“Come over here, Hélène, dear,” said Anna Pávlovna to the
beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of
another group.
The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which
she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful
woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss
and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling
diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking
at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the
privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders,
back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much
exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as
she moved toward Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that not only
did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even
appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She
seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish its effect.
“How lovely!” said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his
shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary
when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her
unchanging smile.
“Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,” said he,
smilingly inclining his head.
The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered
a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was
being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,
altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more
beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time
to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story
produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pávlovna, at once adopted just
the expression she saw on the maid of honor’s face, and again relapsed
into her radiant smile.
The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Hélène.
“Wait a moment, I’ll get my work.... Now then, what are you
thinking of?” she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. “Fetch me my
workbag.”
There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking
merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her
seat.
“Now I am all right,” she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she
took up her work.
Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and
moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.
Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance
to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of
this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his
sister’s, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous,
self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the
wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary
was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen
self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and
mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms
and legs always fell into unnatural positions.
“It’s not going to be a ghost story?” said he, sitting down beside
the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this
instrument he could not begin to speak.
“Why no, my dear fellow,” said the astonished narrator, shrugging
his shoulders.
“Because I hate ghost stories,” said Prince Hippolyte in a tone
which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he
had uttered them.
He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure
whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in
a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe
effrayée, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.
The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,
to the effect that the Duc d’Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to
visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte,
who also enjoyed the famous actress’ favors, and that in his presence
Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was
subject, and was thus at the duc’s mercy. The latter spared him, and
this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.
The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point
where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked
agitated.
“Charming!” said Anna Pávlovna with an inquiring glance at the
little princess.
“Charming!” whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into
her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story
prevented her from going on with it.
The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully
prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had kept a
watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was
talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbé, so she hurried to the
rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbé about
the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young
man’s simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both
were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why
Anna Pávlovna disapproved.
“The means are ... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people,” the abbé was saying. “It is only necessary for one
powerful nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place
herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object
the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the
world!”
“But how are you to get that balance?” Pierre was beginning.
At that moment Anna Pávlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,
asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian’s
face instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary
expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.
“I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the
society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had
the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of
the climate,” said he.
Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, the more
conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the
larger circle.
CHAPTER IV
Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew
Bolkónski, the little princess’ husband. He was a very handsome young
man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about
him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,
offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was
evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had
found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to
them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed
to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from
her with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna
Pávlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pávlovna.
“General Kutúzov,” said Bolkónski, speaking French and stressing
the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, “has been
pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp....”
“And Lise, your wife?”
“She will go to the country.”
“Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?”
“André,” said his wife, addressing her husband in the same
coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, “the vicomte has
been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!”
Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from
the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,
affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round
Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was
touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre’s beaming face he gave him an
unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
“There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?” said he to
Pierre.
“I knew you would be here,” replied Pierre. “I will come to supper
with you. May I?” he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the
vicomte who was continuing his story.
“No, impossible!” said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing
Pierre’s hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He
wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasíli and his
daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.
“You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,” said Prince Vasíli to the
Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent
his rising. “This unfortunate fete at the ambassador’s deprives me
of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave
your enchanting party,” said he, turning to Anna Pávlovna.
His daughter, Princess Hélène, passed between the chairs, lightly
holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more
radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,
almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.
“Very lovely,” said Prince Andrew.
“Very,” said Pierre.
In passing Prince Vasíli seized Pierre’s hand and said to Anna
Pávlovna: “Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me
a whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in society.
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever
women.”
Anna Pávlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his
father to be a connection of Prince Vasíli’s. The elderly lady who
had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince
Vasíli in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed
had left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety
and fear.
“How about my son Borís, Prince?” said she, hurrying after him into
the anteroom. “I can’t remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what
news I may take back to my poor boy.”
Although Prince Vasíli listened reluctantly and not very politely
to the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an
ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go
away.
“What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he
would be transferred to the Guards at once?” said she.
“Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,” answered Prince
Vasíli, “but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should
advise you to appeal to Rumyántsev through Prince Golítsyn. That would
be the best way.”
The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskáya, belonging to one of the
best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of
society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to
Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son.
It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasíli that she had obtained an
invitation to Anna Pávlovna’s reception and had sat listening to
the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasíli’s words frightened her, an
embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment;
then she smiled again and clutched Prince Vasíli’s arm more tightly.
“Listen to me, Prince,” said she. “I have never yet asked you
for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my
father’s friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God’s sake to
do this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a benefactor,”
she added hurriedly. “No, don’t be angry, but promise! I have asked
Golítsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,”
she said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.
“Papa, we shall be late,” said Princess Hélène, turning her
beautiful head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she
stood waiting by the door.
Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized
if it is to last. Prince Vasíli knew this, and having once realized
that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be
unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But
in Princess Drubetskáya’s case he felt, after her second appeal,
something like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was
quite true; he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in
his career. Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of
those women—mostly mothers—who, having once made up their minds,
will not rest until they have gained their end, and are prepared if
necessary to go on insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even
to make scenes. This last consideration moved him.
“My dear Anna Mikháylovna,” said he with his usual familiarity and
weariness of tone, “it is almost impossible for me to do what you
ask; but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father’s
memory, I will do the impossible—your son shall be transferred to the
Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?”
“My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew your
kindness!” He turned to go.
“Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards...”
she faltered. “You are on good terms with Michael Ilariónovich
Kutúzov ... recommend Borís to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at
rest, and then...”
Prince Vasíli smiled.
“No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutúzov is pestered
since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that
all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as
adjutants.”
“No, but do promise! I won’t let you go! My dear benefactor...”
“Papa,” said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before,
“we shall be late.”
“Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?”
“Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?”
“Certainly; but about Kutúzov, I don’t promise.”
“Do promise, do promise, Vasíli!” cried Anna Mikháylovna as he
went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably
came naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.
Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed
all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face
resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the
group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to
listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was
accomplished.
CHAPTER V
“And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at
Milan?” asked Anna Pávlovna, “and of the comedy of the people of
Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and
Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of
the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one’s head whirl! It is as
if the whole world had gone crazy.”
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pávlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.
“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!’’ * They say he was
very fine when he said that,” he remarked, repeating the words in
Italian: “‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’’
* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
“I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
over,” Anna Pávlovna continued. “The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to everything.”
“The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,” said the vicomte, polite
but hopeless: “The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis
XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!” and he became
more animated. “And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their
betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending
ambassadors to compliment the usurper.”
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time
through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the
little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Condé
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity
as if she had asked him to do it.
“Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”
said he.
The princess listened, smiling.
“If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer,” the
vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which
he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but
follows the current of his own thoughts, “things will have gone too
far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I
mean good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and
then....”
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to
make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pávlovna,
who had him under observation, interrupted:
“The Emperor Alexander,” said she, with the melancholy which
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, “has
declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose
their own form of government; and I believe that once free from the
usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms
of its rightful king,” she concluded, trying to be amiable to the
royalist emigrant.
“That is doubtful,” said Prince Andrew. “Monsieur le Vicomte quite
rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will
be difficult to return to the old regime.”
“From what I have heard,” said Pierre, blushing and breaking into
the conversation, “almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to
Bonaparte’s side.”
“It is the Buonapartists who say that,” replied the vicomte without
looking at Pierre. “At the present time it is difficult to know the
real state of French public opinion.”
“Bonaparte has said so,” remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic
smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his
remarks at him, though without looking at him.
“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow
it,’” Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting
Napoleon’s words. “‘I opened my antechambers and they crowded
in.’ I do not know how far he was justified in saying so.”
“Not in the least,” replied the vicomte. “After the murder of the
duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
people,” he went on, turning to Anna Pávlovna, “he ever was a hero,
after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one
hero less on earth.”
Before Anna Pávlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pávlovna felt sure he would say something
inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.
“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” declared Monsieur Pierre,
“was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon
showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole
responsibility of that deed.”
“Dieu! Mon Dieu!” muttered Anna Pávlovna in a terrified whisper.
“What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows
greatness of soul?” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her
work nearer to her.
“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed several voices.
“Capital!” said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his
knee with the palm of his hand.
The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his
audience over his spectacles and continued.
“I say so,” he continued desperately, “because the Bourbons fled
from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone
understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,
he could not stop short for the sake of one man’s life.”
“Won’t you come over to the other table?” suggested Anna
Pávlovna.
But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
“No,” cried he, becoming more and more eager, “Napoleon is great
because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses,
preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom
of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain
power.”
“Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to
commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have
called him a great man,” remarked the vicomte.
“He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might
rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great
man. The Revolution was a grand thing!” continued Monsieur Pierre,
betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme
youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.
“What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that...
But won’t you come to this other table?” repeated Anna Pávlovna.
“Rousseau’s Contrat Social,” said the vicomte with a tolerant
smile.
“I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.”
“Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,” again interjected an
ironical voice.
“Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most
important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from
prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon
has retained in full force.”
“Liberty and equality,” said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at
last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words
were, “high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does
not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and
equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the
contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.”
Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the
vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of
Pierre’s outburst Anna Pávlovna, despite her social experience, was
horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre’s sacrilegious words
had not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was
impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in
a vigorous attack on the orator.
“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” said she, “how do you explain the
fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is
innocent and untried?”
“I should like,” said the vicomte, “to ask how monsieur explains
the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not
at all like the conduct of a great man!”
“And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!” said the
little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
“He’s a low fellow, say what you will,” remarked Prince Hippolyte.
Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His
smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled,
his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by
another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to
ask forgiveness.
The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that
this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were
silent.
“How do you expect him to answer you all at once?” said Prince
Andrew. “Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish
between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor.
So it seems to me.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of
this reinforcement.
“One must admit,” continued Prince Andrew, “that Napoleon as a man
was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he
gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but ... but there are other acts
which it is difficult to justify.”
Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of
Pierre’s remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to
go.
Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,
and asking them all to be seated began:
“I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.
Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be
lost....” And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian
as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.
Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their
attention to his story.
“There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must
have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her
taste. And she had a lady’s maid, also big. She said....”
Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with
difficulty.
“She said.... Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a
livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some
calls.’”
Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his
audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several
persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did however
smile.
“She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and
her long hair came down....” Here he could contain himself no
longer and went on, between gasps of laughter: “And the whole world
knew....”
And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told
it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pávlovna and the
others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social tact in so agreeably
ending Pierre’s unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote
the conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last
and next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and
where.
CHAPTER VI
Having thanked Anna Pávlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began
to take their leave.
Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge
red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing
room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something
particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was
absent-minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the
general’s three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume,
till the general asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and
inability to enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by
his kindly, simple, and modest expression. Anna Pávlovna turned toward
him and, with a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his
indiscretion, nodded and said: “I hope to see you again, but I also
hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”
When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody
saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, “Opinions are
opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am.” And
everyone, including Anna Pávlovna, felt this.
Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders
to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened
indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also
come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant
princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.
“Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,” said the little princess,
taking leave of Anna Pávlovna. “It is settled,” she added in a low
voice.
Anna Pávlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she
contemplated between Anatole and the little princess’ sister-in-law.
“I rely on you, my dear,” said Anna Pávlovna, also in a low tone.
“Write to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au
revoir! ”—and she left the hall.
Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face
close to her, began to whisper something.
Two footmen, the princess’ and his own, stood holding a shawl and
a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to
the French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of
understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual
spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.
“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince
Hippolyte “—so dull—. It has been a delightful evening, has it
not? Delightful!”
“They say the ball will be very good,” replied the princess, drawing
up her downy little lip. “All the pretty women in society will be
there.”
“Not all, for you will not be there; not all,” said Prince Hippolyte
smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he
even pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from
awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the
shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as
though embracing her.
Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her
husband. Prince Andrew’s eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he
seem.
“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, looking past her.
Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion
reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch
following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.
“Princesse, au revoir,” cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well
as with his feet.
The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark
carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under
pretense of helping, was in everyone’s way.
“Allow me, sir,” said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,
disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.
“I am expecting you, Pierre,” said the same voice, but gently and
affectionately.
The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte
laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte
whom he had promised to take home.
“Well, mon cher,” said the vicomte, having seated himself beside
Hippolyte in the carriage, “your little princess is very nice, very
nice indeed, quite French,” and he kissed the tips of his fingers.
Hippolyte burst out laughing.
“Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,”
continued the vicomte. “I pity the poor husband, that little officer
who gives himself the airs of a monarch.”
Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, “And you were
saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to
know how to deal with them.”
Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew’s study like
one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took
from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar’s
Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.
“What have you done to Mlle Schérer? She will be quite ill now,”
said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white
hands.
Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager
face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.
“That abbé is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the
right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but—I do not
know how to express it ... not by a balance of political power....”
It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract
conversation.
“One can’t everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have
you at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a
diplomatist?” asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.
Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.
“Really, I don’t yet know. I don’t like either the one or the
other.”
“But you must decide on something! Your father expects it.”
Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbé as tutor,
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow
his father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man, “Now go
to Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to
anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasíli, and here is money. Write
to me all about it, and I will help you in everything.” Pierre had
already been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided
on anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.
Pierre rubbed his forehead.
“But he must be a Freemason,” said he, referring to the abbé whom
he had met that evening.
“That is all nonsense.” Prince Andrew again interrupted him, “let
us talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?”
“No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted
to tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for
freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;
but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is
not right.”
Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre’s childish words.
He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such
nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other
answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naïve question.
“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no
wars,” he said.
“And that would be splendid,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew smiled ironically.
“Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about....”
“Well, why are you going to the war?” asked Pierre.
“What for? I don’t know. I must. Besides that I am going....” He
paused. “I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit
me!”
CHAPTER VII
The rustle of a woman’s dress was heard in the next room. Prince
Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it
had had in Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from
the sofa. The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house
dress as fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely
placed a chair for her.
“How is it,” she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly
and fussily in the easy chair, “how is it Annette never got married?
How stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying
so, but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you
are, Monsieur Pierre!”
“And I am still arguing with your husband. I can’t understand why he
wants to go to the war,” replied Pierre, addressing the princess
with none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their
intercourse with young women.
The princess started. Evidently Pierre’s words touched her to the
quick.
“Ah, that is just what I tell him!” said she. “I don’t
understand it; I don’t in the least understand why men can’t live
without wars. How is it that we women don’t want anything of the kind,
don’t need it? Now you shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here
he is Uncle’s aide-de-camp, a most brilliant position. He is so
well known, so much appreciated by everyone. The other day at the
Apráksins’ I heard a lady asking, ‘Is that the famous Prince
Andrew?’ I did indeed.” She laughed. “He is so well received
everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp to the Emperor. You know
the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. Annette and I were speaking of
how to arrange it. What do you think?”
Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the
conversation, gave no reply.
“When are you starting?” he asked.
“Oh, don’t speak of his going, don’t! I won’t hear it spoken
of,” said the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which
she had spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly
ill-suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member.
“Today when I remembered that all these delightful associations
must be broken off ... and then you know, André...” (she looked
significantly at her husband) “I’m afraid, I’m afraid!” she
whispered, and a shudder ran down her back.
Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides
Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of
frigid politeness.
“What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don’t understand,” said he.
“There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim
of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone
in the country.”
“With my father and sister, remember,” said Prince Andrew gently.
“Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to
be afraid.”
Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a
joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she
felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the
gist of the matter lay in that.
“I still can’t understand what you are afraid of,” said Prince
Andrew slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.
The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.
“No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have....”
“Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andrew.
“You had better go.”
The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.
Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.
Pierre looked over his spectacles with naïve surprise, now at him and
now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.
“Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?” exclaimed the little
princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful
grimace. “I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed
so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no
pity for me. Why is it?”
“Lise!” was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed
an entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself
regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:
“You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave
like that six months ago?”
“Lise, I beg you to desist,” said Prince Andrew still more
emphatically.
Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to
all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the
sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
“Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because.... I assure you
I myself have experienced ... and so ... because ... No, excuse me!
An outsider is out of place here.... No, don’t distress yourself....
Good-by!”
Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.
“No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of
the pleasure of spending the evening with you.”
“No, he thinks only of himself,” muttered the princess without
restraining her angry tears.
“Lise!” said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch
which indicates that patience is exhausted.
Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess’ pretty
face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes
glanced askance at her husband’s face, and her own assumed the timid,
deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its
drooping tail.
“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she muttered, and lifting her dress with one
hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.
“Good night, Lise,” said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand
as he would have done to a stranger.
CHAPTER VIII
The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre
continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead
with his small hand.
“Let us go and have supper,” he said with a sigh, going to the door.
They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.
Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore
that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.
Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,
with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on
his face, began to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind
and suddenly determines to speak out.
“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry
till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of,
and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen
her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable
mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is
good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look at me with such surprise. If you marry
expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every
step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing
room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an
idiot!... But what’s the good?...” and he waved his arm.
Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and
the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend
in amazement.
“My wife,” continued Prince Andrew, “is an excellent woman, one
of those rare women with whom a man’s honor is safe; but, O God, what
would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to
whom I mention this, because I like you.”
As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkónski
who had lolled in Anna Pávlovna’s easy chairs and with half-closed
eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his
thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which
the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant
light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary
times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid
irritation.
“You don’t understand why I say this,” he continued, “but it is
the whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career,” said
he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), “but Bonaparte when
he worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing
but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with
a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you
have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with
regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these are
the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,
the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for
nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit,” continued Prince
Andrew, “and at Anna Pávlovna’s they listen to me. And that stupid
set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women.... If you only
knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is
right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that’s what
women are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them
in society it seems as if there were something in them, but there’s
nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don’t marry, my dear fellow; don’t
marry!” concluded Prince Andrew.
“It seems funny to me,” said Pierre, “that you, you should
consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have
everything before you, everything. And you....”
He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he
thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.
“How can he talk like that?” thought Pierre. He considered his
friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the
highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might
be best described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at
Prince Andrew’s calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary
memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything,
and had an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for
work and study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew’s lack
of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he himself was
particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a
sign of strength.
Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise
and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels
that they may run smoothly.
“My part is played out,” said Prince Andrew. “What’s the use of
talking about me? Let us talk about you,” he added after a silence,
smiling at his reassuring thoughts.
That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre’s face.
“But what is there to say about me?” said Pierre, his face relaxing
into a careless, merry smile. “What am I? An illegitimate son!”
He suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great
effort to say this. “Without a name and without means... And it
really...” But he did not say what “it really” was. “For the
present I am free and am all right. Only I haven’t the least idea what
I am to do; I wanted to consult you seriously.”
Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance—friendly and
affectionate as it was—expressed a sense of his own superiority.
“I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our
whole set. Yes, you’re all right! Choose what you will; it’s all the
same. You’ll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting
those Kurágins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so
badly—all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!”
“What would you have, my dear fellow?” answered Pierre, shrugging
his shoulders. “Women, my dear fellow; women!”
“I don’t understand it,” replied Prince Andrew. “Women who are
comme il faut, that’s a different matter; but the Kurágins’ set of
women, ‘women and wine’ I don’t understand!”
Pierre was staying at Prince Vasíli Kurágin’s and sharing the
dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to
reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew’s sister.
“Do you know?” said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy
thought, “seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such
a life I can’t decide or think properly about anything. One’s head
aches, and one spends all one’s money. He asked me for tonight, but I
won’t go.”
“You give me your word of honor not to go?”
“On my honor!”
CHAPTER IX
It was past one o’clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a
cloudless, northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending
to drive straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he
felt the impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light
enough to see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like
morning or evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole
Kurágin was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which
there was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind
Pierre was very fond of.
“I should like to go to Kurágin’s,” thought he.
But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go
there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so
passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to
that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his
promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it
he had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering;
“besides,” thought he, “all such ‘words of honor’ are
conventional things with no definite meaning, especially if
one considers that by tomorrow one may be dead, or something so
extraordinary may happen to one that honor and dishonor will be all the
same!” Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort, nullifying
all his decisions and intentions. He went to Kurágin’s.
Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards’ barracks, in which
Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,
and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty
bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of
alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.
Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.
Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the
remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on
the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of
laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and
general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously
round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one
pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.
“I bet a hundred on Stevens!” shouted one.
“Mind, no holding on!” cried another.
“I bet on Dólokhov!” cried a third. “Kurágin, you part our
hands.”
“There, leave Bruin alone; here’s a bet on.”
“At one draught, or he loses!” shouted a fourth.
“Jacob, bring a bottle!” shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow
who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine
linen shirt unfastened in front. “Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is
Pétya! Good man!” cried he, addressing Pierre.
Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,
particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober
ring, cried from the window: “Come here; part the bets!” This was
Dólokhov, an officer of the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and
duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him
merrily.
“I don’t understand. What’s it all about?”
“Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here,” said Anatole, and
taking a glass from the table he went up to Pierre.
“First of all you must drink!”
Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at
the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening
to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre’s glass while
explaining that Dólokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval
officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge
of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.
“Go on, you must drink it all,” said Anatole, giving Pierre the last
glass, “or I won’t let you go!”
“No, I won’t,” said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up
to the window.
Dólokhov was holding the Englishman’s hand and clearly and distinctly
repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to
Anatole and Pierre.
Dólokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He
was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,
so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly
seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle
of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm
lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually
round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,
insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it
impossible not to notice his face. Dólokhov was a man of small means
and no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of
rubles, Dólokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a
footing that all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him
more than they did Anatole. Dólokhov could play all games and nearly
always won. However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness.
Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes
and scapegraces of Petersburg.
The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone
from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who
were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of
the gentlemen around.
Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to
smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but
could not move it. He smashed a pane.
“You have a try, Hercules,” said he, turning to Pierre.
Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with
a crash.
“Take it right out, or they’ll think I’m holding on,” said
Dólokhov.
“Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?” said Anatole.
“First-rate,” said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who with a bottle
of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of
the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.
Dólokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window
sill. “Listen!” cried he, standing there and addressing those in the
room. All were silent.
“I bet fifty imperials”—he spoke French that the Englishman might
understand him, but he did not speak it very well—“I bet fifty
imperials ... or do you wish to make it a hundred?” added he,
addressing the Englishman.
“No, fifty,” replied the latter.
“All right. Fifty imperials ... that I will drink a whole bottle of
rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this
spot” (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)
“and without holding on to anything. Is that right?”
“Quite right,” said the Englishman.
Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons
of his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was short—began
repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.
“Wait!” cried Dólokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window
sill to attract attention. “Wait a bit, Kurágin. Listen! If
anyone else does the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you
understand?”
The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to
accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though
he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating
Dólokhov’s words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the
Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window
sill, leaned over, and looked down.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he muttered, looking down from the window at the
stones of the pavement.
“Shut up!” cried Dólokhov, pushing him away from the window. The
lad jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.
Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,
Dólokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered
his legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself
on his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to
the left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and
placed them on the window sill, though it was already quite light.
Dólokhov’s back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit
up from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in
front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others
present, suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted
to seize hold of Dólokhov’s shirt.
“I say, this is folly! He’ll be killed,” said this more sensible
man.
Anatole stopped him.
“Don’t touch him! You’ll startle him and then he’ll be killed.
Eh?... What then?... Eh?”
Dólokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged
himself on his seat.
“If anyone comes meddling again,” said he, emitting the words
separately through his thin compressed lips, “I will throw him down
there. Now then!”
Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle
and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand
to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some
broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the
window and from Dólokhov’s back. Anatole stood erect with staring
eyes. The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man
who had wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw
himself on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from
which a faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed
horror and fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes.
Dólokhov still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown
further back till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand
holding the bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the
effort. The bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher
and his head tilting yet further back. “Why is it so long?” thought
Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had elapsed.
Suddenly Dólokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm
trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip
as he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and
arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch
the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered
his eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was
aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dólokhov was standing on the
window sill, with a pale but radiant face.
“It’s empty.”
He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dólokhov
jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.
“Well done!... Fine fellow!... There’s a bet for you!... Devil take
you!” came from different sides.
The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.
Dólokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the
window sill.
“Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I’ll do the same thing!”
he suddenly cried. “Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a
bottle. I’ll do it.... Bring a bottle!”
“Let him do it, let him do it,” said Dólokhov, smiling.
“What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go
giddy even on a staircase,” exclaimed several voices.
“I’ll drink it! Let’s have a bottle of rum!” shouted Pierre,
banging the table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to
climb out of the window.
They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who
touched him was sent flying.
“No, you’ll never manage him that way,” said Anatole. “Wait a
bit and I’ll get round him.... Listen! I’ll take your bet tomorrow,
but now we are all going to ——’s.”
“Come on then,” cried Pierre. “Come on!... And we’ll take Bruin
with us.”
And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,
and began dancing round the room with it.
CHAPTER X
Prince Vasíli kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskáya
who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Borís on the evening of
Anna Pávlovna’s soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an
exception made, and Borís transferred into the regiment of Semënov
Guards with the rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment
to Kutúzov’s staff despite all Anna Mikháylovna’s endeavors and
entreaties. Soon after Anna Pávlovna’s reception Anna Mikháylovna
returned to Moscow and went straight to her rich relations, the
Rostóvs, with whom she stayed when in the town and where her darling
Bóry, who had only just entered a regiment of the line and was being
at once transferred to the Guards as a cornet, had been educated from
childhood and lived for years at a time. The Guards had already left
Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in
Moscow for his equipment, was to join them on the march to Radzivílov.
It was St. Natalia’s day and the name day of two of the Rostóvs—the
mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since
the morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going
continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostóva’s big house on
the Povarskáya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and
her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing room with the visitors
who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in
relays.
The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type
of face, evidently worn out with childbearing—she had had twelve.
A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a
distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikháylovna
Drubetskáya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the
drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young
people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to
take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw
them off, inviting them all to dinner.
“I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher,” or “ma chère”—he
called everyone without exception and without the slightest variation
in his tone, “my dear,” whether they were above or below him in
rank—“I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name
day we are keeping. But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended,
ma chère! On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!”
These words he repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and
with the same expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the
same firm pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As
soon as he had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were
still in the drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily
spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air
of a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and
fro with dignity, offered surmises about the weather, or touched on
questions of health, sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but
self-confident French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in
the fulfillment of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking
his scanty gray hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner.
Sometimes on his way back from the anteroom he would pass through the
conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables
were being set out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who
were bringing in silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask
table linen, he would call Dmítri Vasílevich, a man of good family and
the manager of all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the
enormous table would say: “Well, Dmítri, you’ll see that things are
all as they should be? That’s right! The great thing is the serving,
that’s it.” And with a complacent sigh he would return to the
drawing room.
“Márya Lvóvna Karágina and her daughter!” announced the
countess’ gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing
room. The countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold
snuffbox with her husband’s portrait on it.
“I’m quite worn out by these callers. However, I’ll see her and
no more. She is so affected. Ask her in,” she said to the footman in a
sad voice, as if saying: “Very well, finish me off.”
A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling
daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.
“Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child ...
at the Razumóvski’s ball ... and Countess Apráksina ... I was
so delighted...” came the sounds of animated feminine voices,
interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and
the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last
out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses
and say, “I am so delighted... Mamma’s health... and Countess
Apráksina...” and then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put
on cloaks or mantles, and drive away. The conversation was on the chief
topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of
Catherine’s day, Count Bezúkhov, and about his illegitimate son
Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna Pávlovna’s
reception.
“I am so sorry for the poor count,” said the visitor. “He is in
such bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill
him!”
“What is that?” asked the countess as if she did not know what the
visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of
Count Bezúkhov’s distress some fifteen times.
“That’s what comes of a modern education,” exclaimed the visitor.
“It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do
as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible
things that he has been expelled by the police.”
“You don’t say so!” replied the countess.
“He chose his friends badly,” interposed Anna Mikháylovna.
“Prince Vasíli’s son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said,
been up to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it.
Dólokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov’s son sent
back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his
son’s affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.”
“But what have they been up to?” asked the countess.
“They are regular brigands, especially Dólokhov,” replied the
visitor. “He is a son of Márya Ivánovna Dólokhova, such a worthy
woman, but there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere,
put it in a carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The
police tried to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied
a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka
Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his
back!”
“What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!” shouted
the count, dying with laughter.
“Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?”
Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.
“It was all they could do to rescue the poor man,” continued the
visitor. “And to think it is Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s son
who amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so
well educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has
done for him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in
spite of his money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite
declined: I have my daughters to consider.”
“Why do you say this young man is so rich?” asked the countess,
turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention.
“His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is
illegitimate.”
The visitor made a gesture with her hand.
“I should think he has a score of them.”
Princess Anna Mikháylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently
wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in
society.
“The fact of the matter is,” said she significantly, and also in a
half whisper, “everyone knows Count Cyril’s reputation.... He has
lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.”
“How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!” remarked the
countess. “I have never seen a handsomer man.”
“He is very much altered now,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “Well, as
I was saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the
count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to
the Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is
so ill that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from
Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre
or Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know
it all very well for Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril
Vladímirovich is my mother’s second cousin. He’s also my Bóry’s
godfather,” she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the
fact.
“Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on
some inspection business,” remarked the visitor.
“Yes, but between ourselves,” said the princess, “that is a
pretext. The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich,
hearing how ill he is.”
“But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke,” said the count;
and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the
young ladies. “I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman
cut!”
And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form
again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats
well and, in particular, drinks well. “So do come and dine with us!”
he said.
CHAPTER XI
Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably,
but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they
now rose and took their leave. The visitor’s daughter was already
smoothing down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when
suddenly from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls
running to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl
of thirteen, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock,
darted in and stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident
that she had not intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in
the doorway appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer
of the Guards, a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short
jacket.
The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide
and threw them round the little girl who had run in.
“Ah, here she is!” he exclaimed laughing. “My pet, whose name day
it is. My dear pet!”
“Ma chère, there is a time for everything,” said the countess with
feigned severity. “You spoil her, Ilyá,” she added, turning to her
husband.
“How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name
day,” said the visitor. “What a charming child,” she added,
addressing the mother.
This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with
childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her
bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs
in lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that
charming age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not
yet a young woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed
face in the lace of her mother’s mantilla—not paying the least
attention to her severe remark—and began to laugh. She laughed, and in
fragmentary sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced
from the folds of her frock.
“Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see...” was all Natásha
managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against
her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even
the prim visitor could not help joining in.
“Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you,” said the
mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning
to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”
Natásha, raising her face for a moment from her mother’s mantilla,
glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.
The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it
necessary to take some part in it.
“Tell me, my dear,” said she to Natásha, “is Mimi a relation of
yours? A daughter, I suppose?”
Natásha did not like the visitor’s tone of condescension to childish
things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.
Meanwhile the younger generation: Borís, the officer, Anna
Mikháylovna’s son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count’s eldest
son; Sónya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece, and little Pétya,
his youngest boy, had all settled down in the drawing room and were
obviously trying to restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement
and mirth that shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms,
from which they had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had
been more amusing than the drawing room talk of society scandals, the
weather, and Countess Apráksina. Now and then they glanced at one
another, hardly able to suppress their laughter.
The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,
were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Borís
was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate
features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.
Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face
expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered
the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but
failed. Borís on the contrary at once found his footing, and related
quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was
still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged
during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked
right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natásha.
She turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was
screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable
to control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as
fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Borís did not laugh.
“You were meaning to go out, weren’t you, Mamma? Do you want the
carriage?” he asked his mother with a smile.
“Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready,” she answered,
returning his smile.
Borís quietly left the room and went in search of Natásha. The plump
boy ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been
disturbed.
CHAPTER XII
The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the
young lady visitor and the countess’ eldest daughter (who was four
years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person),
were Nicholas and Sónya, the niece. Sónya was a slender little
brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long
lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny
tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but
graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements,
by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain
coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown
kitten which promises to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently
considered it proper to show an interest in the general conversation by
smiling, but in spite of herself her eyes under their thick long lashes
watched her cousin who was going to join the army, with such passionate
girlish adoration that her smile could not for a single instant impose
upon anyone, and it was clear that the kitten had settled down only to
spring up with more energy and again play with her cousin as soon as
they too could, like Natásha and Borís, escape from the drawing room.
“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and
pointing to Nicholas, “his friend Borís has become an officer, and
so for friendship’s sake he is leaving the university and me, his
old father, and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a
place and everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn’t
that friendship?” remarked the count in an inquiring tone.
“But they say that war has been declared,” replied the visitor.
“They’ve been saying so a long while,” said the count, “and
they’ll say so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My
dear, there’s friendship for you,” he repeated. “He’s joining
the hussars.”
The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.
“It’s not at all from friendship,” declared Nicholas, flaring
up and turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. “It is not from
friendship at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation.”
He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both
regarding him with a smile of approbation.
“Schubert, the colonel of the Pávlograd Hussars, is dining with us
today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.
It can’t be helped!” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and
speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.
“I have already told you, Papa,” said his son, “that if you
don’t wish to let me go, I’ll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere
except in the army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.—I
don’t know how to hide what I feel.” As he spoke he kept glancing
with the flirtatiousness of a handsome youth at Sónya and the young
lady visitor.
The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment
to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.
“All right, all right!” said the old count. “He always flares up!
This Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he
rose from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it,” he
added, not noticing his visitor’s sarcastic smile.
The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karágina turned to
young Rostóv.
“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkhárovs’ on Thursday. It was so
dull without you,” said she, giving him a tender smile.
The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish
smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation
without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart
of Sónya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk
he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and
hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile
on her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas’ animation
vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then
with a distressed face left the room to find Sónya.
“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!” said Anna Mikháylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.
“Cousinage—dangereux voisinage,” * she added.
* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.
“Yes,” said the countess when the brightness these young people had
brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no
one had put but which was always in her mind, “and how much suffering,
how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in
them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is
always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both
for girls and boys.”
“It all depends on the bringing up,” remarked the visitor.
“Yes, you’re quite right,” continued the countess. “Till now I
have always, thank God, been my children’s friend and had their full
confidence,” said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. “I know I shall
always be my daughters’ first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with
his impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can’t help it), he
will all the same never be like those Petersburg young men.”
“Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters,” chimed in the count,
who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding
that everything was splendid. “Just fancy: wants to be an hussar.
What’s one to do, my dear?”
“What a charming creature your younger girl is,” said the visitor;
“a little volcano!”
“Yes, a regular volcano,” said the count. “Takes after me! And
what a voice she has; though she’s my daughter, I tell the truth
when I say she’ll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an
Italian to give her lessons.”
“Isn’t she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train
it at that age.”
“Oh no, not at all too young!” replied the count. “Why, our
mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen.”
“And she’s in love with Borís already. Just fancy!” said the
countess with a gentle smile, looking at Borís and went on, evidently
concerned with a thought that always occupied her: “Now you see if I
were to be severe with her and to forbid it ... goodness knows what they
might be up to on the sly” (she meant that they would be kissing),
“but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come running to
me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I
spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I
was stricter.”
“Yes, I was brought up quite differently,” remarked the handsome
elder daughter, Countess Véra, with a smile.
But the smile did not enhance Véra’s beauty as smiles generally do;
on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,
expression. Véra was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at
learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said
was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone—the visitors
and countess alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had
said it, and they all felt awkward.
“People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to
make something exceptional of them,” said the visitor.
“What’s the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too
clever with Véra,” said the count. “Well, what of that? She’s
turned out splendidly all the same,” he added, winking at Véra.
The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
“What manners! I thought they would never go,” said the countess,
when she had seen her guests out.
CHAPTER XIII
When Natásha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the
conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation
in the drawing room, waiting for Borís to come out. She was already
growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming
at once, when she heard the young man’s discreet steps approaching
neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natásha dashed swiftly among the
flower tubs and hid there.
Borís paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little
dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined
his handsome face. Natásha, very still, peered out from her ambush,
waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the
glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natásha was about to
call him but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,” thought she.
Hardly had Borís gone than Sónya, flushed, in tears, and muttering
angrily, came in at the other door. Natásha checked her first impulse
to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as
under an invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was
experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sónya, muttering to herself,
kept looking round toward the drawing room door. It opened and Nicholas
came in.
“Sónya, what is the matter with you? How can you?” said he, running
up to her.
“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” sobbed Sónya.
“Ah, I know what it is.”
“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”
“Só-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,
for a mere fancy?” said Nicholas taking her hand.
Sónya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natásha, not stirring
and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.
“What will happen now?” thought she.
“Sónya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are
everything!” said Nicholas. “And I will prove it to you.”
“I don’t like you to talk like that.”
“Well, then, I won’t; only forgive me, Sónya!” He drew her to him
and kissed her.
“Oh, how nice,” thought Natásha; and when Sónya and Nicholas had
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Borís to her.
“Borís, come here,” said she with a sly and significant look. “I
have something to tell you. Here, here!” and she led him into the
conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.
Borís followed her, smiling.
“What is the something?” asked he.
She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown
down on one of the tubs, picked it up.
“Kiss the doll,” said she.
Borís looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not
reply.
“Don’t you want to? Well, then, come here,” said she, and
went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. “Closer,
closer!” she whispered.
She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and
fear appeared on her flushed face.
“And me? Would you like to kiss me?” she whispered almost inaudibly,
glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from
excitement.
Borís blushed.
“How funny you are!” he said, bending down to her and blushing still
more, but he waited and did nothing.
Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so
that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing
back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs
and stood, hanging her head.
“Natásha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but....”
“You are in love with me?” Natásha broke in.
“Yes, I am, but please don’t let us do like that.... In another four
years ... then I will ask for your hand.”
Natásha considered.
“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender
little fingers. “All right! Then it’s settled?”
A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.
“Settled!” replied Borís.
“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death itself?”
She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining
sitting room.
CHAPTER XIV
After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave
orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to
dinner all who came “to congratulate.” The countess wished to have
a tête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna
Mikháylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from
Petersburg. Anna Mikháylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face,
drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.
“With you I will be quite frank,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “There
are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your
friendship.”
Anna Mikháylovna looked at Véra and paused. The countess pressed her
friend’s hand.
“Véra,” she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a
favorite, “how is it you have so little tact? Don’t you see you are
not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or...”
The handsome Véra smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.
“If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone,” she replied
as she rose to go to her own room.
But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting,
one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sónya was
sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the
first he had ever written. Borís and Natásha were at the other window
and ceased talking when Véra entered. Sónya and Natásha looked at
Véra with guilty, happy faces.
It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but
apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Véra.
“How often have I asked you not to take my things?” she said. “You
have a room of your own,” and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.
“In a minute, in a minute,” he said, dipping his pen.
“You always manage to do things at the wrong time,” continued Véra.
“You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed
of you.”
Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one
replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the
room with the inkstand in her hand.
“And at your age what secrets can there be between Natásha and
Borís, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”
“Now, Véra, what does it matter to you?” said Natásha in defense,
speaking very gently.
She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
everyone.
“Very silly,” said Véra. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”
“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natásha, getting warmer.
“We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”
“I should think not,” said Véra, “because there can never be
anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are
behaving with Borís.”
“Natálya Ilyníchna behaves very well to me,” remarked Borís. “I
have nothing to complain of.”
“Don’t, Borís! You are such a diplomat that it is really
tiresome,” said Natásha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly.
(She used the word “diplomat,” which was just then much in vogue
among the children, in the special sense they attached to it.) “Why
does she bother me?” And she added, turning to Véra, “You’ll
never understand it, because you’ve never loved anyone. You have no
heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more” (this nickname,
bestowed on Véra by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), “and
your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with
Berg as much as you please,” she finished quickly.
“I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors...”
“Well, now you’ve done what you wanted,” put in Nicholas—“said
unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let’s go to the
nursery.”
All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.
“The unpleasant things were said to me,” remarked Véra, “I said
none to anyone.”
“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices
through the door.
The handsome Véra, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant
effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been
said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf.
Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and
calmer.
In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.
“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “my life is not all roses
either. Don’t I know that at the rate we are living our means won’t
last long? It’s all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the
country do we get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what
besides! But don’t let’s talk about me; tell me how you managed
everything. I often wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you
can rush off alone in a carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those
ministers and great people, and know how to deal with them all! It’s
quite astonishing. How did you get things settled? I couldn’t possibly
do it.”
“Ah, my love,” answered Anna Mikháylovna, “God grant you never
know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love
to distraction! One learns many things then,” she added with a certain
pride. “That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those
big people I write a note: ‘Princess So-and-So desires an interview
with So and-So,’ and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or
four times—till I get what I want. I don’t mind what they think of
me.”
“Well, and to whom did you apply about Bóry?” asked the countess.
“You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas
is going as a cadet. There’s no one to interest himself for him. To
whom did you apply?”
“To Prince Vasíli. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything,
and put the matter before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna
Mikháylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she
had endured to gain her end.
“Has Prince Vasíli aged much?” asked the countess. “I have not
seen him since we acted together at the Rumyántsovs’ theatricals. I
expect he has forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days,” said
the countess, with a smile.
“He is just the same as ever,” replied Anna Mikháylovna,
“overflowing with amiability. His position has not turned his head
at all. He said to me, ‘I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear
Princess. I am at your command.’ Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very
kind relation. But, Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do
anything for his happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my
position is now a terrible one,” continued Anna Mikháylovna, sadly,
dropping her voice. “My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no
progress. Would you believe it, I have literally not a penny and don’t
know how to equip Borís.” She took out her handkerchief and began to
cry. “I need five hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble
note. I am in such a state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov. If he will not assist his godson—you know
he is Bóry’s godfather—and allow him something for his maintenance,
all my trouble will have been thrown away.... I shall not be able to
equip him.”
The countess’ eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.
“I often think, though, perhaps it’s a sin,” said the princess,
“that here lives Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov so rich, all
alone... that tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It’s a
burden to him, and Bóry’s life is only just beginning....”
“Surely he will leave something to Borís,” said the countess.
“Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.
Still, I will take Borís and go to see him at once, and I shall speak
to him straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it’s
really all the same to me when my son’s fate is at stake.” The
princess rose. “It’s now two o’clock and you dine at four. There
will just be time.”
And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of
time, Anna Mikháylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the
anteroom with him.
“Good-by, my dear,” said she to the countess who saw her to the
door, and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, “Wish me
good luck.”
“Are you going to Count Cyril Vladímirovich, my dear?” said the
count coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added:
“If he is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the
house, you know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my
dear. We will see how Tarás distinguishes himself today. He says Count
Orlóv never gave such a dinner as ours will be!”
CHAPTER XV
“My dear Borís,” said Princess Anna Mikháylovna to her son as
Countess Rostóva’s carriage in which they were seated drove over the
straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s house. “My dear Borís,” said the
mother, drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying
it timidly and tenderly on her son’s arm, “be affectionate and
attentive to him. Count Cyril Vladímirovich is your godfather after
all, and your future depends on him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice
to him, as you so well know how to be.”
“If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of
it...” answered her son coldly. “But I have promised and will do it
for your sake.”
Although the hall porter saw someone’s carriage standing at the
entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to
be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the
rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady’s old
cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,
hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse
today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.
“We may as well go back,” said the son in French.
“My dear!” exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand
on his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.
Borís said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking
off his cloak.
“My friend,” said Anna Mikháylovna in gentle tones, addressing
the hall porter, “I know Count Cyril Vladímirovich is very ill...
that’s why I have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him,
my friend... I only need see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich: he is staying
here, is he not? Please announce me.”
The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned
away.
“Princess Drubetskáya to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich,” he called
to a footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat,
who ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.
The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large
Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly
ascended the carpeted stairs.
“My dear,” she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a
touch, “you promised me!”
The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.
They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the
apartments assigned to Prince Vasíli.
Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were
about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they
entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasíli
came out—wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast,
as was his custom when at home—taking leave of a good-looking,
dark-haired man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.
“Then it is certain?” said the prince.
“Prince, humanum est errare, * but...” replied the doctor,
swallowing his r’s, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French
accent.
* To err is human.
“Very well, very well...”
Seeing Anna Mikháylovna and her son, Prince Vasíli dismissed the
doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of
inquiry. The son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly
clouded his mother’s face, and he smiled slightly.
“Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our
dear invalid?” said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look
fixed on her.
Prince Vasíli stared at her and at Borís questioningly and perplexed.
Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli without acknowledging the bow
turned to Anna Mikháylovna, answering her query by a movement of the
head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikháylovna. “Oh, how awful!
It is terrible to think.... This is my son,” she added, indicating
Borís. “He wanted to thank you himself.”
Borís bowed again politely.
“Believe me, Prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you
have done for us.”
“I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna
Mikháylovna,” said Prince Vasíli, arranging his lace frill, and in
tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikháylovna whom he had placed
under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he
had done in Petersburg at Anna Schérer’s reception.
“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing
Borís with severity. “I am glad.... Are you here on leave?” he went
on in his usual tone of indifference.
“I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,”
replied Borís, betraying neither annoyance at the prince’s brusque
manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly
and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.
“Are you living with your mother?”
“I am living at Countess Rostóva’s,” replied Borís, again
adding, “your excellency.”
“That is, with Ilyá Rostóv who married Nataly Shinshiná,” said
Anna Mikháylovna.
“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasíli in his monotonous voice.
“I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that
unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,
I am told.”
“But a very kind man, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a
pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostóv deserved this
censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. “What
do the doctors say?” asked the princess after a pause, her worn face
again expressing deep sorrow.
“They give little hope,” replied the prince.
“And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me
and Borís. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that
this fact ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.
Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that
he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezúkhov’s fortune,
and hastened to reassure him.
“If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle,”
said she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, “I
know his character: noble, upright ... but you see he has no one with
him except the young princesses.... They are still young....” She bent
her head and continued in a whisper: “Has he performed his final duty,
Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no
worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill.
We women, Prince,” and she smiled tenderly, “always know how to say
these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for
me. I am used to suffering.”
Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done
at Anna Pávlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna
Mikháylovna.
“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna
Mikháylovna?” said he. “Let us wait until evening. The doctors are
expecting a crisis.”
“But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the
welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a
Christian...”
A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the
count’s niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her
body was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasíli
turned to her.
“Well, how is he?”
“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise...” said the
princess, looking at Anna Mikháylovna as at a stranger.
“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a
happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count’s niece. “I have come,
and am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you
have gone through,” and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.
The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as
Anna Mikháylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she
had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to
take a seat beside her.
“Borís,” she said to her son with a smile, “I shall go in to see
the count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile
and don’t forget to give him the Rostóvs’ invitation. They ask him
to dinner. I suppose he won’t go?” she continued, turning to the
prince.
“On the contrary,” replied the prince, who had plainly become
depressed, “I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young
man.... Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him.”
He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Borís down one flight of
stairs and up another, to Pierre’s rooms.
CHAPTER XVI
Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in
Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and
sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv’s was true.
Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been
for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father’s
house. Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be
already known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were
never favorably disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the
count against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to
his father’s part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the
princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom
were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the
eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The
two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they
differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made her
much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper.
The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him
with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression;
while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and
lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked
by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the
canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying
to make out the pattern.
“How do you do, cousin?” said Pierre. “You don’t recognize
me?”
“I recognize you only too well, too well.”
“How is the count? Can I see him?” asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual,
but unabashed.
“The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you
have done your best to increase his mental sufferings.”
“Can I see the count?” Pierre again asked.
“Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see
him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle’s beef tea is ready—it is
almost time,” she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were
busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he,
Pierre, was only busy causing him annoyance.
Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and
said: “Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see
him.”
And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the
sister with the mole.
Next day Prince Vasíli had arrived and settled in the count’s house.
He sent for Pierre and said to him: “My dear fellow, if you are going
to behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that
is all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must
not see him at all.”
Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in
his rooms upstairs.
When Borís appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,
stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,
as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely
over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering
indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.
“England is done for,” said he, scowling and pointing his finger
at someone unseen. “Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the
rights of man, is sentenced to...” But before Pierre—who at that
moment imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just
effected the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured
London—could pronounce Pitt’s sentence, he saw a well-built and
handsome young officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left
Moscow when Borís was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him,
but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Borís by the hand
with a friendly smile.
“Do you remember me?” asked Borís quietly with a pleasant smile.
“I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not
well.”
“Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him,”
answered Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.
Borís felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider
it necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least
embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.
“Count Rostóv asks you to come to dinner today,” said he, after a
considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
“Ah, Count Rostóv!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his
son, Ilyá? Only fancy, I didn’t know you at first. Do you remember
how we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It’s such an
age...”
“You are mistaken,” said Borís deliberately, with a bold and
slightly sarcastic smile. “I am Borís, son of Princess Anna
Mikháylovna Drubetskáya. Rostóv, the father, is Ilyá, and his son is
Nicholas. I never knew any Madame Jacquot.”
Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.
“Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I’ve mixed everything up. One
has so many relatives in Moscow! So you are Borís? Of course. Well, now
we know where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition?
The English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the
Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve
doesn’t make a mess of things!”
Borís knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the
papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve’s name.
“We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal
than with politics,” said he in his quiet ironical tone. “I know
nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy
with gossip,” he continued. “Just now they are talking about you and
your father.”
Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion’s
sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret.
But Borís spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into
Pierre’s eyes.
“Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,” Borís went on.
“Everybody is wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune,
though he may perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will...”
“Yes, it is all very horrid,” interrupted Pierre, “very horrid.”
Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say
something disconcerting to himself.
“And it must seem to you,” said Borís flushing slightly, but not
changing his tone or attitude, “it must seem to you that everyone is
trying to get something out of the rich man?”
“So it does,” thought Pierre.
“But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are
quite mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are
very poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that
your father is rich, I don’t regard myself as a relation of his, and
neither I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him.”
For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped
up from the sofa, seized Borís under the elbow in his quick, clumsy
way, and, blushing far more than Borís, began to speak with a feeling
of mingled shame and vexation.
“Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know
very well...”
But Borís again interrupted him.
“I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You
must excuse me,” said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put
at ease by him, “but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it
a rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to
dinner at the Rostóvs’?”
And Borís, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and
extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,
became quite pleasant again.
“No, but I say,” said Pierre, calming down, “you are a wonderful
fellow! What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you
don’t know me. We have not met for such a long time... not since we
were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand.
I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but
it’s splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It’s
queer,” he added after a pause, “that you should have suspected
me!” He began to laugh. “Well, what of it! I hope we’ll get better
acquainted,” and he pressed Borís’ hand. “Do you know, I have not
once been in to see the count. He has not sent for me.... I am sorry for
him as a man, but what can one do?”
“And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?” asked
Borís with a smile.
Pierre saw that Borís wished to change the subject, and being of the
same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the
Boulogne expedition.
A footman came in to summon Borís—the princess was going. Pierre, in
order to make Borís’ better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,
and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles
into Borís’ eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and
down the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with
his imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,
intelligent, and resolute young man.
As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely
life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up
his mind that they would be friends.
Prince Vasíli saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes
and her face was tearful.
“It is dreadful, dreadful!” she was saying, “but cost me what it
may I shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be
left like this. Every moment is precious. I can’t think why his nieces
put it off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!...
Adieu, Prince! May God support you...”
“Adieu, ma bonne,” answered Prince Vasíli turning away from her.
“Oh, he is in a dreadful state,” said the mother to her son when
they were in the carriage. “He hardly recognizes anybody.”
“I don’t understand, Mamma—what is his attitude to Pierre?”
asked the son.
“The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it.”
“But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?”
“Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!”
“Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma...”
“Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!” exclaimed the mother.
CHAPTER XVII
After Anna Mikháylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat for a long time all
alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.
“What is the matter with you, my dear?” she said crossly to the maid
who kept her waiting some minutes. “Don’t you wish to serve me? Then
I’ll find you another place.”
The countess was upset by her friend’s sorrow and humiliating poverty,
and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always
found expression in calling her maid “my dear” and speaking to her
with exaggerated politeness.
“I am very sorry, ma’am,” answered the maid.
“Ask the count to come to me.”
The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as
usual.
“Well, little countess? What a sauté of game au madère we are to
have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Tarás were
not ill-spent. He is worth it!”
He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling
his gray hair.
“What are your commands, little countess?”
“You see, my dear... What’s that mess?” she said, pointing to his
waistcoat. “It’s the sauté, most likely,” she added with a smile.
“Well, you see, Count, I want some money.”
Her face became sad.
“Oh, little countess!” ... and the count began bustling to get out
his pocketbook.
“I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles,” and taking
out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband’s waistcoat.
“Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who’s there?” he called out
in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will
rush to obey the summons. “Send Dmítri to me!”
Dmítri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count’s
house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.
“This is what I want, my dear fellow,” said the count to the
deferential young man who had entered. “Bring me...” he reflected
a moment, “yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don’t
bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones
for the countess.”
“Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing
deeply.
“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmítri. “Allow
me to inform you... But, don’t be uneasy,” he added, noticing that
the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always
a sign of approaching anger. “I was forgetting... Do you wish it
brought at once?”
“Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess.”
“What a treasure that Dmítri is,” added the count with a smile when
the young man had departed. “There is never any ‘impossible’ with
him. That’s a thing I hate! Everything is possible.”
“Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,”
said the countess. “But I am in great need of this sum.”
“You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” said the
count, and having kissed his wife’s hand he went back to his study.
When Anna Mikháylovna returned from Count Bezúkhov’s the money, all
in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess’
little table, and Anna Mikháylovna noticed that something was agitating
her.
“Well, my dear?” asked the countess.
“Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so
ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word...”
“Annette, for heaven’s sake don’t refuse me,” the countess
began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified,
elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.
Anna Mikháylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be
ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
“This is for Borís from me, for his outfit.”
Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess
wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were
kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—had to think
about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over....
But those tears were pleasant to them both.
CHAPTER XVIII
Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was
already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into
his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From
time to time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They
were expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le
terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for
common sense and frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known
to the Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both
cities wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told
good stories about her, while none the less all without exception
respected and feared her.
In the count’s room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked
of the war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the
recruiting. None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew
it had appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were
smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head
first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident
pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he
egged on against each other.
One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled
face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable
young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,
having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the
smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,
Shinshín, a cousin of the countess’, a man with “a sharp tongue”
as they said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to
his companion. The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards,
irreproachably washed, brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the
middle of his mouth and with red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting
it escape from his handsome mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an
officer in the Semënov regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join
the army, and about whom Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra,
speaking of Berg as her “intended.” The count sat between them and
listened attentively. His favorite occupation when not playing boston, a
card game he was very fond of, was that of listener, especially when he
succeeded in setting two loquacious talkers at one another.
“Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich,”
said Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian
expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity
of his speech. “Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état; *
you want to make something out of your company?”
* You expect to make an income out of the government.
“No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry
the advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own
position now, Peter Nikoláevich...”
Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His
conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm
and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing
on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put
out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as
soon as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk
circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.
“Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I
should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even
with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and
thirty,” said he, looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful,
pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must
always be the chief desire of everyone else.
“Besides that, Peter Nikoláevich, by exchanging into the Guards
I shall be in a more prominent position,” continued Berg, “and
vacancies occur much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think
what can be done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to
put a little aside and to send something to my father,” he went on,
emitting a smoke ring.
“La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the
proverb says,” remarked Shinshín, moving his pipe to the other side
of his mouth and winking at the count.
* So that squares matters.
The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshín
was talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,
continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already
gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime
the company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,
might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in
the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently
enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,
too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily
sedate, and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that
he disarmed his hearers.
“Well, my boy, you’ll get along wherever you go—foot or
horse—that I’ll warrant,” said Shinshín, patting him on the
shoulder and taking his feet off the sofa.
Berg smiled joyously. The count, followed by his guests, went into the
drawing room.
It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,
expecting the summons to zakúska, * avoid engaging in any long
conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order
to show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and
hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,
and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are
waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish
that is not yet ready.
* Hors d’oeuvres.
Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the
middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,
blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk,
but he went on naïvely looking around through his spectacles as if in
search of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He
was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of
the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity
at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest
fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman.
“You have only lately arrived?” the countess asked him.
“Oui, madame,” replied he, looking around him.
“You have not yet seen my husband?”
“Non, madame.” He smiled quite inappropriately.
“You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it’s very
interesting.”
“Very interesting.”
The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. The latter
understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and
sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he
answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other
guests were all conversing with one another. “The Razumóvskis... It
was charming... You are very kind... Countess Apráksina...” was heard
on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.
“Márya Dmítrievna?” came her voice from there.
“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Márya Dmítrievna
entered the room.
All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
oldest rose. Márya Dmítrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,
holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood
surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if
rolling them up. Márya Dmítrievna always spoke in Russian.
“Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her
children,” she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all
others. “Well, you old sinner,” she went on, turning to the count
who was kissing her hand, “you’re feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay?
Nowhere to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just
see how these nestlings are growing up,” and she pointed to the girls.
“You must look for husbands for them whether you like it or not....”
“Well,” said she, “how’s my Cossack?” (Márya Dmítrievna
always called Natásha a Cossack) and she stroked the child’s arm as
she came up fearless and gay to kiss her hand. “I know she’s a scamp
of a girl, but I like her.”
She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,
having given them to the rosy Natásha, who beamed with the pleasure
of her saint’s-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to
Pierre.
“Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,” said she, assuming a soft high
tone of voice. “Come here, my friend...” and she ominously tucked
up her sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a
childlike way through his spectacles.
“Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell
your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it’s my
evident duty.” She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to
follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.
“A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed
and he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame,
sir, for shame! It would be better if you went to the war.”
She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep
from laughing.
“Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?” said Márya
Dmítrievna.
The count went in first with Márya Dmítrievna, the countess followed
on the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because
Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikháylovna
with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina
went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the
whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses
followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the
band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their
places. Then the strains of the count’s household band were replaced
by the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the
soft steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with
Márya Dmítrievna on her right and Anna Mikháylovna on her left, the
other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,
with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshín and the other male
visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the
grown-up young people: Véra beside Berg, and Pierre beside Borís; and
on the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind
the crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his
wife and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled
his neighbors’ glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,
without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from
behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed
by their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the
ladies’ end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the
men’s end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the
colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so
much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg
with tender smiles was saying to Véra that love is not an earthly but
a heavenly feeling. Borís was telling his new friend Pierre who the
guests were and exchanging glances with Natásha, who was sitting
opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a
great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and
went on to the game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines.
These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a
napkin, from behind the next man’s shoulders and whispered: “Dry
Madeira”... “Hungarian”... or “Rhine wine” as the case might
be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram
that stood before his plate, Pierre held out one at random and drank
with enjoyment, gazing with ever-increasing amiability at the other
guests. Natásha, who sat opposite, was looking at Borís as girls of
thirteen look at the boy they are in love with and have just kissed for
the first time. Sometimes that same look fell on Pierre, and that funny
lively little girl’s look made him inclined to laugh without knowing
why.
Nicholas sat at some distance from Sónya, beside Julie Karágina, to
whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sónya wore
a company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned
pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas
and Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round
uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the
children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,
and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner
to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler
with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to
appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because
no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from
greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for
knowledge.
CHAPTER XIX
At the men’s end of the table the talk grew more and more animated.
The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared
in Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day
been forwarded by courier to the commander in chief.
“And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?” remarked
Shinshín. “He has stopped Austria’s cackle and I fear it will be
our turn next.”
The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to
the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshín’s remark.
“It is for the reasson, my goot sir,” said he, speaking with a
German accent, “for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He
declares in ze manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger
vreatening Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell
as ze sanctity of its alliances...” he spoke this last word with
particular emphasis as if in it lay the gist of the matter.
Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he
repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:
... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor’s sole and absolute
aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now decided
him to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition
for the attainment of that purpose.
“Zat, my dear sir, is vy...” he concluded, drinking a tumbler of
wine with dignity and looking to the count for approval.
“Connaissez-vous le Proverbe:* ‘Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but
turn spindles at home!’?” said Shinshín, puckering his brows and
smiling. “Cela nous convient à merveille.*(2) Suvórov now—he knew
what he was about; yet they beat him à plate couture,*(3) and where
are we to find Suvórovs now? Je vous demande un peu,” *(4) said he,
continually changing from French to Russian.
*Do you know the proverb?
*(2) That suits us down to the ground.
*(3) Hollow.
*(4) I just ask you that.
“Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!” said the colonel,
thumping the table; “and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill
pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible”... he dwelt
particularly on the word possible... “as po-o-ossible,” he ended,
again turning to the count. “Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and
zere’s an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar,
how do you judge of it?” he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he
heard that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with
eyes and ears intent on the colonel.
“I am quite of your opinion,” replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning
his plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision
and desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great
danger. “I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer,” he
concluded, conscious—as were others—after the words were uttered
that his remarks were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and
were therefore awkward.
“What you said just now was splendid!” said his partner Julie.
Sónya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and
down to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.
Pierre listened to the colonel’s speech and nodded approvingly.
“That’s fine,” said he.
“The young man’s a real hussar!” shouted the colonel, again
thumping the table.
“What are you making such a noise about over there?” Márya
Dmítrievna’s deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the
table. “What are you thumping the table for?” she demanded of the
hussar, “and why are you exciting yourself? Do you think the French
are here?”
“I am speaking ze truce,” replied the hussar with a smile.
“It’s all about the war,” the count shouted down the table. “You
know my son’s going, Márya Dmítrievna? My son is going.”
“I have four sons in the army but still I don’t fret. It is all
in God’s hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a
battle,” replied Márya Dmítrievna’s deep voice, which easily
carried the whole length of the table.
“That’s true!”
Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies’ at the one end
and the men’s at the other.
“You won’t ask,” Natásha’s little brother was saying; “I know
you won’t ask!”
“I will,” replied Natásha.
Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half
rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what
was coming, and turning to her mother:
“Mamma!” rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,
audible the whole length of the table.
“What is it?” asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her
daughter’s face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her
sternly with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.
The conversation was hushed.
“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” and Natásha’s voice
sounded still more firm and resolute.
The countess tried to frown, but could not. Márya Dmítrievna shook her
fat finger.
“Cossack!” she said threateningly.
Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the
elders.
“You had better take care!” said the countess.
“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha again cried
boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in
good part.
Sónya and fat little Pétya doubled up with laughter.
“You see! I have asked,” whispered Natásha to her little brother
and to Pierre, glancing at him again.
“Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,” said Márya Dmítrievna.
Natásha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even
Márya Dmítrievna.
“Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t like ice
cream.”
“Carrot ices.”
“No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?” she almost screamed;
“I want to know!”
Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the
guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna’s answer
but at the incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had
dared to treat Márya Dmítrievna in this fashion.
Natásha only desisted when she had been told that there would be
pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band
again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving
their seats, went up to “congratulate” the countess, and reached
across the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and
with one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and
in the same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the
guests returned to the drawing room and to the count’s study.
CHAPTER XX
The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the
count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms,
some in the sitting room, some in the library.
The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from
dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything.
The young people, at the countess’ instigation, gathered round the
clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she
had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the
other young ladies in begging Natásha and Nicholas, who were noted for
their musical talent, to sing something. Natásha, who was treated as
though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the
same time felt shy.
“What shall we sing?” she said.
“‘The Brook,’” suggested Nicholas.
“Well, then, let’s be quick. Borís, come here,” said Natásha.
“But where is Sónya?”
She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to
look for her.
Running into Sónya’s room and not finding her there, Natásha ran to
the nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha concluded that
she must be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was
the place of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostóv
household. And there in fact was Sónya lying face downward on Nurse’s
dirty feather bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink
dress under her, hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing
so convulsively that her bare little shoulders shook. Natásha’s
face, which had been so radiantly happy all that saint’s day, suddenly
changed: her eyes became fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad
neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.
“Sónya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!” And
Natásha’s large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she
began to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sónya was
crying. Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and
hid her face still deeper in the bed. Natásha wept, sitting on the
blue-striped feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sónya
sat up and began wiping her eyes and explaining.
“Nicholas is going away in a week’s time, his... papers... have
come... he told me himself... but still I should not cry,” and she
showed a paper she held in her hand—with the verses Nicholas had
written, “still, I should not cry, but you can’t... no one can
understand... what a soul he has!”
And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.
“It’s all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and
Borís also,” she went on, gaining a little strength; “he is nice...
there are no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin...
one would have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it
can’t be done. And besides, if she tells Mamma” (Sónya looked upon
the countess as her mother and called her so) “that I am spoiling
Nicholas’ career and am heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God
is my witness,” and she made the sign of the cross, “I love her so
much, and all of you, only Véra... And what for? What have I done
to her? I am so grateful to you that I would willingly sacrifice
everything, only I have nothing....”
Sónya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in
the feather bed. Natásha began consoling her, but her face showed that
she understood all the gravity of her friend’s trouble.
“Sónya,” she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true
reason of her friend’s sorrow, “I’m sure Véra has said something
to you since dinner? Hasn’t she?”
“Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others,
and she found them on my table and said she’d show them to Mamma, and
that I was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry
me, but that he’ll marry Julie. You see how he’s been with her all
day... Natásha, what have I done to deserve it?...”
And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natásha lifted
her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting
her.
“Sónya, don’t believe her, darling! Don’t believe her! Do you
remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting
room after supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don’t
quite remember how, but don’t you remember that it could all be
arranged and how nice it all was? There’s Uncle Shinshín’s brother
has married his first cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know.
And Borís says it is quite possible. You know I have told him all about
it. And he is so clever and so good!” said Natásha. “Don’t
you cry, Sónya, dear love, darling Sónya!” and she kissed her and
laughed. “Véra’s spiteful; never mind her! And all will come right
and she won’t say anything to Mamma. Nicholas will tell her himself,
and he doesn’t care at all for Julie.”
Natásha kissed her on the hair.
Sónya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it
seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin
playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.
“Do you think so?... Really? Truly?” she said, quickly smoothing her
frock and hair.
“Really, truly!” answered Natásha, pushing in a crisp lock that had
strayed from under her friend’s plaits.
Both laughed.
“Well, let’s go and sing ‘The Brook.’”
“Come along!”
“Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!” said
Natásha, stopping suddenly. “I feel so happy!”
And she set off at a run along the passage.
Sónya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the
verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran
after Natásha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face
and light, joyous steps. At the visitors’ request the young people
sang the quartette, “The Brook,” with which everyone was delighted.
Then Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:
At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow
How sweet, as fancies wander free,
To feel that in this world there’s one
Who still is thinking but of thee!
That while her fingers touch the harp
Wafting sweet music o’er the lea,
It is for thee thus swells her heart,
Sighing its message out to thee...
A day or two, then bliss unspoilt,
But oh! till then I cannot live!...
He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to
get ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the
coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.
Pierre was sitting in the drawing room where Shinshín had engaged him,
as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in
which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began
Natásha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and
blushing:
“Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.”
“I am afraid of mixing the figures,” Pierre replied; “but if you
will be my teacher...” And lowering his big arm he offered it to the
slender little girl.
While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,
Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natásha was perfectly happy;
she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was
sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.
She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.
Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where
she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and
smiling over the fan.
“Dear, dear! Just look at her!” exclaimed the countess as she
crossed the ballroom, pointing to Natásha.
Natásha blushed and laughed.
“Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised
at?”
In the midst of the third écossaise there was a clatter of chairs being
pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Márya Dmítrievna
had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and
older visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long,
and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First
came Márya Dmítrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The
count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his
bent arm to Márya Dmítrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair
gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the
écossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted
up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:
“Semën! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?”
This was the count’s favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.
(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)
“Look at Papa!” shouted Natásha to the whole company, and quite
forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her
curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.
And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the
jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,
Márya Dmítrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his
shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by
a smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the
onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay
strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant
dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly
filled by the domestic serfs—the men on one side and the women on
the other—who with beaming faces had come to see their master making
merry.
“Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!” loudly remarked
the nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.
The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not
want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms
hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her
stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed
by the whole of the count’s plump figure, in Márya Dmítrievna found
expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.
But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed
the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and
the agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Márya
Dmítrievna produced no less impression by slight exertions—the least
effort to move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp
her foot—which everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual
severity. The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could
not attract a moment’s attention to their own evolutions and did not
even try to do so. All were watching the count and Márya Dmítrievna.
Natásha kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to
“look at Papa!” though as it was they never took their eyes off the
couple. In the intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved
and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster;
lightly, more lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying
round Márya Dmítrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until,
turning his partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas,
raising his soft foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling
and making a wide sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and
laughter led by Natásha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily
and wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.
“That’s how we used to dance in our time, ma chère,” said the
count.
“That was a Daniel Cooper!” exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna, tucking up
her sleeves and puffing heavily.
CHAPTER XXI
While in the Rostóvs’ ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced,
to a tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired
footmen and cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezúkhov had a
sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute
confession, communion was administered to the dying man, preparations
made for the sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle
and thrill of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond
the gates, a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up,
waited in expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral.
The Military Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending
aides-de-camp to inquire after the count’s health, came himself
that evening to bid a last farewell to the celebrated grandee of
Catherine’s court, Count Bezúkhov.
The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up
respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an
hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their
bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed
on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince
Vasíli, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,
escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in
low tones.
When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasíli sat down all alone
on a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other,
leaning his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After
sitting so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened
eyes, went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading
to the back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.
Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous
whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man’s
room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at
his door, which creaked slightly when opened.
“The limits of human life ... are fixed and may not be
o’erpassed,” said an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat
beside him and was listening naïvely to his words.
“I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?” asked the
lady, adding the priest’s clerical title, as if she had no opinion of
her own on the subject.
“Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament,” replied the priest, passing
his hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his
bald head.
“Who was that? The Military Governor himself?” was being asked at
the other side of the room. “How young-looking he is!”
“Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes
anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction.”
“I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times.”
The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red
from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a
graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a
table.
“Beautiful,” said the doctor in answer to a remark about the
weather. “The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow
one feels as if one were in the country.”
“Yes, indeed,” replied the princess with a sigh. “So he may have
something to drink?”
Lorrain considered.
“Has he taken his medicine?”
“Yes.”
The doctor glanced at his watch.
“Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar,”
and he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.
“Dere has neffer been a gase,” a German doctor was saying to an
aide-de-camp, “dat one liffs after de sird stroke.”
“And what a well-preserved man he was!” remarked the aide-de-camp.
“And who will inherit his wealth?” he added in a whisper.
“It von’t go begging,” replied the German with a smile.
Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second
princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to
Lorrain’s instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.
“Do you think he can last till morning?” asked the German,
addressing Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.
Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before
his nose.
“Tonight, not later,” said he in a low voice, and he moved away
with a decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to
understand and state the patient’s condition.
Meanwhile Prince Vasíli had opened the door into the princess’ room.
In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before
the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.
The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,
cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was
just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.
“Ah, is it you, cousin?”
She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth
that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with
varnish.
“Has anything happened?” she asked. “I am so terrified.”
“No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,
Catiche,” * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair
she had just vacated. “You have made the place warm, I must say,” he
remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”
*Catherine.
“I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said with her
unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the
prince, she prepared to listen.
“I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can’t.”
“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it
downwards as was his habit.
It was plain that this “well?” referred to much that they both
understood without naming.
The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her
legs, looked directly at Prince Vasíli with no sign of emotion in her
prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons
with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow
and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince
Vasíli understood it as an expression of weariness.
“And I?” he said; “do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn
out as a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a
very serious talk.”
Prince Vasíli said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously,
now on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant
expression which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes
too seemed strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the
next glanced round in alarm.
The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony
hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasíli’s eyes evidently
resolved not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till
morning.
“Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,”
continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his theme, apparently not
without an inner struggle; “at such a moment as this one must think
of everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you
all, like children of my own, as you know.”
The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same
dull expression.
“And then of course my family has also to be considered,” Prince
Vasíli went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at
her. “You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and
my wife—are the count’s only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard
it is for you to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for
me; but, my dear, I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for
anything. Do you know I have sent for Pierre? The count,” pointing to
his portrait, “definitely demanded that he should be called.”
Prince Vasíli looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make
out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was
simply looking at him.
“There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin,” she
replied, “and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow
his noble soul peacefully to leave this...”
“Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently,
rubbing his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little
table that he had pushed away. “But... in short, the fact is... you
know yourself that last winter the count made a will by which he left
all his property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.”
“He has made wills enough!” quietly remarked the princess. “But he
cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”
“But, my dear,” said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little
table and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: “what if
a letter has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for
Pierre’s legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the
count’s services, his request would be granted?...”
The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the
subject under discussion than those they are talking with.
“I can tell you more,” continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand,
“that letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew
of it. The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then
as soon as all is over,” and Prince Vasíli sighed to intimate what he
meant by the words all is over, “and the count’s papers are opened,
the will and letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition
will certainly be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate
son.”
“And our share?” asked the princess smiling ironically, as if
anything might happen, only not that.
“But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the
legal heir to everything and you won’t get anything. You must know,
my dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have
been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you
ought to know where they are, and must find them, because...”
“What next?” the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not
changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, and you think we
are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit...
un bâtard!”* she added, as if supposing that this translation of the
word would effectively prove to Prince Vasíli the invalidity of his
contention.
* A bastard.
“Well, really, Catiche! Can’t you understand! You are so
intelligent, how is it you don’t see that if the count has written a
letter to the Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it
follows that Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezúkhov,
and will then inherit everything under the will? And if the will and
letter are not destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation
of having been dutiful et tout ce qui s’ensuit!* That’s certain.”
* And all that follows therefrom.
“I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid;
and you, mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool,” said the
princess with the expression women assume when they suppose they are
saying something witty and stinging.
“My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna,” began Prince Vasíli
impatiently, “I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about
your interests as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I
tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the
will in Pierre’s favor are among the count’s papers, then, my dear
girl, you and your sisters are not heiresses! If you don’t believe me,
then believe an expert. I have just been talking to Dmítri Onúfrich”
(the family solicitor) “and he says the same.”
At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess’ ideas;
her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice
when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself
evidently did not expect.
“That would be a fine thing!” said she. “I never wanted anything
and I don’t now.”
She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.
“And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have
sacrificed everything for his sake!” she cried. “It’s splendid!
Fine! I don’t want anything, Prince.”
“Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters...”
replied Prince Vasíli.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect
nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the
blackest ingratitude—in this house...”
“Do you or do you not know where that will is?” insisted Prince
Vasíli, his cheeks twitching more than ever.
“Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and
sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has
been intriguing!”
The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She
had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.
She gave her companion an angry glance.
“There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was
all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards
forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his
last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let
him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...”
“Who sacrificed everything for him,” chimed in the princess, who
would again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, “though
he never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh,
“I shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward,
that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one
has to be cunning and cruel.”
“Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.”
“No, I have a wicked heart.”
“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your friendship
and wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don’t upset yourself,
and let us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it
but an hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where
it is. You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the
count. He has, no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it.
You understand that my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his
wishes; that is my only reason for being here. I came simply to help him
and you.”
“Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!” cried
the princess.
“That’s not the point, my dear.”
“It’s that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya,
that Anna Mikháylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the
infamous, vile woman!”
“Do not let us lose any time...”
“Ah, don’t talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and
told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about
Sophie—I can’t repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he
would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this
vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid.”
“We’ve got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it
sooner?”
“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,”
said the princess, ignoring his question. “Now I know! Yes; if I have
a sin, a great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!” almost shrieked
the princess, now quite changed. “And what does she come worming
herself in here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time
will come!”
CHAPTER XXII
While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the
princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)
and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was
driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna,
having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that
he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre
followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began
to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He
noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back
door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who
looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the
shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other
men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.
But neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who
could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. “It seems
to be all right,” Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna.
She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to
Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it
was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had
to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna’s air
of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely
necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by
some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots
clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them
there.
“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikháylovna of one of them.
“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were
now permissible; “the door to the left, ma’am.”
“Perhaps the count did not ask for me,” said Pierre when he reached
the landing. “I’d better go to my own room.”
Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
“Ah, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her
son’s when speaking to him that afternoon, “believe me I suffer no
less than you do, but be a man!”
“But really, hadn’t I better go away?” he asked, looking kindly at
her over his spectacles.
“Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death.” She
sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to
me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”
Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was
already opening a door.
This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been
in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of
these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked
about the princess’ health and then led Pierre along a stone passage.
The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. The
maid with the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything
in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious
impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of
desperation slammed the door with all her might.
This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on
Prince Vasíli’s face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as
if to say that this was no more than she had expected.
“Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,” said she in
reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.
Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
“watching over his interests” meant, but he decided that all these
things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly
lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those
sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front
approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water
had been spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer
and by a servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They
went into the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian
windows opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full
length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still
sitting here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one
another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna
Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who,
hanging his head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikháylovna’s face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,
keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than
that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the
dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid
glance at all those in the room and noticing the count’s confessor
there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet
seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing
first of one and then of another priest.
“God be thanked that you are in time,” said she to one of the
priests; “all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young
man is the count’s son,” she added more softly. “What a terrible
moment!”
Having said this she went up to the doctor.
“Dear doctor,” said she, “this young man is the count’s son. Is
there any hope?”
The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her
shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
tenderly sad voice, she said:
“Trust in His mercy!” and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit
and wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved
toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had
disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him
with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they
whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind
of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before
received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to
the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up
and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully
silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre
wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to
pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not
even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful
rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound
to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the
aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady’s chair, placing his huge hands
symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,
and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in
order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his
own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of
those who were guiding him.
Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasíli with head erect
majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three
stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;
his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed
Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),
and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly
fixed on.
“Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is
well!” and he turned to go.
But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: “How is...” and hesitated,
not knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man “the
count,” yet ashamed to call him “father.”
“He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my
friend...”
Pierre’s mind was in such a confused state that the word “stroke”
suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasíli
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and went
through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his
whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and
the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.
Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and
at last Anna Mikháylovna, still with the same expression, pale but
resolute in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly
on the arm said:
“The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be
administered. Come.”
Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed
that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all
followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to
enter that room.
CHAPTER XXIII
Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its
walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the
columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and
on the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated
with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under
the gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair
on snowy-white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre
saw—covered to the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar,
majestic figure of his father, Count Bezúkhov, with that gray mane of
hair above his broad forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep
characteristically noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay
just under the icons; his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the
right hand, which was lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust
between forefinger and thumb, and an old servant, bending over from
behind the chair, held it in position. By the chair stood the priests,
their long hair falling over their magnificent glittering vestments,
with lighted tapers in their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the
service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses holding
handkerchiefs to their eyes, and just in front of them their eldest
sister, Catiche, with a vicious and determined look steadily fixed on
the icons, as though declaring to all that she could not answer for
herself should she glance round. Anna Mikháylovna, with a meek,
sorrowful, and all-forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door
near the strange lady. Prince Vasíli in front of the door, near the
invalid chair, a wax taper in his left hand, was leaning his left arm on
the carved back of a velvet chair he had turned round for the purpose,
and was crossing himself with his right hand, turning his eyes upward
each time he touched his forehead. His face wore a calm look of piety
and resignation to the will of God. “If you do not understand these
sentiments,” he seemed to be saying, “so much the worse for you!”
Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants;
the men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing
themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting
of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of
feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikháylovna, with
an air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she
was about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave
him a taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him,
began crossing himself with the hand that held the taper.
Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,
watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained
with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she
again began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him
without laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of
temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst
of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered
to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count’s hand
got up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikháylovna stepped
forward and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from
behind her back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning
against one of the columns in a respectful attitude implying that he,
a foreigner, in spite of all differences of faith, understood the full
importance of the rite now being performed and even approved of it. He
now approached the sick man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor
of life, with his delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the
hand that was free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected
a moment. The sick man was given something to drink, there was a
stir around him, then the people resumed their places and the service
continued. During this interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasíli
left the chair on which he had been leaning, and—with an air
which intimated that he knew what he was about and if others did not
understand him it was so much the worse for them—did not go up to the
dying man, but passed by him, joined the eldest princess, and moved
with her to the side of the room where stood the high bedstead with its
silken hangings. On leaving the bed both Prince Vasíli and the princess
passed out by a back door, but returned to their places one after the
other before the service was concluded. Pierre paid no more attention
to this occurrence than to the rest of what went on, having made up his
mind once for all that what he saw happening around him that evening was
in some way essential.
The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was
heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the
sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around
him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which
Anna Mikháylovna’s was the most distinct.
Pierre heard her say:
“Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be
impossible...”
The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants
that Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray
mane—which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight
of for a single moment during the whole service. He judged by the
cautious movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that
they had lifted the dying man and were moving him.
“Catch hold of my arm or you’ll drop him!” he heard one of the
servants say in a frightened whisper. “Catch hold from underneath.
Here!” exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the
bearers and the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the
weight they were carrying were too much for them.
As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikháylovna, passed the young man
he caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying
man’s high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by
those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,
leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,
its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was
not disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre
remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to
Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven
movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon
nothing.
After a few minutes’ bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had
carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikháylovna touched Pierre’s
hand and said, “Come.” Pierre went with her to the bed on which the
sick man had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony
just completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His
hands were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms
downward. When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but
with a look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal
man. Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes
they must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated,
not knowing what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna made a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick
man’s hand and moving her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre,
carefully stretching his neck so as not to touch the quilt, followed her
suggestion and pressed his lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither
the hand nor a single muscle of the count’s face stirred. Once more
Pierre looked questioningly at Anna Mikháylovna to see what he was to
do next. Anna Mikháylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood
beside the bed. Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were
doing right. Anna Mikháylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell
into the naïvely symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently
distressed that his stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing
his utmost to look as small as possible. He looked at the count, who
still gazed at the spot where Pierre’s face had been before he sat
down. Anna Mikháylovna indicated by her attitude her consciousness of
the pathetic importance of these last moments of meeting between the
father and son. This lasted about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an
hour. Suddenly the broad muscles and lines of the count’s face began
to twitch. The twitching increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one
side (only now did Pierre realize how near death his father was), and
from that distorted mouth issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna
Mikháylovna looked attentively at the sick man’s eyes, trying to
guess what he wanted; she pointed first to Pierre, then to some drink,
then named Prince Vasíli in an inquiring whisper, then pointed to the
quilt. The eyes and face of the sick man showed impatience. He made an
effort to look at the servant who stood constantly at the head of the
bed.
“Wants to turn on the other side,” whispered the servant, and got up
to turn the count’s heavy body toward the wall.
Pierre rose to help him.
While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back
helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he
noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,
or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any
rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre’s terror-stricken
face, and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile
appeared, quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride
his own helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected
quivering in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his
eyes. The sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall.
He sighed.
“He is dozing,” said Anna Mikháylovna, observing that one of the
princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. “Let us go.”
Pierre went out.
CHAPTER XXIV
There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the
eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the
Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion
they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide
something as she whispered:
“I can’t bear the sight of that woman.”
“Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room,” said Prince
Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. “Go and take something, my poor Anna
Mikháylovna, or you will not hold out.”
To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze
below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small
drawing room.
“There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup
of this delicious Russian tea,” Lorrain was saying with an air of
restrained animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese
handleless cup before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid
in the small circular room. Around the table all who were at Count
Bezúkhov’s house that night had gathered to fortify themselves.
Pierre well remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors
and little tables. During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not
know how to dance, had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies
who, as they passed through in their ball dresses with diamonds and
pearls on their bare shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly
lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now
this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea
things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the
night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly
whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none
of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the
bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have
liked to. He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was
again going on tiptoe to the reception room where they had left Prince
Vasíli and the eldest princess. Pierre concluded that this also was
essential, and after a short interval followed her. Anna Mikháylovna
was standing beside the princess, and they were both speaking in excited
whispers.
“Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
necessary,” said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the
same state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.
“But, my dear princess,” answered Anna Mikháylovna blandly but
impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
from passing, “won’t this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment
when he needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is
already prepared...”
Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude,
with one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so
flabby that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but
he wore the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were
saying.
“Come, my dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You
know how fond the count is of her.”
“I don’t even know what is in this paper,” said the younger of
the two ladies, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid
portfolio she held in her hand. “All I know is that his real will is
in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten....”
She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar
her path.
“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing
the portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.
“Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous
en conjure...”
The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if
the princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna
Mikháylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none
of its honeyed firmness and softness.
“Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a
family consultation; is it not so, Prince?”
“Why don’t you speak, cousin?” suddenly shrieked the princess so
loud that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. “Why
do you remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to
interfere, making a scene on the very threshold of a dying man’s room?
Intriguer!” she hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the
portfolio.
But Anna Mikháylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the
portfolio, and changed her grip.
Prince Vasíli rose. “Oh!” said he with reproach and surprise,
“this is absurd! Come, let go I tell you.”
The princess let go.
“And you too!”
But Anna Mikháylovna did not obey him.
“Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go
and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?”
“But, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna, “after such a solemn
sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your
opinion,” said she, turning to the young man who, having come quite
close, was gazing with astonishment at the angry face of the princess
which had lost all dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince
Vasíli.
“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince
Vasíli severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”
“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.
Prince Vasíli bent his head and spread out his hands.
At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long
and which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged
against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out
wringing her hands.
“What are you doing!” she cried vehemently. “He is dying and you
leave me alone with him!”
Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna, stooping, quickly
caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest
princess and Prince Vasíli, recovering themselves, followed her. A few
minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again
biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an
irrepressible hatred.
“Yes, now you may be glad!” said she; “this is what you have
been waiting for.” And bursting into tears she hid her face in her
handkerchief and rushed from the room.
Prince Vasíli came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was
sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre
noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an
ague.
“Ah, my friend!” said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was
in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it
before. “How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am
near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is
awful...” and he burst into tears.
Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet
steps.
“Pierre!” she said.
Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his
forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:
“He is no more....”
Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.
“Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as
tears.”
She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could
see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was
fast asleep with his head on his arm.
In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:
“Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you.
But God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command
of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you
well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes
duties on you, and you must be a man.”
Pierre was silent.
“Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been
there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised
me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he had
no time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s
wish?”
Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in
silence at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs’ and went to bed. On waking in
the morning she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezúkhov’s death. She said the count had died as she would
herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As
to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she
could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved
better during those awful moments—the father who so remembered
everything and everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to
the son, or Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he
with grief, though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his
dying father. “It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the
soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,” said she.
Of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli she spoke
disapprovingly, but in whispers and as a great secret.
CHAPTER XXV
At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski’s estate, the
arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but
this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old
prince’s household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich
(nicknamed in society, “the King of Prussia”) ever since the Emperor
Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously
with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle
Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the
capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that
anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to
Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to
say that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and
superstition, and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He
himself undertook his daughter’s education, and to develop these two
cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry
till she was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was
occupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving
problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working
in the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on
at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity,
regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of
exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions,
and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about
him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably
exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear
and respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was
in retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high
official appointed to the province in which the prince’s estate lay
considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber
just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince
appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this
antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when
the enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather
small old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray
eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd,
youthfully glittering eyes.
On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess
Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the
morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a
silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning
prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.
An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose
quietly and said in a whisper: “Please walk in.”
Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly
opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the
entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round
continued his work.
The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use.
The large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted
bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while
standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with
tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated
continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot
shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure
of the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the
tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns
of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,
dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching
the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,
so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding
her tenderly and attentively, said severely:
“Quite well? All right then, sit down.” He took the exercise book
containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair
with his foot.
“For tomorrow!” said he, quickly finding the page and making a
scratch from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.
The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.
“Wait a bit, here’s a letter for you,” said the old man suddenly,
taking a letter addressed in a woman’s hand from a bag hanging above
the table, onto which he threw it.
At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the
princess’ face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.
“From Héloïse?” asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his
still sound, yellowish teeth.
“Yes, it’s from Julie,” replied the princess with a timid glance
and a timid smile.
“I’ll let two more letters pass, but the third I’ll read,” said
the prince sternly; “I’m afraid you write much nonsense. I’ll read
the third!”
“Read this if you like, Father,” said the princess, blushing still
more and holding out the letter.
“The third, I said the third!” cried the prince abruptly, pushing
the letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him
the exercise book containing geometrical figures.
“Well, madam,” he began, stooping over the book close to his
daughter and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat,
so that she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of
old age and tobacco, which she had known so long. “Now, madam, these
triangles are equal; please note that the angle ABC...”
The princess looked in a scared way at her father’s eyes glittering
close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was
plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her
fear would prevent her understanding any of her father’s further
explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the
teacher’s fault or the pupil’s, this same thing happened every day:
the princess’ eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear
anything, but was only conscious of her stern father’s withered face
close to her, of his breath and the smell of him, and could think only
of how to get away quickly to her own room to make out the problem in
peace. The old man was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was
sitting noisily backward and forward, made efforts to control himself
and not become vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded,
and sometimes flung the exercise book away.
The princess gave a wrong answer.
“Well now, isn’t she a fool!” shouted the prince, pushing the book
aside and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and
down, lightly touched his daughter’s hair and sat down again.
He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.
“This won’t do, Princess; it won’t do,” said he, when Princess
Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day’s
lesson, was about to leave: “Mathematics are most important, madam!
I don’t want to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and
you’ll like it,” and he patted her cheek. “It will drive all the
nonsense out of your head.”
She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut
book from the high desk.
“Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Héloïse has
sent you. Religious! I don’t interfere with anyone’s belief... I
have looked at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go.”
He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.
Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that
rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She
sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and
which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as
her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke
the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from
childhood; that same Julie Karágina who had been at the Rostóvs’
name-day party.
Julie wrote in French:
Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is
separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness
are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us
our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against
fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot
overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since
we parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big
study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as
three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,
calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me
as I write?
Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror
which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and
thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness
at her reflection in the glass. “She flatters me,” thought the
princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter
her friend, the princess’ eyes—large, deep and luminous (it seemed
as if at times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—were
so beautiful that very often in spite of the plainness of her face
they gave her an attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the
princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look
they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her
face assumed a forced unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a
glass. She went on reading:
All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already
abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march
to the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought
intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant
that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may
be overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His
goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this
war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean
young Nicholas Rostóv, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain
inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to
you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for
the army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you
last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which
one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,
he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that
my relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the
sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.
Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.
That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know
these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are
generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too
young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,
this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of
this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of
old Count Bezúkhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses
have received very little, Prince Vasíli nothing, and it is Monsieur
Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been
recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezúkhov and
possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince
Vasíli played a very despicable part in this affair and that he
returned to Petersburg quite crestfallen.
I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and
inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used
to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezúkhov and the
owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to
watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by
marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward
him, though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort
of fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves
by finding husbands for me (most of whom I don’t even know), the
matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess
Bezúkhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post.
À propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal
auntie Anna Mikháylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of
a plan of marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince
Vasíli’s son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to
someone rich and distinguée, and it is on you that his relations’
choice has fallen. I don’t know what you will think of it, but
I consider it my duty to let you know of it. He is said to be very
handsome and a terrible scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find
out about him.
But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and
Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apráksins’. Read the
mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though
there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it
is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give
my respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle
Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.
JULIE
P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.
The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous
eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly
rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of
paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,
also in French:
Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great
delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which
you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect
on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I
dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if
we had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you
suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young
man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such
feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of
them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian
love, love of one’s neighbor, love of one’s enemy, is worthier,
sweeter, and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a
young man can inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.
The news of Count Bezúkhov’s death reached us before your letter
and my father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last
representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own
turn now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as
possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!
I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always
seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value
most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince
Vasíli, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine
Saviour’s words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are
terribly true. I pity Prince Vasíli but am still more sorry for Pierre.
So young, and burdened with such riches—to what temptations he will be
exposed! If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be
poorer than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the
volume you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since
you tell me that among some good things it contains others which our
weak human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to
spend time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear
no fruit. I never could understand the fondness some people have for
confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken
their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for
exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read
the Epistles and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries
they contain; for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the
terrible and holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh
which forms an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us
rather confine ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our
divine Saviour has left for our guidance here below. Let us try to
conform to them and follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less
we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who
rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek
to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will
He vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.
My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he
has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasíli. In
regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet
friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must
conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay
the duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as
faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings
toward him whom He may give me for husband.
I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival
at Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,
however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war
into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you
are—at the heart of affairs and of the world—is the talk all of
war, even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature—which townsfolk
consider characteristic of the country—rumors of war are heard
and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and
countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day
before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a
heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our
people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of
the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should
have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the
laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of
injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing
one another.
Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy
Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!
MARY
“Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched
mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said the smiling Mademoiselle
Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r’s.
She brought into Princess Mary’s strenuous, mournful, and gloomy
world a quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and
self-satisfied.
“Princess, I must warn you,” she added, lowering her voice and
evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with
exaggerated grasseyement, “the prince has been scolding Michael
Ivánovich. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared.”
“Ah, dear friend,” replied Princess Mary, “I have asked you never
to warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge
him and would not have others do so.”
The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes
late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting
room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o’clock, as the
day was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the
clavichord.
CHAPTER XXVI
The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of
the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house
through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty
times repeated—of a sonata by Dussek.
Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the
porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to
alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tíkhon, wearing
a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in
a whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.
Tíkhon knew that neither the son’s arrival nor any other unusual
event must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince
Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tíkhon; he looked at his watch
as if to ascertain whether his father’s habits had changed since he
was at home last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he
turned to his wife.
“He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary’s
room,” he said.
The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes
and her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as
merrily and prettily as ever.
“Why, this is a palace!” she said to her husband, looking around
with the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball.
“Let’s come, quick, quick!” And with a glance round, she smiled at
Tíkhon, at her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.
“Is that Mary practicing? Let’s go quietly and take her by
surprise.”
Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.
“You’ve grown older, Tíkhon,” he said in passing to the old man,
who kissed his hand.
Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord
came, the pretty, fair-haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,
rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.
“Ah! what joy for the princess!” exclaimed she: “At last! I must
let her know.”
“No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne,” said
the little princess, kissing her. “I know you already through my
sister-in-law’s friendship for you. She was not expecting us?”
They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound
of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and
made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.
The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the
middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary’s heavy tread and the
sound of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who
had only met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in
each other’s arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they
happened to touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her
hand to her heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to
cry or to laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as
lovers of music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go
of one another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each
other’s hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began
kissing each other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew’s surprise
both began to cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to
cry. Prince Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women
it seemed quite natural that they should cry, and apparently it never
entered their heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.
“Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!...” they suddenly exclaimed, and then
laughed. “I dreamed last night...”—“You were not expecting
us?...” “Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?...” “And you have grown
stouter!...”
“I knew the princess at once,” put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.
“And I had no idea!...” exclaimed Princess Mary. “Ah, Andrew, I
did not see you.”
Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and
he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had
turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,
gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,
rested on Prince Andrew’s face.
The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip
continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary
and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of
glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had
had on the Spásski Hill which might have been serious for her in her
condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left
all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have
to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty
Odýntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,
a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was
still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full
of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of
thought independent of her sister-in-law’s words. In the midst of a
description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:
“So you are really going to the war, Andrew?” she said sighing.
Lise sighed too.
“Yes, and even tomorrow,” replied her brother.
“He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had
promotion...”
Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of
thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.
“Is it certain?” she said.
The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: “Yes,
quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful...”
Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law’s
and unexpectedly again began to cry.
“She needs rest,” said Prince Andrew with a frown. “Don’t you,
Lise? Take her to your room and I’ll go to Father. How is he? Just the
same?”
“Yes, just the same. Though I don’t know what your opinion will
be,” answered the princess joyfully.
“And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
lathe?” asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was
aware of his weaknesses.
“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and
my geometry lessons,” said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons
in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.
When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old
prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father.
The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his
son’s arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while
he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned
style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew
entered his father’s dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and
manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which
he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered
chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.
“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the
old man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tíkhon
was holding fast to plait, would allow.
“You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like
this he’ll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?” And he
held out his cheek.
The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He
used to say that a nap “after dinner was silver—before dinner,
golden.”) He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his
thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on
the spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his father’s favorite
topic—making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly
of Bonaparte.
“Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is
pregnant,” said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his
father’s face with an eager and respectful look. “How is your
health?”
“Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from
morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.”
“Thank God,” said his son smiling.
“God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,” he continued,
returning to his hobby; “tell me how the Germans have taught you to
fight Bonaparte by this new science you call ‘strategy.’”
Prince Andrew smiled.
“Give me time to collect my wits, Father,” said he, with a smile
that showed that his father’s foibles did not prevent his son from
loving and honoring him. “Why, I have not yet had time to settle
down!”
“Nonsense, nonsense!” cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to
see whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. “The
house for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and
show her over, and they’ll talk nineteen to the dozen. That’s
their woman’s way! I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About
Mikhelson’s army I understand—Tolstóy’s too... a simultaneous
expedition.... But what’s the southern army to do? Prussia is
neutral... I know that. What about Austria?” said he, rising from his
chair and pacing up and down the room followed by Tíkhon, who ran after
him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of Sweden? How
will they cross Pomerania?”
Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first
reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit
changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—to explain
the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,
ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out
of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was
to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty
thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in
Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English
were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand
men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did
not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were
not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three
times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: “The
white one, the white one!”
This meant that Tíkhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.
Another time he interrupted, saying:
“And will she soon be confined?” and shaking his head reproachfully
said: “That’s bad! Go on, go on.”
The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his
description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:
“Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.” *
* “Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he’ll
return.”
His son only smiled.
“I don’t say it’s a plan I approve of,” said the son; “I am
only telling you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now,
not worse than this one.”
“Well, you’ve told me nothing new,” and the old man repeated,
meditatively and rapidly:
“Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room.”
CHAPTER XXVII
At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the
dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle
Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by
a strange caprice of his employer’s was admitted to table though the
position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly
not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept
very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important
government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael
Ivánovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his
checked handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals,
and had more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivánovich
was “not a whit worse than you or I.” At dinner the prince usually
spoke to the taciturn Michael Ivánovich more often than to anyone else.
In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was
exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen—one
behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head
butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making
signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door
by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large
gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes
Bolkónski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted
portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)
of a ruling prince, in a crown—an alleged descendant of Rúrik and
ancestor of the Bolkónskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that
genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at
a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.
“How thoroughly like him that is!” he said to Princess Mary, who had
come up to him.
Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand
what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with
reverence and was beyond question.
“Everyone has his Achilles’ heel,” continued Prince Andrew.
“Fancy, with his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!”
Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother’s
criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard
coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was
his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners
with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock
struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing
room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under
their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on
the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the
sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around
him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of
her neck.
“I’m glad, glad, to see you,” he said, looking attentively into
her eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. “Sit down,
sit down! Sit down, Michael Ivánovich!”
He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved
the chair for her.
“Ho, ho!” said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.
“You’ve been in a hurry. That’s bad!”
He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only
and not with his eyes.
“You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible,” he
said.
The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was
silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and
she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and
she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings
from various people and retelling the town gossip.
“Countess Apráksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has
cried her eyes out,” she said, growing more and more lively.
As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,
and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a
definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivánovich.
“Well, Michael Ivánovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time
of it. Prince Andrew” (he always spoke thus of his son) “has been
telling me what forces are being collected against him! While you and I
never thought much of him.”
Michael Ivánovich did not at all know when “you and I” had said
such things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as
a peg on which to hang the prince’s favorite topic, he looked
inquiringly at the young prince, wondering what would follow.
“He is a great tactician!” said the prince to his son, pointing to
the architect.
And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the
generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not
only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the
A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant
little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any
Potëmkins or Suvórovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced
that there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war,
but only a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,
pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his
father’s ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him
with evident pleasure.
“The past always seems good,” said he, “but did not Suvórov
himself fall into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know
how to escape?”
“Who told you that? Who?” cried the prince. “Suvórov!” And he
jerked away his plate, which Tíkhon briskly caught. “Suvórov!...
Consider, Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvórov; Moreau!...
Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvórov had had a free hand; but
he had the Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have
puzzled the devil himself! When you get there you’ll find out what
those Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvórov couldn’t manage them so
what chance has Michael Kutúzov? No, my dear boy,” he continued,
“you and your generals won’t get on against Buonaparte; you’ll
have to call in the French, so that birds of a feather may fight
together. The German, Pahlen, has been sent to New York in America, to
fetch the Frenchman, Moreau,” he said, alluding to the invitation made
that year to Moreau to enter the Russian service.... “Wonderful!...
Were the Potëmkins, Suvórovs, and Orlóvs Germans? No, lad, either you
fellows have all lost your wits, or I have outlived mine. May God help
you, but we’ll see what will happen. Buonaparte has become a great
commander among them! Hm!...”
“I don’t at all say that all the plans are good,” said Prince
Andrew, “I am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You
may laugh as much as you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great
general!”
“Michael Ivánovich!” cried the old prince to the architect who,
busy with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: “Didn’t
I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same
thing.”
“To be sure, your excellency,” replied the architect.
The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.
“Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got
splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only
idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody
has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one another. He made
his reputation fighting them.”
And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to
him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His
son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were
presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He
listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this
old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and
discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and
political events.
“You think I’m an old man and don’t understand the present state
of affairs?” concluded his father. “But it troubles me. I don’t
sleep at night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown
his skill?” he concluded.
“That would take too long to tell,” answered the son.
“Well, then go off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne,
here’s another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,” he
exclaimed in excellent French.
“You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!”
“Dieu sait quand reviendra.” hummed the prince out of tune and, with
a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.
The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of
the dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her
father-in-law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she
took her sister-in-law’s arm and drew her into another room.
“What a clever man your father is,” said she; “perhaps that is why
I am afraid of him.”
“Oh, he is so kind!” answered Princess Mary.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering
his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in
her sister-in-law’s room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without
epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.
After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he
ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept
with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted
with silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber—a present from
his father who had brought it from the siege of Ochákov. All these
traveling effects of Prince Andrew’s were in very good order: new,
clean, and in cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.
When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable
of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments
one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew’s face
looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced
briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him
and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was
he sad at leaving his wife?—perhaps both, but evidently he did not
wish to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he
hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the
cover of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable
expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.
“I hear you have given orders to harness,” she cried, panting (she
had apparently been running), “and I did so wish to have another talk
with you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not
angry with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrúsha,” she added,
as if to explain such a question.
She smiled as she uttered his pet name, “Andrúsha.” It was
obviously strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be
Andrúsha—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in
childhood.
“And where is Lise?” he asked, answering her question only by a
smile.
“She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room.
Oh, Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have,” said she, sitting
down on the sofa, facing her brother. “She is quite a child: such a
dear, merry child. I have grown so fond of her.”
Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and
contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.
“One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,
Andrew? Don’t forget that she has grown up and been educated in
society, and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into
everyone’s situation. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. * Think
what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to,
to be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her
condition! It’s very hard.”
* To understand all is to forgive all.
Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we
think we thoroughly understand.
“You live in the country and don’t think the life terrible,” he
replied.
“I... that’s different. Why speak of me? I don’t want any other
life, and can’t, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young
society woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her
life, all alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what
poor resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.
There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne....”
“I don’t like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,” said Prince
Andrew.
“No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she’s much to be
pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don’t need her,
and she’s even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am
even more so. I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and
Michael Ivánovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and
kind, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says:
‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as
for the good we have done them.’ Father took her when she was homeless
after losing her own father. She is very good-natured, and my father
likes her way of reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads
splendidly.”
“To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father’s character sometimes
makes things trying for you, doesn’t it?” Prince Andrew asked
suddenly.
Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.
“For me? For me?... Trying for me!...” said she.
“He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he’s getting
very trying,” said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their
father in order to puzzle or test his sister.
“You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of
intellectual pride,” said the princess, following the train of her own
thoughts rather than the trend of the conversation—“and that’s a
great sin. How can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling
except veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so
contented and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I
am.”
Her brother shook his head incredulously.
“The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,
Andrew... is Father’s way of treating religious subjects. I don’t
understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is
as clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing
that makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of
improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a
monk he received and had a long talk with.”
“Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your
powder,” said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.
“Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me.
Andrew...” she said timidly after a moment’s silence, “I have a
great favor to ask of you.”
“What is it, dear?”
“No—promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble
and is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,
Andrúsha!...” said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet
taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were
the subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was
granted.
She looked timidly at her brother.
“Even if it were a great deal of trouble...” answered Prince Andrew,
as if guessing what it was about.
“Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as
you please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father’s father, our
grandfather, wore it in all his wars.” (She still did not take out
what she was holding in her reticule.) “So you promise?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will
never take it off. Do you promise?”
“If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won’t break my neck...
To please you...” said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing
the pained expression his joke had brought to his sister’s face, he
repented and added: “I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad.”
“Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you
to Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace,” said she in a voice
trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her
brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold
setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.
She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.
“Please, Andrew, for my sake!...”
Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit
up the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother
would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,
crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for
he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.
“Thank you, my dear.” She kissed him on the forehead and sat down
again on the sofa. They were silent for a while.
“As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always
used to be. Don’t judge Lise harshly,” she began. “She is so
sweet, so good-natured, and her position now is a very hard one.”
“I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Másha, or blamed
her. Why do you say all this to me?”
Red patches appeared on Princess Mary’s face and she was silent as if
she felt guilty.
“I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And
I am sorry for that,” he went on.
The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to
say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little
princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings
about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her
fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen
asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.
“Know this, Másha: I can’t reproach, have not reproached, and never
shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself
with anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever
circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if
you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this
is so I don’t know...”
As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed
her forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and
unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over
her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.
“Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or—go and wake and I’ll
come in a moment. Petrúshka!” he called to his valet: “Come here,
take these away. Put this on the seat and this to the right.”
Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:
“Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him
to give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been
answered.”
“Well, maybe!” said Prince Andrew. “Go, Másha; I’ll come
immediately.”
On the way to his sister’s room, in the passage which connected one
wing with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling
sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and
artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.
“Oh! I thought you were in your room,” she said, for some reason
blushing and dropping her eyes.
Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly
came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead
and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the
Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his
sister’s room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying
one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as
usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make
up for lost time.
“No, but imagine the old Countess Zúbova, with false curls and her
mouth full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age....
Ha, ha, ha! Mary!”
This very sentence about Countess Zúbova and this same laugh Prince
Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some
five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and
rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking
incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince
Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after
their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.
The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn
night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.
Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense
house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The
domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to
the young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the
reception hall: Michael Ivánovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess
Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his
father’s study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All
were waiting for them to come out.
When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age
spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his
son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.
“Going?” And he went on writing.
“I’ve come to say good-by.”
“Kiss me here,” and he touched his cheek: “Thanks, thanks!”
“What do you thank me for?”
“For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman’s apron strings.
The Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!” And he went on
writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. “If you have
anything to say, say it. These two things can be done together,” he
added.
“About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your
hands....”
“Why talk nonsense? Say what you want.”
“When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let
him be here....”
The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his
stern eyes on his son.
“I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work,” said
Prince Andrew, evidently confused. “I know that out of a million
cases only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been
telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened.”
“Hm... Hm...” muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he
was writing. “I’ll do it.”
He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to
laugh.
“It’s a bad business, eh?”
“What is bad, Father?”
“The wife!” said the old prince, briefly and significantly.
“I don’t understand!” said Prince Andrew.
“No, it can’t be helped, lad,” said the prince. “They’re
all like that; one can’t unmarry. Don’t be afraid; I won’t tell
anyone, but you know it yourself.”
He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked
straight into his son’s face with keen eyes which seemed to see
through him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.
The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The
old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing
down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.
“What’s to be done? She’s pretty! I will do everything. Make your
mind easy,” said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.
Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father
understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.
“Listen!” said he; “don’t worry about your wife: what can be
done shall be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilariónovich. *
I have written that he should make use of you in proper places and not
keep you long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember
and like him. Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all
right—serve him. Nicholas Bolkónski’s son need not serve under
anyone if he is in disfavor. Now come here.”
*Kutúzov.
He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son
was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the
lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his
bold, tall, close handwriting.
“I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;
hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond
and a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of
Suvórov’s wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for
you to read when I am gone. You will find them useful.”
Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time
yet. He felt that he must not say it.
“I will do it all, Father,” he said.
“Well, now, good-by!” He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced
him. “Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,
your old father...” he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous
voice suddenly shrieked: “but if I hear that you have not behaved like
a son of Nicholas Bolkónski, I shall be ashamed!”
“You need not have said that to me, Father,” said the son with a
smile.
The old man was silent.
“I also wanted to ask you,” continued Prince Andrew, “if I’m
killed and if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you—as I
said yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please.”
“Not let the wife have him?” said the old man, and laughed.
They stood silent, facing one another. The old man’s sharp eyes were
fixed straight on his son’s. Something twitched in the lower part of
the old prince’s face.
“We’ve said good-by. Go!” he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry
voice, opening his door.
“What is it? What?” asked both princesses when they saw for a moment
at the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white
dressing gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.
Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.
“Well!” he said, turning to his wife.
And this “Well!” sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying: “Now
go through your performance.”
“Andrew, already!” said the little princess, turning pale and
looking with dismay at her husband.
He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.
He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,
and carefully placed her in an easy chair.
“Adieu, Mary,” said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand
and kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.
The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing
her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked
with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince
Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From
the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man
angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study
door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white
dressing gown looked out.
“Gone? That’s all right!” said he; and looking angrily at the
unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed
the door.
BOOK TWO: 1805
CHAPTER I
In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of
the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from
Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the
inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of
the commander in chief, Kutúzov.
On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached
Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected
by the commander in chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the
locality and surroundings—fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs,
and hills in the distance—and despite the fact that the inhabitants
(who gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the
regiment had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for
an inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.
On the evening of the last day’s march an order had been received that
the commander in chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though
the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and
the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or
not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders
to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is
always better to “bow too low than not bow low enough.” So the
soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all
night long without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and
company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by morning the
regiment—instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on
its last march the day before—presented a well-ordered array of two
thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty, had every button
and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness. And not only
externally was all in order, but had it pleased the commander in chief
to look under the uniforms he would have found on every man a clean
shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of articles, “awl,
soap, and all,” as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance
concerning which no one could be at ease. It was the state of the
soldiers’ boots. More than half the men’s boots were in holes. But
this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental commander, for
in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued by the Austrian
commissariat, and the regiment had marched some seven hundred miles.
The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and
thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from
chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform
showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes
which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He
had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of
his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled
himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander
admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was
engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military
matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his
thoughts.
“Well, Michael Mítrich, sir?” he said, addressing one of the
battalion commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that
they both felt happy). “We had our hands full last night. However, I
think the regiment is not a bad one, eh?”
The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.
“It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsarítsin
Meadow.”
“What?” asked the commander.
At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been
posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp
followed by a Cossack.
The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been
clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander in chief
wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on
the march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation
whatever.
A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutúzov the day
before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of
the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutúzov, not considering this
junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,
to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops
arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;
so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander
in chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these
circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the
men should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the
commander in chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the
regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and
spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.
“A fine mess we’ve made of it!” he remarked.
“There now! Didn’t I tell you, Michael Mítrich, that if it was said
‘on the march’ it meant in greatcoats?” said he reproachfully to
the battalion commander. “Oh, my God!” he added, stepping resolutely
forward. “Company commanders!” he shouted in a voice accustomed to
command. “Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?” he asked
the aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the
personage he was referring to.
“In an hour’s time, I should say.”
“Shall we have time to change clothes?”
“I don’t know, General....”
The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the
soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off
to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats
were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up
to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and
hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing
up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps
over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on
with upraised arms.
In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray
instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps
to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.
“Whatever is this? This!” he shouted and stood still. “Commander
of the third company!”
“Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to
the general... third company to the commander.” The words passed along
the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.
When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in
a cry of: “The general to the third company,” the missing officer
appeared from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man
and not in the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his
toes toward the general. The captain’s face showed the uneasiness of
a schoolboy who is told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots
appeared on his nose, the redness of which was evidently due to
intemperance, and his mouth twitched nervously. The general looked the
captain up and down as he came up panting, slackening his pace as he
approached.
“You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?”
shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing
at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish
cloth, which contrasted with the others. “What have you been after?
The commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I’ll
teach you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?”
The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,
pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this
pressure lay his only hope of salvation.
“Well, why don’t you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a
Hungarian?” said the commander with an austere gibe.
“Your excellency...”
“Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your
excellency?... nobody knows.”
“Your excellency, it’s the officer Dólokhov, who has been reduced
to the ranks,” said the captain softly.
“Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier?
If a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the
others.”
“Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march.”
“Gave him leave? Leave? That’s just like you young men,” said the
regimental commander cooling down a little. “Leave indeed.... One says
a word to you and you... What?” he added with renewed irritation, “I
beg you to dress your men decently.”
And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky
steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of
anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for
wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another
because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.
“H-o-o-w are you standing? Where’s your leg? Your leg?” shouted
the commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were
still five men between him and Dólokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.
Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his
clear, insolent eyes in the general’s face.
“Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat...
the ras...” he did not finish.
“General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure...”
Dólokhov hurriedly interrupted.
“No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!”
“Not bound to endure insults,” Dólokhov concluded in loud, ringing
tones.
The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,
angrily pulling down his tight scarf.
“I request you to have the goodness to change your coat,” he said as
he turned away.
CHAPTER II
“He’s coming!” shouted the signaler at that moment.
The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup
with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,
drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening
his mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird
preening its plumage and became motionless.
“Att-ention!” shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking
voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and
welcome for the approaching chief.
Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,
light blue Viennese calèche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn
by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the calèche galloped the suite
and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutúzov sat an Austrian general, in
a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The
calèche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutúzov and the Austrian
general were talking in low voices and Kutúzov smiled slightly as
treading heavily he stepped down from the carriage just as if those two
thousand men breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did
not exist.
The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a
jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the
feeble voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment roared,
“Health to your ex... len... len... lency!” and again all became
silent. At first Kutúzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he
and the general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the
ranks.
From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in chief and
devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from
the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward
and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he
darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander in chief,
it was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even
greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and
assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that
had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There
were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except
the boots.
Kutúzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few
friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes
also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his
head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression
which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help
noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander
ran forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the
commander in chief’s regarding the regiment. Behind Kutúzov, at a
distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed
some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves
and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander in chief walked
a handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkónski. Beside him was his
comrade Nesvítski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a
kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvítski could hardly
keep from laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked
beside him. This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a
change in the expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental
commander’s back and mimicked his every movement. Each time the
commander started and bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward
in exactly the same manner. Nesvítski laughed and nudged the others to
make them look at the wag.
Kutúzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were
starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the
third company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,
involuntarily came closer to him.
“Ah, Timókhin!” said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had
been reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.
One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself
more than Timókhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental
commander, but now that the commander in chief addressed him he drew
himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained
it had the commander in chief continued to look at him, and so Kutúzov,
who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,
quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his
scarred and puffy face.
“Another Ismail comrade,” said he. “A brave officer! Are you
satisfied with him?” he asked the regimental commander.
And the latter—unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar
officer as in a looking glass—started, moved forward, and answered:
“Highly satisfied, your excellency!”
“We all have our weaknesses,” said Kutúzov smiling and walking away
from him. “He used to have a predilection for Bacchus.”
The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did
not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed
captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose
with such exactitude that Nesvítski could not help laughing. Kutúzov
turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,
and while Kutúzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume
a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.
The third company was the last, and Kutúzov pondered, apparently trying
to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the
suite and said in French:
“You told me to remind you of the officer Dólokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment.”
“Where is Dólokhov?” asked Kutúzov.
Dólokhov, who had already changed into a soldier’s gray greatcoat,
did not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired
soldier, with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went
up to the commander in chief, and presented arms.
“Have you a complaint to make?” Kutúzov asked with a slight frown.
“This is Dólokhov,” said Prince Andrew.
“Ah!” said Kutúzov. “I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your
duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I shan’t forget you if you deserve
well.”
The clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly as
they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression
to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander in chief
so widely from a private.
“One thing I ask of your excellency,” Dólokhov said in his firm,
ringing, deliberate voice. “I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault
and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!”
Kutúzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timókhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dólokhov had said to
him and everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was
weary of it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and
went to the carriage.
The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed
quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and
to rest after their hard marches.
“You won’t bear me a grudge, Prokhór Ignátych?” said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timókhin who was walking in front.
(The regimental commander’s face now that the inspection was happily
over beamed with irrepressible delight.) “It’s in the Emperor’s
service... it can’t be helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on
parade... I am the first to apologize, you know me!... He was very
pleased!” And he held out his hand to the captain.
“Don’t mention it, General, as if I’d be so bold!” replied the
captain, his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where
two front teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end
of a gun at Ismail.
“And tell Mr. Dólokhov that I won’t forget him—he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please—I’ve been meaning to ask—how is he
behaving himself, and in general...”
“As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;
but his character...” said Timókhin.
“And what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.
“It’s different on different days,” answered the captain. “One
day he is sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he’s
a wild beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew.”
“Oh, well, well!” remarked the regimental commander. “Still, one
must have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important
connections... Well, then, you just...”
“I will, your excellency,” said Timókhin, showing by his smile that
he understood his commander’s wish.
“Well, of course, of course!”
The regimental commander sought out Dólokhov in the ranks and, reining
in his horse, said to him:
“After the next affair... epaulettes.”
Dólokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking
smile on his lips change.
“Well, that’s all right,” continued the regimental commander. “A
cup of vodka for the men from me,” he added so that the soldiers
could hear. “I thank you all! God be praised!” and he rode past that
company and overtook the next one.
“Well, he’s really a good fellow, one can serve under him,” said
Timókhin to the subaltern beside him.
“In a word, a hearty one...” said the subaltern, laughing (the
regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).
The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the
soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers’ voices could be
heard on every side.
“And they said Kutúzov was blind of one eye?”
“And so he is! Quite blind!”
“No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands...
he noticed everything...”
“When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I...”
“And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were
smeared with chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as
they do the guns.”
“I say, Fédeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You
were near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau.”
“Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn’t
know! The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are
putting them down. When they’ve been put down, the war with Buonaparte
will begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you’re a fool.
You’d better listen more carefully!”
“What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is
turning into the village already... they will have their buckwheat
cooked before we reach our quarters.”
“Give me a biscuit, you devil!”
“And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That’s just it, friend! Ah,
well, never mind, here you are.”
“They might call a halt here or we’ll have to do another four miles
without eating.”
“Wasn’t it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still
and are drawn along.”
“And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all
seemed to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they’re
all regular Germans.”
“Singers to the front” came the captain’s order.
And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A
drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing
his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers’ song, commencing with the
words: “Morning dawned, the sun was rising,” and concluding: “On
then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kámenski.” This song had
been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the
only change being that the words “Father Kámenski” were replaced by
“Father Kutúzov.”
Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms
as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome
soldier of forty—looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his
eyes. Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him,
he raised both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious
object above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly
flung it down and began:
“Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!”
“Oh, my bower new...!” chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet
player, in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front
and, walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and
flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,
swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long
steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,
and the tramp of horses’ hoofs were heard. Kutúzov and his suite were
returning to the town. The commander in chief made a sign that the
men should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed
pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing
soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file
from the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company,
a blue-eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dólokhov
marching with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and
looking at those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that
moment marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutúzov’s
suite who had mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the
carriage and rode up to Dólokhov.
Hussar cornet Zherkóv had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dólokhov. Zherkóv had met Dólokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutúzov had
spoken to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of
an old friend.
“My dear fellow, how are you?” said he through the singing, making
his horse keep pace with the company.
“How am I?” Dólokhov answered coldly. “I am as you see.”
The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkóv spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dólokhov’s reply.
“And how do you get on with the officers?” inquired Zherkóv.
“All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the
staff?”
“I was attached; I’m on duty.”
Both were silent.
“She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve,” went the
song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.
Their conversation would probably have been different but for the effect
of that song.
“Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?” asked Dólokhov.
“The devil only knows! They say so.”
“I’m glad,” answered Dólokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.
“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!”
said Zherkóv.
“Why, have you too much money?”
“Do come.”
“I can’t. I’ve sworn not to. I won’t drink and won’t play till
I get reinstated.”
“Well, that’s only till the first engagement.”
“We shall see.”
They were again silent.
“Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the
staff...”
Dólokhov smiled. “Don’t trouble. If I want anything, I won’t
beg—I’ll take it!”
“Well, never mind; I only...”
“And I only...”
“Good-by.”
“Good health...”
“It’s a long, long way.
To my native land...”
Zherkóv touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from
foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped
past the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the
song.
CHAPTER III
On returning from the review, Kutúzov took the Austrian general into
his private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers
relating to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the
letters that had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of
the advanced army. Prince Andrew Bolkónski came into the room with the
required papers. Kutúzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath
were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.
“Ah!...” said Kutúzov glancing at Bolkónski as if by this
exclamation he was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the
conversation in French.
“All I can say, General,” said he with a pleasant elegance
of expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each
deliberately spoken word. It was evident that Kutúzov himself listened
with pleasure to his own voice. “All I can say, General, is that if
the matter depended on my personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the
Emperor Francis would have been fulfilled long ago. I should long
ago have joined the archduke. And believe me on my honour that to me
personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command
of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful
general—of whom Austria has so many—and to lay down all this heavy
responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes too strong for us,
General.”
And Kutúzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, “You are quite at
liberty not to believe me and I don’t even care whether you do or
not, but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole
point.”
The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply
in the same tone.
“On the contrary,” he said, in a querulous and angry tone that
contrasted with his flattering words, “on the contrary, your
excellency’s participation in the common action is highly valued by
His Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid
Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been
accustomed to win in their battles,” he concluded his evidently
prearranged sentence.
Kutúzov bowed with the same smile.
“But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which
His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the
Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General
Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need
our aid,” said Kutúzov.
The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian
defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors
that were afloat, and so Kutúzov’s suggestion of an Austrian victory
sounded much like irony. But Kutúzov went on blandly smiling with the
same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose
so. And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack’s army
informed him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the
army was very favorable.
“Give me that letter,” said Kutúzov turning to Prince Andrew.
“Please have a look at it”—and Kutúzov with an ironical smile
about the corners of his mouth read to the Austrian general the
following passage, in German, from the Archduke Ferdinand’s letter:
We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with
which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also,
as we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of
commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not
cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line
of communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his
intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful
ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial
Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with
it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.
Kutúzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the
member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.
“But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect
the worst,” said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done
with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the
aide-de-camp.
“Excuse me, General,” interrupted Kutúzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlóvski all the
reports from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and
here is one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are
these,” he said, handing him several papers, “make a neat memorandum
in French out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the
movements of the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency.”
Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the
first not only what had been said but also what Kutúzov would have
liked to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both,
stepped softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.
Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he
had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,
in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former
affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time
to think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with
agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction
with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter
and more attractive.
Kutúzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,
promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,
and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.
From Vienna Kutúzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew’s father.
Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,
firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a
subordinate by me.
On Kutúzov’s staff, among his fellow officers and in the army
generally, Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two
quite opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be
different from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things
of him, listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince
Andrew was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and
considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people
Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even
feared him.
Coming out of Kutúzov’s room into the waiting room with the papers in
his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,
Kozlóvski, who was sitting at the window with a book.
“Well, Prince?” asked Kozlóvski.
“I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not
advancing.”
“And why is it?”
Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.
“Any news from Mack?”
“No.”
“If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come.”
“Probably,” said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.
But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the
order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,
who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.
Prince Andrew stopped short.
“Commander in Chief Kutúzov?” said the newly arrived general
speaking quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and
advancing straight toward the inner door.
“The commander in chief is engaged,” said Kozlóvski, going
hurriedly up to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door.
“Whom shall I announce?”
The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlóvski, who was
rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.
“The commander in chief is engaged,” repeated Kozlóvski calmly.
The general’s face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took
out a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the
leaf, gave it to Kozlóvski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw
himself into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, “Why
do they look at me?” Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as
if he intended to say something, but immediately, with affected
indifference, began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which
immediately broke off. The door of the private room opened and Kutúzov
appeared in the doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward
as though running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides
with his thin legs, went up to Kutúzov.
“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,” he uttered in a broken voice.
Kutúzov’s face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly
immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave
and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,
closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed
the door himself behind him.
The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten
and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.
Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with
orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been
inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.
Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest
lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the
details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,
understood all the difficulties of the Russian army’s position, and
vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to
play. Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the
humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week’s time he might,
perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the
French since Suvórov met them. He feared that Bonaparte’s genius
might outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same
time could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.
Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his
room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor
he met Nesvítski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkóv;
they were as usual laughing.
“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvítski noticing Prince Andrew’s
pale face and glittering eyes.
“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkónski.
Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvítski and Zherkóv, there came toward
them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general
who was on Kutúzov’s staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian
army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous
evening. There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to
pass the three officers quite easily, but Zherkóv, pushing Nesvítski
aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,
“They’re coming!... they’re coming!... Stand aside, make way,
please make way!”
The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid
embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkóv there suddenly
appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.
“Your excellency,” said he in German, stepping forward and
addressing the Austrian general, “I have the honor to congratulate
you.”
He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the
other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.
The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the
seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment’s
attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.
“I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite
well, only a little bruised just here,” he added, pointing with a
beaming smile to his head.
The general frowned, turned away, and went on.
“Gott, wie naiv!” * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.
* “Good God, what simplicity!”
Nesvítski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkónski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkóv. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance
of Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the
Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkóv’s untimely jest.
“If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself,” he said
sharply, with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, “I can’t prevent
your doing so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my
presence, I will teach you to behave yourself.”
Nesvítski and Zherkóv were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkónski silently with wide-open eyes.
“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkóv.
“I am not jesting with you; please be silent!” cried Bolkónski,
and taking Nesvítski’s arm he left Zherkóv, who did not know what to
say.
“Come, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Nesvítski trying to
soothe him.
“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in
his excitement. “Don’t you understand that either we are officers
serving our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and
grieving at the misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely
lackeys who care nothing for their master’s business. Quarante mille
hommes massacrés et l’armée de nos alliés détruite, et vous
trouvez là le mot pour rire,” * he said, as if strengthening his
views by this French sentence. “C’est bien pour un garçon de rien
comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas
pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this
way,” he added in Russian—but pronouncing the word with a French
accent—having noticed that Zherkóv could still hear him.
* “Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies
destroyed, and you find that a cause for jesting!”
* (2) “It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow
of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, not for
you.”
He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned
and went out of the corridor.
CHAPTER IV
The Pávlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostóv served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denísov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Váska Denísov. Cadet Rostóv,
ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the
squadron commander.
On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news
of Mack’s defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was
proceeding as usual. Denísov, who had been losing at cards all night,
had not yet come home when Rostóv rode back early in the morning from
a foraging expedition. Rostóv in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his
horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple
youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to
part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.
“Ah, Bondarénko, dear friend!” said he to the hussar who rushed up
headlong to the horse. “Walk him up and down, my dear fellow,” he
continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young
people show to everyone when they are happy.
“Yes, your excellency,” answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his
head.
“Mind, walk him up and down well!”
Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarénko had already
thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse’s head. It was
evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to
serve him. Rostóv patted the horse’s neck and then his flank, and
lingered for a moment.
“Splendid! What a horse he will be!” he thought with a smile, and
holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the
porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in
hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face
immediately brightened on seeing Rostóv. “Schön gut Morgen! Schön
gut Morgen!” * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased
to greet the young man.
* “A very good morning! A very good morning!”
“Schon fleissig?” * said Rostóv with the same gay brotherly smile
which did not leave his eager face. “Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen!
Kaiser Alexander hoch!” *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by
the German landlord.
* “Busy already?”
* (2) “Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians!
Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!”
The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and
waving it above his head cried:
“Und die ganze Welt hoch!” *
* “And hurrah for the whole world!”
Rostóv waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,
“Und vivat die ganze Welt!” Though neither the German cleaning his
cowshed nor Rostóv back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any
reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and
brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,
and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostóv
going to the cottage he occupied with Denísov.
“What about your master?” he asked Lavrúshka, Denísov’s orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.
“Hasn’t been in since the evening. Must have been losing,”
answered Lavrúshka. “I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to
brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he’s lost and
will come back in a rage. Will you have coffee?”
“Yes, bring some.”
Ten minutes later Lavrúshka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!”
said he. “Now for trouble!” Rostóv looked out of the window and
saw Denísov coming home. Denísov was a small man with a red face,
sparkling black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an
unfastened cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled
shako on the back of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging
his head.
“Lavwúska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off,
blockhead!”
“Well, I am taking it off,” replied Lavrúshka’s voice.
“Ah, you’re up already,” said Denísov, entering the room.
“Long ago,” answered Rostóv, “I have already been for the hay,
and have seen Fräulein Mathilde.”
“Weally! And I’ve been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!” cried Denísov, not pronouncing his r’s. “Such ill
luck! Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo
there! Tea!”
Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong
teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick
tangled black hair.
“And what devil made me go to that wat?” (an officer nicknamed
“the rat”) he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both
hands. “Just fancy, he didn’t let me win a single cahd, not one
cahd.”
He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his
fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he
continued to shout.
“He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;
gives the singles and snatches the doubles!”
He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.
Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully
with his glittering, black eyes at Rostóv.
“If at least we had some women here; but there’s nothing foh one
to do but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who’s
there?” he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy
boots and the clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful
cough.
“The squadron quartermaster!” said Lavrúshka.
Denísov’s face puckered still more.
“Wetched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.
“Wostóv, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the
purse undah the pillow,” he said, and went out to the quartermaster.
Rostóv took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins
in separate piles, began counting them.
“Ah! Telyánin! How d’ye do? They plucked me last night,” came
Denísov’s voice from the next room.
“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s... I knew it,” replied a piping
voice, and Lieutenant Telyánin, a small officer of the same squadron,
entered the room.
Rostóv thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand
which was offered him. Telyánin for some reason had been transferred
from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the
regiment but was not liked; Rostóv especially detested him and was
unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.
“Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?” he asked. (Rook
was a young horse Telyánin had sold to Rostóv.)
The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the
face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.
“I saw you riding this morning...” he added.
“Oh, he’s all right, a good horse,” answered Rostóv, though the
horse for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half
that sum. “He’s begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg,” he
added.
“The hoof’s cracked! That’s nothing. I’ll teach you what to do
and show you what kind of rivet to use.”
“Yes, please do,” said Rostóv.
“I’ll show you, I’ll show you! It’s not a secret. And it’s a
horse you’ll thank me for.”
“Then I’ll have it brought round,” said Rostóv wishing to avoid
Telyánin, and he went out to give the order.
In the passage Denísov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold
facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostóv,
Denísov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his
thumb to the room where Telyánin was sitting, he frowned and gave a
shudder of disgust.
“Ugh! I don’t like that fellow,” he said, regardless of the
quartermaster’s presence.
Rostóv shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: “Nor do I, but
what’s one to do?” and, having given his order, he returned to
Telyánin.
Telyánin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostóv had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.
“Well there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostóv as he
entered.
“Have you told them to bring the horse?” asked Telyánin, getting up
and looking carelessly about him.
“I have.”
“Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denísov about
yesterday’s order. Have you got it, Denísov?”
“Not yet. But where are you off to?”
“I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,” said
Telyánin.
They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant
explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.
When Rostóv went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the
table. Denísov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of
paper. He looked gloomily in Rostóv’s face and said: “I am witing
to her.”
He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,
evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to
write, told Rostóv the contents of his letter.
“You see, my fwiend,” he said, “we sleep when we don’t love. We
are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one
is pua’ as on the fihst day of cweation... Who’s that now? Send him
to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrúshka, who went up to
him not in the least abashed.
“Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It’s the
quartermaster for the money.”
Denísov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.
“Wetched business,” he muttered to himself. “How much is left in
the puhse?” he asked, turning to Rostóv.
“Seven new and three old imperials.”
“Oh, it’s wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you
sca’cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh,” he shouted to Lavrúshka.
“Please, Denísov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,”
said Rostóv, blushing.
“Don’t like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don’t,” growled
Denísov.
“But if you won’t accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some,” Rostóv repeated.
“No, I tell you.”
And Denísov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.
“Where have you put it, Wostóv?”
“Under the lower pillow.”
“It’s not there.”
Denísov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.
“That’s a miwacle.”
“Wait, haven’t you dropped it?” said Rostóv, picking up the
pillows one at a time and shaking them.
He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.
“Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept
it under your head like a treasure,” said Rostóv. “I put it just
here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrúshka.
“I haven’t been in the room. It must be where you put it.”
“But it isn’t?...”
“You’re always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget
it. Feel in your pockets.”
“No, if I hadn’t thought of it being a treasure,” said Rostóv,
“but I remember putting it there.”
Lavrúshka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under
the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the
room. Denísov silently watched Lavrúshka’s movements, and when the
latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
Denísov glanced at Rostóv.
“Wostóv, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks...”
Rostóv felt Denísov’s gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and
instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested
somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not
draw breath.
“And there hasn’t been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and
yourselves. It must be here somewhere,” said Lavrúshka.
“Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!”
shouted Denísov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with
a threatening gesture. “If the purse isn’t found I’ll flog you,
I’ll flog you all.”
Rostóv, his eyes avoiding Denísov, began buttoning his coat, buckled
on his saber, and put on his cap.
“I must have that purse, I tell you,” shouted Denísov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.
“Denísov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,” said Rostóv,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denísov paused, thought
a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostóv hinted at, seized
his arm.
“Nonsense!” he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood
out like cords. “You are mad, I tell you. I won’t allow it.
The purse is here! I’ll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be
found.”
“I know who has taken it,” repeated Rostóv in an unsteady voice,
and went to the door.
“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Denísov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostóv pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denísov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his
face.
“Do you understand what you’re saying?” he said in a trembling
voice. “There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it
is not so, then...”
He could not finish, and ran out of the room.
“Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,” were the last words
Rostóv heard.
Rostóv went to Telyánin’s quarters.
“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said
Telyánin’s orderly. “Has something happened?” he added, surprised
at the cadet’s troubled face.
“No, nothing.”
“You’ve only just missed him,” said the orderly.
The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and
Rostóv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostóv rode up to
it and saw Telyánin’s horse at the porch.
In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of
sausages and a bottle of wine.
“Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!” he said, smiling and
raising his eyebrows.
“Yes,” said Rostóv as if it cost him a great deal to utter the
word; and he sat down at the nearest table.
Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the
room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives
and the munching of the lieutenant.
When Telyánin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double
purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up
fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to
the waiter.
“Please be quick,” he said.
The coin was a new one. Rostóv rose and went up to Telyánin.
“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyánin handed him the
purse.
“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”
Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and
looked at Telyánin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way
and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.
“If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there but in these wretched
little towns there’s nowhere to spend it,” said he. “Well, let me
have it, young man, I’m going.”
Rostóv did not speak.
“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here,” continued Telyánin. “Now then, let me have it.”
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostóv let go of
it. Telyánin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the
pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth
slightly open, as if to say, “Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my
pocket and that’s quite simple and is no one else’s business.”
“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostóv’s eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyánin’s eyes to
Rostóv’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.
“Come here,” said Rostóv, catching hold of Telyánin’s arm and
almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Denísov’s; you
took it...” he whispered just above Telyánin’s ear.
“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyánin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for
pardon. As soon as Rostóv heard them, an enormous load of doubt
fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the
miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be
completed.
“Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,” muttered
Telyánin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We
must have an explanation...”
“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostóv.
“I...”
Every muscle of Telyánin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising
to Rostóv’s face, and his sobs were audible.
“Count!... Don’t ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,
take it...” He threw it on the table. “I have an old father and
mother!...”
Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyánin’s eyes, and went out of the
room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his
steps. “O God,” he said with tears in his eyes, “how could you do
it?”
“Count...” said Telyánin drawing nearer to him.
“Don’t touch me,” said Rostóv, drawing back. “If you need it,
take the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.
CHAPTER V
That same evening there was an animated discussion among the
squadron’s officers in Denísov’s quarters.
“And I tell you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!”
said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and
many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv who was crimson with
excitement.
The staff captain, Kírsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for
affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.
“I will allow no one to call me a liar!” cried Rostóv. “He told
me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me
on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make
me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it
beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then...”
“You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,” interrupted
the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache.
“You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an
officer has stolen...”
“I’m not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of
other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am
not a diplomatist. That’s why I joined the hussars, thinking that here
one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying—so let him
give me satisfaction...”
“That’s all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that’s not the
point. Ask Denísov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to
demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?”
Denísov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the
staff captain’s question by a disapproving shake of his head.
“You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other
officers,” continued the staff captain, “and Bogdánich” (the
colonel was called Bogdánich) “shuts you up.”
“He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth.”
“Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must
apologize.”
“Not on any account!” exclaimed Rostóv.
“I did not expect this of you,” said the staff captain seriously and
severely. “You don’t wish to apologize, but, man, it’s not only to
him but to the whole regiment—all of us—you’re to blame all round.
The case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and
taken advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the
officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and
disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one
scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don’t see it like that. And
Bogdánich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.
It’s not pleasant, but what’s to be done, my dear fellow? You landed
yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some
conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole
affair public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not
apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdánich may
be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You’re quick at
taking offense, but you don’t mind disgracing the whole regiment!”
The staff captain’s voice began to tremble. “You have been in the
regiment next to no time, my lad, you’re here today and tomorrow
you’ll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when
it is said ‘There are thieves among the Pávlograd officers!’ But
it’s not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denísov? It’s not the
same!”
Denísov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with
his glittering black eyes at Rostóv.
“You value your own pride and don’t wish to apologize,” continued
the staff captain, “but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God
willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the
regiment, and Bogdánich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And
all this is not right, it’s not right! You may take offense or not but
I always stick to mother truth. It’s not right!”
And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostóv.
“That’s twue, devil take it!” shouted Denísov, jumping up. “Now
then, Wostóv, now then!”
Rostóv, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer
and then at the other.
“No, gentlemen, no... you mustn’t think... I quite understand.
You’re wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of
the regiment I’d... Ah well, I’ll show that in action, and for me
the honor of the flag... Well, never mind, it’s true I’m to blame,
to blame all round. Well, what else do you want?...”
“Come, that’s right, Count!” cried the staff captain, turning
round and clapping Rostóv on the shoulder with his big hand.
“I tell you,” shouted Denísov, “he’s a fine fellow.”
“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, beginning to
address Rostóv by his title, as if in recognition of his confession.
“Go and apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!”
“Gentlemen, I’ll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,”
said Rostóv in an imploring voice, “but I can’t apologize, by God I
can’t, do what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy
asking forgiveness?”
Denísov began to laugh.
“It’ll be worse for you. Bogdánich is vindictive and you’ll pay
for your obstinacy,” said Kírsten.
“No, on my word it’s not obstinacy! I can’t describe the feeling.
I can’t...”
“Well, it’s as you like,” said the staff captain. “And what has
become of that scoundrel?” he asked Denísov.
“He has weported himself sick, he’s to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow,” muttered Denísov.
“It is an illness, there’s no other way of explaining it,” said
the staff captain.
“Illness or not, he’d better not cwoss my path. I’d kill him!”
shouted Denísov in a bloodthirsty tone.
Just then Zherkóv entered the room.
“What brings you here?” cried the officers turning to the newcomer.
“We’re to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his
whole army.”
“It’s not true!”
“I’ve seen him myself!”
“What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?”
“Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how
did you come here?”
“I’ve been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil,
Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on
Mack’s arrival... What’s the matter, Rostóv? You look as if you’d
just come out of a hot bath.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, we’re in such a stew here these last two
days.”
The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by
Zherkóv. They were under orders to advance next day.
“We’re going into action, gentlemen!”
“Well, thank God! We’ve been sitting here too long!”
CHAPTER VI
Kutúzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over
the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the
Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian
baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling
through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.
It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out
before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the
bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and
then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could
be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below,
the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its
cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling
masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,
and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of
the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the
Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green
treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a
wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the
enemy’s horse patrols could be discerned.
Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of
the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through
his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvítski, who had been sent to
the rearguard by the commander in chief, was sitting on the trail of a
gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack
and a flask, and Nesvítski was treating some officers to pies and real
doppelkümmel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their
knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.
“Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It’s
a fine place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?” Nesvítski
was saying.
“Thank you very much, Prince,” answered one of the officers, pleased
to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. “It’s a lovely
place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a
splendid house!”
“Look, Prince,” said another, who would have dearly liked to take
another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the
countryside—“See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there
in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.
They’ll ransack that castle,” he remarked with evident approval.
“So they will,” said Nesvítski. “No, but what I should like,”
added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, “would be
to slip in over there.”
He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and
gleamed.
“That would be fine, gentlemen!”
The officers laughed.
“Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls
among them. On my word I’d give five years of my life for it!”
“They must be feeling dull, too,” said one of the bolder officers,
laughing.
Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to
the general, who looked through his field glass.
“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, lowering the
field glass and shrugging his shoulders, “so it is! They’ll be fired
on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?”
On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from
their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of
a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.
Nesvítski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.
“Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?” he said.
“It’s a bad business,” said the general without answering him,
“our men have been wasting time.”
“Hadn’t I better ride over, your excellency?” asked Nesvítski.
“Yes, please do,” answered the general, and he repeated the order
that had already once been given in detail: “and tell the hussars
that they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the
inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected.”
“Very good,” answered Nesvítski.
He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack
and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.
“I’ll really call in on the nuns,” he said to the officers who
watched him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the
hill.
“Now then, let’s see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!”
said the general, turning to an artillery officer. “Have a little fun
to pass the time.”
“Crew, to your guns!” commanded the officer.
In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began
loading.
“One!” came the command.
Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening
metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our
troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke
showing the spot where it burst.
The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got
up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly
visible as if but a stone’s throw away, and the movements of the
approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully
out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot
and the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and
spirited impression.
CHAPTER VII
Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where
there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had
alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the
railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few
steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince
Nesvítski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again
and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.
“What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. “What a fellow!
You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to pass?”
But the convoyman took no notice of the word “general” and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hi there, boys! Keep to
the left! Wait a bit.” But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to
shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense
mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvítski saw the rapid, noisy
little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of
the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally
uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,
knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with
broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and
feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the
bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of
white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with
a type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;
sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,
an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry;
and sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers’ or
company’s baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on
all sides, moved across the bridge.
“It’s as if a dam had burst,” said the Cossack hopelessly. “Are
there many more of you to come?”
“A million all but one!” replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat,
with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.
“If he” (he meant the enemy) “begins popping at the bridge now,”
said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, “you’ll forget to
scratch yourself.”
That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.
“Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?” said an
orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.
And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who
had evidently been drinking.
“And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt
end of his gun...” a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said
gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.
“Yes, the ham was just delicious...” answered another with a loud
laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvítski did not learn who
had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.
“Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they’ll
all be killed,” a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.
“As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,” said a young soldier
with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, “I felt like
dying of fright. I did, ‘pon my word, I got that frightened!” said
he, as if bragging of having been frightened.
That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone
before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and
seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with
a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned
baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks
were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were
allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers
turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace
all the soldiers’ remarks related to the two young ones. Every face
bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the
women.
“Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!”
“Sell me the missis,” said another soldier, addressing the German,
who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast
eyes.
“See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!”
“There, Fedótov, you should be quartered on them!”
“I have seen as much before now, mate!”
“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an
apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
“Take it if you like,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple.
The girl smiled and took it. Nesvítski like the rest of the men on the
bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When
they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same
kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of
a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole
crowd had to wait.
“And why are they stopping? There’s no proper order!” said the
soldiers. “Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can’t you wait?
It’ll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here’s an officer jammed
in too”—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked
at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.
Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
something big, that splashed into the water.
“Just see where it carries to!” a soldier near by said sternly,
looking round at the sound.
“Encouraging us to get along quicker,” said another uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski realized that it was a cannon ball.
“Hey, Cossack, my horse!” he said. “Now, then, you there! get out
of the way! Make way!”
With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way
for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those
nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still
harder from behind.
“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!” came a hoarse voice from
behind him.
Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated
by the living mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov, red and shaggy,
with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily
over his shoulder.
“Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!” shouted Denísov
evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small
bare hand as red as his face.
“Ah, Váska!” joyfully replied Nesvítski. “What’s up with
you?”
“The squadwon can’t pass,” shouted Váska Denísov, showing his
white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which
twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting
white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his
hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let
him. “What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the
way!... Let us pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I’ll hack
you with my saber!” he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its
scabbard and flourishing it.
The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
Denísov joined Nesvítski.
“How’s it you’re not drunk today?” said Nesvítski when the
other had ridden up to him.
“They don’t even give one time to dwink!” answered Váska
Denísov. “They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they
mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows what this is.”
“What a dandy you are today!” said Nesvítski, looking at
Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denísov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused
a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski’s nose.
“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself.”
The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and
the determination of Denísov who flourished his sword and shouted
frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through
to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the
bridge Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,
and having done this he rode back.
Having cleared the way Denísov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge
on his side of it.
The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in
regular order.
“Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!” said one.
“What good are they? They’re led about just for show!” remarked
another.
“Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!” jested an hussar whose
prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
“I’d like to put you on a two days’ march with a knapsack! Your
fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed,” said an infantryman, wiping
the mud off his face with his sleeve. “Perched up there, you’re more
like a bird than a man.”
“There now, Zíkin, they ought to put you on a horse. You’d look
fine,” said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under
the weight of his knapsack.
“Take a stick between your legs, that’ll suit you for a horse!”
the hussar shouted back.
CHAPTER VIII
The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last
the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars
remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from
the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the
river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away.
At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our
Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high
ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the
French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All
the officers and men of Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk
of other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what
was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches
appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy’s troops.
The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending
brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and
at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard
from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy
except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred
yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that
stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates
two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.
“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing
the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And
what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that
roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear
and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must
be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will
inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are
strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such
excitedly animated and healthy men.” So thinks, or at any rate
feels, anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives
a particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that
takes place at such moments.
On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose,
and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The
officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The
hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole
squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron
commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon
ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls
with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell
somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound
of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its
rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the
ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers
without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their
comrades’ impression. Every face, from Denísov’s to that of the
bugler, showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and
excitement, around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking
at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mirónov ducked
every time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his
Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had the happy air of a
schoolboy called up before a large audience for an examination in which
he feels sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone
with a clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly
he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same
indication of something new and stern showed round the mouth.
“Who’s that curtseying there? Cadet Miwónov! That’s not wight!
Look at me,” cried Denísov who, unable to keep still on one spot,
kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.
The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, and his whole
short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in
which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually
did, especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he
was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds
when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his
good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the
saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in
a hoarse voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to
Kírsten. The staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a
walk to meet him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always,
only his eyes were brighter than usual.
“Well, what about it?” said he to Denísov. “It won’t come to a
fight. You’ll see—we shall retire.”
“The devil only knows what they’re about!” muttered Denísov.
“Ah, Wostóv,” he cried noticing the cadet’s bright face,
“you’ve got it at last.”
And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv
felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.
Denísov galloped up to him.
“Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll dwive them off.”
“Attack indeed!” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his
face as if driving off a troublesome fly. “And why are you stopping
here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron
back.”
The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without
having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front
line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side
of the river.
The two Pávlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the
hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdánich Schubert, came
up to Denísov’s squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostóv,
without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the
first time since their encounter concerning Telyánin. Rostóv, feeling
that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now
admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the
colonel’s athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red
neck. It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdánich was only pretending not
to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s
courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it
seemed to him that Bogdánich rode so near in order to show him his
courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a
desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how,
after the attack, Bogdánich would come up to him as he lay wounded and
would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.
The high-shouldered figure of Zherkóv, familiar to the Pávlograds as
he had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel.
After his dismissal from headquarters Zherkóv had not remained in the
regiment, saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he
could get more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded
in attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagratión. He now
came to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear
guard.
“Colonel,” he said, addressing Rostóv’s enemy with an air of
gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades, “there is an order
to stop and fire the bridge.”
“An order to who?” asked the colonel morosely.
“I don’t myself know ‘to who,’” replied the cornet in a
serious tone, “but the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel
that the hussars must return quickly and fire the bridge.’”
Zherkóv was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the
colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvítski
came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his
weight.
“How’s this, Colonel?” he shouted as he approached. “I told you
to fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all
beside themselves over there and one can’t make anything out.”
The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvítski.
“You spoke to me of inflammable material,” said he, “but you said
nothing about firing it.”
“But, my dear sir,” said Nesvítski as he drew up, taking off his
cap and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand,
“wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material
had been put in position?”
“I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell
me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders
strictly to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would
burn it, I could not know by the holy spirit!”
“Ah, that’s always the way!” said Nesvítski with a wave of the
hand. “How did you get here?” said he, turning to Zherkóv.
“On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!”
“You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer...” continued the colonel in an
offended tone.
“Colonel,” interrupted the officer of the suite, “You must be
quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.”
The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout
staff officer, and at Zherkóv, and he frowned.
“I will the bridge fire,” he said in a solemn tone as if to announce
that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still
do the right thing.
Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame
for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second
squadron, that in which Rostóv was serving under Denísov, to return to
the bridge.
“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostóv to himself. “He
wishes to test me!” His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his
face. “Let him see whether I am a coward!” he thought.
Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression
appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostóv watched his enemy,
the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostóv, and looked
as he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word
of command.
“Look sharp! Look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.
Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the
hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men
were crossing themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel, he
had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid
that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into
an orderly’s charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with
a thud. Denísov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something.
Rostóv saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs
catching and their sabers clattering.
“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.
Rostóv did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,
trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not
looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,
and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.
“At boss zides, Captain,” he heard the voice of the colonel, who,
having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a
triumphant, cheerful face.
Rostóv wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and
was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front
the better. But Bogdánich, without looking at or recognizing Rostóv,
shouted to him:
“Who’s that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come
back, Cadet!” he cried angrily; and turning to Denísov, who, showing
off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:
“Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount,” he said.
“Oh, every bullet has its billet,” answered Váska Denísov, turning
in his saddle.
Meanwhile Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer of the suite were
standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small
group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,
and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at
what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue
uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.
“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll get there first? Will they
get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot
range and wipe them out?” These were the questions each man of the
troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself
with a sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright
evening light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with
their bayonets and guns.
“Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!” said Nesvítski; “they are
within grapeshot range now.”
“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the
suite.
“True enough,” answered Nesvítski; “two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well.”
“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkóv, his eyes fixed on the
hussars, but still with that naïve air that made it impossible to know
whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. “Ah, your excellency!
How you look at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the
Vladímir medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the
squadron may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our
Bogdánich knows how things are done.”
“There now!” said the officer of the suite, “that’s
grapeshot.”
He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached
and hurriedly removed.
On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke
appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the
moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two
reports one after another, and a third.
“Oh! Oh!” groaned Nesvítski as if in fierce pain, seizing the
officer of the suite by the arm. “Look! A man has fallen! Fallen,
fallen!”
“Two, I think.”
“If I were Tsar I would never go to war,” said Nesvítski, turning
away.
The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue
uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again
but at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the
bridge. But this time Nesvítski could not see what was happening there,
as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in
setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no
longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was
someone to fire at.
The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars
got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too
high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and
knocked three of them over.
Rostóv, absorbed by his relations with Bogdánich, had paused on the
bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he
had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the
bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the
other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a
rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest
to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostóv ran up to him with
the others. Again someone shouted, “Stretchers!” Four men seized the
hussar and began lifting him.
“Oooh! For Christ’s sake let me alone!” cried the wounded man, but
still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.
Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed
into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the
sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep!
How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the
waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway
blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and
the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace
and happiness... “I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I
were there,” thought Rostóv. “In myself alone and in that sunshine
there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and
this uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and
again are all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it,
death, is here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never
again see the sun, this water, that gorge!...”
At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other
stretchers came into view before Rostóv. And the fear of death and of
the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one
feeling of sickening agitation.
“O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect
me!” Rostóv whispered.
The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices
sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.
“Well, fwiend? So you’ve smelt powdah!” shouted Váska Denísov
just above his ear.
“It’s all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!” thought
Rostóv, and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting
one foot, from the orderly and began to mount.
“Was that grapeshot?” he asked Denísov.
“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denísov. “You worked like wegular
bwicks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Hacking
away at the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them
shooting at you like a target.”
And Denísov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed
of the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.
“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostóv. And this
was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation
which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.
“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “See if I
don’t get promoted to a sublieutenancy.”
“Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!” said the colonel
triumphantly and gaily.
“And if he asks about the losses?”
“A trifle,” said the colonel in his bass voice: “two hussars
wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to restrain a happy
smile, and pronouncing the phrase “knocked out” with ringing
distinctness.
CHAPTER IX
Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command
of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,
losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,
and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had
been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded
by Kutúzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where
overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as
necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.
There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the
courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the
Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more
rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had
joined Kutúzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and
Kutúzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The
defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an
offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the
modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutúzov when he was in
Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable
aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were
advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.
On the twenty-eighth of October Kutúzov with his army crossed to the
left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time
with the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the
thirtieth he attacked Mortier’s division, which was on the left bank,
and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:
banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a
fortnight’s retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight
had not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the
troops were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number
in killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and
wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter
in which Kutúzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and
though the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military
hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the
stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of
the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters
most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach
of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of
the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.
Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian
General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been
wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark
of the commander in chief’s special favor he was sent with the news of
this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was
threatened by the French) but at Brünn. Despite his apparently delicate
build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many
very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived
at Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhtúrov to
Kutúzov, he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brünn.
To be so sent meant not only a reward but an important step toward
promotion.
The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that
had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his
impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the
impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off
given him by the commander in chief and his fellow officers, Prince
Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a
man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon
as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the
wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that
the Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he
quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that
this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He
again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage
during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark
starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was
thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides
of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.
At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded.
The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front
cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of
the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being
jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian
words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked
silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy
hurrying past them.
Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what
action they had been wounded. “Day before yesterday, on the Danube,”
answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the
soldier three gold pieces.
“That’s for them all,” he said to the officer who came up.
“Get well soon, lads!” he continued, turning to the soldiers.
“There’s plenty to do still.”
“What news, sir?” asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a
conversation.
“Good news!... Go on!” he shouted to the driver, and they galloped
on.
It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved
streets of Brünn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the
lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that
atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a
soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,
Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and
alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly
and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and
rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer
dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself
stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual
questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He
expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance
to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and
learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.
“To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find
the adjutant on duty,” said the official. “He will conduct you to
the Minister of War.”
The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went
in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing
with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a
corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The
adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any
attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.
Prince Andrew’s joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he
approached the door of the minister’s room. He felt offended, and
without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into
one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly
suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise
the adjutant and the minister. “Away from the smell of powder, they
probably think it easy to gain victories!” he thought. His eyes
narrowed disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with
peculiarly deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened
when he saw the minister seated at a large table reading some papers
and making pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes
taking no notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the
minister’s bent bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading
to the end, without raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the
sound of footsteps.
“Take this and deliver it,” said he to his adjutant, handing him the
papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.
Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutúzov’s army
interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was
concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that
impression. “But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” he
thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them
evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive
head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent
expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and
habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which
does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is
continually receiving many petitioners one after another.
“From General Field Marshal Kutúzov?” he asked. “I hope it is
good news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was
high time!”
He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it
with a mournful expression.
“Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!” he exclaimed in German. “What a
calamity! What a calamity!”
Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked
at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.
“Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is
not captured.” Again he pondered. “I am very glad you have brought
good news, though Schmidt’s death is a heavy price to pay for the
victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I
thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the
parade. However, I will let you know.”
The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,
reappeared.
“Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to
see you,” he added, bowing his head.
When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest
and happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the
indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The
whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed
the memory of a remote event long past.
CHAPTER X
Prince Andrew stayed at Brünn with Bilíbin, a Russian acquaintance of
his in the diplomatic service.
“Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,”
said Bilíbin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. “Franz, put the
prince’s things in my bedroom,” said he to the servant who was
ushering Bolkónski in. “So you’re a messenger of victory, eh?
Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see.”
After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat’s
luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilíbin
settled down comfortably beside the fire.
After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of
all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince
Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such
as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,
after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian
(for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he
supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was
then particularly strong.
Bilíbin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as
Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but
had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov.
Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high
in the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilíbin gave
promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He was still a young man but
no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age
of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather
important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador
in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many
diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,
avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those,
who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would
sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well
whatever the import of his work. It was not the question “What for?”
but the question “How?” that interested him. What the diplomatic
matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to
prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and
elegantly. Bilíbin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote,
but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the
highest spheres.
Bilíbin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be
made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say
something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was
possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,
finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the
inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so
that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to
drawing room. And, in fact, Bilíbin’s witticisms were hawked about
in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters
considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always
looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a
Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play
of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds
and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and
deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always
twinkled and looked out straight.
“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” said he.
Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the
engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
skittles,” said he in conclusion.
Bilíbin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
“Cependant, mon cher,” he remarked, examining his nails from a
distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, “malgré la haute
estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que
votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.” *
* “But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox
Russian army, I must say that your victory was not
particularly victorious.”
He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in
Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
“Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier
and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!
Where’s the victory?”
“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at any rate say
without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm...”
“Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?”
“Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness
of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by
seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.”
“And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have
been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile.
“You ought to have been there at seven in the morning.”
“Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew
in the same tone.
“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you’re thinking it’s very
easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but
still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only
the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and
King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor
secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my
joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the
Prater... True, we have no Prater here...”
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
forehead.
“It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher,” said Bolkónski.
“I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic
subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can’t make it
out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke
Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutúzov
alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the
invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care
to hear the details.”
“That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the Tsar,
for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but
what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring
us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one
archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only
over a fire brigade of Bonaparte’s, that will be another story and
we’ll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done
on purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke
Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its
defense—as much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you
and your capital!’ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you
expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit
that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.
It’s as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose
you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a
victory, what effect would that have on the general course of events?
It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!”
“What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?”
“Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count,
our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.”
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and
especially after having dined, Bolkónski felt that he could not take in
the full significance of the words he heard.
“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilíbin continued,
“and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna
was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that
your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can’t be
received as a savior.”
“Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all,” said
Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle
before Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as
the fall of Austria’s capital. “How is it Vienna was taken? What of
the bridge and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard
reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?” he said.
“Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is
defending us—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending
us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been
taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been
given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the
mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad
quarter of an hour between two fires.”
“But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,” said
Prince Andrew.
“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they
daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign,
it won’t be your skirmishing at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder at all,
that will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilíbin
quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and
pausing. “The only question is what will come of the meeting between
the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia
joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war.
If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of
the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.”
“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, “and what
luck the man has!”
“Buonaparte?” said Bilíbin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead
to indicate that he was about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?”
he repeated, accentuating the u: “I think, however, now that he lays
down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de
l’u! * I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply
Bonaparte!”
* “We must let him off the u!”
“But joking apart,” said Prince Andrew, “do you really think the
campaign is over?”
“This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is
not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the
first place because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy
Russian army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital
taken, and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And
therefore—this is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we
are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and
projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.”
* Fine eyes.
“Impossible!” cried Prince Andrew. “That would be too base.”
“If we live we shall see,” replied Bilíbin, his face again becoming
smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.
When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a
clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he
felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far
away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery,
Bonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the
audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry
and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now
again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,
the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode
forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,
and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since
childhood.
He woke up...
“Yes, that all happened!” he said, and, smiling happily to himself
like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.
CHAPTER XI
Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented
to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite
Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s conversation. Having
dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he
had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilíbin’s study fresh,
animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four
gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kurágin,
who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted.
Bilíbin introduced him to the others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, gay society
men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilíbin, their
leader, called les nôtres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of
diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with
war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to
the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince
Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From
politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions
about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry
jests and gossip.
* Ours.
“But the best of it was,” said one, telling of the misfortune of
a fellow diplomat, “that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
Can you fancy the figure he cut?...”
“But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kurágin away to
you—is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is
taking advantage of it!”
Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its
arm. He began to laugh.
“Tell me about that!” he said.
“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” cried several voices.
“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” said Bilíbin turning to Prince
Andrew, “that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of
the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing
among the women!”
“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,” * announced Prince
Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.
* “Woman is man’s companion.”
Bilíbin and the rest of “ours” burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s
face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to
admit—he had almost been jealous on his wife’s account, was the butt
of this set.
“Oh, I must give you a treat,” Bilíbin whispered to Bolkónski.
“Kurágin is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his
gravity!”
He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking
to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these
two.
“The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,” began
Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, “without
expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless
His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...
“Wait, I have not finished...” he said to Prince Andrew, seizing
him by the arm, “I believe that intervention will be stronger than
nonintervention. And...” he paused. “Finally one cannot impute the
nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end.”
And he released Bolkónski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.
“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!” said Bilíbin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with
satisfaction.
Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently
distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild
laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.
“Well now, gentlemen,” said Bilíbin, “Bolkónski is my guest in
this house and in Brünn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I
can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would
be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult,
and I beg you all to help me. Brünn’s attractions must be shown him.
You can undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course
the women.”
“We must let him see Amelie, she’s exquisite!” said one of
“ours,” kissing his finger tips.
“In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
interests,” said Bilíbin.
“I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
gentlemen, it is already time for me to go,” replied Prince Andrew
looking at his watch.
“Where to?”
“To the Emperor.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Well, au revoir, Bolkónski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back early to
dinner,” cried several voices. “We’ll take you in hand.”
“When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way
that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated,” said Bilíbin,
accompanying him to the hall.
“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts,
I can’t,” replied Bolkónski, smiling.
“Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving
audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can’t do it, as
you will see.”
CHAPTER XII
At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had
been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his
face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was
over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed
Bolkónski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor
Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the
conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor
seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.
“Tell me, when did the battle begin?” he asked hurriedly.
Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
“Was Kutúzov well? When had he left Krems?” and so on. The Emperor
spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions—the
answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest
him.
“At what o’clock did the battle begin?” asked the Emperor.
“I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o’clock the battle began at
the front, but at Dürrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkónski growing more animated and
expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which
he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor
smiled and interrupted him.
“How many miles?”
“From where to where, Your Majesty?”
“From Dürrenstein to Krems.”
“Three and a half miles, Your Majesty.”
“The French have abandoned the left bank?”
“According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the
night.”
“Is there sufficient forage in Krems?”
“Forage has not been supplied to the extent...”
The Emperor interrupted him.
“At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?”
“At seven o’clock, I believe.”
“At seven o’clock? It’s very sad, very sad!”
The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and
was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he
saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday’s adjutant
reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him
his own house. The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the
Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring
on him. The Empress’ chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The
archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and
for a few seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador
took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to
him.
Contrary to Bilíbin’s forecast the news he had brought was joyfully
received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded
the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.
Bolkónski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning
calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five
in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to
Bilíbin’s house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle
and his visit to Brünn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of
luggage. Franz, Bilíbin’s man, was dragging a portmanteau with some
difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilíbin’s Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop
to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some
time in the shop.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, your excellency!” said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
portmanteau into the vehicle, “we are to move on still farther. The
scoundrel is again at our heels!”
“Eh? What?” asked Prince Andrew.
Bilíbin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.
“There now! Confess that this is delightful,” said he. “This
affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without
striking a blow!”
Prince Andrew could not understand.
“But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the
town knows?”
“I come from the archduchess’. I heard nothing there.”
“And you didn’t see that everybody is packing up?”
“I did not... What is it all about?” inquired Prince Andrew
impatiently.
“What’s it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat
is now rushing along the road to Brünn and will be here in a day or
two.”
“What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was
mined?”
“That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why.”
Bolkónski shrugged his shoulders.
“But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It
will be cut off,” said he.
“That’s just it,” answered Bilíbin. “Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those
gentlemen, messieurs les maréchaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard,
mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
‘Gentlemen,’ says one of them, ‘you know the Thabor Bridge is
mined and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its
head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up
the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the
Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take
it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. And off they go and take the
bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the
Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication.”
* The marshalls.
“Stop jesting,” said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
grieved him and yet he was pleased.
As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it
out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from
the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!
Listening to Bilíbin he was already imagining how on reaching the army
he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one
that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the
executing of the plan.
“Stop this jesting,” he said.
“I am not jesting,” Bilíbin went on. “Nothing is truer or sadder.
These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs;
they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on
their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the
tête-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that
the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with
Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The
officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack
jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to
the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into
the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont. At length appears the
lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself.
‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars!
Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand.... The
Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s
acquaintance.’ In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so
bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly
established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the
sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du
feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi!” *(2)
In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilíbin did not forget to
pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. “The
French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the
bridge is taken! But what is best of all,” he went on, his excitement
subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, “is that the
sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire
the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French
troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes
stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,
goes up to Auersperg and says: ‘Prince, you are being deceived, here
are the French!’ Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is
allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a
true Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognize the world-famous Austrian
discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It
was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and
orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair
of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor
rascality....”
* Bridgehead.
* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that
he ought to be firing at the enemy.
“It may be treachery,” said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the
gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing,
and the glory that awaited him.
“Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light,” replied
Bilíbin. “It’s not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is
just as at Ulm... it is...”—he seemed to be trying to find the right
expression. “C’est... c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackés (It is...
it is a bit of Mack. We are Macked),” he concluded, feeling that he
had produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His
hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a
slight smile he began to examine his nails.
“Where are you off to?” he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had
risen and was going toward his room.
“I am going away.”
“Where to?”
“To the army.”
“But you meant to stay another two days?”
“But now I am off at once.”
And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to
his room.
“Do you know, mon cher,” said Bilíbin following him, “I have been
thinking about you. Why are you going?”
And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
vanished from his face.
Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.
“Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to
the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is
heroism!”
“Not at all,” said Prince Andrew.
“But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other
side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,
is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for
anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been
dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our
ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmütz, and Olmütz is a
very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my calèche.”
“Do stop joking, Bilíbin,” cried Bolkónski.
“I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are
you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two
things,” and the skin over his left temple puckered, “either you
will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will
share defeat and disgrace with Kutúzov’s whole army.”
And Bilíbin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
insoluble.
“I cannot argue about it,” replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he
thought: “I am going to save the army.”
“My dear fellow, you are a hero!” said Bilíbin.
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkónski
set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and
fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.
In Brünn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy
baggage was already being dispatched to Olmütz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince
Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with
great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed
with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew
took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and
weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the
commander in chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the
position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of
the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.
“Cette armée russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des
extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même
sort—(le sort de l’armée d’Ulm).” * He remembered these words
in Bonaparte’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign,
and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling
of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. “And should there be nothing
left but to die?” he thought. “Well, if need be, I shall do it no
worse than others.”
* “That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of
the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same
fate—(the fate of the army at Ulm).”
He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,
carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all
kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and
sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear
could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts
and gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the
urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.
All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some
flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers
sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their
companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or
returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At
each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the
din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their
voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces
that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.
“Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army,” thought Bolkónski,
recalling Bilíbin’s words.
Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to
a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,
evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and
looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche.
A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the
apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up
and was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention
was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An
officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving
the woman’s vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes
of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed
piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron
and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:
“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven’s sake... Protect
me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh
Chasseurs.... They won’t let us pass, we are left behind and have lost
our people...”
“I’ll flatten you into a pancake!” shouted the angry officer to
the soldier. “Turn back with your slut!”
“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?” screamed the
doctor’s wife.
“Kindly let this cart pass. Don’t you see it’s a woman?” said
Prince Andrew riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
soldier. “I’ll teach you to push on!... Back!”
“Let them pass, I tell you!” repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
lips.
“And who are you?” cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy
rage, “who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here,
not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake,” repeated he.
This expression evidently pleased him.
“That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,” came a voice
from behind.
Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,
tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his
championship of the doctor’s wife in her queer trap might expose him
to what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule; but
his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence
Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised
his riding whip.
“Kind...ly let—them—pass!”
The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.
“It’s all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there’s
this disorder,” he muttered. “Do as you like.”
Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
doctor’s wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with
a sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
galloped on to the village where he was told who the commander in chief
was.
On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort
out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. “This
is a mob of scoundrels and not an army,” he was thinking as he went
up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by
name.
He turned round. Nesvítski’s handsome face looked out of the little
window. Nesvítski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and
flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
“Bolkónski! Bolkónski!... Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick...” he
shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant
having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he
had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm.
This was particularly noticeable on Nesvítski’s usually laughing
countenance.
“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkónski.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked
Nesvítski.
“I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could
do to get here.”
“And we, my dear boy! It’s terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,
we’re getting it still worse,” said Nesvítski. “But sit down and
have something to eat.”
“You won’t be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is,” said the other
adjutant.
“Where are headquarters?”
“We are to spend the night in Znaim.”
“Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses,” said
Nesvítski. “They’ve made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross
the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad lookout, old fellow! But
what’s the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that,” he
added, noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.
“It’s nothing,” replied Prince Andrew.
He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor’s wife and
the convoy officer.
“What is the commander in chief doing here?” he asked.
“I can’t make out at all,” said Nesvítski.
“Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,
abominable, quite abominable!” said Prince Andrew, and he went off to
the house where the commander in chief was.
Passing by Kutúzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of
his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutúzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagratión and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian
general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlóvski was
squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned
up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlóvski’s
face looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced
at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.
“Second line... have you written it?” he continued dictating to the
clerk. “The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian...”
“One can’t write so fast, your honor,” said the clerk, glancing
angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlóvski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutúzov’s voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlóvski looked at him, the
disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and
Kozlóvski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander
in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the
horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and
disastrous was about to happen.
He turned to Kozlóvski with urgent questions.
“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlóvski. “Dispositions for
Bagratión.”
“What about capitulation?”
“Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle.”
Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard.
Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and
Kutúzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.
Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutúzov but the expression of
the commander in chief’s one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied
with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He
looked straight at his adjutant’s face without recognizing him.
“Well, have you finished?” said he to Kozlóvski.
“One moment, your excellency.”
Bagratión, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.
“I have the honor to present myself,” repeated Prince Andrew rather
loudly, handing Kutúzov an envelope.
“Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”
Kutúzov went out into the porch with Bagratión.
“Well, good-by, Prince,” said he to Bagratión. “My blessing, and
may Christ be with you in your great endeavor!”
His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left
hand he drew Bagratión toward him, and with his right, on which he wore
a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently
habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagratión kissed him on the
neck instead.
“Christ be with you!” Kutúzov repeated and went toward his
carriage. “Get in with me,” said he to Bolkónski.
“Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain
with Prince Bagratión’s detachment.”
“Get in,” said Kutúzov, and noticing that Bolkónski still delayed,
he added: “I need good officers myself, need them myself!”
They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.
“There is still much, much before us,” he said, as if with an old
man’s penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkónski’s
mind. “If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,”
he added as if speaking to himself.
Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov’s face only a foot distant from him
and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near
his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty
eye socket. “Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men’s
death,” thought Bolkónski.
“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.
Kutúzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been
saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying
on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew.
There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he
questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the
Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems
affair, and about some ladies they both knew.
CHAPTER XIV
On November 1 Kutúzov had received, through a spy, news that the army
he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that
the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in
immense force upon Kutúzov’s line of communication with the troops
that were arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to remain at Krems,
Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him
off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he
would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov decided
to abandon the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia,
he would have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian
mountains, defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and
abandoning all hope of a junction with Buxhöwden. If Kutúzov decided
to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmütz, to unite with the
troops arriving from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road
by the French who had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his
baggage and transport, having to accept battle on the march against an
enemy three times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.
Kutúzov chose this latter course.
The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were
advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles
off on the line of Kutúzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the
French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the
French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a
disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall
the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French
from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the
Russians from Krems to Znaim.
The night he received the news, Kutúzov sent Bagratión’s vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim
to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagratión was to make this march without
resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he
succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as
possible. Kutúzov himself with all his transport took the road to
Znaim.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his
hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers
by the way, Bagratión came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrünn
a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrünn from
Vienna. Kutúzov with his transport had still to march for some days
before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagratión with his four thousand
hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army
that came upon him at Hollabrünn, which was clearly impossible. But
a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick
that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without
a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutúzov in a similar way. Meeting
Bagratión’s weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be
Kutúzov’s whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited
the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna,
and with this object offered a three days’ truce on condition that
both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared
that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he
therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count
Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed
Murat’s emissary and retired, leaving Bagratión’s division
exposed. Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace
negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days’ truce.
Bagratión replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse
a truce and sent his adjutant to Kutúzov to report the offer he had
received.
A truce was Kutúzov’s sole chance of gaining time, giving
Bagratión’s exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and
heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French) advance
if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and
a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news
he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in
attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely
to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and
meanwhile Kutúzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the
movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim
road. Bagratión’s exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone
covered this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to
remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.
Kutúzov’s expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were
in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass,
and also that Murat’s mistake would very soon be discovered, proved
correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schönbrunn, sixteen miles
from Hollabrünn) received Murat’s dispatch with the proposal of a
truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following
letter to Murat:
Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
at eight o’clock in the morning
To PRINCE MURAT,
I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only
my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my
order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break
the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the
general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no
one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will
ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian
army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are
nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians
let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are
letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
NAPOLEON
Bonaparte’s adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to
Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all
the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim
escape, and Bagratión’s four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,
dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time
for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store
for him.
CHAPTER XV
Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who
had persisted in his request to Kutúzov, arrived at Grunth and reported
himself to Bagratión. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached
Murat’s detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagratión’s
detachment no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They
talked of peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked
of a battle but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement.
Bagratión, knowing Bolkónski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant,
received him with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to
him that there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and
giving him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join
the rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, “which is also
very important.”
“However, there will hardly be an engagement today,” said Bagratión
as if to reassure Prince Andrew.
“If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a
medal he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he
wishes to stay with me, let him... he’ll be of use here if he’s a
brave officer,” thought Bagratión. Prince Andrew, without replying,
asked the prince’s permission to ride round the position to see the
disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent
to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed
man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking
French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who
seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,
and fencing from the village.
“There now, Prince! We can’t stop those fellows,” said the staff
officer pointing to the soldiers. “The officers don’t keep them in
hand. And there,” he pointed to a sutler’s tent, “they crowd in
and sit. This morning I turned them all out and now look, it’s full
again. I must go there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won’t take a
moment.”
“Yes, let’s go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,”
said Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.
“Why didn’t you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you
something.”
They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and
weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.
“Now what does this mean, gentlemen?” said the staff officer, in
the reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more
than once. “You know it won’t do to leave your posts like this.
The prince gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you,
Captain,” and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who
without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry),
in only his stockings, rose when they entered, smiling not altogether
comfortably.
“Well, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Captain Túshin?” he
continued. “One would think that as an artillery officer you would set
a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be
sounded and you’ll be in a pretty position without your boots!” (The
staff officer smiled.) “Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of
you, all!” he added in a tone of command.
Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer
Túshin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to
the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes
from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.
“The soldiers say it feels easier without boots,” said Captain
Túshin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing
to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his
jest was unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.
“Kindly return to your posts,” said the staff officer trying to
preserve his gravity.
Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer’s small figure.
There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,
but extremely attractive.
The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.
Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking
soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some
entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up
red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite
the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants;
spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the
bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at
the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some
dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the
entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a
trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.
“Voilà l’agrément des camps, monsieur le prince,” * said the
staff officer.
* “This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince.”
They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be
seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.
“That’s our battery,” said the staff officer indicating the
highest point. “It’s in charge of the queer fellow we saw without
his boots. You can see everything from there; let’s go there,
Prince.”
“Thank you very much, I will go on alone,” said Prince Andrew,
wishing to rid himself of this staff officer’s company, “please
don’t trouble yourself further.”
The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.
The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and
cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been
in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven
miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm
could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the
more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in
their greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company
officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in
the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over
the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building
shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others,
dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending
boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers.
In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly
at the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster
sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log
before his shelter, had been tasted.
Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,
crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting
a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The
soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,
emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from
the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and
wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were
as serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful
encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in
which at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a
chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers—fine fellows
busy with similar peaceful affairs—near the shelter of the regimental
commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came
out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two
soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and
striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally.
A stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the
screams kept repeating:
“It’s a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,
honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in
him, he’s a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!”
So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural
screams, continued.
“Go on, go on!” said the major.
A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face
stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant
as he rode by.
Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front
line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks,
but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that
morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one
another’s faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who
formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers
who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.
Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the picket
line—the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The
soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity,
no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and
grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look
at the French.
“Look! Look there!” one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a
Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and
was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. “Hark to him
jabbering! Fine, isn’t it? It’s all the Frenchy can do to keep up
with him. There now, Sídorov!”
“Wait a bit and listen. It’s fine!” answered Sídorov, who was
considered an adept at French.
The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dólokhov. Prince Andrew
recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov
had come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with
his captain.
“Now then, go on, go on!” incited the officer, bending forward and
trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to
him. “More, please: more! What’s he saying?”
Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot
dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the
campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was
trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all
the way from Ulm, while Dólokhov maintained that the Russians had not
surrendered but had beaten the French.
“We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,”
said Dólokhov.
“Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!” said
the French grenadier.
The French onlookers and listeners laughed.
“We’ll make you dance as we did under Suvórov...,” * said
Dólokhov.
* “On vous fera danser.”
“Qu’ est-ce qu’il chante?” * asked a Frenchman.
* “What’s he singing about?”
“It’s ancient history,” said another, guessing that it referred to
a former war. “The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the
others...”
“Bonaparte...” began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
“Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacré nom...!” cried he angrily.
“The devil skin your Emperor.”
And Dólokhov swore at him in coarse soldier’s Russian and shouldering
his musket walked away.
“Let us go, Iván Lukích,” he said to the captain.
“Ah, that’s the way to talk French,” said the picket soldiers.
“Now, Sídorov, you have a try!”
Sídorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless
sounds very fast: “Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaská,” he said,
trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.
“Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!” came peals of such healthy
and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French
involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be
to unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as
quickly as possible.
But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and
entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon
confronted one another as before.
CHAPTER XVI
Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince
Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had
told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped
beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an
artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the
officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing.
Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes
and artillerymen’s bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest
cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the
sound of officers’ voices in eager conversation.
It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the
greater part of the enemy’s opened out from this battery. Just facing
it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schön Grabern
could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops
amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were
evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from
that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it
was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was
posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position.
Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the
dragoons. In the center, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which
Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most
direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schön
Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked
the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was
wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us
on both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it
difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took
out his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the
position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to
Bagratión. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the
center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the
dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely
following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying
historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the
course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He
imagined only important possibilities: “If the enemy attacks the right
flank,” he said to himself, “the Kiev grenadiers and the Podólsk
chasseurs must hold their position till reserves from the center
come up. In that case the dragoons could successfully make a flank
counterattack. If they attack our center we, having the center battery
on this high ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and
retreat to the dip by echelons.” So he reasoned.... All the time
he had been beside the gun, he had heard the voices of the officers
distinctly, but as often happens had not understood a word of what they
were saying. Suddenly, however, he was struck by a voice coming from the
shed, and its tone was so sincere that he could not but listen.
“No, friend,” said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a
familiar voice, “what I say is that if it were possible to know
what is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s so,
friend.”
Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: “Afraid or not, you can’t
escape it anyhow.”
“All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,” said a third
manly voice interrupting them both. “Of course you artillery men are
very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and
snacks.”
And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,
laughed.
“Yes, one is afraid,” continued the first speaker, he of the
familiar voice. “One is afraid of the unknown, that’s what it is.
Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is
no sky but only an atmosphere.”
The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.
“Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Túshin,” it said.
“Why,” thought Prince Andrew, “that’s the captain who stood up
in the sutler’s hut without his boots.” He recognized the agreeable,
philosophizing voice with pleasure.
“Some herb vodka? Certainly!” said Túshin. “But still, to
conceive a future life...”
He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and
nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it
had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near
the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground
seemed to groan at the terrible impact.
And immediately Túshin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth
and his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed
followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who
hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.
CHAPTER XVII
Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,
looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes
ran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto
motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was
a battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two
mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A
small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,
probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.
The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back
to Grunth to find Prince Bagratión. He heard the cannonade behind him
growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.
From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came
the report of musketry.
Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte’s stern letter,
and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once
moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian
wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to
crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.
“It has begun. Here it is!” thought Prince Andrew, feeling the
blood rush to his heart. “But where and how will my Toulon present
itself?”
Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking
vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid
movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready,
and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his
heart. “It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!” was what
the face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.
Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,
in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.
The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a
white horse, was Prince Bagratión. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for
him to come up; Prince Bagratión reined in his horse and recognizing
Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew
told him what he had seen.
The feeling, “It has begun! Here it is!” was seen even on Prince
Bagratión’s hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face
and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking
and feeling at that moment. “Is there anything at all behind that
impassive face?” Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince
Bagratión bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew
told him, and said, “Very good!” in a tone that seemed to imply that
everything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he
had foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke
quickly. Prince Bagratión, uttering his words with an Oriental accent,
spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no
need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction
of Túshin’s battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind
Prince Bagratión rode an officer of the suite, the prince’s personal
adjutant, Zherkóv, an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty,
riding a fine bobtailed horse, and a civilian—an accountant who had
asked permission to be present at the battle out of curiosity. The
accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked around him with a naïve
smile of satisfaction and presented a strange appearance among the
hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on
his horse with a convoy officer’s saddle.
“He wants to see a battle,” said Zherkóv to Bolkónski, pointing
to the accountant, “but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach
already.”
“Oh, leave off!” said the accountant with a beaming but rather
cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkóv’s
joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.
“It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince,” said the staff officer.
(He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a
prince, but could not get it quite right.)
By this time they were all approaching Túshin’s battery, and a ball
struck the ground in front of them.
“What’s that that has fallen?” asked the accountant with a naïve
smile.
“A French pancake,” answered Zherkóv.
“So that’s what they hit with?” asked the accountant. “How
awful!”
He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking
when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly
ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding
a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with
his horse. Zherkóv and the staff officer bent over their saddles and
turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack,
and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the
horse still struggled.
Prince Bagratión screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the
cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say,
“Is it worth while noticing trifles?” He reined in his horse with
the care of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his
saber which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of
a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of
Suvórov giving his saber to Bagratión in Italy, and the recollection
was particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery
at which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.
“Whose company?” asked Prince Bagratión of an artilleryman standing
by the ammunition wagon.
He asked, “Whose company?” but he really meant, “Are you
frightened here?” and the artilleryman understood him.
“Captain Túshin’s, your excellency!” shouted the red-haired,
freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.
“Yes, yes,” muttered Bagratión as if considering something, and he
rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.
As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his
suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see
the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its
former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding
a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with
a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon’s mouth. The short,
round-shouldered Captain Túshin, stumbling over the tail of the gun
carriage, moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out
shading his eyes with his small hand.
“Lift it two lines more and it will be just right,” cried he in a
feeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to
his weak figure. “Number Two!” he squeaked. “Fire, Medvédev!”
Bagratión called to him, and Túshin, raising three fingers to his cap
with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute
but like a priest’s benediction, approached the general. Though
Túshin’s guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was
firing incendiary balls at the village of Schön Grabern visible just
opposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.
No one had given Túshin orders where and at what to fire, but after
consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchénko, for whom he had great
respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the
village. “Very good!” said Bagratión in reply to the officer’s
report, and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended
before him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the
height on which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the
rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was
heard, and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of
the suite pointed out to Bagratión a French column that was outflanking
us. To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince
Bagratión ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to
reinforce the right flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark
to the prince that if these battalions went away, the guns would remain
without support. Prince Bagratión turned to the officer and with his
dull eyes looked at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the
officer’s remark was just and that really no answer could be made to
it. But at that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the
commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses
of the French were coming down upon them and that his regiment was in
disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagratión
bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to
the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the
French. But this adjutant returned half an hour later with the news that
the commander of the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in
the ground, as a heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing
men uselessly, and so had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the
wood.
“Very good!” said Bagratión.
As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and
as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there
himself, Prince Bagratión sent Zherkóv to tell the general in command
(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutúzov at Braunau) that
he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear,
as the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy’s
attack very long. About Túshin and the battalion that had been in
support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened
attentively to Bagratión’s colloquies with the commanding officers
and the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders
were really given, but that Prince Bagratión tried to make it appear
that everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of
subordinate commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least
in accord with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that
though what happened was due to chance and was independent of the
commander’s will, owing to the tact Bagratión showed, his presence
was very valuable. Officers who approached him with disturbed
countenances became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew
more cheerful in his presence, and were evidently anxious to display
their courage before him.
CHAPTER XVIII
Prince Bagratión, having reached the highest point of our right flank,
began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where
on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to
the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness
of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a
bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who
supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he
was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or
mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket,
groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while
blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had
that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering.
Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men
lying on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were
unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and
despite the general’s presence were talking loudly and gesticulating.
In front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the
smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagratión rushed shouting after
the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagratión rode up
to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning
the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with
smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some
were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or
taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who
they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no
wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were
often heard. “What is this?” thought Prince Andrew approaching the
crowd of soldiers. “It can’t be an attack, for they are not moving;
it can’t be a square—for they are not drawn up for that.”
The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a
pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,
giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagratión and welcomed him as
a host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had
been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been
repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack
had been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had
occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what
had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and
could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his
regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement
of the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and
hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted “Cavalry!” and
our men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry
which had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the
hollow and were firing at our men. Prince Bagratión bowed his head as a
sign that this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning
to his adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the
Sixth Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by
the changed expression on Prince Bagratión’s face at this moment. It
expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of
a man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water.
The dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation
of profound thought. The round, steady, hawk’s eyes looked before him
eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his
movements were still slow and measured.
The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagratión, entreating
him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were.
“Please, your excellency, for God’s sake!” he kept saying,
glancing for support at an officer of the suite who turned away
from him. “There, you see!” and he drew attention to the bullets
whistling, singing, and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the
tone of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who
has picked up an ax: “We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister
your hands.” He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and his
half-closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words. The staff
officer joined in the colonel’s appeals, but Bagratión did not reply;
he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to give room
for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain
of smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began
to move from right to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the
hill opposite, with the French moving about on it, opened out before
them. All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French column advancing
against them and winding down over the uneven ground. One could already
see the soldiers’ shaggy caps, distinguish the officers from the men,
and see the standard flapping against its staff.
“They march splendidly,” remarked someone in Bagratión’s suite.
The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash
would take place on this side of it...
The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up
and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came
two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had
reached Bagratión, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in
step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagratión, marched
a company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy
expression—the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that
moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he
would appear as he passed the commander.
With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with
his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full
height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy
tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close
to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real
weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men
without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as
if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander
in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he
was happy. “Left... left... left...” he seemed to repeat to himself
at each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied
faces, the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched
in step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be
repeating to himself at each alternate step, “Left... left...
left...” A fat major skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of
step; a soldier who had fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his
defection, ran at a trot, panting to catch up with his company. A cannon
ball, cleaving the air, flew over the heads of Bagratión and his suite,
and fell into the column to the measure of “Left... left!” “Close
up!” came the company commander’s voice in jaunty tones. The
soldiers passed in a semicircle round something where the ball had
fallen, and an old trooper on the flank, a noncommissioned officer who
had stopped beside the dead men, ran to catch up his line and, falling
into step with a hop, looked back angrily, and through the ominous
silence and the regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison, one
seemed to hear left... left... left.
“Well done, lads!” said Prince Bagratión.
“Glad to do our best, your ex’len-lency!” came a confused shout
from the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on
Bagratión as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: “We
know that ourselves!” Another, without looking round, as though
fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.
The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.
Bagratión rode round the ranks that had marched past him and
dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his
felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the
French column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.
“Forward, with God!” said Bagratión, in a resolute, sonorous voice,
turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,
he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of
a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him
forward, and experienced great happiness.
The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagratión,
could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their
faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered
legs and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince
Bagratión gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in
front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the
French, smoke appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots
sounded. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer
who had marched so gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first
report was heard, Bagratión looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah—ah!—ah!” rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagratión and racing one another they rushed in an irregular
but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.
CHAPTER XIX
The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
flank. In the center Túshin’s forgotten battery, which had managed to
set fire to the Schön Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The
French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus
gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side
of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the
different companies did not get mixed. But our left—which consisted
of the Azóv and Podólsk infantry and the Pávlograd hussars—was
simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under
Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagratión had sent Zherkóv
to the general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat
immediately.
Zherkóv, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about
and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagratión than his courage
failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was
dangerous.
Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the
firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they
could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.
The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of
the regiment Kutúzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dólokhov was
serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been
assigned to the commander of the Pávlograd regiment in which Rostóv
was serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much
exasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on
the right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged
in discussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the
regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the
impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a
battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the
horses and the infantry collecting wood.
“He higher iss dan I in rank,” said the German colonel of the
hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, “so
let him do what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler,
sount ze retreat!”
But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling
together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes
of Lannes’ sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and
forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in
command of the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and
having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the
Pávlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with
secret malevolence in their hearts.
“Once again, Colonel,” said the general, “I can’t leave half
my men in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you,” he repeated, “to
occupy the position and prepare for an attack.”
“I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!”
suddenly replied the irate colonel. “If you vere in the cavalry...”
“I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if
you are not aware of the fact...”
“Quite avare, your excellency,” suddenly shouted the colonel,
touching his horse and turning purple in the face. “Vill you be so
goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don’t
vish to destroy my men for your pleasure!”
“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure
and I won’t allow it to be said!”
Taking the colonel’s outburst as a challenge to his courage, the
general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the
front line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the
bullets. They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and
they halted in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the
line, for from where they had been before it had been evident that it
was impossible for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground,
as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The general
and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another like two
fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs
of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As
there was nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for
it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire,
they would have remained there for a long time testing each other’s
courage had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry
and a muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had
attacked the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible
for the hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from
the line of retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the
position, it was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through
for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostóv was serving had scarcely time to mount
before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge,
there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that
terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear—resembling the line
separating the living from the dead—lay between them. All were
conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross
it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.
The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put
to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having
his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor
of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang
out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.
Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars
alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this
irresolution communicated itself to the men.
“If only they would be quick!” thought Rostóv, feeling that at last
the time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so
often heard from his fellow hussars.
“Fo’ward, with God, lads!” rang out Denísov’s voice. “At a
twot fo’ward!”
The horses’ croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the
reins and started of his own accord.
Before him, on the right, Rostóv saw the front lines of his hussars and
still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but
took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.
“Faster!” came the word of command, and Rostóv felt Rook’s flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostóv anticipated his horse’s movements and became more and more
elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been
in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible—and now he
had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. “Oh, how I
will slash at him!” thought Rostóv, gripping the hilt of his saber.
“Hur-a-a-a-ah!” came a roar of voices. “Let anyone come my way
now,” thought Rostóv driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go
at a full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was
already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep
over the squadron. Rostóv raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikítenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostóv felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried
forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From
behind him Bondarchúk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked
angrily at him. Bondarchúk’s horse swerved and galloped past.
“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostóv
asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a
field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars’ backs, he saw nothing
before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There
was warm blood under his arm. “No, I am wounded and the horse is
killed.” Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his
rider’s leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could
not rise. Rostóv also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache
having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the
French, he did not know. There was no one near.
Having disentangled his leg, he rose. “Where, on which side, was now
the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?” he asked himself
and could not answer. “Can something bad have happened to me?”
he wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something
superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if
it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find
blood on it. “Ah, here are people coming,” he thought joyfully,
seeing some men running toward him. “They will help me!” In front
came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,
and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running
behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among the
hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He
was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.
“It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will
take me too? Who are these men?” thought Rostóv, scarcely believing
his eyes. “Can they be French?” He looked at the approaching
Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get
at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful
that he could not believe his eyes. “Who are they? Why are they
running? Can they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone
is so fond of?” He remembered his mother’s love for him, and his
family’s, and his friends’, and the enemy’s intention to kill him
seemed impossible. “But perhaps they may do it!” For more than ten
seconds he stood not moving from the spot or realizing the situation.
The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was already so
close that the expression of his face could be seen. And the excited,
alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, holding his breath,
and running so lightly, frightened Rostóv. He seized his pistol and,
instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran with all his
might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the feeling of doubt
and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge, but with the
feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single sentiment, that
of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his whole being. Rapidly
leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with the impetuosity he
used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his good-natured, pale,
young face to look back. A shudder of terror went through him: “No,
better not look,” he thought, but having reached the bushes he glanced
round once more. The French had fallen behind, and just as he looked
round the first man changed his run to a walk and, turning, shouted
something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostóv paused. “No,
there’s some mistake,” thought he. “They can’t have wanted to
kill me.” But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if
a seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The
Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostóv closed his eyes and stooped
down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his
last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and
reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.
CHAPTER XX
The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts
of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and
retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the
senseless cry, “Cut off!” that is so terrible in battle, and that
word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.
“Surrounded! Cut off? We’re lost!” shouted the fugitives.
The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general
realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the
thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years’ service who
had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters
for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the
recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above
all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he
clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to
the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately
missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any
cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he,
an exemplary officer of twenty-two years’ service, who had never been
censured, should not be held to blame.
Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind
the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and
descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides
the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers
attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him,
continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem
so terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance
distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of
his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the
air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate
of battles was evidently culminating in a panic.
The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the
powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that
moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent
reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian
sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timókhin’s
company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having
lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly.
Timókhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such
a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination that, taken by
surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets and run. Dólokhov,
running beside Timókhin, killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was
the first to seize the surrendering French officer by his collar. Our
fugitives returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French who had
nearly cut our left flank in half were for the moment repulsed. Our
reserve units were able to join up, and the fight was at an end. The
regimental commander and Major Ekonómov had stopped beside a bridge,
letting the retreating companies pass by them, when a soldier came up
and took hold of the commander’s stirrup, almost leaning against him.
The man was wearing a bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no knapsack
or cap, his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder a French munition
pouch was slung. He had an officer’s sword in his hand. The soldier
was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently into the commander’s face,
and his lips were smiling. Though the commander was occupied in giving
instructions to Major Ekonómov, he could not help taking notice of the
soldier.
“Your excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing
to the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company.” Dólokhov breathed heavily from weariness and
spoke in abrupt sentences. “The whole company can bear witness. I beg
you will remember this, your excellency!”
“All right, all right,” replied the commander, and turned to Major
Ekonómov.
But Dólokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his
head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.
“A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your
excellency!”
Túshin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the
action did Prince Bagratión, still hearing the cannonade in the center,
send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order
the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached
to Túshin’s battery had been moved away in the middle of the action
by someone’s order, the battery had continued firing and was only not
captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone
could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended
guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the
French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian forces
were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on
each occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated
guns on the hillock.
Soon after Prince Bagratión had left him, Túshin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schön Grabern.
“Look at them scurrying! It’s burning! Just see the smoke! Fine!
Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!” exclaimed the artillerymen,
brightening up.
All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the
direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers
cried at each shot: “Fine! That’s good! Look at it... Grand!” The
fire, fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns
that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge
for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village
and began firing them at Túshin’s battery.
In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in
successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this
battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one
knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon
driver’s leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,
but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a
reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns
were turned against the ten-gun battery. Túshin’s companion officer
had been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour
seventeen of the forty men of the guns’ crews had been disabled, but
the artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they
noticed the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot
at them.
Little Túshin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to
“refill my pipe for that one!” and then, scattering sparks from it,
ran forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.
“Smack at ‘em, lads!” he kept saying, seizing the guns by the
wheels and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him
jump, Túshin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun,
now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing
dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his
feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and
more animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and
turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always
the case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers,
for the most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an
artillery company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad
as their officer—all looked at their commander like children in an
embarrassing situation, and the expression on his face was invariably
reflected on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and
activity, Túshin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of
fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never
occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It
seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he
had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner
of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he
thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the
best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to
feverish delirium or drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and
thud of the enemy’s cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring
faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood
of men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy’s side
(always followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a
gun, a horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of
his own had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded
him pleasure. The enemy’s guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes
from which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
“There... he’s puffing again,” muttered Túshin to himself, as a
small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by
the wind.
“Now look out for the ball... we’ll throw it back.”
“What do you want, your honor?” asked an artilleryman, standing
close by, who heard him muttering.
“Nothing... only a shell...” he answered.
“Come along, our Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna” *
was the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which
was large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns
seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One
of the second gun’s crew was “uncle”; Túshin looked at him more
often than at anyone else and took delight in his every movement.
The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now
increasing, seemed like someone’s breathing. He listened intently to
the ebb and flow of these sounds.
* Daughter of Matthew.
“Ah! Breathing again, breathing!” he muttered to himself.
He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing
cannon balls at the French with both hands.
“Now then, Matvévna, dear old lady, don’t let me down!” he was
saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called
above his head: “Captain Túshin! Captain!”
Túshin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned
him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:
“Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you...”
“Why are they down on me?” thought Túshin, looking in alarm at his
superior.
“I... don’t...” he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap.
“I...”
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon
ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.
He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball
stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.
“Retire! All to retire!” he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same
order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space
where Túshin’s guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a
broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses.
Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay
several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached
and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought
of being afraid roused him again. “I cannot be afraid,” thought he,
and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did
not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their
positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Túshin, stepping
across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended
to the removal of the guns.
“A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,” said an
artilleryman to Prince Andrew. “Not like your honor!”
Prince Andrew said nothing to Túshin. They were both so busy as to seem
not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon
that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill
(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode
up to Túshin.
“Well, till we meet again...” he said, holding out his hand to
Túshin.
“Good-by, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Good-by, my
dear fellow!” and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his
eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,
hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing
dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The
cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the
right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Túshin with his guns,
continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range
of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff,
among them the staff officer and Zherkóv, who had been twice sent to
Túshin’s battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one
another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,
reprimanding and reproaching him. Túshin gave no orders, and,
silently—fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to
weep without knowing why—rode behind on his artillery nag. Though
the orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves
after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty
infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of
Túshin’s wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on
“Matvévna’s” carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar
cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came up to Túshin and asked
for a seat.
“Captain, for God’s sake! I’ve hurt my arm,” he said timidly.
“For God’s sake... I can’t walk. For God’s sake!”
It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and
been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.
“Tell them to give me a seat, for God’s sake!”
“Give him a seat,” said Túshin. “Lay a cloak for him to sit on,
lad,” he said, addressing his favorite soldier. “And where is the
wounded officer?”
“He has been set down. He died,” replied someone.
“Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,
Antónov.”
The cadet was Rostóv. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
“Matvévna,” the gun from which they had removed the dead officer.
The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his
breeches and arm.
“What, are you wounded, my lad?” said Túshin, approaching the gun
on which Rostóv sat.
“No, it’s a sprain.”
“Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?” inquired Túshin.
“It was the officer, your honor, stained it,” answered the
artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if
apologizing for the state of his gun.
It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the
infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It
had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces
off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the
right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in
the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers
who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of
the village again, but Túshin’s guns could not move, and the
artillerymen, Túshin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they
awaited their fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly,
streamed out of a side street.
“Not hurt, Petróv?” asked one.
“We’ve given it ‘em hot, mate! They won’t make another push
now,” said another.
“You couldn’t see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows!
Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn’t there something to
drink?”
The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in
the complete darkness Túshin’s guns moved forward, surrounded by the
humming infantry as by a frame.
In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing
always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of
hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the
wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness
of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their
groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.
After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on
a white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing:
“What did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?” came
eager questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing
closer together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt:
evidently those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the
middle of the muddy road.
Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Túshin,
having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing
station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the
soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostóv, too, dragged himself to the
fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole
body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by
an excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory
position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,
which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered
figure of Túshin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.
Túshin’s large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and
commiseration on Rostóv, who saw that Túshin with his whole heart
wished to help him but could not.
From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who
were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound
of voices, the tramping feet, the horses’ hoofs moving in mud, the
crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.
It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the
gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.
Rostóv looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and
around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held
his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.
“You don’t mind your honor?” he asked Túshin. “I’ve lost my
company, your honor. I don’t know where... such bad luck!”
With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to
the bonfire, and addressing Túshin asked him to have the guns moved a
trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to
the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying
to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.
“You picked it up?... I dare say! You’re very smart!” one of them
shouted hoarsely.
Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.
“Must one die like a dog?” said he.
Túshin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier
ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.
“A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow
countrymen. Thanks for the fire—we’ll return it with interest,”
said he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.
Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed
by the fire. One of them stumbled.
“Who the devil has put the logs on the road?” snarled he.
“He’s dead—why carry him?” said another.
“Shut up!”
And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.
“Still aching?” Túshin asked Rostóv in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Your honor, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,”
said a gunner, coming up to Túshin.
“Coming, friend.”
Túshin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight,
walked away from the fire.
Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared
for him, Prince Bagratión sat at dinner, talking with some commanding
officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with
the half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the
general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a
glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet
ring, and Zherkóv, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,
pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and
the accountant with the naïve face was feeling its texture, shaking his
head in perplexity—perhaps because the banner really interested him,
perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at
a dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a
French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers
were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagratión was thanking the
individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our
losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was
informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn
from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the
French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and
had broken up the French troops.
“When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: ‘I’ll let them
come on and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion’—and
that’s what I did.”
The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed
to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps
it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that
confusion what did or did not happen?
“By the way, your excellency, I should inform you,” he
continued—remembering Dólokhov’s conversation with Kutúzov and his
last interview with the gentleman-ranker—“that Private Dólokhov,
who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my
presence and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw the Pávlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,” chimed
in Zherkóv, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all
that day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. “They
broke up two squares, your excellency.”
Several of those present smiled at Zherkóv’s words, expecting one of
his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to
the glory of our arms and of the day’s work, they assumed a serious
expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie
devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagratión turned to the old colonel:
“Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically:
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were
abandoned in the center?” he inquired, searching with his eyes for
someone. (Prince Bagratión did not ask about the guns on the left
flank; he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the very
beginning of the action.) “I think I sent you?” he added, turning to
the staff officer on duty.
“One was damaged,” answered the staff officer, “and the other I
can’t understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only
just left.... It is true that it was hot there,” he added, modestly.
Someone mentioned that Captain Túshin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince
Andrew.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff
officer, with a smile to Bolkónski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.
All were silent. Túshin appeared at the threshold and made his way
timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the
generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the
sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and
stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
“How was it a gun was abandoned?” asked Bagratión, frowning, not so
much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkóv
laughed loudest.
Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt
and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present
themselves to Túshin in all their horror. He had been so excited that
he had not thought about it until that moment. The officers’ laughter
confused him still more. He stood before Bagratión with his lower
jaw trembling and was hardly able to mutter: “I don’t know... your
excellency... I had no men... your excellency.”
“You might have taken some from the covering troops.”
Túshin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that
was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagratión as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagratión, apparently not wishing
to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to
intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Túshin from under his brows and his
fingers twitched nervously.
“Your excellency!” Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
voice, “you were pleased to send me to Captain Túshin’s battery. I
went there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two
guns smashed, and no supports at all.”
Prince Bagratión and Túshin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkónski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.
“And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion,” he
continued, “we owe today’s success chiefly to the action of that
battery and the heroic endurance of Captain Túshin and his company,”
and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagratión looked at Túshin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkónski’s emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully
to credit it, bent his head, and told Túshin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.
“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” said Túshin.
Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt
sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.
“Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will
all this end?” thought Rostóv, looking at the changing shadows before
him. The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible
drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the
impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged
with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers—wounded and
unwounded—it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting
the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To
rid himself of them he closed his eyes.
For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand,
Sónya’s thin little shoulders, Natásha’s eyes and laughter,
Denísov with his voice and mustache, and Telyánin and all that affair
with Telyánin and Bogdánich. That affair was the same thing as this
soldier with the harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier
that were so agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and
always dragging it in one direction. He tried to get away from them, but
they would not for an instant let his shoulder move a hair’s breadth.
It would not ache—it would be well—if only they did not pull it, but
it was impossible to get rid of them.
He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less
than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were
fluttering in that light. Túshin had not returned, the doctor had not
come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at
the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.
“Nobody wants me!” thought Rostóv. “There is no one to help me or
pity me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved.” He sighed
and, doing so, groaned involuntarily.
“Eh, is anything hurting you?” asked the soldier, shaking his shirt
out over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and
added: “What a lot of men have been crippled today—frightful!”
Rostóv did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his
healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. “And why
did I come here?” he wondered.
Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of
Bagratión’s detachment was reunited to Kutúzov’s army.
BOOK THREE: 1805
CHAPTER I
Prince Vasíli was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.
Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He
was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had
become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted
to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life,
were constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the
circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one
or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,
some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He
did not, for instance, say to himself: “This man now has influence, I
must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special
grant.” Nor did he say to himself: “Pierre is a rich man, I must
entice him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles
I need.” But when he came across a man of position his instinct
immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any
premeditation Prince Vasíli took the first opportunity to gain his
confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally make his
request.
He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as
Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of
Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to
Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,
yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,
Prince Vasíli did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had
he thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural
and shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both
above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward
those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in
seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.
Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezúkhov and a rich man, felt
himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and
preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to
sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of
which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his
estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not
even wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended
and grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different
people—businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike—were all
disposed to treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering
manner: they were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre’s noble
qualities. He was always hearing such words as: “With your remarkable
kindness,” or, “With your excellent heart,” “You are yourself so
honorable, Count,” or, “Were he as clever as you,” and so on,
till he began sincerely to believe in his own exceptional kindness and
extraordinary intelligence, the more so as in the depth of his heart it
had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and intelligent.
Even people who had formerly been spiteful toward him and evidently
unfriendly now became gentle and affectionate. The angry eldest
princess, with the long waist and hair plastered down like a doll’s,
had come into Pierre’s room after the funeral. With drooping eyes
and frequent blushes she told him she was very sorry about their past
misunderstandings and did not now feel she had a right to ask him for
anything, except only for permission, after the blow she had received,
to remain for a few weeks longer in the house she so loved and where
she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain from weeping at these
words. Touched that this statuesque princess could so change, Pierre
took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without knowing what for.
From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward Pierre and began
knitting a striped scarf for him.
“Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a
great deal from the deceased,” said Prince Vasíli to him, handing him
a deed to sign for the princess’ benefit.
Prince Vasíli had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw
this bone—a bill for thirty thousand rubles—to the poor princess
that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of
the inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess
grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,
especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made
him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.
It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could
not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had
no time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He
was always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful
intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and
general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if
he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he
did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of
him, but still that happy result always remained in the future.
More than anyone else, Prince Vasíli took possession of Pierre’s
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezúkhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of
a man oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for
pity’s sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of
his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice
of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in
Moscow after the death of Count Bezúkhov, he would call Pierre, or
go to him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of
weariness and assurance, as if he were adding every time: “You know
I am overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that
I trouble myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I
propose is the only thing possible.”
“Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last,” said Prince
Vasíli one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre’s elbow,
speaking as if he were saying something which had long since been agreed
upon and could not now be altered. “We start tomorrow and I’m giving
you a place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important business
here is now settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is
something I have received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and
you have been entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of
the Bedchamber. The diplomatic career now lies open before you.”
Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words
were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,
wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasíli interrupted him in
the special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting
his speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was
needed.
“Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,
and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of
being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it
up tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to
Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible
recollections.” Prince Vasíli sighed. “Yes, yes, my boy. And my
valet can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting,” he added.
“You know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so
I have received what was due from the Ryazán estate and will keep it;
you won’t require it. We’ll go into the accounts later.”
By “what was due from the Ryazán estate” Prince Vasíli meant
several thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre’s peasants,
which the prince had retained for himself.
In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the
rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasíli had procured for him,
and acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous
that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,
and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never
attained.
Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.
The Guards had gone to the front; Dólokhov had been reduced to the
ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew
was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he
used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with
a friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time
was taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince
Vasíli’s house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and
his beautiful daughter Hélène.
Like the others, Anna Pávlovna Schérer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
Formerly in Anna Pávlovna’s presence, Pierre had always felt that
what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that
remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became
foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte’s
stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said
was charmant. Even if Anna Pávlovna did not say so, he could see that
she wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.
In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
Pávlovna’s usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
“You will find the beautiful Hélène here, whom it is always
delightful to see.”
When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
Hélène, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were
being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an
entertaining supposition.
Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” was like the former one, only the
novelty she offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a
diplomatist fresh from Berlin with the very latest details of the
Emperor Alexander’s visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august
friends had pledged themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold
the cause of justice against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pávlovna
received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the
young man’s recent loss by the death of Count Bezúkhov (everyone
constantly considered it a duty to assure Pierre that he was greatly
afflicted by the death of the father he had hardly known), and her
melancholy was just like the august melancholy she showed at the mention
of her most august Majesty the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. Pierre felt
flattered by this. Anna Pávlovna arranged the different groups in her
drawing room with her habitual skill. The large group, in which were
Prince Vasíli and the generals, had the benefit of the diplomat.
Another group was at the tea table. Pierre wished to join the former,
but Anna Pávlovna—who was in the excited condition of a commander on
a battlefield to whom thousands of new and brilliant ideas occur which
there is hardly time to put in action—seeing Pierre, touched his
sleeve with her finger, saying:
“Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening.”
(She glanced at Hélène and smiled at her.) “My dear Hélène, be
charitable to my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for
ten minutes. And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count
who will not refuse to accompany you.”
The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pávlovna detained Pierre, looking
as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.
“Isn’t she exquisite?” she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately
beauty as she glided away. “And how she carries herself! For so young
a girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from
her heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men
would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don’t you think so?
I only wanted to know your opinion,” and Anna Pávlovna let Pierre go.
Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Hélène’s
perfection of manner. If he ever thought of Hélène, it was just of
her beauty and her remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in
society.
The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed
desirous of hiding her adoration for Hélène and inclined rather
to show her fear of Anna Pávlovna. She looked at her niece, as if
inquiring what she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna
Pávlovna again touched Pierre’s sleeve, saying: “I hope you won’t
say that it is dull in my house again,” and she glanced at Hélène.
Hélène smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see
Hélène, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome
and the same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation,
Hélène turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave
to everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little
meaning for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just
speaking of a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre’s
father, Count Bezúkhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Hélène
asked to see the portrait of the aunt’s husband on the box lid.
“That is probably the work of Vinesse,” said Pierre, mentioning
a celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the
snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.
He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,
passing it across Hélène’s back. Hélène stooped forward to make
room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening
parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at
front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre,
was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive
the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that
he need only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was
conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the
creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty
forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body
only covered by her garments. And having once seen this he could not
help being aware of it, just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once
seen through.
“So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?” Hélène
seemed to say. “You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a
woman who may belong to anyone—to you too,” said her glance. And at
that moment Pierre felt that Hélène not only could, but must, be his
wife, and that it could not be otherwise.
He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the
altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not
even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,
that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.
Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see
her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every
day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more
than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the
mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has
once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.
She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any
barrier except the barrier of his own will.
“Well, I will leave you in your little corner,” came Anna
Pávlovna’s voice, “I see you are all right there.”
And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything
reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone
knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pávlovna said
to him: “I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?”
This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house
done up.
“That’s a good thing, but don’t move from Prince Vasíli’s. It
is good to have a friend like the prince,” she said, smiling at Prince
Vasíli. “I know something about that. Don’t I? And you are still so
young. You need advice. Don’t be angry with me for exercising an old
woman’s privilege.”
She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have
mentioned their age. “If you marry it will be a different thing,”
she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Hélène nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.
When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what
had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that
the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned
he had said absent-mindedly: “Yes, she’s good looking,” he had
understood that this woman might belong to him.
“But she’s stupid. I have myself said she is stupid,” he thought.
“There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her
and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that’s why
he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasíli is her
father... It’s bad....” he reflected, but while he was thinking this
(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was
conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking
of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his
wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all he had
thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the
daughter of Prince Vasíli, but visualized her whole body only veiled
by its gray dress. “But no! Why did this thought never occur to me
before?” and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there
would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in
this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words
and looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna
Pávlovna’s words and looks when she spoke to him about his house,
recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasíli and others, and was
seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do
something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at
the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another
part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.
CHAPTER II
In November, 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on a tour of inspection
in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole
where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas
Bolkónski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,
Prince Vasíli had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had
latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasíli’s house
where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in
Hélène’s presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed
to her.
“This is all very fine, but things must be settled,” said Prince
Vasíli to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that
Pierre who was under such obligations to him (“But never mind that”)
was not behaving very well in this matter. “Youth, frivolity... well,
God be with him,” thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart,
“but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be
Lëlya’s name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does
not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, my
affair. I am her father.”
Six weeks after Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” and after the sleepless
night when he had decided that to marry Hélène would be a calamity and
that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision,
had not left Prince Vasíli’s and felt with terror that in people’s
eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was
impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that he
could not break away from her, and that though it would be a terrible
thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have
been able to free himself but that Prince Vasíli (who had rarely before
given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening
party at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil
the general pleasure and disappoint everyone’s expectation. Prince
Vasíli, in the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre’s
hand in passing and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his
wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: “Till
tomorrow,” or, “Be in to dinner or I shall not see you,” or, “I
am staying in for your sake,” and so on. And though Prince Vasíli,
when he stayed in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged a
couple of words with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him.
Every day he said to himself one and the same thing: “It is time I
understood her and made up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken
before, or am I mistaken now? No, she is not stupid, she is an excellent
girl,” he sometimes said to himself “she never makes a mistake,
never says anything stupid. She says little, but what she does say is
always clear and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and
is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!” He had often begun
to make reflections or think aloud in her company, and she had always
answered him either by a brief but appropriate remark—showing that it
did not interest her—or by a silent look and smile which more palpably
than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in
regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.
She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him
alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general
smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was
waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that
sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror
seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during
that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to
that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: “What am I doing? I need
resolution. Can it be that I have none?”
He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter
he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really
possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel
themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered
by a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna
Pávlovna’s, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire
paralyzed his will.
On Hélène’s name day, a small party of just their own people—as
his wife said—met for supper at Prince Vasíli’s. All these friends
and relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young
girl would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.
Princess Kurágina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,
was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the
more important guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pávlovna
Schérer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests,
and there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Hélène,
side by side. Prince Vasíli was not having any supper: he went round
the table in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of
the guests. To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark
except to Pierre and Hélène, whose presence he seemed not to notice.
He enlivened the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the
silver and crystal gleamed, so did the ladies’ toilets and the gold
and silver of the men’s epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved
round the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with
the animated hum of several conversations. At one end of the table, the
old chamberlain was heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her
passionately, at which she laughed; at the other could be heard the
story of the misfortunes of some Mary Víktorovna or other. At the
center of the table, Prince Vasíli attracted everybody’s attention.
With a facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies about last
Wednesday’s meeting of the Imperial Council, at which Sergéy Kuzmích
Vyazmítinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had
received and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander
from the army to Sergéy Kuzmích, in which the Emperor said that he was
receiving from all sides declarations of the people’s loyalty, that
the declaration from Petersburg gave him particular pleasure, and that
he was proud to be at the head of such a nation and would endeavor to be
worthy of it. This rescript began with the words: “Sergéy Kuzmích,
From all sides reports reach me,” etc.
“Well, and so he never got farther than: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích’?”
asked one of the ladies.
“Exactly, not a hair’s breadth farther,” answered Prince Vasíli,
laughing, “‘Sergéy Kuzmích... From all sides... From all sides...
Sergéy Kuzmích...’ Poor Vyazmítinov could not get any farther!
He began the rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered
‘Sergéy’ he sobbed, ‘Kuz-mí-ch,’ tears, and ‘From all
sides’ was smothered in sobs and he could get no farther. And again
his handkerchief, and again: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích, From all sides,’...
and tears, till at last somebody else was asked to read it.”
“Kuzmích... From all sides... and then tears,” someone repeated
laughing.
“Don’t be unkind,” cried Anna Pávlovna from her end of the table
holding up a threatening finger. “He is such a worthy and excellent
man, our dear Vyazmítinov....”
Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the
honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the
influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and
Hélène sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a
suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing
to do with Sergéy Kuzmích—a smile of bashfulness at their own
feelings. But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much
as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, sauté, and ices, and however they
avoided looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as
they seemed of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave
that the story about Sergéy Kuzmích, the laughter, and the food
were all a pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was
directed to—Pierre and Hélène. Prince Vasíli mimicked the sobbing
of Sergéy Kuzmích and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his
daughter, and while he laughed the expression on his face clearly said:
“Yes... it’s getting on, it will all be settled today.” Anna
Pávlovna threatened him on behalf of “our dear Vyazmítinov,” and
in her eyes, which, for an instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasíli
read a congratulation on his future son-in-law and on his daughter’s
happiness. The old princess sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the
old lady next to her and glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh
seemed to say: “Yes, there’s nothing left for you and me but to sip
sweet wine, my dear, now that the time has come for these young ones to
be thus boldly, provocatively happy.” “And what nonsense all this is
that I am saying!” thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces
of the lovers. “That’s happiness!”
Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that
society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy
and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling
dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.
Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was
evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at
table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked
at the beautiful Hélène with her radiant face and at the red, broad,
and happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light
of the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.
Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and
embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.
He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and
then detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot
unexpectedly through his mind.
“So it is all finished!” he thought. “And how has it all happened?
How quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself
alone, but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are
all expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I
cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it
will certainly happen!” thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling
shoulders close to his eyes.
Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it
awkward to attract everyone’s attention and to be considered a
lucky man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris
possessed of a Helen. “But no doubt it always is and must be so!”
he consoled himself. “And besides, what have I done to bring it about?
How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasíli. Then there
was nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards
with her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it
begin, when did it all come about?” And here he was sitting by her
side as her betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her
breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him
that it was not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was
why they all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration
he would expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good
fortune. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a
second time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what
was said.
“I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkónski,” repeated
Prince Vasíli a third time. “How absent-minded you are, my dear
fellow.”
Prince Vasíli smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at
him and Hélène. “Well, what of it, if you all know it?” thought
Pierre. “What of it? It’s the truth!” and he himself smiled his
gentle childlike smile, and Hélène smiled too.
“When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmütz?” repeated
Prince Vasíli, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a
dispute.
“How can one talk or think of such trifles?” thought Pierre.
“Yes, from Olmütz,” he answered, with a sigh.
After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the
drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave
of Hélène. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important
occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,
refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful
silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his
diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre’s happiness. The old
general grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. “Oh, the
old fool,” he thought. “That Princess Hélène will be beautiful
still when she’s fifty.”
“I think I may congratulate you,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to the
old princess, kissing her soundly. “If I hadn’t this headache I’d
have stayed longer.”
The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her
daughter’s happiness.
While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time
alone with Hélène in the little drawing room where they were sitting.
He had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her,
but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable,
but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt
ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else’s place here
beside Hélène. “This happiness is not for you,” some inner voice
whispered to him. “This happiness is for those who have not in them
what there is in you.”
But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was
satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that
this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.
Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in
the large drawing room. Prince Vasíli came up to Pierre with languid
footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasíli gave
him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was
so strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of
severity changed, and he drew Pierre’s hand downwards, made him sit
down, and smiled affectionately.
“Well, Lëlya?” he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and
addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to
parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince
Vasíli had only acquired by imitating other parents.
And he again turned to Pierre.
“Sergéy Kuzmích—From all sides—” he said, unbuttoning the top
button of his waistcoat.
Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story
about Sergéy Kuzmích that interested Prince Vasíli just then, and
Prince Vasíli saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered
something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was
disconcerted. The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world
touched Pierre: he looked at Hélène and she too seemed disconcerted,
and her look seemed to say: “Well, it is your own fault.”
“The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!” thought Pierre,
and he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergéy
Kuzmích, asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it
properly. Hélène answered with a smile that she too had missed it.
When Prince Vasíli returned to the drawing room, the princess, his
wife, was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.
“Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear...”
“Marriages are made in heaven,” replied the elderly lady.
Prince Vasíli passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down
on a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to
be dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.
“Aline,” he said to his wife, “go and see what they are about.”
The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and
indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and
Hélène still sat talking just as before.
“Still the same,” she said to her husband.
Prince Vasíli frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his
face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking
himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went
past the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went
joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre
rose in alarm on seeing it.
“Thank God!” said Prince Vasíli. “My wife has told me
everything!” (He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his
daughter.)—“My dear boy... Lëlya... I am very pleased.” (His
voice trembled.) “I loved your father... and she will make you a good
wife... God bless you!...”
He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his
malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.
“Princess, come here!” he shouted.
The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using
her handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful
Hélène’s hand several times. After a while they were left alone
again.
“All this had to be and could not be otherwise,” thought Pierre,
“so it is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because
it’s definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt.” Pierre
held the hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful
bosom as it rose and fell.
“Hélène!” he said aloud and paused.
“Something special is always said in such cases,” he thought, but
could not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face.
She drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.
“Oh, take those off... those...” she said, pointing to his
spectacles.
Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have
from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and
inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but
with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his
lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,
unpleasantly excited expression.
“It is too late now, it’s done; besides I love her,” thought
Pierre.
“Je vous aime!” * he said, remembering what has to be said at such
moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself.
* “I love you.”
Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezúkhov’s
large, newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people
said, of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money.
CHAPTER III
Old Prince Nicholas Bolkónski received a letter from Prince Vasíli
in November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him
a visit. “I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I
shall think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at
the same time, my honored benefactor,” wrote Prince Vasíli. “My son
Anatole is accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will
allow him personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his
father, he feels for you.”
“It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are
coming to us of their own accord,” incautiously remarked the little
princess on hearing the news.
Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.
A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasíli’s servants came one
evening in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.
Old Bolkónski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasíli’s
character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and
Alexander Prince Vasíli had risen to high position and honors. And now,
from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess,
he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into
a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned
him. On the day of Prince Vasíli’s arrival, Prince Bolkónski was
particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad
temper because Prince Vasíli was coming, or whether his being in a bad
temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasíli’s visit, he was
in a bad temper, and in the morning Tíkhon had already advised the
architect not to go to the prince with his report.
“Do you hear how he’s walking?” said Tíkhon, drawing the
architect’s attention to the sound of the prince’s footsteps.
“Stepping flat on his heels—we know what that means....”
However, at nine o’clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable
collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day
before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the
habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still
visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the
soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went
through the conservatories, the serfs’ quarters, and the outbuildings,
frowning and silent.
“Can a sleigh pass?” he asked his overseer, a venerable man,
resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him
back to the house.
“The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor.”
The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. “God be
thanked,” thought the overseer, “the storm has blown over!”
“It would have been hard to drive up, your honor,” he added. “I
heard, your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor.”
The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,
frowning.
“What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?” he said in
his shrill, harsh voice. “The road is not swept for the princess my
daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!”
“Your honor, I thought...”
“You thought!” shouted the prince, his words coming more and more
rapidly and indistinctly. “You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!...
I’ll teach you to think!” and lifting his stick he swung it and
would have hit Alpátych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively
avoided the blow. “Thought... Blackguards...” shouted the prince
rapidly.
But although Alpátych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the
stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before
him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued
to shout: “Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!” did not
lift his stick again but hurried into the house.
Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew
that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle
Bourienne with a radiant face that said: “I know nothing, I am the
same as usual,” and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast
eyes. What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions
she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not.
She thought: “If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not
sympathize with him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will
say (as he has done before) that I’m in the dumps.”
The prince looked at his daughter’s frightened face and snorted.
“Fool... or dummy!” he muttered.
“And the other one is not here. They’ve been telling tales,” he
thought—referring to the little princess who was not in the dining
room.
“Where is the princess?” he asked. “Hiding?”
“She is not very well,” answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with
a bright smile, “so she won’t come down. It is natural in her
state.”
“Hm! Hm!” muttered the prince, sitting down.
His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he
flung it away. Tíkhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little
princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince
that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear.
“I am afraid for the baby,” she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne:
“Heaven knows what a fright might do.”
In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and
with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not
realize because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince
reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt
for her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald
Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole
days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her
about the old prince and criticized him.
“So we are to have visitors, mon prince?” remarked Mademoiselle
Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. “His
Excellency Prince Vasíli Kurágin and his son, I understand?” she
said inquiringly.
“Hm!—his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the
service,” said the prince disdainfully. “Why his son is coming I
don’t understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know.
I don’t want him.” (He looked at his blushing daughter.) “Are you
unwell today? Eh? Afraid of the ‘minister’ as that idiot Alpátych
called him this morning?”
“No, mon père.”
Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice
of a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the
conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and
after the soup the prince became more genial.
After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess
was sitting at a small table, chattering with Másha, her maid. She grew
pale on seeing her father-in-law.
She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks
had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.
“Yes, I feel a kind of oppression,” she said in reply to the
prince’s question as to how she felt.
“Do you want anything?”
“No, merci, mon père.”
“Well, all right, all right.”
He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpátych stood with
bowed head.
“Has the snow been shoveled back?”
“Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven’s sake... It was only
my stupidity.”
“All right, all right,” interrupted the prince, and laughing his
unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpátych to kiss, and then
proceeded to his study.
Prince Vasíli arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by
coachmen and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to
one of the lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.
Prince Vasíli and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.
Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a
table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his
large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round
of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him.
And he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly
heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well
and amusingly. “And why not marry her if she really has so much money?
That never does any harm,” thought Anatole.
He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had
become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his
father’s room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to
him. Prince Vasíli’s two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked
round with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter
entered, as if to say: “Yes, that’s how I want you to look.”
“I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?” Anatole asked,
as if continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been
mentioned during the journey.
“Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious
with the old prince.”
“If he starts a row I’ll go away,” said Prince Anatole. “I
can’t bear those old men! Eh?”
“Remember, for you everything depends on this.”
In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants’ rooms that
the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had
been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room,
vainly trying to master her agitation.
“Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never
happen!” she said, looking at herself in the glass. “How shall I
enter the drawing room? Even if I like him I can’t now be myself with
him.” The mere thought of her father’s look filled her with terror.
The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received
from Másha, the lady’s maid, the necessary report of how handsome the
minister’s son was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with
what difficulty the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son
had followed him like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received
this information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose
chattering voices had reached her from the corridor, went into Princess
Mary’s room.
“You know they’ve come, Marie?” said the little princess, waddling
in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.
She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning,
but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her
face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded
outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still
more noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch
had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne’s toilet which rendered her
fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.
“What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?” she
began. “They’ll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing
room and we shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself
up at all!”
The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily
began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be
dressed. Princess Mary’s self-esteem was wounded by the fact that
the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both
her companions’ not having the least conception that it could be
otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them
would be to betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to
dress her would prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her
beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took
on the unattractive martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she
submitted herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women
quite sincerely tried to make her look pretty. She was so plain that
neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing
her with perfect sincerity, and with the naïve and firm conviction
women have that dress can make a face pretty.
“No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,” said Lise, looking
sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. “You have a maroon
dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may
be at stake. But this one is too light, it’s not becoming!”
It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary
that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little
princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed
in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on
the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that
the frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that
however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it
would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to
which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged
on the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her
looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the
little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the
dress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her
with her head bent first on one side and then on the other.
“No, it will not do,” she said decidedly, clasping her hands. “No,
Mary, really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little
gray everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie,” she said
to the maid, “bring the princess her gray dress, and you’ll see,
Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I shall arrange it,” she added, smiling
with a foretaste of artistic pleasure.
But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained
sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the
mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst
into sobs.
“Come, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “just one more
little effort.”
The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess
Mary.
“Well, now we’ll arrange something quite simple and becoming,” she
said.
The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s, and Katie’s, who
was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping
of birds.
“No, leave me alone,” said Princess Mary.
Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds
was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful
eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at
them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.
“At least, change your coiffure,” said the little princess.
“Didn’t I tell you,” she went on, turning reproachfully to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, “Mary’s is a face which such a coiffure does
not suit in the least. Not in the least! Please change it.”
“Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to
me,” answered a voice struggling with tears.
Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves
that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,
but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they
both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess
Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they
knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to
be shaken in her determination.
“You will change it, won’t you?” said Lise. And as Princess Mary
gave no answer, she left the room.
Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise’s request,
she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her
glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and
pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive
being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different
happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own—such as she had
seen the day before in the arms of her nurse’s daughter—at her
own breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the
child. “But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly,” she thought.
“Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment,” came the
maid’s voice at the door.
She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and
before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her
eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a
lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful
doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a
man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of
happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing
was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from
others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. “O God,” she
said, “how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil?
How am I to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to
fulfill Thy will?” And scarcely had she put that question than God
gave her the answer in her own heart. “Desire nothing for thyself,
seek nothing, be not anxious or envious. Man’s future and thy own fate
must remain hidden from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for
anything. If it be God’s will to prove thee in the duties of marriage,
be ready to fulfill His will.” With this consoling thought (but
yet with a hope for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing)
Princess Mary sighed, and having crossed herself went down, thinking
neither of her gown and coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what
she would say. What could all that matter in comparison with the will of
God, without Whose care not a hair of man’s head can fall?
CHAPTER IV
When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasíli and his son were already
in the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle
Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels,
the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,
indicating her to the gentlemen, said: “Voilà Marie!” Princess Mary
saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasíli’s face,
serious for an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling
again, and the little princess curiously noting the impression
“Marie” produced on the visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle
Bourienne, with her ribbon and pretty face, and her unusually animated
look which was fixed on him, but him she could not see, she only saw
something large, brilliant, and handsome moving toward her as she
entered the room. Prince Vasíli approached first, and she kissed the
bold forehead that bent over her hand and answered his question by
saying that, on the contrary, she remembered him quite well. Then
Anatole came up to her. She still could not see him. She only felt a
soft hand taking hers firmly, and she touched with her lips a white
forehead, over which was beautiful light-brown hair smelling of pomade.
When she looked up at him she was struck by his beauty. Anatole stood
with his right thumb under a button of his uniform, his chest expanded
and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one foot, and, with his head a
little bent, looked with beaming face at the princess without
speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all. Anatole was not
quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had the
faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and imperturbable
self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence remains dumb on
a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the impropriety of
such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the effect is
bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly examined the
princess’ hair. It was evident that he could be silent in this way for
a very long time. “If anyone finds this silence inconvenient, let him
talk, but I don’t want to,” he seemed to say. Besides this, in his
behavior to women Anatole had a manner which particularly inspires in
them curiosity, awe, and even love—a supercilious consciousness of
his own superiority. It was as if he said to them: “I know you, I know
you, but why should I bother about you? You’d be only too glad, of
course.” Perhaps he did not really think this when he met women—even
probably he did not, for in general he thought very little—but his
looks and manner gave that impression. The princess felt this, and as if
wishing to show him that she did not even dare expect to interest him,
she turned to his father. The conversation was general and animated,
thanks to Princess Lise’s voice and little downy lip that lifted over
her white teeth. She met Prince Vasíli with that playful manner often
employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in the assumption
that between the person they so address and themselves there are some
semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing reminiscences, though
no such reminiscences really exist—just as none existed in this case.
Prince Vasíli readily adopted her tone and the little princess also
drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these amusing recollections of
things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle Bourienne also shared them
and even Princess Mary felt herself pleasantly made to share in these
merry reminiscences.
“Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to
ourselves, dear prince,” said the little princess (of course, in
French) to Prince Vasíli. “It’s not as at Annette’s * receptions
where you always ran away; you remember cette chère Annette!”
* Anna Pávlovna.
“Ah, but you won’t talk politics to me like Annette!”
“And our little tea table?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Why is it you were never at Annette’s?” the little princess asked
Anatole. “Ah, I know, I know,” she said with a sly glance, “your
brother Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!” and she shook her
finger at him, “I have even heard of your doings in Paris!”
“And didn’t Hippolyte tell you?” asked Prince Vasíli, turning to
his son and seizing the little princess’ arm as if she would have run
away and he had just managed to catch her, “didn’t he tell you how
he himself was pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the
door? Oh, she is a pearl among women, Princess,” he added, turning to
Princess Mary.
When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the
opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.
She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole
had left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the
Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her
about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole
came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either.
“Not at all bad!” he thought, examining her, “not at all bad, that
little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we’re
married, la petite est gentille.” *
* The little one is charming.
The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering
what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. “What are
Prince Vasíli and that son of his to me? Prince Vasíli is a shallow
braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen,” he grumbled to
himself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived
in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about
which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever
bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The
prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand
that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only
with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without
Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to
him. “And why should she marry?” he thought. “To be unhappy for
certain. There’s Lise, married to Andrew—a better husband one would
think could hardly be found nowadays—but is she contented with her
lot? And who would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They’ll
take her for her connections and wealth. Are there no women living
unmarried, and even the happier for it?” So thought Prince Bolkónski
while dressing, and yet the question he was always putting off demanded
an immediate answer. Prince Vasíli had brought his son with the evident
intention of proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask
for an answer. His birth and position in society were not bad. “Well,
I’ve nothing against it,” the prince said to himself, “but he must
be worthy of her. And that is what we shall see.”
“That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!” he added
aloud.
He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly
round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess’
dress, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s ribbon, Princess Mary’s unbecoming
coiffure, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s and Anatole’s smiles, and the
loneliness of his daughter amid the general conversation. “Got herself
up like a fool!” he thought, looking irritably at her. “She is
shameless, and he ignores her!”
He went straight up to Prince Vasíli.
“Well! How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Glad to see you!”
“Friendship laughs at distance,” began Prince Vasíli in his usual
rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. “Here is my second son; please
love and befriend him.”
Prince Bolkónski surveyed Anatole.
“Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!” he said. “Well, come and
kiss me,” and he offered his cheek.
Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect
composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had
told him to expect.
Prince Bolkónski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa
and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasíli, pointed to it and began
questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen
attentively to what Prince Vasíli said, but kept glancing at Princess
Mary.
“And so they are writing from Potsdam already?” he said, repeating
Prince Vasíli’s last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his
daughter.
“Is it for visitors you’ve got yourself up like that, eh?” said
he. “Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for
the visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are
never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent.”
“It was my fault, mon père,” interceded the little princess, with a
blush.
“You must do as you please,” said Prince Bolkónski, bowing to his
daughter-in-law, “but she need not make a fool of herself, she’s
plain enough as it is.”
And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was
reduced to tears.
“On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well,” said
Prince Vasíli.
“Now you, young prince, what’s your name?” said Prince Bolkónski,
turning to Anatole, “come here, let us talk and get acquainted.”
“Now the fun begins,” thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile
beside the old prince.
“Well, my dear boy, I hear you’ve been educated abroad, not taught
to read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me,
my dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?” asked the old man,
scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.
“No, I have been transferred to the line,” said Anatole, hardly able
to restrain his laughter.
“Ah! That’s a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the
Tsar and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve.
Well, are you off to the front?”
“No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...
what is it I am attached to, Papa?” said Anatole, turning to his
father with a laugh.
“A splendid soldier, splendid! ‘What am I attached to!’ Ha, ha,
ha!” laughed Prince Bolkónski, and Anatole laughed still louder.
Suddenly Prince Bolkónski frowned.
“You may go,” he said to Anatole.
Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.
“And so you’ve had him educated abroad, Prince Vasíli, haven’t
you?” said the old prince to Prince Vasíli.
“I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there
is much better than ours.”
“Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The
lad’s a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now.” He took
Prince Vasíli’s arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were
alone together, Prince Vasíli announced his hopes and wishes to the old
prince.
“Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can’t part from
her?” said the old prince angrily. “What an idea! I’m ready for it
tomorrow! Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You
know my principles—everything aboveboard! I will ask her tomorrow in
your presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and
I’ll see.” The old prince snorted. “Let her marry, it’s all the
same to me!” he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting
from his son.
“I will tell you frankly,” said Prince Vasíli in the tone of
a crafty man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so
keen-sighted a companion. “You know, you see right through people.
Anatole is no genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent
son or kinsman.”
“All right, all right, we’ll see!”
As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time
without male society, on Anatole’s appearance all the three women of
Prince Bolkónski’s household felt that their life had not been real
till then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately
increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in
darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.
Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The
handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed
all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and
magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future
family life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and
tried to conceal them.
“But am I not too cold with him?” thought the princess. “I try
to be reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him
already, but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine
that I do not like him.”
And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new
guest. “Poor girl, she’s devilish ugly!” thought Anatole.
Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole’s
arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman
without any definite position, without relations or even a country, did
not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkónski, to reading
aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle
Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to
appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed,
ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her
off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew
a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she
liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been
seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mère) appeared, and
reproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle
Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this
story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had
appeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mère would appear
and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle
Bourienne’s head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about
Paris. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a
moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar
to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around
him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.
The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,
unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the
familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any
struggle, but with naïve and lighthearted gaiety.
Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man
tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the
spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was
beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne
that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great
suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.
After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was
asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,
came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle
Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.
Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and
the look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But
Anatole’s expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not
to her but to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne’s little
foot, which he was then touching with his own under the clavichord.
Mademoiselle Bourienne was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her
lovely eyes there was a look of fearful joy and hope that was also new
to the princess.
“How she loves me!” thought Princess Mary. “How happy I am now,
and how happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband?
Can it be possible?” she thought, not daring to look at his face, but
still feeling his eyes gazing at her.
In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole
kissed Princess Mary’s hand. She did not know how she found the
courage, but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near
to her shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and
kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand. (This was not etiquette, but
then he did everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle
Bourienne flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.
“What delicacy!” thought the princess. “Is it possible that
Amélie” (Mademoiselle Bourienne) “thinks I could be jealous of her,
and not value her pure affection and devotion to me?” She went up
to her and kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little
princess’ hand.
“No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving
well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!” she said. And
smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.
CHAPTER V
They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he
got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.
“Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind—yes,
kind, that is the chief thing,” thought Princess Mary; and fear, which
she had seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it
seemed to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the
dark corner. And this someone was he—the devil—and he was also this
man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.
She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.
Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long
time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now
working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mère
rebuking her for her fall.
The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made.
She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was
awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than
ever because Anatole’s presence had vividly recalled to her the time
when she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She
sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy
and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third
time, muttering to herself.
“I told you it was all lumps and holes!” the little princess
repeated. “I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it’s not my
fault!” and her voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.
The old prince did not sleep either. Tíkhon, half asleep, heard him
pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he
had been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed
because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he
loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider
the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but
instead of that he only excited himself more and more.
“The first man that turns up—she forgets her father and everything
else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike
herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice
it. Fr... fr... fr! And don’t I see that that idiot had eyes only for
Bourienne—I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not
pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at
least have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks
nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but
I’ll let her see....”
The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a
mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,
Princess Mary’s self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to
be parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this
thought, he called Tíkhon and began to undress.
“What devil brought them here?” thought he, while Tíkhon was
putting the nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest.
“I never invited them. They came to disturb my life—and there is not
much of it left.”
“Devil take ‘em!” he muttered, while his head was still covered by
the shirt.
Tíkhon knew his master’s habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and
therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of
the face that emerged from the shirt.
“Gone to bed?” asked the prince.
Tíkhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his
master’s thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince
Vasíli and his son.
“They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency.”
“No good... no good...” said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his
feet into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing
gown, he went to the couch on which he slept.
Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne,
they quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance,
up to the appearance of the pauvre mère; they understood that they had
much to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an
opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary
went to her father’s room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne
and Anatole met in the conservatory.
Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation.
It seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be
decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She
read this in Tíkhon’s face and in that of Prince Vasíli’s valet,
who made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot
water.
The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of
his daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking
expression of her father’s. His face wore that expression when his
dry hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in
arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,
repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.
He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.
“I have had a proposition made me concerning you,” he said with an
unnatural smile. “I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasíli has
not come and brought his pupil with him” (for some reason Prince
Bolkónski referred to Anatole as a “pupil”) “for the sake of my
beautiful eyes. Last night a proposition was made me on your account
and, as you know my principles, I refer it to you.”
“How am I to understand you, mon père?” said the princess, growing
pale and then blushing.
“How understand me!” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vasíli
finds you to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you
on his pupil’s behalf. That’s how it’s to be understood! ‘How
understand it’!... And I ask you!”
“I do not know what you think, Father,” whispered the princess.
“I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I’m not going to
get married. What about you? That’s what I want to know.”
The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval,
but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be
decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze
under which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to
submit from habit, and she said: “I wish only to do your will, but if
I had to express my own desire...” She had no time to finish. The old
prince interrupted her.
“That’s admirable!” he shouted. “He will take you with your
dowry and take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She’ll be the
wife, while you...”
The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his
daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.
“Now then, now then, I’m only joking!” he said. “Remember this,
Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to
choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life’s happiness
depends on your decision. Never mind me!”
“But I do not know, Father!”
“There’s no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you
or anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it
over, and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no.
I know you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better
think it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!” he still shouted
when the princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the
study.
Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said
about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but
still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was
going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing
anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle
Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw
Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With
a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess
Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle
Bourienne who had not yet seen her.
“Who’s that? Why? Wait a moment!” Anatole’s face seemed to say.
Princess Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At
last Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to
Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at
this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door
that led to his own apartments.
An hour later, Tíkhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince;
he added that Prince Vasíli was also there. When Tíkhon came to her
Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping
Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The
princess’ beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were
looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne’s
pretty face.
“No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!” said
Mademoiselle Bourienne.
“Why? I love you more than ever,” said Princess Mary, “and I will
try to do all I can for your happiness.”
“But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so
carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother...”
“I quite understand,” answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile.
“Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father,” she said, and went
out.
Prince Vasíli, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox
in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face,
as if stirred to his heart’s core and himself regretting and laughing
at his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a
pinch of snuff.
“Ah, my dear, my dear!” he began, rising and taking her by both
hands. Then, sighing, he added: “My son’s fate is in your hands.
Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a
daughter!”
He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.
“Fr... fr...” snorted Prince Bolkónski. “The prince is making a
proposition to you in his pupil’s—I mean, his son’s—name. Do you
wish or not to be Prince Anatole Kurágin’s wife? Reply: yes or no,”
he shouted, “and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion
also. Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion,” added Prince Bolkónski,
turning to Prince Vasíli and answering his imploring look. “Yes, or
no?”
“My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my
life from yours. I don’t wish to marry,” she answered positively,
glancing at Prince Vasíli and at her father with her beautiful eyes.
“Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!” cried Prince Bolkónski,
frowning and taking his daughter’s hand; he did not kiss her, but only
bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so
that she winced and uttered a cry.
Prince Vasíli rose.
“My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never
forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching
this heart, so kind and generous? Say ‘perhaps’... The future is so
long. Say ‘perhaps.’”
“Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for
the honor, but I shall never be your son’s wife.”
“Well, so that’s finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have
seen you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!” said
the old prince. “Very, very glad to have seen you,” repeated he,
embracing Prince Vasíli.
“My vocation is a different one,” thought Princess Mary. “My
vocation is to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness
of love and self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange
poor Amélie’s happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so
passionately repents. I will do all I can to arrange the match between
them. If he is not rich I will give her the means; I will ask my
father and Andrew. I shall be so happy when she is his wife. She is so
unfortunate, a stranger, alone, helpless! And, oh God, how passionately
she must love him if she could so far forget herself! Perhaps I might
have done the same!...” thought Princess Mary.
CHAPTER VI
It was long since the Rostóvs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter
was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son’s
handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and
haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the
letter.
Anna Mikháylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house,
on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and
found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same
time.
Anna Mikháylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still
living with the Rostóvs.
“My dear friend?” said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared
to sympathize in any way.
The count sobbed yet more.
“Nikólenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling
boy... the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How
tell the little countess!”
Anna Mikháylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped
the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her
own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till
teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God’s
help, would inform her.
At dinner Anna Mikháylovna talked the whole time about the war news
and about Nikólenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received
from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might
very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these
hints began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at
the count and at Anna Mikháylovna, the latter very adroitly turned
the conversation to insignificant matters. Natásha, who, of the whole
family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of
intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning
of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her
father and Anna Mikháylovna, that it had something to do with her
brother, and that Anna Mikháylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as
she was, Natásha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything
relating to Nikólenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner,
but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her
chair regardless of her governess’ remarks. After dinner, she rushed
headlong after Anna Mikháylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on
her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.
“Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!”
“Nothing, my dear.”
“No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won’t give up—I know you know
something.”
Anna Mikháylovna shook her head.
“You are a little slyboots,” she said.
“A letter from Nikólenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natásha,
reading confirmation in Anna Mikháylovna’s face.
“But for God’s sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your
mamma.”
“I will, I will, only tell me! You won’t? Then I will go and tell at
once.”
Anna Mikháylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter,
on condition that she should tell no one.
“No, on my true word of honor,” said Natásha, crossing herself,
“I won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Sónya.
“Nikólenka... wounded... a letter,” she announced in gleeful
triumph.
“Nicholas!” was all Sónya said, instantly turning white.
Natásha, seeing the impression the news of her brother’s wound
produced on Sónya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the
news.
She rushed to Sónya, hugged her, and began to cry.
“A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he
wrote himself,” said she through her tears.
“There now! It’s true that all you women are crybabies,” remarked
Pétya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. “Now I’m very
glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so.
You are all blubberers and understand nothing.”
Natásha smiled through her tears.
“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sónya.
“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an
officer.”
“Thank God!” said Sónya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she
deceived you. Let us go to Mamma.”
Pétya paced the room in silence for a time.
“If I’d been in Nikólenka’s place I would have killed even more
of those Frenchmen,” he said. “What nasty brutes they are! I’d
have killed so many that there’d have been a heap of them.”
“Hold your tongue, Pétya, what a goose you are!”
“I’m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,” said
Pétya.
“Do you remember him?” Natásha suddenly asked, after a moment’s
silence.
Sónya smiled.
“Do I remember Nicholas?”
“No, Sónya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly,
remember everything?” said Natásha, with an expressive gesture,
evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. “I
remember Nikólenka too, I remember him well,” she said. “But I
don’t remember Borís. I don’t remember him a bit.”
“What! You don’t remember Borís?” asked Sónya in surprise.
“It’s not that I don’t remember—I know what he is like, but not
as I remember Nikólenka. Him—I just shut my eyes and remember,
but Borís... No!” (She shut her eyes.) “No! there’s nothing at
all.”
“Oh, Natásha!” said Sónya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at
her friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant
to say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking
was out of the question, “I am in love with your brother once for all
and, whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him
as long as I live.”
Natásha looked at Sónya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said
nothing. She felt that Sónya was speaking the truth, that there was
such love as Sónya was speaking of. But Natásha had not yet felt
anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
“Shall you write to him?” she asked.
Sónya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and
whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an
officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself
and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on
himself?
“I don’t know. I think if he writes, I will write too,” she said,
blushing.
“And you won’t feel ashamed to write to him?”
Sónya smiled.
“No.”
“And I should be ashamed to write to Borís. I’m not going to.”
“Why should you be ashamed?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s awkward and would make me ashamed.”
“And I know why she’d be ashamed,” said Pétya, offended by
Natásha’s previous remark. “It’s because she was in love with
that fat one in spectacles” (that was how Pétya described his
namesake, the new Count Bezúkhov) “and now she’s in love with that
singer” (he meant Natásha’s Italian singing master), “that’s
why she’s ashamed!”
“Pétya, you’re stupid!” said Natásha.
“Not more stupid than you, madam,” said the nine-year-old Pétya,
with the air of an old brigadier.
The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikháylovna’s hints at dinner.
On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a
miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears
kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikháylovna, with the letter, came on
tiptoe to the countess’ door and paused.
“Don’t come in,” she said to the old count who was following her.
“Come later.” And she went in, closing the door behind her.
The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.
At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna
Mikháylovna’s voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,
then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.
Anna Mikháylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression
of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the
public to appreciate his skill.
“It is done!” she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the
countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and
in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.
When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his
bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait,
and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away
the bald head. Véra, Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya now entered the room,
and the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of
the campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his
promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father’s and mother’s
hands asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Véra, Natásha, and
Pétya. Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame
Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him “dear
Sónya, whom he loved and thought of just the same as ever.” When she
heard this Sónya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable
to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall,
whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon,
and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was
crying.
“Why are you crying, Mamma?” asked Véra. “From all he says one
should be glad and not cry.”
This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natásha looked
at her reproachfully. “And who is it she takes after?” thought the
countess.
Nicholas’ letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were
considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she
did not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and
Dmítri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter
each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh
proofs of Nikólenka’s virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how
joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose
tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom
she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who
had first learned to say “pear” and then “granny,” that this son
should now be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly
warrior doing some kind of man’s work of his own, without help or
guidance. The universal experience of ages, showing that children do
grow imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the
countess. Her son’s growth toward manhood, at each of its stages,
had seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the
millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty
years before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived
somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to
speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be
this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this
letter, he now was.
“What a style! How charmingly he describes!” said she, reading the
descriptive part of the letter. “And what a soul! Not a word about
himself.... Not a word! About some Denísov or other, though he himself,
I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his
sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered
everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so
high—I always said....”
For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of
letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,
while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the
count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment
of the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikháylovna,
practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army
authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself
and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand
Duke Constantine Pávlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostóvs
supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address,
and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards
there was no reason why it should not reach the Pávlograd regiment,
which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was
decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke’s courier to
Borís and Borís was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from
the old count, the countess, Pétya, Véra, Natásha, and Sónya, and
finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other
things the old count sent to his son.
CHAPTER VII
On the twelfth of November, Kutúzov’s active army, in camp before
Olmütz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors—the
Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent
the night ten miles from Olmütz and next morning were to come straight
to the review, reaching the field at Olmütz by ten o’clock.
That day Nicholas Rostóv received a letter from Borís, telling him
that the Ismáylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from
Olmütz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for
him. Rostóv was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmütz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering
all sorts of tempting wares. The Pávlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmütz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian,
who had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.
Rostóv, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denísov’s horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Borís’ letter he rode with a fellow officer
to Olmütz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone
to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostóv had not yet had
time to get his uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with
a soldier’s cross, equally shabby cadet’s riding breeches lined with
worn leather, and an officer’s saber with a sword knot. The Don horse
he was riding was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign,
and he wore a crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his
head. As he rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Borís
and all his comrades of the Guards by his appearance—that of a
fighting hussar who had been under fire.
The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading
their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their
knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided
excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments
had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand
Duke’s orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on
which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their
proper posts. Borís had been quartered, and had marched all the
way, with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had
obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of
his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money
matters very satisfactorily. Borís, during the campaign, had made the
acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by
a letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become
acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkónski, through whom he hoped to
obtain a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Borís,
having rested after yesterday’s march, were sitting, clean and neatly
dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to them,
playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Borís, in
the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of
chessmen with his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg’s move,
and watched his opponent’s face, evidently thinking about the game as
he always thought only of whatever he was engaged on.
“Well, how are you going to get out of that?” he remarked.
“We’ll try to,” replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing
his hand.
At that moment the door opened.
“Here he is at last!” shouted Rostóv. “And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse’s French, at which he and Borís used to laugh long ago.
“Dear me, how you have changed!”
Borís rose to meet Rostóv, but in doing so did not omit to steady and
replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his
friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,
that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner
different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas
wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch
him, push him, do anything but kiss him—a thing everybody did. But
notwithstanding this, Borís embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and
kissed him three times.
They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young
men take their first steps on life’s road, each saw immense changes in
the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken
those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both
were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.
“Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you’d been to a fete,
not like us sinners of the line,” cried Rostóv, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Borís, pointing to his own
mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostóv’s loud
voice, popped her head in at the door.
“Eh, is she pretty?” he asked with a wink.
“Why do you shout so? You’ll frighten them!” said Borís. “I did
not expect you today,” he added. “I only sent you the note yesterday
by Bolkónski—an adjutant of Kutúzov’s, who’s a friend of mine.
I did not think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you?
Been under fire already?” asked Borís.
Without answering, Rostóv shook the soldier’s Cross of St. George
fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,
glanced at Berg with a smile.
“As you see,” he said.
“Indeed? Yes, yes!” said Borís, with a smile. “And we too have
had a splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness
rode with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and
every advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and
balls! I can’t tell you. And the Tsarévich was very gracious to all
our officers.”
And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his
hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures
and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.
“Oh, you Guards!” said Rostóv. “I say, send for some wine.”
Borís made a grimace.
“If you really want it,” said he.
He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent
for wine.
“Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,” he added.
Rostóv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both
arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he
glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the
letter.
“Well, they’ve sent you a tidy sum,” said Berg, eying the heavy
purse that sank into the sofa. “As for us, Count, we get along on our
pay. I can tell you for myself...”
“I say, Berg, my dear fellow,” said Rostóv, “when you get a
letter from home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk
everything over with, and I happen to be there, I’ll go at once, to
be out of your way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!” he
exclaimed, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking
amiably into his face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his
words, he added, “Don’t be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak
from my heart as to an old acquaintance.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, Count! I quite understand,” said Berg,
getting up and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.
“Go across to our hosts: they invited you,” added Borís.
Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,
stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples
upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having
assured himself from the way Rostóv looked at it that his coat had been
noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostóv, as he read the
letter.
“Why?”
“Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them
such a fright! Oh, what a pig I am!” he repeated, flushing suddenly.
“Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let’s have
some!”
In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation
to Bagratión which the old countess at Anna Mikháylovna’s advice had
obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take
it to its destination and make use of it.
“What nonsense! Much I need it!” said Rostóv, throwing the letter
under the table.
“Why have you thrown that away?” asked Borís.
“It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it
for!”
“Why ‘What the devil’?” said Borís, picking it up and reading
the address. “This letter would be of great use to you.”
“I want nothing, and I won’t be anyone’s adjutant.”
“Why not?” inquired Borís.
“It’s a lackey’s job!”
“You are still the same dreamer, I see,” remarked Borís, shaking
his head.
“And you’re still the same diplomatist! But that’s not the
point... Come, how are you?” asked Rostóv.
“Well, as you see. So far everything’s all right, but I confess I
should much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front.”
“Why?”
“Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to
make as successful a career of it as possible.”
“Oh, that’s it!” said Rostóv, evidently thinking of something
else.
He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend’s eyes, evidently
trying in vain to find the answer to some question.
Old Gabriel brought in the wine.
“Shouldn’t we now send for Berg?” asked Borís. “He would drink
with you. I can’t.”
“Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?”
asked Rostóv, with a contemptuous smile.
“He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered
Borís.
Again Rostóv looked intently into Borís’ eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostóv of their march and
how they had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke
of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told
stories of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent
when the subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the
stories of the Grand Duke’s quick temper he related with gusto how in
Galicia he had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter
made a tour of the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of
a movement. With a pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke
had ridden up to him in a violent passion, shouting: “Arnauts!”
(“Arnauts” was the Tsarévich’s favorite expression when he was in
a rage) and called for the company commander.
“Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew
I was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army
Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord’s
Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and
so my conscience was at ease. I came forward....” (Berg stood up and
showed how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really
it would have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and
self-complacency than his did.) “Well, he stormed at me, as the saying
is, stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but
rather of death, as the saying is. ‘Albanians!’ and ‘devils!’
and ‘To Siberia!’” said Berg with a sagacious smile. “I knew I
was in the right so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... ‘Hey,
are you dumb?’ he shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you
think, Count? The next day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of
the Day. That’s what keeping one’s head means. That’s the way,
Count,” said Berg, lighting his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.
“Yes, that was fine,” said Rostóv, smiling.
But Borís noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and
skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where
he got his wound. This pleased Rostóv and he began talking about it,
and as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his
Schön Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle
generally do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been,
as they have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not
at all as it really was. Rostóv was a truthful young man and would on
no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to
tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily,
and inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his
hearers—who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had
formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear
just such a story—they would either not have believed him or, still
worse, would have thought that Rostóv was himself to blame since what
generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened
to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and
that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as
he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as
it really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of
will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth,
and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story
of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like
a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his
saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he
told them all that.
In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: “You cannot imagine
what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack,” Prince
Andrew, whom Borís was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who
liked to help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance
and being well disposed toward Borís, who had managed to please him the
day before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent
with papers from Kutúzov to the Tsarévich, he looked in on Borís,
hoping to find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line
recounting his military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure
that sort of man), he gave Borís a pleasant smile, frowned as with
half-closed eyes he looked at Rostóv, bowed slightly and wearily, and
sat down languidly on the sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped
in on bad company. Rostóv flushed up on noticing this, but he did not
care, this was a mere stranger. Glancing, however, at Borís, he saw
that he too seemed ashamed of the hussar of the line.
In spite of Prince Andrew’s disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of
the contempt with which Rostóv, from his fighting army point of view,
regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer
was evidently one, Rostóv felt confused, blushed, and became silent.
Borís inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without
indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.
“We shall probably advance,” replied Bolkónski, evidently reluctant
to say more in the presence of a stranger.
Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was
rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be
doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could
give no opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed
gaily.
“As to your business,” Prince Andrew continued, addressing Borís,
“we will talk of it later” (and he looked round at Rostóv). “Come
to me after the review and we will do what is possible.”
And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostóv,
whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to
anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: “I think you were
talking of the Schön Grabern affair? Were you there?”
“I was there,” said Rostóv angrily, as if intending to insult the
aide-de-camp.
Bolkónski noticed the hussar’s state of mind, and it amused him. With
a slightly contemptuous smile, he said: “Yes, there are many stories
now told about that affair!”
“Yes, stories!” repeated Rostóv loudly, looking with eyes suddenly
grown furious, now at Borís, now at Bolkónski. “Yes, many stories!
But our stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy’s
fire! Our stories have some weight, not like the stories of those
fellows on the staff who get rewards without doing anything!”
“Of whom you imagine me to be one?” said Prince Andrew, with a quiet
and particularly amiable smile.
A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man’s
self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostóv’s soul.
“I am not talking about you,” he said, “I don’t know you and,
frankly, I don’t want to. I am speaking of the staff in general.”
“And I will tell you this,” Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of
quiet authority, “you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with
you that it would be very easy to do so if you haven’t sufficient
self-respect, but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen.
In a day or two we shall all have to take part in a greater and more
serious duel, and besides, Drubetskóy, who says he is an old friend
of yours, is not at all to blame that my face has the misfortune to
displease you. However,” he added rising, “you know my name and
where to find me, but don’t forget that I do not regard either myself
or you as having been at all insulted, and as a man older than you, my
advice is to let the matter drop. Well then, on Friday after the review
I shall expect you, Drubetskóy. Au revoir!” exclaimed Prince Andrew,
and with a bow to them both he went out.
Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostóv think of what he ought to
have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He
ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Borís, rode
home. Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected
adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried
him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at
seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by
his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew
there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very
adjutant whom he so hated.
CHAPTER VIII
The day after Rostóv had been to see Borís, a review was held of the
Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and
those who had been campaigning under Kutúzov. The two Emperors,
the Russian with his heir the Tsarévich, and the Austrian with the
Archduke, inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.
From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up
on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets
moved and halted at the officers’ command, turned with banners flying,
formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of
infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of
hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided
uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan,
or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the
polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with
the smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the
infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the
generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn
in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and
wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded
officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and
his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed
till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay
smooth—felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and
solemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own
insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and
yet at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that
enormous whole.
From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten
o’clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn
up on the vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the
cavalry in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the
infantry.
A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The
three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutúzov’s
fighting army (with the Pávlograds on the right flank of the front);
those recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the
line; and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines,
under one command, and in a like order.
Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: “They’re coming!
They’re coming!” Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final
preparation swept over all the troops.
From the direction of Olmütz in front of them, a group was seen
approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust
of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the
lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It
looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its
joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting:
“Eyes front!” Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was
repeated by others from various sides and all became silent.
In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This
was the Emperors’ suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the
trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It
seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army
itself, rejoicing at the Emperors’ approach, had naturally burst into
music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor
Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the
first regiment roared “Hurrah!” so deafeningly, continuously, and
joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the
immensity of the power they constituted.
Rostóv, standing in the front lines of Kutúzov’s army which the Tsar
approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in
that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of
might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this
triumph.
He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he
himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,
commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could
not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” thundered from all sides, one regiment
after another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then
“Hurrah!”... Then the general march, and again “Hurrah! Hurrah!”
growing ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.
Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility
seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,
its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had
already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,
amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to
stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but
symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men—the
Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that
whole mass of men was concentrated.
The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse
Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his
pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone’s
attention.
Rostóv was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had
recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty
paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his
handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness
and ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every
movement of the Tsar’s seemed to him enchanting.
Stopping in front of the Pávlograds, the Tsar said something in French
to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.
Seeing that smile, Rostóv involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still
stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in
some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar
called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.
“Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?”
thought Rostóv. “I should die of happiness!”
The Tsar addressed the officers also: “I thank you all, gentlemen, I
thank you with my whole heart.” To Rostóv every word sounded like a
voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!
“You have earned the St. George’s standards and will be worthy of
them.”
“Oh, to die, to die for him,” thought Rostóv.
The Tsar said something more which Rostóv did not hear, and the
soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted “Hurrah!”
Rostóv too, bending over his saddle, shouted “Hurrah!” with all his
might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if
only to express his rapture fully.
The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.
“How can the Emperor be undecided?” thought Rostóv, but then even
this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything
else the Tsar did.
That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar’s foot, in the narrow
pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay
mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he
moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.
Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at
last only his white plumes were visible to Rostóv from amid the suites
that surrounded the Emperors.
Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostóv noticed Bolkónski, sitting
his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostóv recalled their quarrel of
yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought
not to challenge Bolkónski. “Of course not!” he now thought. “Is
it worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such
love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels
and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now.”
When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began
a ceremonial march past him, and Rostóv on Bedouin, recently purchased
from Denísov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—that is,
alone and in full view of the Emperor.
Before he reached him, Rostóv, who was a splendid horseman, spurred
Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the
animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his
tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor’s eye
upon him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful
action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.
Rostóv himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling
himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but
blissful face “like a vewy devil,” as Denísov expressed it.
“Fine fellows, the Pávlograds!” remarked the Emperor.
“My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire
this instant!” thought Rostóv.
When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also
Kutúzov’s, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards,
about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about
Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the
Essen corps arrived and Prussia took our side.
But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His
every word and movement was described with ecstasy.
They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the
enemy under the Emperor’s command. Commanded by the Emperor himself
they could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought
Rostóv and most of the officers after the review.
All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles
would have made them.
CHAPTER IX
The day after the review, Borís, in his best uniform and with his
comrade Berg’s best wishes for success, rode to Olmütz to see
Bolkónski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself
the best post he could—preferably that of adjutant to some important
personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive.
“It is all very well for Rostóv, whose father sends him ten thousand
rubles at a time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not
be anyone’s lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to
make a career and must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of
them!” he reflected.
He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmütz that day, but the appearance of
the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed
and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and
courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.
He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman’s uniform, all these
exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military
men, seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the
Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief,
Kutúzov, where he inquired for Bolkónski, all the adjutants and even
the orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a
great many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody
was heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of
it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmütz and,
entering the house occupied by Kutúzov, asked for Bolkónski. Prince
Andrew was in and Borís was shown into a large hall probably formerly
used for dancing, but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of
various kinds: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest
the door, was sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing.
Another, the red, stout Nesvítski, lay on a bed with his arms under his
head, laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was
playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on
the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkónski was not there. None of these
gentlemen changed his position on seeing Borís. The one who was writing
and whom Borís addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkónski
was on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the
reception room if he wished to see him. Borís thanked him and went to
the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.
When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with
that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, “If
it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment”), was
listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very
erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier’s obsequious expression on his
purple face, reporting something.
“Very well, then, be so good as to wait,” said Prince Andrew to the
general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected
when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Borís, Prince
Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring
him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful
smile.
At that moment Borís clearly realized what he had before surmised, that
in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the
military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was
another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,
purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for
his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskóy. More than
ever was Borís resolved to serve in future not according to the written
code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having
been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general
who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the
Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.
“I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about
with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.
When Germans start being accurate, there’s no end to it!”
Borís smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to
as something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother’s name, or even the term “dispositions.”
“Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have
been thinking about you.”
“Yes, I was thinking”—for some reason Borís could not help
blushing—“of asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter from
Prince Kurágin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards
won’t be in action,” he added as if in apology.
“All right, all right. We’ll talk it over,” replied Prince Andrew.
“Only let me report this gentleman’s business, and I shall be at
your disposal.”
While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that
gentleman—evidently not sharing Borís’ conception of the advantages
of the unwritten code of subordination—looked so fixedly at the
presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to
say to the adjutant that Borís felt uncomfortable. He turned away and
waited impatiently for Prince Andrew’s return from the commander in
chief’s room.
“You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you,”
said Prince Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the
clavichord was. “It’s no use your going to the commander in chief.
He would say a lot of pleasant things, ask you to dinner” (“That
would not be bad as regards the unwritten code,” thought Borís),
“but nothing more would come of it. There will soon be a battalion of
us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But this is what we’ll do: I have
a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince
Dolgorúkov; and though you may not know it, the fact is that now
Kutúzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing. Everything is
now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to Dolgorúkov; I have to
go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him about you. We shall
see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find a place for you
somewhere nearer the sun.”
Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young
man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help
of this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for
himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and
which attracted him. He very readily took up Borís’ cause and went
with him to Dolgorúkov.
It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmütz
occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.
That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of
the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary
to the views of the old generals Kutúzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it
had been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.
The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied
by Borís arrived at the palace to find Dolgorúkov. Everyone at
headquarters was still under the spell of the day’s council, at which
the party of the young had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled
delay and advised waiting for something else before advancing had been
so completely silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive
evidence of the advantages of attacking that what had been discussed
at the council—the coming battle and the victory that would certainly
result from it—no longer seemed to be in the future but in the past.
All the advantages were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly
superior to Napoleon’s, were concentrated in one place, the troops
inspired by the Emperors’ presence were eager for action. The
strategic position where the operations would take place was familiar in
all its details to the Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had
ordained that the Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the
very fields where the French had now to be fought; the adjacent
locality was known and shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte,
evidently weakened, was undertaking nothing.
Dolgorúkov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just
returned from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud
of the victory that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his
protégé, but Prince Dolgorúkov politely and firmly pressing his hand
said nothing to Borís and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts
which were uppermost in his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew
in French.
“Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that
the one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear
fellow,” he said abruptly and eagerly, “I must confess to having
been unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What
exactitude, what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what
foresight for every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest
detail! No, my dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones
could have been devised. This combination of Austrian precision with
Russian valor—what more could be wished for?”
“So the attack is definitely resolved on?” asked Bolkónski.
“And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has
decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him
today for the Emperor.” Dolgorúkov smiled significantly.
“Is that so? And what did he say?” inquired Bolkónski.
“What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time.
I tell you he is in our hands, that’s certain! But what was most
amusing,” he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, “was that
we could not think how to address the reply! If not as ‘Consul’
and of course not as ‘Emperor,’ it seemed to me it should be to
‘General Bonaparte.’”
“But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General
Bonaparte, there is a difference,” remarked Bolkónski.
“That’s just it,” interrupted Dolgorúkov quickly, laughing.
“You know Bilíbin—he’s a very clever fellow. He suggested
addressing him as ‘Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.’”
Dolgorúkov laughed merrily.
“Only that?” said Bolkónski.
“All the same, it was Bilíbin who found a suitable form for the
address. He is a wise and clever fellow.”
“What was it?”
“To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement
français,” said Dolgorúkov, with grave satisfaction. “Good,
wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but he will dislike it extremely,” said Bolkónski.
“Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he’s dined with him—the
present Emperor—more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a
more cunning or subtle diplomatist—you know, a combination of French
adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and
Count Markóv? Count Markóv was the only man who knew how to handle
him. You know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!”
And the talkative Dolgorúkov, turning now to Borís, now to Prince
Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markóv, our ambassador,
purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking
at Markóv, probably expecting Markóv to pick it up for him, and how
Markóv immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without
touching Bonaparte’s.
“Delightful!” said Bolkónski. “But I have come to you, Prince,
as a petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see...” but
before Prince Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon
Dolgorúkov to the Emperor.
“Oh, what a nuisance,” said Dolgorúkov, getting up hurriedly and
pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Borís. “You know I should
be very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young
man.” Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of
good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. “But you see... another
time!”
Borís was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers
as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here
he was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous
movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,
obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorúkov out
into the corridor and met—coming out of the door of the Emperor’s
room by which Dolgorúkov had entered—a short man in civilian clothes
with a clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling
his face, gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression.
This short man nodded to Dolgorúkov as to an intimate friend and stared
at Prince Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and
evidently expecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew
did neither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other
turned away and went down the side of the corridor.
“Who was that?” asked Borís.
“He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of
men—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartorýski.... It
is such men as he who decide the fate of nations,” added Bolkónski
with a sigh he could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.
Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of
Austerlitz, Borís was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorúkov
again and remained for a while with the Ismáylov regiment.
CHAPTER X
At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denísov’s squadron, in
which Nicholas Rostóv served and which was in Prince Bagratión’s
detachment, moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing
into action as arranged, and after going behind other columns for
about two thirds of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostóv saw the
Cossacks and then the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry
battalions and artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals
Bagratión and Dolgorúkov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear
before action which he had experienced as previously, all the inner
struggle to conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself
as a true hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron
remained in reserve and Nicholas Rostóv spent that day in a dull and
wretched mood. At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and
shouts of hurrah, and saw wounded being brought back (there were not
many of them), and at last he saw how a whole detachment of French
cavalry was brought in, convoyed by a sótnya of Cossacks. Evidently the
affair was over and, though not big, had been a successful engagement.
The men and officers returning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the
occupation of the town of Wischau and the capture of a whole French
squadron. The day was bright and sunny after a sharp night frost, and
the cheerful glitter of that autumn day was in keeping with the news of
victory which was conveyed, not only by the tales of those who had taken
part in it, but also by the joyful expression on the faces of soldiers,
officers, generals, and adjutants, as they passed Rostóv going or
coming. And Nicholas, who had vainly suffered all the dread that
precedes a battle and had spent that happy day in inactivity, was all
the more depressed.
“Come here, Wostóv. Let’s dwink to dwown our gwief!” shouted
Denísov, who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some
food.
The officers gathered round Denísov’s canteen, eating and talking.
“There! They are bringing another!” cried one of the officers,
indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by
two Cossacks.
One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had
taken from the prisoner.
“Sell us that horse!” Denísov called out to the Cossacks.
“If you like, your honor!”
The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner.
The French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German
accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when
he heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,
addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been
taken, it was not his fault but the corporal’s who had sent him to
seize some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there.
And at every word he added: “But don’t hurt my little horse!” and
stroked the animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he
was. Now he excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now,
imagining himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly
discipline and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our
rearguard all the freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was
so alien to us.
The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostóv, being the
richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.
“But don’t hurt my little horse!” said the Alsatian good-naturedly
to Rostóv when the animal was handed over to the hussar.
Rostóv smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.
“Alley! Alley!” said the Cossack, touching the prisoner’s arm to
make him go on.
“The Emperor! The Emperor!” was suddenly heard among the hussars.
All began to run and bustle, and Rostóv saw coming up the road behind
him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone
was in his place, waiting.
Rostóv did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.
Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood
amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of
himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to
the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the
day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of
meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he
was ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the
sound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew
near everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more
festive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostóv came that sun shedding
beams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself
enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm,
and majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with
Rostóv’s feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard
the Emperor’s voice.
“The Pávlograd hussars?” he inquired.
“The reserves, sire!” replied a voice, a very human one compared to
that which had said: “The Pávlograd hussars?”
The Emperor drew level with Rostóv and halted. Alexander’s face was
even more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It
shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested
the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face
of the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the
Emperor’s eyes met Rostóv’s and rested on them for not more than
two seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in
Rostóv’s soul (it seemed to Rostóv that he understood everything),
at any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into
Rostóv’s face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at
once he raised his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left
foot, and galloped on.
The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the
battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve
o’clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped
toward the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several
adjutants met him with news of the successful result of the action.
This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was
represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the
Emperor and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over
the battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were
retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had
passed, the Pávlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau
itself, a petty German town, Rostóv saw the Emperor again. In the
market place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the
Emperor’s arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there
had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite
of officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a
different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending
to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked
at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The
wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity
to the Emperor shocked Rostóv. Rostóv saw how the Emperor’s rather
round shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his
left foot began convulsively tapping the horse’s side with the spur,
and how the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not
stir. An adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to
place him on a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.
“Gently, gently! Can’t you do it more gently?” said the Emperor
apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.
Rostóv saw tears filling the Emperor’s eyes and heard him, as he was
riding away, say to Czartorýski: “What a terrible thing war is: what
a terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!”
The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight
of the enemy’s lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us
at the least firing. The Emperor’s gratitude was announced to the
vanguard, rewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of
vodka. The campfires crackled and the soldiers’ songs resounded
even more merrily than on the previous night. Denísov celebrated his
promotion to the rank of major, and Rostóv, who had already drunk
enough, at the end of the feast proposed the Emperor’s health. “Not
‘our Sovereign, the Emperor,’ as they say at official dinners,”
said he, “but the health of our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and
great man! Let us drink to his health and to the certain defeat of the
French!”
“If we fought before,” he said, “not letting the French pass, as
at Schön Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We
will all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not
saying it right, I have drunk a good deal—but that is how I feel, and
so do you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.
And the old cavalry captain, Kírsten, shouted enthusiastically and no
less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostóv.
When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kírsten filled
others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the
soldiers’ bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest
showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light
of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.
“Lads! here’s to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over
our enemies! Hurrah!” he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar’s
baritone.
The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.
Late that night, when all had separated, Denísov with his short hand
patted his favorite, Rostóv, on the shoulder.
“As there’s no one to fall in love with on campaign, he’s fallen
in love with the Tsar,” he said.
“Denísov, don’t make fun of it!” cried Rostóv. “It is such a
lofty, beautiful feeling, such a...”
“I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove...”
“No, you don’t understand!”
And Rostóv got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of
what happiness it would be to die—not in saving the Emperor’s life
(he did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his
eyes. He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian
arms and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to
experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle
of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in
love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the
Russian arms.
CHAPTER XI
The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,
was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops
near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and
had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this
indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by
the sight of the killed and wounded.
At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with
a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was
brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The
Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday
he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with
Prince Dolgorúkov to the advanced post of the French army.
It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander
a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
Dolgorúkov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
actuated by a real desire for peace.
Toward evening Dolgorúkov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and
remained alone with him for a long time.
On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two
days’ march and the enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange
of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the
nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till
the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz
was fought.
Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running to
and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor’s
headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached
Kutúzov’s headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.
By evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the
army, and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole
eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of
voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles
long.
The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor’s
headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that
followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower
clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third,
and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to
work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with
regular motion as a result of all that activity.
Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military
machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as
indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted
to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet
reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and
the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a
neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared
to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever
catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins
in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.
Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable
wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the
hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human
activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all their passions, desires,
remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and
enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the
so-called battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a slow movement
of the hand on the dial of human history.
Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the
commander in chief.
At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor’s headquarters
and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand
marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.
Bolkónski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorúkov. He felt that Kutúzov was upset
and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were
dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor’s headquarters
everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do
not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorúkov.
“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorúkov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilíbin. “The fete is for tomorrow. How is your
old fellow? Out of sorts?”
“I won’t say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be
heard.”
“But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he
talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte
fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible.”
“Yes, you have seen him?” said Prince Andrew. “Well, what is
Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?”
“Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as
a general engagement,” repeated Dolgorúkov, evidently prizing this
general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with
Napoleon. “If he weren’t afraid of a battle why did he ask for that
interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is
so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid,
afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!”
“But tell me, what is he like, eh?” said Prince Andrew again.
“He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call
him ‘Your Majesty,’ but who, to his chagrin, got no title from
me! That’s the sort of man he is, and nothing more,” replied
Dolgorúkov, looking round at Bilíbin with a smile.
“Despite my great respect for old Kutúzov,” he continued, “we
should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him
a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in
our hands! No, we mustn’t forget Suvórov and his rule—not to put
yourself in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe
me in war the energy of young men often shows the way better than all
the experience of old Cunctators.”
“But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the
outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are
situated,” said Prince Andrew.
He wished to explain to Dolgorúkov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.
“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorúkov said quickly, and getting up
he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been foreseen.
If he is standing before Brünn...”
And Prince Dolgorúkov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother’s
plan of a flanking movement.
Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might
have been as good as Weyrother’s, but for the disadvantage that
Weyrother’s had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began
to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan,
Prince Dolgorúkov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not
at the map, but at Prince Andrew’s face.
“There will be a council of war at Kutúzov’s tonight, though; you
can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorúkov.
“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.
“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilíbin, who,
till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and
now was evidently ready with a joke. “Whether tomorrow brings
victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your
Kutúzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The
commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de
Lichtenstein, le Prince de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on
like all those Polish names.”
“Be quiet, backbiter!” said Dolgorúkov. “It is not true; there
are now two Russians, Milorádovich, and Dokhtúrov, and there would be
a third, Count Arakchéev, if his nerves were not too weak.”
“However, I think General Kutúzov has come out,” said Prince
Andrew. “I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and
went out after shaking hands with Dolgorúkov and Bilíbin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutúzov,
who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow’s
battle.
Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied:
“I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstóy and
asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? ‘But, my
dear general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military
matters yourself!’ Yes... That was the answer I got!”
CHAPTER XII
Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his
plans to Kutúzov’s quarters where the council of war was to be
held. All the commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in
chief’s and with the exception of Prince Bagratión, who declined to
come, were all there at the appointed time.
Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his
eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied
and drowsy Kutúzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and
president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be
at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was
like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was
pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at
headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead
to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy’s picket
line to reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and
Austrian, to report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had
dictated the dispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived
at Kutúzov’s.
He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the
commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,
without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to
questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful,
weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and
self-confident.
Kutúzov was occupying a nobleman’s castle of modest dimensions near
Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander
in chief’s office were gathered Kutúzov himself, Weyrother, and the
members of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited
Prince Bagratión to begin the council. At last Bagratión’s orderly
came with the news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came
in to inform the commander in chief of this and, availing himself
of permission previously given him by Kutúzov to be present at the
council, he remained in the room.
“Since Prince Bagratión is not coming, we may begin,” said
Weyrother, hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on
which an enormous map of the environs of Brünn was spread out.
Kutúzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over
his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,
with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound
of Weyrother’s voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.
“Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late,” said he, and nodding
his head he let it droop and again closed his eye.
If at first the members of the council thought that Kutúzov was
pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that
followed proved that the commander in chief at that moment was absorbed
by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for
the dispositions or anything else—he was engaged in satisfying the
irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with
the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutúzov and,
having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in
a loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the
impending battle, under a heading which he also read out:
“Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and
Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805.”
The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as
follows:
“As the enemy’s left wing rests on wooded hills and his right
extends along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there,
while we, on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his
right, it is advantageous to attack the enemy’s latter wing especially
if we occupy the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we
can both fall on his flank and pursue him over the plain between
Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of
Schlappanitz and Bellowitz which cover the enemy’s front. For this
object it is necessary that... The first column marches... The second
column marches... The third column marches...” and so on, read
Weyrother.
The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.
The tall, fair-haired General Buxhöwden stood, leaning his back against
the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen
or even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother,
with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache
twisted upwards, sat the ruddy Milorádovich in a military pose, his
elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders
raised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother’s face,
and only turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished
reading. Then Milorádovich looked round significantly at the other
generals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he
agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next
to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left
his typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading,
gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners
a gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the
longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised
his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his
thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the
Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his
elbows, as if to say: “You can tell me your views later, but now be so
good as to look at the map and listen.” Langeron lifted his eyes with
an expression of perplexity, turned round to Milorádovich as if seeking
an explanation, but meeting the latter’s impressive but meaningless
gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.
“A geography lesson!” he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough
to be heard.
Przebyszéwski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his
hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohktúrov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with
an assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map
conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He
asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard
and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohktúrov
noted them down.
When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again
brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at
anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out
such a plan in which the enemy’s position was assumed to be known,
whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.
Langeron’s objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief
aim was to show General Weyrother—who had read his dispositions with
as much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children—that
he had to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something
in military matters.
When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s voice ceased, Kutúzov opened
his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel
is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking,
“So you are still at that silly business!” quickly closed his eye
again, and let his head sink still lower.
Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother’s vanity
as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily
attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this
plan perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and
contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections
be they what they might.
“If he could attack us, he would have done so today,” said he.
“So you think he is powerless?” said Langeron.
“He has forty thousand men at most,” replied Weyrother, with the
smile of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of
a case.
“In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack,” said
Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support
to Milorádovich who was near him.
But Milorádovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything
rather than of what the generals were disputing about.
“Ma foi!” said he, “tomorrow we shall see all that on the
battlefield.”
Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was
strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to
have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but
had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.
“The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from
his camp,” said he. “What does that mean? Either he is retreating,
which is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position.”
(He smiled ironically.) “But even if he also took up a position in
the Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our
arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same.”
“How is that?...” began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting
an opportunity to express his doubts.
Kutúzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the
generals.
“Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow—or rather for today, for
it is past midnight—cannot now be altered,” said he. “You have
heard them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is
nothing more important...” he paused, “than to have a good sleep.”
He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past
midnight. Prince Andrew went out.
The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to
express his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy
impression. Whether Dolgorúkov and Weyrother, or Kutúzov, Langeron,
and the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were
right—he did not know. “But was it really not possible for Kutúzov
to state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on
account of court and personal considerations tens of thousands of lives,
and my life, my life,” he thought, “must be risked?”
“Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,” he
thought. And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most
distant, most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered
his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days
when he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for
her and for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he
went out of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvítski and began
to walk up and down before it.
The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed
mysteriously. “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow
everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none
of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly,
I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all
I can do.” And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the
concentration of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the
commanders. And then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had
so long waited, presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly
expresses his opinion to Kutúzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors.
All are struck by the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to
carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a division—stipulates that no
one is to interfere with his arrangements—leads his division to
the decisive point, and gains the victory alone. “But death and
suffering?” suggested another voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not
answer that voice and went on dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions
for the next battle are planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an
adjutant on Kutúzov’s staff, but he does everything alone. The next
battle is won by him alone. Kutúzov is removed and he is appointed...
“Well and then?” asked the other voice. “If before that you are
not ten times wounded, killed, or betrayed, well... what then?...”
“Well then,” Prince Andrew answered himself, “I don’t know
what will happen and don’t want to know, and can’t, but if I want
this—want glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it
is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but that and live only
for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell anyone, but, oh God!
what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men’s esteem? Death,
wounds, the loss of family—I fear nothing. And precious and dear
as many persons are to me—father, sister, wife—those dearest to
me—yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all at
once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I
don’t know and never shall know, for the love of these men here,” he
thought, as he listened to voices in Kutúzov’s courtyard. The voices
were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a
coachman’s, was teasing Kutúzov’s old cook whom Prince Andrew knew,
and who was called Tit. He was saying, “Tit, I say, Tit!”
“Well?” returned the old man.
“Go, Tit, thresh a bit!” said the wag.
“Oh, go to the devil!” called out a voice, drowned by the laughter
of the orderlies and servants.
“All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I
value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this
mist!”
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, Rostóv was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front
of Bagratión’s detachment. His hussars were placed along the line
in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the
sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our
army’s campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him;
in front of him was misty darkness. Rostóv could see nothing, peer as
he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there
was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy
ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His
eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared—now the Emperor, now
Denísov, and now Moscow memories—and he again hurriedly opened his
eyes and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was
riding, and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the
black figures of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty
darkness. “Why not?... It might easily happen,” thought Rostóv,
“that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as he would to any
other officer; he’ll say: ‘Go and find out what’s there.’ There
are many stories of his getting to know an officer in just such a chance
way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave me a place near him?
Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would
unmask his deceivers!” And in order to realize vividly his love
devotion to the sovereign, Rostóv pictured to himself an enemy or a
deceitful German, whom he would not only kill with pleasure but whom
he would slap in the face before the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout
aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.
“Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword—shaft, Olmütz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
reserve tomorrow,” he thought. “I’ll ask leave to go to the front,
this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won’t be long
now before I am off duty. I’ll take another turn and when I get back
I’ll go to the general and ask him.” He readjusted himself in the
saddle and touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It
seemed to him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping
descent lit up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a
wall. On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostóv could not at
all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some
unmelted snow, or some white houses? He even thought something moved on
that white spot. “I expect it’s snow... that spot... a spot—une
tache,” he thought. “There now... it’s not a tache... Natásha...
sister, black eyes... Na... tasha... (Won’t she be surprised when
I tell her how I’ve seen the Emperor?) Natásha... take my
sabretache...”—“Keep to the right, your honor, there are bushes
here,” came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostóv was riding in
the act of falling asleep. Rostóv lifted his head that had sunk almost
to his horse’s mane and pulled up beside the hussar. He was succumbing
to irresistible, youthful, childish drowsiness. “But what was I
thinking? I mustn’t forget. How shall I speak to the Emperor? No,
that’s not it—that’s tomorrow. Oh yes! Natásha... sabretache...
saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the hussars with mustaches. Along
the Tverskáya Street rode the hussar with mustaches... I thought about
him too, just opposite Gúryev’s house... Old Gúryev.... Oh, but
Denísov’s a fine fellow. But that’s all nonsense. The chief thing
is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wished to say
something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. But that’s
nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important thing I
was thinking of. Yes, Na-tásha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That’s
right!” And his head once more sank to his horse’s neck. All at once
it seemed to him that he was being fired at. “What? What? What?... Cut
them down! What?...” said Rostóv, waking up. At the moment he opened
his eyes he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn
shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar
near him pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the
shouting came from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another,
and all along the French line on the hill fires flared up and the
shouting grew louder and louder. Rostóv could hear the sound of French
words but could not distinguish them. The din of many voices was too
great; all he could hear was: “ahahah!” and “rrrr!”
“What’s that? What do you make of it?” said Rostóv to the hussar
beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”
The hussar did not reply.
“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostóv asked again, after waiting for a
reply.
“Who can tell, your honor?” replied the hussar reluctantly.
“From the direction, it must be the enemy,” repeated Rostóv.
“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s
dark... Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.
Rostóv’s horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army
of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostóv no longer
wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a
stimulating effect on him. “Vive l’Empereur! l’Empereur!” he now
heard distinctly.
“They can’t be far off, probably just beyond the stream,” he said
to the hussar beside him.
The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound
of horse’s hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was
heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars
suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.
“Your honor, the generals!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostóv.
Rostóv, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with
the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.
One was on a white horse. Prince Bagratión and Prince Dolgorúkov with
their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostóv rode up to Bagratión,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.
“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorúkov, addressing Bagratión, “it
is nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to
kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us.”
“Hardly,” said Bagratión. “I saw them this evening on that
knoll; if they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....
Officer!” said Bagratión to Rostóv, “are the enemy’s skirmishers
still there?”
“They were there this evening, but now I don’t know, your
excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?” replied
Rostóv.
Bagratión stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostóv’s face
in the mist.
“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.
“Yes, sir.”
Rostóv spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fédchenko and two other
hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction
from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be
riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty
distance where no one had been before him. Bagratión called to him from
the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostóv pretended not to hear
him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes
for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.
Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or
the enemy’s fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly
and distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river,
but when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto
the road he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or
cross it and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the
road which gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it
would be easier to see people coming along it. “Follow me!” said he,
crossed the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the
point where the French pickets had been standing that evening.
“Your honor, there he is!” cried one of the hussars behind him. And
before Rostóv had time to make out what the black thing was that had
suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,
and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed
out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.
Rostóv turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed
at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in
different tones. Rostóv reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,
like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. “Well, some
more! Some more!” a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more
shots came.
Only when approaching Bagratión did Rostóv let his horse gallop again,
and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
Dolgorúkov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.
“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostóv rode up. “They
might retreat and leave the pickets.”
“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said
Bagratión. “Wait till tomorrow morning, we’ll find out everything
tomorrow.”
“The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was
in the evening,” reported Rostóv, stooping forward with his hand at
the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his
ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.
“Very good, very good,” said Bagratión. “Thank you, officer.”
“Your excellency,” said Rostóv, “may I ask a favor?”
“What is it?”
“Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached
to the first squadron?”
“What’s your name?”
“Count Rostóv.”
“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”
“Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son?” asked Dolgorúkov.
But Rostóv did not reply.
“Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?”
“I will give the order.”
“Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the
Emperor,” thought Rostóv.
“Thank God!”
The fires and shouting in the enemy’s army were occasioned by the fact
that while Napoleon’s proclamation was being read to the troops the
Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,
lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!”
Napoleon’s proclamation was as follows:
Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
Hollabrünn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we
occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on
the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct
your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual
valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks, but should
victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor
exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no
doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the
honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.
Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every
man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings
of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will
conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh
French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace
I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.
NAPOLEON
CHAPTER XIV
At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the
center, the reserves, and Bagratión’s right flank had not yet moved,
but on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
which were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French
right flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan,
were already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they
were throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold
and dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the
soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to
warm themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the
remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they
did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides
were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds
of the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near
a commanding officer’s quarters, the regiment began to move: the
soldiers ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their
bags into the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The
officers buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches,
and moved along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies
harnessed and packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and
battalion and regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave
final instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men
who remained behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet
resounded. The column moved forward without knowing where and unable,
from the masses around them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see
either the place they were leaving or that to which they were going.
A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as
much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever
strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is
always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so
the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the
same sergeant major Iván Mítrich, the same company dog Jack, and the
same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which
his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle—heaven knows how and
whence—a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral
atmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive
and solemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of
battle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their
regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning
what is going on around them.
The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could
not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level
ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might
encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced
for a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,
avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and
nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became
aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns
were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that
to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going
too.
“There now, the Kúrskies have also gone past,” was being said in
the ranks.
“It’s wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last
night I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular
Moscow!”
Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to
the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of
humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves
to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops
marched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to
an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog,
the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness
of some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such
a consciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it
certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly,
and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been
alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before
this consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as
it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid
Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been
occasioned by the sausage eaters.
“Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up
against the French?”
“No, one can’t hear them. They’d be firing if we had.”
“They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in
the middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It’s all those damned
Germans’ muddling! What stupid devils!”
“Yes, I’d send them on in front, but no fear, they’re crowding up
behind. And now here we stand hungry.”
“I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the
way,” said an officer.
“Ah, those damned Germans! They don’t know their own country!”
said another.
“What division are you?” shouted an adjutant, riding up.
“The Eighteenth.”
“Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you
won’t get there till evening.”
“What stupid orders! They don’t themselves know what they are
doing!” said the officer and rode off.
Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.
“Tafa-lafa! But what he’s jabbering no one can make out,” said a
soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. “I’d shoot them,
the scoundrels!”
“We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven’t got
halfway. Fine orders!” was being repeated on different sides.
And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
Germans.
The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center
was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all
ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
front of the infantry, who had to wait.
At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be
halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to
blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After
an hour’s delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog
that was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they
were descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another,
at first irregularly at varying intervals—trata...tat—and then more
and more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream
began.
Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through
the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around
them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy
lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from
the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown
surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action
began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into
the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutúzov was, stood on the
Pratzen Heights.
Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the
higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was
going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,
six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one
knew till after eight o’clock.
It was nine o’clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea
down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon
stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was
a clear blue sky, and the sun’s vast orb quivered like a huge hollow,
crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French
army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side
of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we
intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this
side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could
distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak
which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab
horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills
which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian
troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of
firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face—which in those
days was still thin—moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on
one spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian
force had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes
and part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack
and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in
a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into
the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the
sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night,
by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away
in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted
the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already
sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not
begin the engagement.
Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation.
Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and
in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field
in that happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything
succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above
the mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident,
self-complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily
in love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his
attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating
up out of the mist.
When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were
aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin the
action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign
with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,
accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and
a few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly
toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by
Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.
CHAPTER XV
At eight o’clock Kutúzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Milorádovich’s, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszéwski’s and Langeron’s columns which had already gone down
into the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave
them the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead
that column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he
halted. Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the
commander in chief’s suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of
a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of
his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not
know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of
our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone
in our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now
be carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother’s plan,
Prince Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects
such as might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.
To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces
could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would
concentrate. “There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,”
thought he, “I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there,
standard in hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of
me.”
He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.
Seeing them he kept thinking, “That may be the very standard with
which I shall lead the army.”
In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was
a hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a
milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which
our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.
Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb
of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,
some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably
was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were
entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and
then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses
of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and
behind moved infantry. The commander in chief was standing at the end of
the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutúzov seemed
worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt
without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in
front.
“Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the
village!” he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. “Don’t
you understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not
defile through narrow village streets when we are marching against the
enemy?”
“I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,”
answered the general.
Kutúzov laughed bitterly.
“You’ll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy!
Very fine!”
“The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the
dispositions...”
“The dispositions!” exclaimed Kutúzov bitterly. “Who told you
that?... Kindly do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My dear fellow,” Nesvítski whispered to Prince Andrew, “the old
man is as surly as a dog.”
An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat
galloped up to Kutúzov and asked in the Emperor’s name had the fourth
column advanced into action.
Kutúzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall
upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutúzov’s
malevolent and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what
was being done was not his adjutant’s fault, and still not answering
the Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkónski.
“Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the
village. Tell it to stop and await my orders.”
Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.
“And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted,” he added. “What
are they doing? What are they doing?” he murmured to himself, still
not replying to the Austrian.
Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.
Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped
the third division and convinced himself that there really were no
sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the
regiment was much surprised at the commander in chief’s order to throw
out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops
in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.
There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent
hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander in chief’s
name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutúzov
still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle
with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The
troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets
on the ground.
“All right, all right!” he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a
general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all
the left-flank columns had already descended.
“Plenty of time, your excellency,” muttered Kutúzov in the midst of
a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutúzov was heard the sound of regiments
saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended
line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were
greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front
of which Kutúzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one
side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped
what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them
rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with
white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who
was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors
followed by their suites. Kutúzov, affecting the manners of an old
soldier at the front, gave the command “Attention!” and rode up
to the Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were
suddenly transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys
without reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck
Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.
This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face
of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.
After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field
of Olmütz where Bolkónski had seen him for the first time abroad, but
there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness
in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for
varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted
innocent youth.
At the Olmütz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed
brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two
miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round
at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartorýski,
Novosíltsev, Prince Volkónsky, Strógonov, and the others, all richly
dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly
heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the
Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very
erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and
preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked
some question—“Most likely he is asking at what o’clock they
started,” thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with
a smile he could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brünn.
In the Emperors’ suite were the picked young orderly officers of the
Guard and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms
leading the Tsar’s beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered
cloths.
As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters
a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of
success reached Kutúzov’s cheerless staff with the galloping advent
of all these brilliant young men.
“Why aren’t you beginning, Michael Ilariónovich?” said the
Emperor Alexander hurriedly to Kutúzov, glancing courteously at the
same time at the Emperor Francis.
“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” answered Kutúzov, bending forward
respectfully.
The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not
quite heard.
“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutúzov. (Prince Andrew noted
that Kutúzov’s upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the
word “waiting.”) “Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your
Majesty.”
The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his
rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosíltsev who was near him, as
if complaining of Kutúzov.
“You know, Michael Ilariónovich, we are not on the Empress’ Field
where a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled,” said
the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting
him if not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the
Emperor Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.
“That is just why I do not begin, sire,” said Kutúzov in a
resounding voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being
heard, and again something in his face twitched—“That is just why
I do not begin, sire, because we are not on parade and not on the
Empress’ Field,” said he clearly and distinctly.
In the Emperor’s suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed
dissatisfaction and reproach. “Old though he may be, he should not, he
certainly should not, speak like that,” their glances seemed to say.
The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutúzov’s eye
waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutúzov, with
respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted
for about a minute.
“However, if you command it, Your Majesty,” said Kutúzov, lifting
his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but
submissive general.
He touched his horse and having called Milorádovich, the commander of
the column, gave him the order to advance.
The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Nóvgorod and
one of the Ápsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.
As this Ápsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Milorádovich,
without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous
tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front
and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined
in his horse before the Emperor.
“God be with you, general!” said the Emperor.
“Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilité,
sire,” * he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among
the gentlemen of the Tsar’s suite by his poor French.
* “Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to
do, Sire.”
Milorádovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little
behind the Emperor. The Ápsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s presence,
passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk
pace.
“Lads!” shouted Milorádovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery
voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of
battle, and by the sight of the gallant Ápsherons, his comrades in
Suvórov’s time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he
forgot the sovereigns’ presence. “Lads, it’s not the first village
you’ve had to take,” cried he.
“Glad to do our best!” shouted the soldiers.
The Emperor’s horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had
carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the
field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and
pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the
Empress’ Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor
of the nearness of the Emperor Francis’ black cob, nor of all that was
being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.
The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a
remark to him, pointing to the gallant Ápsherons.
CHAPTER XVI
Kutúzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the
carabineers.
When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he
stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an
inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were
marching along both.
The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible
about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on
the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutúzov had stopped and was
speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind
looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.
“Look, look!” said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the
distance, but down the hill before him. “It’s the French!”
The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying
to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces
suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a
mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in
front of us.
“It’s the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But
how is that?” said different voices.
With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more
than five hundred paces from where Kutúzov was standing, a dense French
column coming up to meet the Ápsherons.
“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,”
thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutúzov.
“The Ápsherons must be stopped, your excellency,” cried he. But at
that very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard
quite close at hand, and a voice of naïve terror barely two steps from
Prince Andrew shouted, “Brothers! All’s lost!” And at this as if
at a command, everyone began to run.
Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five
minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it
have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to
be carried back with it oneself. Bolkónski only tried not to lose
touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was
happening in front of him. Nesvítski with an angry face, red and unlike
himself, was shouting to Kutúzov that if he did not ride away at once
he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutúzov remained in the same
place and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing
from his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.
“You are wounded?” he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of
his lower jaw.
“The wound is not here, it is there!” said Kutúzov, pressing the
handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.
“Stop them!” he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing
that it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the
right.
A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.
The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by
them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, “Get on!
Why are you hindering us?” Another in the same place turned round and
fired in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutúzov himself rode.
Having by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men,
Kutúzov, with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a
sound of artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd
of fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutúzov, saw on the
slope of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing
and Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry,
neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the
fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and
approached Kutúzov. Of Kutúzov’s suite only four remained. They were
all pale and exchanged looks in silence.
“Stop those wretches!” gasped Kutúzov to the regimental commander,
pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish
him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across
Kutúzov’s suite like a flock of little birds.
The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutúzov, were firing
at him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;
several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the
flag let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the
muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without
orders.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” groaned Kutúzov despairingly and looked around....
“Bolkónski!” he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness
of the feebleness of age, “Bolkónski!” he whispered, pointing to
the disordered battalion and at the enemy, “what’s that?”
But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of
shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to
the standard.
“Forward, lads!” he shouted in a voice piercing as a child’s.
“Here it is!” thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and
hearing with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him.
Several soldiers fell.
“Hurrah!” shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up
the heavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole
battalion would follow him.
And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then
another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting “Hurrah!”
and overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag
that was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew’s hands, but he
was immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,
dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our
artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned
their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry
soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns
round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces
of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and
to right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But
he did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front
of him—at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired
gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while
a French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the
distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who
evidently did not realize what they were doing.
“What are they about?” thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them.
“Why doesn’t the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed?
Why doesn’t the Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the
Frenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him....”
And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to
the struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had
triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him,
was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It
seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head
with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of
it was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had
been looking at.
“What’s this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,” thought he,
and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle
of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner
had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or
saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the
sky—the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray
clouds gliding slowly across it. “How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not
at all as I ran,” thought Prince Andrew—“not as we ran, shouting
and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened
and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds
glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that
lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All
is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing,
nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but
quiet and peace. Thank God!...”
CHAPTER XVII
On our right flank commanded by Bagratión, at nine o’clock the battle
had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorúkov’s demand to
commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself,
Prince Bagratión proposed to Dolgorúkov to send to inquire of the
commander in chief. Bagratión knew that as the distance between the two
flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed
(which he very likely would be), and found the commander in chief
(which would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before
evening.
Bagratión cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,
and the boyish face of Rostóv, breathless with excitement and hope, was
the first to catch his eye. He sent him.
“And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander in
chief, your excellency?” said Rostóv, with his hand to his cap.
“You can give the message to His Majesty,” said Dolgorúkov,
hurriedly interrupting Bagratión.
On being relieved from picket duty Rostóv had managed to get a few
hours’ sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute,
with elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in
that state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and
easy.
All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a
general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was
orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a
message to Kutúzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning
was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of
joy and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein
and galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of
Bagratión’s troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were
standing motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvárov’s
cavalry and here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle;
having passed Uvárov’s cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon
and musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.
In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots
at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots,
but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before
Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes
several of them were not separated from one another but merged into a
general roar.
He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another
down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading,
and mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets
visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow
lines of artillery with green caissons.
Rostóv stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was
going on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand
or make out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of
some sort were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops;
but why, whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out.
These sights and sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him;
on the contrary, they stimulated his energy and determination.
“Go on! Go on! Give it them!” he mentally exclaimed at these sounds,
and again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and
farther into the region where the army was already in action.
“How it will be there I don’t know, but all will be well!” thought
Rostóv.
After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the
line (the Guards) was already in action.
“So much the better! I shall see it close,” he thought.
He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came
galloping toward him. They were our Uhlans who with disordered
ranks were returning from the attack. Rostóv got out of their way,
involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.
“That is no business of mine,” he thought. He had not ridden many
hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole
width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white
uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and
across his path. Rostóv put his horse to full gallop to get out of the
way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the
same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the
horses were already galloping. Rostóv heard the thud of their hoofs
and the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and
even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,
advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.
The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.
Rostóv could already see their faces and heard the command:
“Charge!” shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to
full speed. Rostóv, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on
the French, galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but
still was not in time to avoid them.
The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily
on seeing Rostóv before him, with whom he would inevitably collide.
This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostóv and his Bedouin over
(Rostóv felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men
and horses) had it not occurred to Rostóv to flourish his whip before
the eyes of the Guardsman’s horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen
hands high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman
drove his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail
and extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse
Guards passed Rostóv before he heard them shout, “Hurrah!” and
looking back saw that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some
foreign cavalry with red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing
more, for immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and
smoke enveloped everything.
At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in
the smoke, Rostóv hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where
he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that
amazed the French themselves. Rostóv was horrified to hear later that
of all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant,
rich youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their
thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.
“Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see
the Emperor immediately!” thought Rostóv and galloped on.
When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and
around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so
much because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on
the soldiers’ faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the
officers.
Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a
voice calling him by name.
“Rostóv!”
“What?” he answered, not recognizing Borís.
“I say, we’ve been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!” said
Borís with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been
under fire for the first time.
Rostóv stopped.
“Have you?” he said. “Well, how did it go?”
“We drove them back!” said Borís with animation, growing talkative.
“Can you imagine it?” and he began describing how the Guards, having
taken up their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were
Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged
by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had
unexpectedly to go into action. Rostóv without hearing Borís to the
end spurred his horse.
“Where are you off to?” asked Borís.
“With a message to His Majesty.”
“There he is!” said Borís, thinking Rostóv had said “His
Highness,” and pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders
and frowning brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet
and Horse Guards’ jacket, shouting something to a pale, white
uniformed Austrian officer.
“But that’s the Grand Duke, and I want the commander in chief or the
Emperor,” said Rostóv, and was about to spur his horse.
“Count! Count!” shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager
as Borís. “Count! I am wounded in my right hand” (and he showed his
bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) “and I remained at
the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family—the
von Bergs—have been knights!”
He said something more, but Rostóv did not wait to hear it and rode
away.
Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostóv, to avoid
again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse
Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place
where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he
heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops,
where he could never have expected the enemy to be.
“What can it be?” he thought. “The enemy in the rear of our army?
Impossible!” And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself
and for the issue of the whole battle. “But be that what it may,”
he reflected, “there is no riding round it now. I must look for the
commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with
the rest.”
The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostóv was more and
more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of
Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.
“What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is
firing?” Rostóv kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian
soldiers running in confused crowds across his path.
“The devil knows! They’ve killed everybody! It’s all up now!”
he was told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who
understood what was happening as little as he did.
“Kill the Germans!” shouted one.
“May the devil take them—the traitors!”
“Zum Henker diese Russen!” * muttered a German.
* “Hang these Russians!”
Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams,
and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down.
Rostóv learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing
at one another.
“My God! What does it all mean?” thought he. “And here, where at
any moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a
handful of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can’t be that, it
can’t be! Only to get past them quicker, quicker!”
The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostóv’s head. Though
he saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just where
he had been ordered to look for the commander in chief, he could not,
did not wish to, believe that.
CHAPTER XVIII
Rostóv had been ordered to look for Kutúzov and the Emperor near the
village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer
were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He
urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but
the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on
which he had come out was thronged with calèches, carriages of all
sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and
some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the
dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries
stationed on the Pratzen Heights.
“Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutúzov?” Rostóv kept asking
everyone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.
At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.
“Eh, brother! They’ve all bolted long ago!” said the soldier,
laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.
Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostóv stopped the
horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to
question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a
carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and
that he was dangerously wounded.
“It can’t be!” said Rostóv. “It must have been someone else.”
“I saw him myself,” replied the man with a self-confident smile of
derision. “I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I’ve
seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in
the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses
fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It’s time I knew the Imperial
horses and Ilyá Iványch. I don’t think Ilyá drives anyone except
the Tsar!”
Rostóv let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded
officer passing by addressed him:
“Who is it you want?” he asked. “The commander in chief? He was
killed by a cannon ball—struck in the breast before our regiment.”
“Not killed—wounded!” another officer corrected him.
“Who? Kutúzov?” asked Rostóv.
“Not Kutúzov, but what’s his name—well, never mind... there are
not many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders
are there,” said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek,
and he walked on.
Rostóv rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now
going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to
doubt it now. Rostóv rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which
he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say
to the Tsar or to Kutúzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?
“Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!” a
soldier shouted to him. “They’d kill you there!”
“Oh, what are you talking about?” said another. “Where is he to
go? That way is nearer.”
Rostóv considered, and then went in the direction where they said he
would be killed.
“It’s all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to
save myself?” he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest
number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not
yet occupied that region, and the Russians—the uninjured and slightly
wounded—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of
manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded
to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes
and one could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes
feigned—or so it seemed to Rostóv. He put his horse to a trot to
avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid—afraid not
for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would not
stand the sight of these unfortunates.
The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and
wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant
riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The
sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around
him merged in Rostóv’s mind into a single feeling of terror and pity
for himself. He remembered his mother’s last letter. “What would she
feel,” thought he, “if she saw me here now on this field with the
cannon aimed at me?”
In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from
the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less
disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire
sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle
was lost. No one whom Rostóv asked could tell him where the Emperor
or Kutúzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was
correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had
spread by the fact that the Emperor’s carriage had really galloped
from the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal
Count Tolstóy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in
the Emperor’s suite. One officer told Rostóv that he had seen someone
from headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostóv
rode, not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When
he had ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian
troops, he saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men
on horseback facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed
familiar to Rostóv; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which
Rostóv fancied he had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his
horse with his spurs, and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only
a little earth crumbled from the bank under the horse’s hind hoofs.
Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially
addressed the horseman with the white plumes, evidently suggesting
that he should do the same. The rider, whose figure seemed familiar
to Rostóv and involuntarily riveted his attention, made a gesture of
refusal with his head and hand and by that gesture Rostóv instantly
recognized his lamented and adored monarch.
“But it can’t be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!”
thought Rostóv. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostóv
saw the beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The
Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm,
the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostóv was happy
in the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were
false. He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even
ought to go straight to him and give the message Dolgorúkov had ordered
him to deliver.
But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the
thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a
chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is
alone with her, so Rostóv, now that he had attained what he had longed
for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach
the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be
inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.
“What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of
his being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or
painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him
now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight
of him?” Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor
that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those
speeches were intended for quite other conditions, they were for the
most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally
when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic
deeds, and while dying he expressed the love his actions had proved.
“Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right
flank now that it is nearly four o’clock and the battle is lost?
No, certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his
reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind
look or bad opinion from him,” Rostóv decided; and sorrowfully and
with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the
Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.
While Rostóv was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,
Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the
Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him
to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling
unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.
Rostóv from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke
long and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,
covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll’s hand.
“And I might have been in his place!” thought Rostóv, and hardly
restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter
despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.
His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was
the cause of his grief.
He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It
was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not
made use of it.... “What have I done?” thought he. And he turned
round and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but
there was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages
were passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutúzov’s
staff were not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to.
Rostóv followed them. In front of him walked Kutúzov’s groom leading
horses in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old,
bandy-legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.
“Tit! I say, Tit!” said the groom.
“What?” answered the old man absent-mindedly.
“Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!”
“Oh, you fool!” said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed
in silence, and then the same joke was repeated.
Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More
than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.
Przebyszéwski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns
after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused
masses.
The remains of Langeron’s and Dokhtúrov’s mingled forces were
crowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of
Augesd.
After five o’clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade
(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous
batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our
retreating forces.
In the rearguard, Dokhtúrov and others rallying some battalions kept up
a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It
was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the
old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully
angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the
floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for
so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully
driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty
with flour whitening their carts—on that narrow dam amid the wagons
and the cannon, under the horses’ hoofs and between the wagon wheels,
men disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one
another, dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to
move on a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.
Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or
a shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and
splashing with blood those near them.
Dólokhov—now an officer—wounded in the arm, and on foot, with
the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,
represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the
crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in
on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a
cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone
behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dólokhov with blood.
The crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few
steps, and again stopped.
“Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here
another two minutes and it is certain death,” thought each one.
Dólokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge
of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the
slippery ice that covered the millpool.
“Turn this way!” he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked
under him; “turn this way!” he shouted to those with the gun. “It
bears!...”
The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it
would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even
under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the
bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the
entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address
Dólokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that
everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell
from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of
raising him.
“Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don’t you hear? Go
on!” innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck
the general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were
shouting.
One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the
ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond.
The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped
into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist.
The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but
from behind still came the shouts: “Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go
on! Go on!” And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers
near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and
move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under
those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on
it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.
Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the
ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered
the dam, the pond, and the bank.
CHAPTER XIX
On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his
hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkónski bleeding profusely and unconsciously
uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.
Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know
how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was
alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head.
“Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw
today?” was his first thought. “And I did not know this suffering
either,” he thought. “Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all
till now. But where am I?”
He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices
speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty
sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and
between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not
see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up
and stopped near him.
It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding
over the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries
firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left
on the field.
“Fine men!” remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier,
who, with his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his
stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.
“The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your
Majesty,” said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were
firing at Augesd.
“Have some brought from the reserve,” said Napoleon, and having gone
on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with
the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already
been taken by the French as a trophy.)
“That’s a fine death!” said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkónski.
Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was
Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he
heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only
did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once
forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,
and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it
was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him
such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now
between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over
it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over
him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing
near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to
life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to
understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and
utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan
which aroused his own pity.
“Ah! He is alive,” said Napoleon. “Lift this young man up and
carry him to the dressing station.”
Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in
hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.
Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the
terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while
being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station.
He did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other
wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.
During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look
about him and even speak.
The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French
convoy officer, who said rapidly: “We must halt here: the Emperor
will pass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen
prisoners.”
“There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army,
that he is probably tired of them,” said another officer.
“All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor
Alexander’s Guards,” said the first one, indicating a Russian
officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.
Bolkónski recognized Prince Repnín whom he had met in Petersburg
society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of
the Horse Guards.
Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.
“Which is the senior?” he asked, on seeing the prisoners.
They named the colonel, Prince Repnín.
“You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander’s regiment of Horse
Guards?” asked Napoleon.
“I commanded a squadron,” replied Repnín.
“Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,” said Napoleon.
“The praise of a great commander is a soldier’s highest reward,”
said Repnín.
“I bestow it with pleasure,” said Napoleon. “And who is that young
man beside you?”
Prince Repnín named Lieutenant Sukhtélen.
After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
“He’s very young to come to meddle with us.”
“Youth is no hindrance to courage,” muttered Sukhtélen in a failing
voice.
“A splendid reply!” said Napoleon. “Young man, you will go far!”
Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor’s
eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his
attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield
and, addressing him, again used the epithet “young man” that was
connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.
“Well, and you, young man,” said he. “How do you feel, mon
brave?”
Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few
words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed
straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment
seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his
hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear,
compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and
understood, that he could not answer him.
Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the
stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,
suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into
Napoleon’s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of
greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and
the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one
alive could understand or explain.
The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of
the officers as he went: “Have these gentlemen attended to and taken
to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir,
Prince Repnín!” and he spurred his horse and galloped away.
His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.
The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the
little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother’s neck, but
seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to
return the holy image.
Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the
little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest
outside his uniform.
“It would be good,” thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his
sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, “it
would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to
Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life,
and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I
should be if I could now say: ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’... But to
whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible,
which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in
words—the Great All or Nothing-” said he to himself, “or to
that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing
certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I
understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but
all-important.”
The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain;
his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father,
wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night
before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and
above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious
fancies.
The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented
itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that
little Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of
shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments
had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning
all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of
unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon’s doctor,
Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.
“He is a nervous, bilious subject,” said Larrey, “and will not
recover.”
And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of
the inhabitants of the district.
BOOK FOUR: 1806
CHAPTER I
Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostóv returned home on leave. Denísov
was going home to Vorónezh and Rostóv persuaded him to travel with him
as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at
the last post station but one before Moscow, Denísov had drunk three
bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the
snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay
at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostóv, who grew more and more
impatient the nearer they got to Moscow.
“How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,
shops, bakers’ signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!” thought
Rostóv, when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and
they had entered Moscow.
“Denísov! We’re here! He’s asleep,” he added, leaning forward
with his whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed
of the sleigh.
Denísov gave no answer.
“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhár,
has his stand, and there’s Zakhár himself and still the same horse!
And here’s the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can’t
you hurry up? Now then!”
“Which house is it?” asked the driver.
“Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don’t you see?
That’s our house,” said Rostóv. “Of course, it’s our house!
Denísov, Denísov! We’re almost there!”
Denísov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
“Dmítri,” said Rostóv to his valet on the box, “those lights are
in our house, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir, and there’s a light in your father’s study.”
“Then they’ve not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now,
don’t forget to put out my new coat,” added Rostóv, fingering his
new mustache. “Now then, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “Do
wake up, Váska!” he went on, turning to Denísov, whose head
was again nodding. “Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for
vodka—get on!” Rostóv shouted, when the sleigh was only three
houses from his door. It seemed to him the horses were not moving at
all. At last the sleigh bore to the right, drew up at an entrance, and
Rostóv saw overhead the old familiar cornice with a bit of plaster
broken off, the porch, and the post by the side of the pavement. He
sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house
stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it.
There was no one in the hall. “Oh God! Is everyone all right?”
he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and then
immediately starting to run along the hall and up the warped steps of
the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle, which always
angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely
as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the anteroom.
Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokófy, the footman, who was
so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat
plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening
door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one
of delighted amazement.
“Gracious heavens! The young count!” he cried, recognizing his
young master. “Can it be? My treasure!” and Prokófy, trembling with
excitement, rushed toward the drawing room door, probably in order to
announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the
young man’s shoulder.
“All well?” asked Rostóv, drawing away his arm.
“Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They’ve just finished supper. Let me have
a look at you, your excellency.”
“Is everything quite all right?”
“The Lord be thanked, yes!”
Rostóv, who had completely forgotten Denísov, not wishing anyone to
forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the
large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card
tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had
already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing
room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began
hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same
kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing,
more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was
Papa, which Natásha, and which Pétya. Everyone shouted, talked, and
kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed
that.
“And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!...”
“Here he is... our own... Kólya, * dear fellow... How he has
changed!... Where are the candles?... Tea!...”
* Nicholas.
“And me, kiss me!”
“Dearest... and me!”
Sónya, Natásha, Pétya, Anna Mikháylovna, Véra, and the old count
were all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the
room, exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.
Pétya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!”
Natásha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face
with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and
pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly.
All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around
were lips seeking a kiss.
Sónya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,
looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she
longed. Sónya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at
this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking
her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a
grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old
countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps
so rapid that they could hardly be his mother’s.
Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since
he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they
met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but
only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar’s jacket. Denísov,
who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped
his eyes at the sight.
“Vasíli Denísov, your son’s friend,” he said, introducing
himself to the count, who was looking inquiringly at him.
“You are most welcome! I know, I know,” said the count, kissing and
embracing Denísov. “Nicholas wrote us... Natásha, Véra, look! Here
is Denísov!”
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denísov.
“Darling Denísov!” screamed Natásha, beside herself with rapture,
springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
escapade made everybody feel confused. Denísov blushed too, but smiled
and, taking Natásha’s hand, kissed it.
Denísov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostóvs all
gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.
The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every
moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every
movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring
eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest
to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,
handkerchief, and pipe.
Rostóv was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first
moment of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed
insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.
Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept
till ten o’clock.
In the room next to their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,
satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly
cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants
were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their
well-brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.
“Hallo, Gwíska—my pipe!” came Vasíli Denísov’s husky voice.
“Wostóv, get up!”
Rostóv, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his
disheveled head from the hot pillow.
“Why, is it late?”
“Late! It’s nearly ten o’clock,” answered Natásha’s voice.
A rustle of starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of
girls’ voices came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a
crack and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair,
and merry faces. It was Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya, who had come to
see whether they were getting up.
“Nicholas! Get up!” Natásha’s voice was again heard at the door.
“Directly!”
Meanwhile, Pétya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room,
with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and
forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed,
opened the bedroom door.
“Is this your saber?” he shouted.
The girls sprang aside. Denísov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,
looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let
Pétya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.
“Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natásha’s voice.
“Is this your saber?” asked Pétya. “Or is it yours?” he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denísov with servile deference.
Rostóv hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown,
and went out. Natásha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting
her foot into the other. Sónya, when he came in, was twirling round and
was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were
dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and
bright. Sónya ran away, but Natásha, taking her brother’s arm, led
him into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave
one another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand
little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natásha
laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what
they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable
to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter.
“Oh, how nice, how splendid!” she said to everything.
Rostóv felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that
childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left
home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his
soul and his face.
“No, but listen,” she said, “now you are quite a man, aren’t
you? I’m awfully glad you’re my brother.” She touched his
mustache. “I want to know what you men are like. Are you the same as
we? No?”
“Why did Sónya run away?” asked Rostóv.
“Ah, yes! That’s a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
her—thou or you?”
“As may happen,” said Rostóv.
“No, call her you, please! I’ll tell you all about it some other
time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sónya’s my dearest friend.
Such a friend that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!”
She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,
slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered
even by a ball dress.
“I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the
fire and pressed it there!”
Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used
to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natásha’s wildly bright
eyes, Rostóv re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no
meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life;
and the burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem
to him senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.
“Well, and is that all?” he asked.
“We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just
nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it
for life, but I don’t understand that, I forget quickly.”
“Well, what then?”
“Well, she loves me and you like that.”
Natásha suddenly flushed.
“Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to
forget all that.... She says: ‘I shall love him always, but let him be
free.’ Isn’t that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn’t it?”
asked Natásha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what
she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
Rostóv became thoughtful.
“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sónya is so
charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.”
“No, no!” cried Natásha, “she and I have already talked it over.
We knew you’d say so. But it won’t do, because you see, if you say
that—if you consider yourself bound by your promise—it will seem as
if she had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying
her because you must, and that wouldn’t do at all.”
Rostóv saw that it had been well considered by them. Sónya had already
struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught
a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl
of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt
that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry
her, Rostóv thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures
and interests before him! “Yes, they have taken a wise decision,” he
thought, “I must remain free.”
“Well then, that’s excellent,” said he. “We’ll talk it over
later on. Oh, how glad I am to have you!”
“Well, and are you still true to Borís?” he continued.
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Natásha, laughing. “I don’t think
about him or anyone else, and I don’t want anything of the kind.”
“Dear me! Then what are you up to now?”
“Now?” repeated Natásha, and a happy smile lit up her face. “Have
you seen Duport?”
“No.”
“Not seen Duport—the famous dancer? Well then, you won’t
understand. That’s what I’m up to.”
Curving her arms, Natásha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back
a few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply
together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.
“See, I’m standing! See!” she said, but could not maintain herself
on her toes any longer. “So that’s what I’m up to! I’ll never
marry anyone, but will be a dancer. Only don’t tell anyone.”
Rostóv laughed so loud and merrily that Denísov, in his bedroom, felt
envious and Natásha could not help joining in.
“No, but don’t you think it’s nice?” she kept repeating.
“Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Borís?”
Natásha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell
him so when I see him!”
“Dear me!” said Rostóv.
“But that’s all rubbish,” Natásha chattered on. “And is
Denísov nice?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed!”
“Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible,
Denísov?”
“Why terrible?” asked Nicholas. “No, Váska is a splendid
fellow.”
“You call him Váska? That’s funny! And is he very nice?”
“Very.”
“Well then, be quick. We’ll all have breakfast together.”
And Natásha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostóv met Sónya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know
how to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of
meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not
be done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was
looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave
with her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as
you—Sónya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender
kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natásha’s intermediacy, to remind him of his promise, and then
thanked him for his love. His looks thanked her for offering him his
freedom and told her that one way or another he would never cease to
love her, for that would be impossible.
“How strange it is,” said Véra, selecting a moment when all were
silent, “that Sónya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers.”
Véra’s remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like
most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not
only Sónya, Nicholas, and Natásha, but even the old countess,
who—dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making
a brilliant match—blushed like a girl.
Denísov, to Rostóv’s surprise, appeared in the drawing room with
pomaded hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as
he made himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the
ladies and gentlemen than Rostóv had ever expected to see him.
CHAPTER II
On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostóv was welcomed
by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling
Nikólenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young
man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good
dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.
The Rostóvs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough
that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,
acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the
latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the
latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,
passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself
to the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be
at home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His
despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from
Gavríl to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sónya on the sly—he now
recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind.
Now he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and
wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in
action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing
men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one
of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka
at the Arkhárovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal
Kámenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a
colonel of forty to whom Denísov had introduced him.
His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as
he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke
about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he
had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the
Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared
the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of
as the “angel incarnate.”
During Rostóv’s short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he
did not draw closer to Sónya, but rather drifted away from her. She was
very pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was
at the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no
time for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and
prizes his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he
thought of Sónya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself,
“Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom
I do not yet know. There will be time enough to think about love when I
want to, but now I have no time.” Besides, it seemed to him that the
society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls
and into ladies’ society with an affectation of doing so against his
will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denísov, and visits to
a certain house—that was another matter and quite the thing for a
dashing young hussar!
At the beginning of March, old Count Ilyá Rostóv was very busy
arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagratión at the English Club.
The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving
orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktíst, the club’s
head cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and
fish for this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee
of the club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the
arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagratión, for few men knew
so well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale,
and still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of
their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.
The club cook and the steward listened to the count’s orders with
pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they
so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing
several thousand rubles.
“Well then, mind and have cocks’ comb in the turtle soup, you
know!”
“Shall we have three cold dishes then?” asked the cook.
The count considered.
“We can’t have less—yes, three... the mayonnaise, that’s one,”
said he, bending down a finger.
“Then am I to order those large sterlets?” asked the steward.
“Yes, it can’t be helped if they won’t take less. Ah, dear me! I
was forgetting. We must have another entrée. Ah, goodness gracious!”
he clutched at his head. “Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmítri!
Eh, Dmítri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,” he said to the factotum
who appeared at his call. “Hurry off and tell Maksím, the gardener,
to set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must
be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots
here on Friday.”
Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his “little
countess” to have a rest, but remembering something else of
importance, he returned again, called back the cook and the club
steward, and again began giving orders. A light footstep and the
clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count, handsome,
rosy, with a dark little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by
his easy life in Moscow, entered the room.
“Ah, my boy, my head’s in a whirl!” said the old man with a smile,
as if he felt a little confused before his son. “Now, if you would
only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra,
but shouldn’t we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like
that sort of thing.”
“Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagratión worried himself less before
the battle of Schön Grabern than you do now,” said his son with a
smile.
The old count pretended to be angry.
“Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!”
And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful
expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and
son.
“What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktíst?” said
he. “Laughing at us old fellows!”
“That’s so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good
dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that’s not their
business!”
“That’s it, that’s it!” exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing
his son by both hands, he cried, “Now I’ve got you, so take the
sleigh and pair at once, and go to Bezúkhov’s, and tell him ‘Count
Ilyá has sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.’ We
can’t get them from anyone else. He’s not there himself, so you’ll
have to go in and ask the princesses; and from there go on to the
Rasgulyáy—the coachman Ipátka knows—and look up the gypsy
Ilyúshka, the one who danced at Count Orlóv’s, you remember, in a
white Cossack coat, and bring him along to me.”
“And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?” asked Nicholas,
laughing. “Dear, dear!...”
At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,
preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna
Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his
dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to
excuse his costume.
“No matter at all, my dear count,” she said, meekly closing her
eyes. “But I’ll go to Bezúkhov’s myself. Pierre has arrived, and
now we shall get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him
in any case. He has forwarded me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís
is now on the staff.”
The count was delighted at Anna Mikháylovna’s taking upon herself one
of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
“Tell Bezúkhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with
him?” he asked.
Anna Mikháylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted
on her face.
“Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,” she said. “If what
we hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing
when we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul
as young Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give
him what consolation I can.”
“Wh-what is the matter?” asked both the young and old Rostóv.
Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply.
“Dólokhov, Mary Ivánovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious
whisper, “has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him
up, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here
and that daredevil after her!” said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show
her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile
betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called Dólokhov.
“They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune.”
“Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club—it will all blow
over. It will be a tremendous banquet.”
Next day, the third of March, soon after one o’clock, two hundred and
fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the
guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, to
dinner.
On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had
been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories
that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,
while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an
event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,
and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in
December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as
though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone
in conversation—Count Rostopchín, Prince Yúri Dolgorúkov, Valúev,
Count Markóv, and Prince Vyázemski—did not show themselves at the
club, but met in private houses in intimate circles, and the
Moscovites who took their opinions from others—Ilyá Rostóv among
them—remained for a while without any definite opinion on the subject
of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was
wrong and that to discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best
to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room,
the bigwigs who guided the club’s opinion reappeared, and everybody
began speaking clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the
incredible, unheard-of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat,
everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same things
began to be said. These reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a
defective commissariat, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszéwski and of
the Frenchman Langeron, Kutúzov’s incapacity, and (it was whispered)
the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless
and insignificant people. But the army, the Russian army, everyone
declared, was extraordinary and had achieved miracles of valor. The
soldiers, officers, and generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was
Prince Bagratión, distinguished by his Schön Grabern affair and by
the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone had withdrawn his column
unbroken and had all day beaten back an enemy force twice as numerous
as his own. What also conduced to Bagratión’s being selected as
Moscow’s hero was the fact that he had no connections in the city
and was a stranger there. In his person, honor was shown to a simple
fighting Russian soldier without connections and intrigues, and to one
who was associated by memories of the Italian campaign with the name of
Suvórov. Moreover, paying such honor to Bagratión was the best way of
expressing disapproval and dislike of Kutúzov.
“Had there been no Bagratión, it would have been necessary to
invent him,” said the wit Shinshín, parodying the words of Voltaire.
Kutúzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,
calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.
All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorúkov’s saying: “If you go on
modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay,” suggesting
consolation for our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the
words of Rostopchín, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle
by highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them
that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian
soldiers only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and
fresh anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by
our officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another
had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded.
Berg was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when
wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone
forward. Of Bolkónski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him
intimately regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife
with his eccentric father.
CHAPTER III
On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled
with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.
The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,
stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,
and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftáns.
Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,
stood at every door anxiously noting visitors’ every movement in order
to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected
men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures
and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual
places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present
were casual guests—chiefly young men, among whom were Denísov,
Rostóv, and Dólokhov—who was now again an officer in the Semënov
regiment. The faces of these young people, especially those who were
military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their
elders which seems to say to the older generation, “We are prepared to
respect and honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs
to us.”
Nesvítski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his
wife’s command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles,
went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here,
as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to
his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he
treated them with absent-minded contempt.
By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth
and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and
so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men
were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully
to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round
Count Rostopchín, Valúev, and Narýshkin. Rostopchín was describing
how the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to
force their way through them with bayonets.
Valúev was confidentially telling that Uvárov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Narýshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvórov crowed like a cock in reply to
the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshín, standing close
by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutúzov had evidently failed to
learn from Suvórov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a
cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him
feel that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of
Kutúzov.
Count Ilyá Rostóv, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft
boots between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the
important and unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all
equals, while his eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up
young son, resting on him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostóv
stood at a window with Dólokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately
made and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed
Dólokhov’s hand.
“Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together
out there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasíli Ignátovich...
How d’ye do, old fellow?” he said, turning to an old man who was
passing, but before he had finished his greeting there was a general
stir, and a footman who had run in announced, with a frightened face:
“He’s arrived!”
Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and—like rye shaken together
in a shovel—the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms
came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the
ballroom.
Bagratión appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,
which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall
porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip
over his shoulder, as when Rostóv had seen him on the eve of the battle
of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign
Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just
before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,
which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naïvely
festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile
features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshëv and Theodore
Uvárov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him,
as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagratión was embarrassed, not
wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay
at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly
and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing
what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed
field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at
Schön Grabern—and he would have found that easier. The committeemen
met him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a
highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting
for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was
at first impossible to enter the drawing room door for the crowd of
members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look
at Bagratión over each other’s shoulders, as if he were some rare
animal. Count Ilyá Rostóv, laughing and repeating the words, “Make
way, dear boy! Make way, make way!” pushed through the crowd more
energetically than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and
seated them on the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members
of the club, beset the new arrivals. Count Ilyá, again thrusting his
way through the crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a
minute later with another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver
which he presented to Prince Bagratión. On the salver lay some verses
composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagratión, on seeing the
salver, glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes
demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in their power, he
resolutely took the salver with both hands and looked sternly and
reproachfully at the count who had presented it to him. Someone
obligingly took the dish from Bagratión (or he would, it seemed, have
held it till evening and have gone in to dinner with it) and drew his
attention to the verses.
“Well, I will read them, then!” Bagratión seemed to say, and,
fixing his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and
serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began
reading them aloud. Bagratión bowed his head and listened:
Bring glory then to Alexander’s reign
And on the throne our Titus shield.
A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man,
A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field!
E’en fortunate Napoleon
Knows by experience, now, Bagratión,
And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...
But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced
that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came
the resounding strains of the polonaise:
Conquest’s joyful thunder waken,
Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...
and Count Rostóv, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading
his verses, bowed to Bagratión. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner
was more important than verses, and Bagratión, again preceding all the
rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between
two Alexanders—Bekleshëv and Narýshkin—which was a significant
allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their
seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the
more important nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows
deepest where the land lies lowest.
Just before dinner, Count Ilyá Rostóv presented his son to Bagratión,
who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,
as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilyá looked joyfully
and proudly around while Bagratión spoke to his son.
Nicholas Rostóv, with Denísov and his new acquaintance, Dólokhov, sat
almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince
Nesvítski. Count Ilyá Rostóv with the other members of the committee
sat facing Bagratión and, as the very personification of Moscow
hospitality, did the honors to the prince.
His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the
other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the
end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the
footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything
was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of
which Ilyá Rostóv blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen
began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,
which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with
the other committeemen. “There will be many toasts, it’s time to
begin,” he whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were
silent, waiting for what he would say.
“To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he cried, and at the
same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm.
The band immediately struck up “Conquest’s joyful thunder
waken...” All rose and cried “Hurrah!” Bagratión also rose and
shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted
it on the field at Schön Grabern. Young Rostóv’s ecstatic voice
could be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. “To the
health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he roared, “Hurrah!” and
emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed
his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time. When the
voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass and everybody
sat down again, smiling at the noise they had made and exchanging
remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note lying beside
his plate, and proposed a toast, “To the health of the hero of our
last campaign, Prince Peter Ivánovich Bagratión!” and again his blue
eyes grew moist. “Hurrah!” cried the three hundred voices again,
but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Paul
Ivánovich Kutúzov:
Russians! O’er all barriers on!
Courage conquest guarantees;
Have we not Bagratión?
He brings foemen to their knees,... etc.
As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed
and Count Ilyá Rostóv became more and more moved, more glass was
smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshëv,
Narýshkin, Uvárov, Dolgorúkov, Apráksin, Valúev, to the committee,
to all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to
Count Ilyá Rostóv separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that
toast, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept
outright.
CHAPTER IV
Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and
drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that
some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through
dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and
a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his
nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear
nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some
depressing and unsolved problem.
The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the
princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov’s intimacy with
his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which
in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw
badly through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with
Dólokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely
disbelieved both the princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared
now to look at Dólokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every time
he chanced to meet Dólokhov’s handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt
something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly
away. Involuntarily recalling his wife’s past and her relations with
Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be
true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife.
He involuntarily remembered how Dólokhov, who had fully recovered his
former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come
to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon
companion, Dólokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre had put
him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Hélène had smilingly
expressed disapproval of Dólokhov’s living at their house, and how
cynically Dólokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to him and from that
time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day.
“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It
would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule
me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him,
and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the
pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true,
but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.”
He remembered the expression Dólokhov’s face assumed in his moments
of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them
into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any
reason, or shot a post-boy’s horse with a pistol. That expression
was often on Dólokhov’s face when looking at him. “Yes, he is a
bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means nothing to him. It must
seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him.
He must think that I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of
him,” he thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous
rising in his soul. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv were now sitting
opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking merrily to his
two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious
duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at
Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very
noticeable one at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre,
first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the
husband of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because
Pierre in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized
Rostóv and had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s
health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his
glass.
“What are you about?” shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy
of exasperation. “Don’t you hear it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s
health?”
Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till
all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv.
“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!”
“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dólokhov to Rostóv.
“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostóv.
“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denísov.
Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking
about him. He reddened and turned away.
“Well, now to the health of handsome women!” said Dólokhov, and
with a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of
his mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.
“Here’s to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their
lovers!” he added.
Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets
with Kutúzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the
principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning
across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked
at Dólokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous
that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him.
He leaned his whole massive body across the table.
“How dare you take it?” he shouted.
Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the
neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov.
“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened
voices.
Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
smile of his which seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I like!”
“You shan’t have it!” he said distinctly.
Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.
“You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!” he ejaculated, and,
pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.
At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
that the question of his wife’s guilt which had been tormenting him
the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative.
He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denísov’s
request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be
Dólokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for
the duel with Nesvítski, Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but
Rostóv with Dólokhov and Denísov stayed on at the club till late,
listening to the gypsies and other singers.
“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, as he took
leave of Rostóv in the club porch.
“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostóv asked.
Dólokhov paused.
“Well, you see, I’ll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two
words. If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be
killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm
intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and
then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to tell
me. ‘Everyone fears a bear,’ he says, ‘but when you see one your
fear’s all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!’
And that’s how it is with me. À demain, mon cher.” *
* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.
Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the
Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already
there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which
had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow.
He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and
screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed
by two considerations: his wife’s guilt, of which after his sleepless
night he had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of
Dólokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was
nothing to him.... “I should perhaps have done the same thing in his
place,” thought Pierre. “It’s even certain that I should have done
the same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I shall kill him, or
he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee. Can’t I go away from
here, run away, bury myself somewhere?” passed through his mind. But
just at moments when such thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a
particularly calm and absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of
the onlookers, “Will it be long? Are things ready?”
When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,
and the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre.
“I should not be doing my duty, Count,” he said in timid tones,
“and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done
me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very
grave, moment I did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no
sufficient ground for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it....
You were not right, not quite in the right, you were impetuous...”
“Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,” said Pierre.
“Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent
will accept them,” said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in
the affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that
the affair had come to an actual duel). “You know, Count, it is much
more honorable to admit one’s mistake than to let matters become
irreparable. There was no insult on either side. Allow me to
convey....”
“No! What is there to talk about?” said Pierre. “It’s all the
same.... Is everything ready?” he added. “Only tell me where to go
and where to shoot,” he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.
He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the
trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that he
did not wish to confess.
“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.
“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dólokhov to Denísov (who on
his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to
the appointed place.
The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road,
where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest
covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the
last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther
edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in
the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and
Nesvítski’s and Dólokhov’s sabers, which were stuck into the
ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at
forty paces’ distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had
been ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.
CHAPTER V
“Well, begin!” said Dólokhov.
“All right,” said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling
of dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun
could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of
men’s will.
Denísov first went to the barrier and announced: “As the
adve’sawies have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your
pistols, and at the word thwee begin to advance.
“O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!” he shouted angrily and stepped aside.
The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to
one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the
right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dólokhov
walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his
bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist’s face. His mouth wore
its usual semblance of a smile.
“So I can fire when I like!” said Pierre, and at the word
“three,” he went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and
stepping into the deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at
arm’s length, apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left
hand he held carefully back, because he wished to support his right
hand with it and knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and
strayed off the track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet,
then quickly glanced at Dólokhov and, bending his finger as he had been
shown, fired. Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered
at the sound and then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The
smoke, rendered denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything
for an instant, but there was no second report as he had expected. He
only heard Dólokhov’s hurried steps, and his figure came in view
through the smoke. He was pressing one hand to his left side, while
the other clutched his drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostóv ran
toward him and said something.
“No-o-o!” muttered Dólokhov through his teeth, “no, it’s not
over.” And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the
saber, he sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped
it on his coat and supported himself with it. His frowning face was
pallid and quivered.
“Plea...” began Dólokhov, but could not at first pronounce the
word.
“Please,” he uttered with an effort.
Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dólokhov and
was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dólokhov cried:
“To your barrier!” and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by
his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dólokhov lowered his head to
the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself,
drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked
and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still
smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his
remaining strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.
“Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!” ejaculated Nesvítski.
“Cover yourself!” even Denísov cried to his adversary.
Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs
helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing
Dólokhov and looked sorrowfully at him. Denísov, Rostóv, and
Nesvítski closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report
and Dólokhov’s angry cry.
“Missed!” shouted Dólokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards
on the snow.
Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,
trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:
“Folly... folly! Death... lies...” he repeated, puckering his face.
Nesvítski stopped him and took him home.
Rostóv and Denísov drove away with the wounded Dólokhov.
The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer
a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he
suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostóv, who
was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostóv was struck by the
totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on
Dólokhov’s face.
“Well? How do you feel?” he asked.
“Bad! But it’s not that, my friend—” said Dólokhov with a
gasping voice. “Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don’t matter,
but I have killed her, killed... She won’t get over it! She won’t
survive....”
“Who?” asked Rostóv.
“My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,” and
Dólokhov pressed Rostóv’s hand and burst into tears.
When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostóv that he was
living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it.
He implored Rostóv to go on and prepare her.
Rostóv went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
learned that Dólokhov the brawler, Dólokhov the bully, lived in Moscow
with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate
of sons and brothers.
CHAPTER VI
Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in
Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the
duel he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his
father’s room, that huge room in which Count Bezúkhov had died.
He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that
had happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,
thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall
asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the
room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of
their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on
her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dólokhov’s handsome,
insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and
then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when
he reeled and sank on the snow.
“What has happened?” he asked himself. “I have killed her lover,
yes, killed my wife’s lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come
to do it?”—“Because you married her,” answered an inner voice.
“But in what was I to blame?” he asked. “In marrying her without
loving her; in deceiving yourself and her.” And he vividly recalled
that moment after supper at Prince Vasíli’s, when he spoke those
words he had found so difficult to utter: “I love you.” “It all
comes from that! Even then I felt it,” he thought. “I felt then that
it was not so, that I had no right to do it. And so it turns out.”
He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.
Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of
how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his
study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head
steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at
his dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful
understanding of his employer’s happiness.
“But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty
and social tact,” thought he; “been proud of my house, in which she
received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So
this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand
her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that
I was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that
constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires,
and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved
woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become
clear.
“Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her
naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be
kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied
with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: ‘Let
him do what he pleases,’ she used to say of me. One day I asked her if
she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said
she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going
to have any children by me.”
Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the
vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had
been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.
“I’m not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous
promener,” * she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with
young and old men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not
love her.
* “You clear out of this.”
“Yes, I never loved her,” said he to himself; “I knew she was a
depraved woman,” he repeated, “but dared not admit it to myself.
And now there’s Dólokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and
perhaps dying, while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!”
Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what
is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He
digested his sufferings alone.
“It is all, all her fault,” he said to himself; “but what of that?
Why did I bind myself to her? Why did I say ‘Je vous aime’ * to her,
which was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure...
what? A slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that’s
nonsense,” he thought. “The slur on my name and honor—that’s all
apart from myself.”
* I love you.
“Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a
criminal,” came into Pierre’s head, “and from their point of
view they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a
martyr’s death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being
a despot. Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are
alive—live: tomorrow you’ll die as I might have died an hour ago.
And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life
in comparison with eternity?”
But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections,
she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had
most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the
blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break
and tear whatever came to his hand. “Why did I tell her that ‘Je
vous aime’?” he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it
for the tenth time, Molière’s words: “Mais que diable allait-il
faire dans cette galère?” * occurred to him, and he began to laugh at
himself.
* “But what the devil was he doing in that galley?”
In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to
Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He
resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his
intention to part from her forever.
Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre
was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.
He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,
unable to realize where he was.
“The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at
home,” said the valet.
But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess
herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with
simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like
a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was
a wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her
imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet.
She knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the
valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked
at her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds
who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her
enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless
and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down
but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to
go.
“Well, what’s this now? What have you been up to now, I should like
to know?” she asked sternly.
“I? What have I...?” stammered Pierre.
“So it seems you’re a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about?
What is it meant to prove? What? I ask you.”
Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but
could not reply.
“If you won’t answer, I’ll tell you...” Hélène went on. “You
believe everything you’re told. You were told...” Hélène laughed,
“that Dólokhov was my lover,” she said in French with her coarse
plainness of speech, uttering the word amant as casually as any other
word, “and you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this
duel prove? That you’re a fool, que vous êtes un sot, but everybody
knew that. What will be the result? That I shall be the laughingstock of
all Moscow, that everyone will say that you, drunk and not knowing what
you were about, challenged a man you are jealous of without cause.”
Hélène raised her voice and became more and more excited, “A man
who’s a better man than you in every way...”
“Hm... Hm...!” growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and
not moving a muscle.
“And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like
his company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer
yours.”
“Don’t speak to me... I beg you,” muttered Pierre hoarsely.
“Why shouldn’t I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you
plainly that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who
would not have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so,”
said she.
Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange
expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering
physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could
not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this
suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.
“We had better separate,” he muttered in a broken voice.
“Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune,” said
Hélène. “Separate! That’s a thing to frighten me with!”
Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.
“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table
with a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her
brandishing the slab.
Hélène’s face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His
father’s nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and
delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping
down on her with outstretched hands shouted, “Get out!” in such a
terrible voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what
he would have done at that moment had Hélène not fled from the room.
A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates
in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left
for Petersburg alone.
CHAPTER VII
Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and
the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the
letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had
not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of
all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of
his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the
place and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among
strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which
the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual
very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians
had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The
old prince understood from this official report that our army had been
defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz
came a letter from Kutúzov informing the prince of the fate that had
befallen his son.
“Your son,” wrote Kutúzov, “fell before my eyes, a standard in
his hand and at the head of a regiment—he fell as a hero, worthy of
his father and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the
whole army it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort
myself and you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise
he would have been mentioned among the officers found on the field of
battle, a list of whom has been sent me under flag of truce.”
After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his
study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he
was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though
he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.
When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his
lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.
“Ah, Princess Mary!” he said suddenly in an unnatural voice,
throwing down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own
impetus, and Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that
wheel, which merged in her memory with what followed.)
She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her
eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father’s face, not sad, not
crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over
her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst
in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and
incomprehensible—the death of one she loved.
“Father! Andrew!”—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such
an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father
could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.
“Bad news! He’s not among the prisoners nor among the killed!
Kutúzov writes...” and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to
drive the princess away by that scream... “Killed!”
The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on
hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her
beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy—a supreme joy apart from the
joys and sorrows of this world—overflowed the great grief within her.
She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and
drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.
“Father,” she said, “do not turn away from me, let us weep
together.”
“Scoundrels! Blackguards!” shrieked the old man, turning his face
away from her. “Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go,
go and tell Lise.”
The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and
wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took
leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender
and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. “Did he believe?
Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms
of eternal peace and blessedness?” she thought.
“Father, tell me how it happened,” she asked through her tears.
“Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and
Russia’s glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell
Lise. I will follow.”
When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat
working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm
peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see
Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something
joyful and mysterious taking place within her.
“Mary,” she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying
back, “give me your hand.” She took her sister-in-law’s hand and
held it below her waist.
Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained
lifted in childlike happiness.
Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her
sister-in-law’s dress.
“There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know,
Mary, I am going to love him very much,” said Lise, looking with
bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law.
Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.
“What is the matter, Mary?”
“Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew,” she said, wiping
away her tears on her sister-in-law’s knee.
Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to
prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as
was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not
understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as
if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was
always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign
expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at
Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of
attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women,
and suddenly began to cry.
“Has anything come from Andrew?” she asked.
“No, you know it’s too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I
feel afraid.”
“So there’s nothing?”
“Nothing,” answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant
eyes at her sister-in-law.
She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the
terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected
within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid
their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope:
he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he
sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a
monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his
memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not
to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked
less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary
hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news
of his return.
CHAPTER VIII
“Dearest,” said the little princess after breakfast on the morning
of the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit,
but as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and
even every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so
now the smile of the little princess—influenced by the general mood
though without knowing its cause—was such as to remind one still more
of the general sorrow.
“Dearest, I’m afraid this morning’s fruschtique *—as Fóka the
cook calls it—has disagreed with me.”
* Frühstück: breakfast.
“What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you
are very pale!” said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,
ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.
“Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdánovna be sent for?” said one
of the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdánovna was a midwife from the
neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)
“Oh yes,” assented Princess Mary, “perhaps that’s it. I’ll go.
Courage, my angel.” She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.
“Oh, no, no!” And besides the pallor and the physical suffering
on the little princess’ face, an expression of childish fear of
inevitable pain showed itself.
“No, it’s only indigestion?... Say it’s only indigestion, say so,
Mary! Say...” And the little princess began to cry capriciously like
a suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some
affectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary
Bogdánovna.
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!” she heard as she left the room.
The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump
white hands with an air of calm importance.
“Mary Bogdánovna, I think it’s beginning!” said Princess Mary
looking at the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.
“Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess,” said Mary Bogdánovna, not
hastening her steps. “You young ladies should not know anything about
it.”
“But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?” said the
princess. (In accordance with Lise’s and Prince Andrew’s wishes they
had sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at
any moment.)
“No matter, Princess, don’t be alarmed,” said Mary Bogdánovna.
“We’ll manage very well without a doctor.”
Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy
being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the
large leather sofa from Prince Andrew’s study into the bedroom. On
their faces was a quiet and solemn look.
Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the
house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching
what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in
and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did
not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting
down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before
the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers
did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old
nurse, Praskóvya Sávishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the
old prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl
round her head.
“I’ve come to sit with you a bit, Másha,” said the nurse, “and
here I’ve brought the prince’s wedding candles to light before his
saint, my angel,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh, nurse, I’m so glad!”
“God is merciful, birdie.”
The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door
with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only
when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the
princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the
house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced
as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer
the people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone
tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the
ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince’s
household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a
consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished
at that moment made itself felt.
There was no laughter in the maids’ large hall. In the men servants’
hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs’
quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old
prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent
Tíkhon to ask Mary Bogdánovna what news.—“Say only that ‘the
prince told me to ask,’ and come and tell me her answer.”
“Inform the prince that labor has begun,” said Mary Bogdánovna,
giving the messenger a significant look.
Tíkhon went and told the prince.
“Very good!” said the prince closing the door behind him, and
Tíkhon did not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.
After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing
the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed
face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the
shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he
had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course.
Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of
heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased.
No one slept.
It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its
sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay
of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from
Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns
were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its
hollows and snow-covered pools of water.
Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her
luminous eyes fixed on her nurse’s wrinkled face (every line of which
she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the
kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.
Nurse Sávishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely
hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of
times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary
in Kishenëv with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a
midwife.
“God is merciful, doctors are never needed,” she said.
Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the
window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the
prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks
returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask
curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.
Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was
knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open
casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose
locks of gray hair.
“Princess, my dear, there’s someone driving up the avenue!” she
said, holding the casement and not closing it. “With lanterns. Most
likely the doctor.”
“Oh, my God! thank God!” said Princess Mary. “I must go and meet
him, he does not know Russian.”
Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer.
As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage
with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On
a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On
the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding
another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one
could hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that
seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something.
“Thank God!” said the voice. “And Father?”
“Gone to bed,” replied the voice of Demyán the house steward, who
was downstairs.
Then the voice said something more, Demyán replied, and the steps in
the felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly.
“It’s Andrew!” thought Princess Mary. “No it can’t be, that
would be too extraordinary,” and at the very moment she thought this,
the face and figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of
which covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman
stood with the candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and
strangely softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the
stairs and embraced his sister.
“You did not get my letter?” he asked, and not waiting for a
reply—which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to
speak—he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the
doctor who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post
station), and again embraced his sister.
“What a strange fate, Másha darling!” And having taken off his
cloak and felt boots, he went to the little princess’ apartment.
CHAPTER IX
The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her
head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round
her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its
downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered
and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.
Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested
on him without changing their expression. “I love you all and have
done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!” her look
seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance
of his appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and
kissed her forehead.
“My darling!” he said—a word he had never used to her before.
“God is merciful....”
She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.
“I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!”
said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did
not realize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with
her sufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary
Bogdánovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.
The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,
again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke
off at every moment. They waited and listened.
“Go, dear,” said Princess Mary.
Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next
to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became
confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands
and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came
through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to
open it. Someone was holding it shut.
“You can’t come in! You can’t!” said a terrified voice from
within.
He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds
went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek—it could not be hers, she
could not scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to
the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.
“What have they taken a baby in there for?” thought Prince Andrew in
the first second. “A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or
is the baby born?”
Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears
choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill he began to cry,
sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves
tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out
of the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a
bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and
seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into
his wife’s room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen
her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of
the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with
its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.
“I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you
done to me?”—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.
In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed
in Mary Bogdánovna’s trembling white hands.
Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father’s
room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to
the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise
round his son’s neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.
Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went
up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.
And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes.
“Ah, what have you done to me?” it still seemed to say, and Prince
Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty
of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The
old man too came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly
crossed one on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed
to say: “Ah, what have you done to me, and why?” And at the sight
the old man turned angrily away.
Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andréevich
was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while
the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy’s little red and
wrinkled soles and palms.
His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping
him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over
to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,
faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited
the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when
the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that
the wax with the baby’s hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.
CHAPTER X
Rostóv’s share in Dólokhov’s duel with Bezúkhov was hushed up by
the efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks
as he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of
Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the
family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dólokhov
recovered, and Rostóv became very friendly with him during his
convalescence. Dólokhov lay ill at his mother’s who loved him
passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivánovna, who had grown fond of
Rostóv for his friendship to her Fédya, often talked to him about her
son.
“Yes, Count,” she would say, “he is too noble and pure-souled for
our present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like
a reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it
honorable, of Bezúkhov? And Fédya, with his noble spirit, loved him
and even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg
when they played some tricks on a policeman, didn’t they do it
together? And there! Bezúkhov got off scotfree, while Fédya had to
bear the whole burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through!
It’s true he has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that?
I think there were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out
there as he. And now—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or
honor? Knowing him to be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so
straight! It’s well God had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who
doesn’t have intrigues nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see
things he should have shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months.
And then to call him out, reckoning on Fédya not fighting because he
owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you understand
Fédya, my dear count; that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few
people do understand him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!”
Dólokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostóv in a way no
one would have expected of him.
“I know people consider me a bad man!” he said. “Let them! I
don’t care a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love,
I love so that I would give my life for them, and the others I’d
throttle if they stood in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother,
and two or three friends—you among them—and as for the rest I only
care about them in so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of
them are harmful, especially the women. Yes, dear boy,” he continued,
“I have met loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met
any women—countesses or cooks—who were not venal. I have not yet met
that divine purity and devotion I look for in women. If I found such a
one I’d give my life for her! But those!...” and he made a gesture
of contempt. “And believe me, if I still value my life it is
only because I still hope to meet such a divine creature, who will
regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you don’t understand it.”
“Oh, yes, I quite understand,” answered Rostóv, who was under his
new friend’s influence.
In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the
happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought
many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a handsome girl
of twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening
flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly
amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostóvs’ house there prevailed an amorous
atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very
charming girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing those
impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own
happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful
bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of
young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same
feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a
readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was
Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost
quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad
man, and that in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov
wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.
“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she cried out with
resolute self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like
your Denísov though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so
you see I do understand. I don’t know how to put it... with this one
everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov...”
“Oh, Denísov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that
even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—“you must understand
what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother.
What a heart!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And
do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?”
“What nonsense...”
“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”
Natásha’s prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care
for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the
question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon
settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never
have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov
appeared.
Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs’, never missed a performance at
which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people
which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya
and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his
glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed
when they saw his looks.
It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible
influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.
Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov’s relations with Sónya,
but he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.
“They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sónya and
Natásha. But he was not as much at ease with Sónya and Dólokhov as
before and was less frequently at home.
In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with
Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were
given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army,
and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere
Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war
was talked of. For the Rostóv family the whole interest of these
preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of
remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denísov’s
furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His
approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather
gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away
from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.
CHAPTER XI
On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had
rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denísov
were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people
were present, including Dólokhov and Denísov.
Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous
atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostóvs’ house as at
this holiday time. “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved!
That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one
thing we are interested in here,” said the spirit of the place.
Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without
visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,
returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and
felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a
curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sónya, Dólokhov,
and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree
Natásha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between
Sónya and Dólokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness
natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On
that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the
dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.
“Nicholas, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natásha.
“He asked you, and Vasíli Dmítrich * is also going.”
* Denísov.
“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” said Denísov,
who at the Rostóvs’ had jocularly assumed the role of Natásha’s
knight. “I’m even weady to dance the pas de châle.”
“If I have time,” answered Nicholas. “But I promised the
Arkhárovs; they have a party.”
“And you?” he asked Dólokhov, but as soon as he had asked the
question he noticed that it should not have been put.
“Perhaps,” coldly and angrily replied Dólokhov, glancing at Sónya,
and, scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre
at the club dinner.
“There is something up,” thought Nicholas, and he was further
confirmed in this conclusion by the fact that Dólokhov left immediately
after dinner. He called Natásha and asked her what was the matter.
“And I was looking for you,” said Natásha running out to him. “I
told you, but you would not believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He
has proposed to Sónya!”
Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sónya of late, something
seemed to give way within him at this news. Dólokhov was a suitable and
in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From
the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the
question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas’ first feeling
on hearing the news was one of anger with Sónya.... He tried to say,
“That’s capital; of course she’ll forget her childish promises
and accept the offer,” but before he had time to say it Natásha began
again.
“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a
pause, “she told him she loved another.”
“Yes, my Sónya could not have done otherwise!” thought Nicholas.
“Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won’t change
once she has said...”
“And Mamma pressed her!” said Nicholas reproachfully.
“Yes,” said Natásha. “Do you know, Nicholas—don’t be
angry—but I know you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but
I know for certain that you won’t marry her.”
“Now you don’t know that at all!” said Nicholas. “But I must
talk to her. What a darling Sónya is!” he added with a smile.
“Ah, she is indeed a darling! I’ll send her to you.”
And Natásha kissed her brother and ran away.
A minute later Sónya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared
look. Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first
time since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.
“Sophie,” he began, timidly at first and then more and more
boldly, “if you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and
advantageous match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend...”
Sónya interrupted him.
“I have already refused,” she said hurriedly.
“If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I...”
Sónya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.
“Nicholas, don’t tell me that!” she said.
“No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say
it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I
love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else....”
“That is enough for me,” said Sónya, blushing.
“No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in
love again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,
confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does
not wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider
Dólokhov’s offer,” he said, articulating his friend’s name with
difficulty.
“Don’t say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and
always shall, and I want nothing more.”
“You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of
misleading you.”
And Nicholas again kissed her hand.
CHAPTER XII
Iogel’s were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers
as they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps,
and so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they
were ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who
came to these balls with an air of condescension and found them most
enjoyable. That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two
pretty young Princesses Gorchakóv met suitors there and were married
and so further increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished
them from others was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of
the good-natured Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according
to the rules of his art, as he collected the tickets from all his
visitors. There was the fact that only those came who wished to dance
and amuse themselves as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are
wearing long dresses for the first time. With scarcely any exceptions
they all were, or seemed to be, pretty—so rapturous were their smiles
and so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom
Natásha, who was exceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the pas
de châle, but at this last ball only the écossaise, the anglaise, and
the mazurka, which was just coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had
taken a ballroom in Bezúkhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said,
was a great success. There were many pretty girls and the Rostóv girls
were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and gay.
That evening, proud of Dólokhov’s proposal, her refusal, and her
explanation with Nicholas, Sónya twirled about before she left home
so that the maid could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was
transparently radiant with impulsive joy.
Natásha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real
ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink
ribbons.
Natásha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She
was not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever
person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.
“Oh, how delightful it is!” she kept saying, running up to Sónya.
Nicholas and Denísov were walking up and down, looking with kindly
patronage at the dancers.
“How sweet she is—she will be a weal beauty!” said Denísov.
“Who?”
“Countess Natásha,” answered Denísov.
“And how she dances! What gwace!” he said again after a pause.
“Who are you talking about?”
“About your sister,” ejaculated Denísov testily.
Rostóv smiled.
“My dear count, you were one of my best pupils—you must dance,”
said little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. “Look how many charming young
ladies—” He turned with the same request to Denísov who was also a
former pupil of his.
“No, my dear fellow, I’ll be a wallflower,” said Denísov.
“Don’t you wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?”
“Oh no!” said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. “You were only
inattentive, but you had talent—oh yes, you had talent!”
The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not
refuse Iogel and asked Sónya to dance. Denísov sat down by the old
ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told
them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young
people dancing, Iogel with Natásha, his pride and his best pupil, were
the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little
feet in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natásha, who,
though shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denísov did not
take his eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly
indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not
because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostóv
who was passing:
“This is not at all the thing,” he said. “What sort of Polish
mazuwka is this? But she does dance splendidly.”
Knowing that Denísov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly
way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natásha:
“Go and choose Denísov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!” he said.
When it came to Natásha’s turn to choose a partner, she rose and,
tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran
timidly to the corner where Denísov sat. She saw that everybody was
looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denísov was refusing
though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.
“Please, Vasíli Dmítrich,” Natásha was saying, “do come!”
“Oh no, let me off, Countess,” Denísov replied.
“Now then, Váska,” said Nicholas.
“They coax me as if I were Váska the cat!” said Denísov jokingly.
“I’ll sing for you a whole evening,” said Natásha.
“Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!” said Denísov, and
he unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his
partner’s hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,
waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was
Denísov’s short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow
he felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways
at his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with
one foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room
taking his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across
the room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at
them, when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs,
he stopped short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot
clanking his spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel
against his right, flew round again in a circle. Natásha guessed what
he meant to do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly
knowing how. First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now
with his right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him,
and again jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if
he would rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath,
and then he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected
steps. When at last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her
chair, he drew up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natásha
did not even make him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement,
smiling as if she did not recognize him.
“What does this mean?” she brought out.
Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone
was delighted with Denísov’s skill, he was asked again and again as
a partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the
good old days. Denísov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself
with his handkerchief, sat down by Natásha and did not leave her for
the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER XIII
For two days after that Rostóv did not see Dólokhov at his own or at
Dólokhov’s home: on the third day he received a note from him:
As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know
of, and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper
tonight to my friends—come to the English Hotel.
About ten o’clock Rostóv went to the English Hotel straight from the
theater, where he had been with his family and Denísov. He was at once
shown to the best room, which Dólokhov had taken for that evening. Some
twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dólokhov sat between
two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he
was keeping the bank. Rostóv had not seen him since his proposal and
Sónya’s refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they
would meet.
Dólokhov’s clear, cold glance met Rostóv as soon as he entered the
door, as though he had long expected him.
“It’s a long time since we met,” he said. “Thanks for coming.
I’ll just finish dealing, and then Ilyúshka will come with his
chorus.”
“I called once or twice at your house,” said Rostóv, reddening.
Dólokhov made no reply.
“You may punt,” he said.
Rostóv recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had
with Dólokhov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dólokhov
had then said.
“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dólokhov now asked as if
guessing Rostóv’s thought.
Beneath his smile Rostóv saw in him the mood he had shown at the club
dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt
a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.
Rostóv felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with
which to reply to Dólokhov’s words. But before he had thought of
anything, Dólokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and
deliberately so that everyone could hear:
“Do you remember we had a talk about cards... ‘He’s a fool who
trusts to luck, one should make certain,’ and I want to try.”
“To try his luck or the certainty?” Rostóv asked himself.
“Well, you’d better not play,” Dólokhov added, and springing a
new pack of cards said: “Bank, gentlemen!”
Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostóv sat down by his
side and at first did not play. Dólokhov kept glancing at him.
“Why don’t you play?” he asked.
And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a
card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.
“I have no money with me,” he said.
“I’ll trust you.”
Rostóv staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again
lost. Dólokhov “killed,” that is, beat, ten cards of Rostóv’s
running.
“Gentlemen,” said Dólokhov after he had dealt for some time.
“Please place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the
reckoning.”
One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.
“Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I
ask you to put the money on your cards,” replied Dólokhov. “Don’t
stint yourself, we’ll settle afterwards,” he added, turning to
Rostóv.
The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.
All Rostóv’s cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored
up against him. He wrote “800 rubles” on a card, but while the
waiter filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual
stake of twenty rubles.
“Leave it,” said Dólokhov, though he did not seem to be even
looking at Rostóv, “you’ll win it back all the sooner. I lose to
the others but win from you. Or are you afraid of me?” he asked again.
Rostóv submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven
of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He
well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts,
on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written “800 rubles” in
clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was
handed him, smiled at Dólokhov’s words, and with a sinking heart,
waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dólokhov’s hands which held
the pack. Much depended on Rostóv’s winning or losing on that seven
of hearts. On the previous Sunday the old count had given his son
two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked speaking of money
difficulties had told Nicholas that this was all he could let him have
till May, and asked him to be more economical this time. Nicholas had
replied that it would be more than enough for him and that he gave his
word of honor not to take anything more till the spring. Now only twelve
hundred rubles was left of that money, so that this seven of hearts
meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the
necessity of going back on his word. With a sinking heart he watched
Dólokhov’s hands and thought, “Now then, make haste and let me have
this card and I’ll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denísov,
Natásha, and Sónya, and will certainly never touch a card again.” At
that moment his home life, jokes with Pétya, talks with Sónya, duets
with Natásha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed
in the house on the Povarskáya rose before him with such vividness,
clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all a lost and
unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a stupid
chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the left,
might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and newly
illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and undefined
misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a sinking heart the
movement of Dólokhov’s hands. Those broad, reddish hands, with hairy
wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack and took
up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.
“So you are not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dólokhov, and as
if about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his
chair, and began deliberately with a smile:
“Yes, gentlemen, I’ve been told there’s a rumor going about Moscow
that I’m a sharper, so I advise you to be careful.”
“Come now, deal!” exclaimed Rostóv.
“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dólokhov, and he took up the cards
with a smile.
“Aah!” Rostóv almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The
seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had
lost more than he could pay.
“Still, don’t ruin yourself!” said Dólokhov with a side glance at
Rostóv as he continued to deal.
CHAPTER XIV
An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested
in their own play.
The whole interest was concentrated on Rostóv. Instead of sixteen
hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him,
which he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely
supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already
exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dólokhov was no longer listening to
stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostóv’s
hands and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had
decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He
had fixed on that number because forty-three was the sum of his and
Sónya’s joint ages. Rostóv, leaning his head on both hands, sat at
the table which was scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine,
and littered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him:
that those broad-boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from
under the shirt sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him
in their power.
“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back’s
impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or
quits... it can’t be!... And why is he doing this to me?” Rostóv
pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dólokhov refused to
accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at
one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge
over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand
from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the
cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the
total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other
players, or peered at the now cold face of Dólokhov and tried to read
what was passing in his mind.
“He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can’t want my
ruin. Wasn’t he my friend? Wasn’t I fond of him? But it’s not his
fault. What’s he to do if he has such luck?... And it’s not my fault
either,” he thought to himself, “I have done nothing wrong. Have I
killed anyone, or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible
misfortune? And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to
this table with the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that
casket for Mamma’s name day and then going home. I was so happy, so
free, so lighthearted! And I did not realize how happy I was! When did
that end and when did this new, terrible state of things begin? What
marked the change? I sat all the time in this same place at this table,
chose and placed cards, and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the
same way. When did it happen and what has happened? I am well and strong
and still the same and in the same place. No, it can’t be! Surely it
will all end in nothing!”
He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot.
His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless
efforts to seem calm.
The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand.
Rostóv had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he
meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when
Dólokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began
rapidly adding up the total of Rostóv’s debt, breaking the chalk as
he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand.
“Supper, it’s time for supper! And here are the gypsies!”
Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside
and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it
was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:
“Well, won’t you go on? I had a splendid card all ready,” as if it
were the fun of the game which interested him most.
“It’s all up! I’m lost!” thought he. “Now a bullet through my
brain—that’s all that’s left me!” And at the same time he said
in a cheerful voice:
“Come now, just this one more little card!”
“All right!” said Dólokhov, having finished the addition. “All
right! Twenty-one rubles,” he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one
by which the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and
taking up a pack he prepared to deal. Rostóv submissively unbent the
corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended,
carefully wrote twenty-one.
“It’s all the same to me,” he said. “I only want to see whether
you will let me win this ten, or beat it.”
Dólokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostóv detested at that
moment those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists,
which held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.
“You owe forty-three thousand, Count,” said Dólokhov, and
stretching himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting
so long,” he added.
“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostóv.
Dólokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to
jest.
“When am I to receive the money, Count?”
Rostóv, flushing, drew Dólokhov into the next room.
“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said.
“I say, Rostóv,” said Dólokhov clearly, smiling and looking
Nicholas straight in the eyes, “you know the saying, ‘Lucky in love,
unlucky at cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, I know.”
“Oh, it’s terrible to feel oneself so in this man’s power,”
thought Rostóv. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and
mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to
escape it all, and felt that Dólokhov knew that he could save him from
all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does
with a mouse.
“Your cousin...” Dólokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted
him.
“My cousin has nothing to do with this and it’s not necessary to
mention her!” he exclaimed fiercely.
“Then when am I to have it?”
“Tomorrow,” replied Rostóv and left the room.
CHAPTER XV
To say “tomorrow” and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult,
but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father,
confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of
honor, was terrible.
At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning
from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.
As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere
of love which pervaded the Rostóv household that winter and, now after
Dólokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to have grown thicker
round Sónya and Natásha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sónya
and Natásha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater,
looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord,
happy and smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing
room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son,
sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house.
Denísov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord
striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his
eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some
verses called “Enchantress,” which he had composed, and to which he
was trying to fit music:
Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre
What magic power is this recalls me still?
What spark has set my inmost soul on fire,
What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?
He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling
black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natásha.
“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natásha. “Another verse,” she
said, without noticing Nicholas.
“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas,
glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Véra and his mother with
the old lady.
“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natásha, running up to him.
“Is Papa at home?” he asked.
“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natásha, without answering him.
“We are enjoying ourselves! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying a day longer
for my sake! Did you know?”
“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sónya.
“Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!” called the old countess
from the drawing room.
Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her
table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing
room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade
Natásha to sing.
“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denísov. “It’s no good making
excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the ba’cawolla—I entweat
you!”
The countess glanced at her silent son.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” said he, as if weary of being continually asked the
same question. “Will Papa be back soon?”
“I expect so.”
“Everything’s the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where
am I to go?” thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room
where the clavichord stood.
Sónya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to
Denísov’s favorite barcarolle. Natásha was preparing to sing.
Denísov was looking at her with enraptured eyes.
Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.
“Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There’s
nothing to be happy about!” thought he.
Sónya struck the first chord of the prelude.
“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain
is the only thing left me—not singing!” his thoughts ran on. “Go
away? But where to? It’s one—let them sing!”
He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denísov and the
girls and avoiding their eyes.
“Nikólenka, what is the matter?” Sónya’s eyes fixed on him
seemed to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natásha too, with her quick instinct,
had instantly noticed her brother’s condition. But, though she noticed
it, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from
sorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself
as young people often do. “No, I am too happy now to spoil my
enjoyment by sympathy with anyone’s sorrow,” she felt, and she said
to herself: “No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as
I am.”
“Now, Sónya!” she said, going to the very middle of the room, where
she considered the resonance was best.
Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet
dancers do, Natásha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,
stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.
“Yes, that’s me!” she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with
which Denísov followed her.
“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his
sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?”
Natásha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose,
her eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her
surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may
produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which
leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill
you and make you weep.
Natásha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,
mainly because Denísov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang
as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,
painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing
well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: “It is not trained,
but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained.” Only they generally
said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained
voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was
sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in
it and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal
freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained
velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that
it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling
it.
“What is this?” thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely
opened eyes. “What has happened to her? How she is singing today!”
And suddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the
next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into
three beats: “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three... one,
two, three... One... “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three...
One. “Oh, this senseless life of ours!” thought Nicholas. “All
this misery, and money, and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor—it’s all
nonsense... but this is real.... Now then, Natásha, now then, dearest!
Now then, darling! How will she take that si? She’s taken it! Thank
God!” And without noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the si
he sung a second, a third below the high note. “Ah, God! How fine! Did
I really take it? How fortunate!” he thought.
Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest
in Rostóv’s soul! And this something was apart from everything else
in the world and above everything in the world. “What were losses, and
Dólokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob
and yet be happy....”
CHAPTER XVI
It was long since Rostóv had felt such enjoyment from music as he
did that day. But no sooner had Natásha finished her barcarolle than
reality again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went
downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count
came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him
drive up, went to meet him.
“Well—had a good time?” said the old count, smiling gaily and
proudly at his son.
Nicholas tried to say “Yes,” but could not: and he nearly burst into
sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son’s
condition.
“Ah, it can’t be avoided!” thought Nicholas, for the first and
last time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel
ashamed of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him
have the carriage to drive to town:
“Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I
need some money.”
“Dear me!” said his father, who was in a specially good humor. “I
told you it would not be enough. How much?”
“Very much,” said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless
smile, for which he was long unable to forgive himself, “I have lost a
little, I mean a good deal, a great deal—forty three thousand.”
“What! To whom?... Nonsense!” cried the count, suddenly reddening
with an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.
“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nicholas.
“Well!...” said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking
helplessly on the sofa.
“It can’t be helped! It happens to everyone!” said the son, with
a bold, free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a
worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He
longed to kiss his father’s hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness,
but said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to
everyone!
The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son’s words and began
bustlingly searching for something.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “it will be difficult, I fear, difficult
to raise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?”
And with a furtive glance at his son’s face, the count went out of the
room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all
expected this.
“Papa! Pa-pa!” he called after him, sobbing, “forgive me!” And
seizing his father’s hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into
tears.
While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and
daughter were having one not less important. Natásha came running to
her mother, quite excited.
“Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me...”
“Made what?”
“Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!” she exclaimed.
The countess did not believe her ears. Denísov had proposed. To whom?
To this chit of a girl, Natásha, who not so long ago was playing with
dolls and who was still having lessons.
“Don’t, Natásha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke.
“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,” said Natásha
indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it
‘nonsense!’”
The countess shrugged her shoulders.
“If it is true that Monsieur Denísov has made you a proposal, tell
him he is a fool, that’s all!”
“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natásha indignantly and seriously.
“Well then, what do you want? You’re all in love nowadays. Well,
if you are in love, marry him!” said the countess, with a laugh of
annoyance. “Good luck to you!”
“No, Mamma, I’m not in love with him, I suppose I’m not in love
with him.”
“Well then, tell him so.”
“Mamma, are you cross? Don’t be cross, dear! Is it my fault?”
“No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?”
said the countess smiling.
“No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It’s all very
well for you,” said Natásha, with a responsive smile. “You should
have seen how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came
out accidently.”
“Well, all the same, you must refuse him.”
“No, I mustn’t. I am so sorry for him! He’s so nice.”
“Well then, accept his offer. It’s high time for you to be
married,” answered the countess sharply and sarcastically.
“No, Mamma, but I’m so sorry for him. I don’t know how I’m to
say it.”
“And there’s nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself,”
said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this
little Natásha as grown up.
“No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you’ll listen
at the door,” and Natásha ran across the drawing room to the dancing
hall, where Denísov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord
with his face in his hands.
He jumped up at the sound of her light step.
“Nataly,” he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, “decide my
fate. It is in your hands.”
“Vasíli Dmítrich, I’m so sorry for you!... No, but you are so
nice... but it won’t do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always
love you.”
Denísov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not
understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they
heard the quick rustle of the countess’ dress. She came up to them.
“Vasíli Dmítrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, with an
embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denísov—“but my
daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son’s friend, you
would have addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not
have obliged me to give this refusal.”
“Countess...” said Denísov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face.
He tried to say more, but faltered.
Natásha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began
to sob aloud.
“Countess, I have done w’ong,” Denísov went on in an unsteady
voice, “but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family
that I would give my life twice over...” He looked at the countess,
and seeing her severe face said: “Well, good-by, Countess,” and
kissing her hand, he left the room with quick resolute strides, without
looking at Natásha.
Next day Rostóv saw Denísov off. He did not wish to stay another
day in Moscow. All Denísov’s Moscow friends gave him a farewell
entertainment at the gypsies’, with the result that he had no
recollection of how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three
stages of his journey.
After Denísov’s departure, Rostóv spent another fortnight in Moscow,
without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could
not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls’ room.
Sónya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she
wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her
love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of
her.
He filled the girls’ albums with verses and music, and having at last
sent Dólokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his
receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of
his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland.
BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07
CHAPTER I
After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the
Torzhók post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster
would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,
he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big
feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.
“Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and
tea?” asked his valet.
Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had
begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same
question—one so important that he took no notice of what went
on around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to
Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this
station, but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a
matter of indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for
the rest of his life.
The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling
Torzhók embroidery came into the room offering their services.
Without changing his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his
spectacles unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go on
living without having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had
been engrossed by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from
Sokólniki after the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless
night. But now, in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with
special force. No matter what he thought about, he always returned to
these same questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to
ask himself. It was as if the thread of the chief screw which held his
life together were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out,
but went on turning uselessly in the same place.
The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to
wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency
have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted
to get more money from the traveler.
“Is this good or bad?” Pierre asked himself. “It is good for me,
bad for another traveler, and for himself it’s unavoidable, because
he needs money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a
thrashing for letting a private traveler have the courier horses.
But the officer thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as
possible. And I,” continued Pierre, “shot Dólokhov because I
considered myself injured, and Louis XVI was executed because they
considered him a criminal, and a year later they executed those who
executed him—also for some reason. What is bad? What is good? What
should one love and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I?
What is life, and what is death? What power governs all?”
There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that
not a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was:
“You’ll die and all will end. You’ll die and know all, or cease
asking.” But dying was also dreadful.
The Torzhók peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her
wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. “I have hundreds of
rubles I don’t know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered
cloak looking timidly at me,” he thought. “And what does she
want the money for? As if that money could add a hair’s breadth to
happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me
less a prey to evil and death?—death which ends all and must come
today or tomorrow—at any rate, in an instant as compared with
eternity.” And again he twisted the screw with the stripped thread,
and again it turned uselessly in the same place.
His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by
Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous
struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. “And why did she resist
her seducer when she loved him?” he thought. “God could not have put
into her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife—as she
once was—did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been
found out, nothing discovered,” Pierre again said to himself. “All
we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human
wisdom.”
Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and
repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre
found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.
“I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this
gentleman,” said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another
traveler, also detained for lack of horses.
The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old
man, with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite
grayish color.
Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that
had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who,
with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the
aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots
on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin
coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with
its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezúkhov. The
stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He
felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his
mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his
eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of
them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a
death’s head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as
it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant
was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache,
evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown.
This active old servant was unpacking the traveler’s canteen and
preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was
ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a
tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom
he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the
need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this
stranger.
The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an
unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be
wanted.
* To indicate he did not want more tea.
“No. Give me the book,” said the stranger.
The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work,
and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at
once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,
leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former
position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time
to turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and
severe gaze straight on Pierre’s face.
Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old
eyes attracted him irresistibly.
CHAPTER II
“I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not
mistaken,” said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.
Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.
“I have heard of you, my dear sir,” continued the stranger, “and
of your misfortune.” He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to
say—“Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what
happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.”—“I regret it very
much, my dear sir.”
Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent
forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.
“I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for
greater reasons.”
He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way
of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant
to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him
involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.
“You are unhappy, my dear sir,” the stranger continued. “You
are young and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my
power.”
“Oh, yes!” said Pierre, with a forced smile. “I am very grateful
to you. Where are you traveling from?”
The stranger’s face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but
in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were
irresistibly attractive to Pierre.
“But if for any reason you don’t feel inclined to talk to me,”
said the old man, “say so, my dear sir.” And he suddenly smiled, in
an unexpected and tenderly paternal way.
“Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your
acquaintance,” said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger’s
hands, he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull—a Masonic
sign.
“Allow me to ask,” he said, “are you a Mason?”
“Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons,” said the
stranger, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre’s eyes. “And in
their name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you.”
“I am afraid,” said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the
confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own
habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs—“I am afraid I am very far
from understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid my way of looking
at the world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one
another.”
“I know your outlook,” said the Mason, “and the view of life you
mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,
is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit
of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I
had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a
regrettable delusion.”
“Just as I may suppose you to be deluded,” said Pierre, with a faint
smile.
“I should never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason,
whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness.
“No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone
with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our
forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be
a worthy dwelling place of the Great God,” he added, and closed his
eyes.
“I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in
God,” said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it
essential to speak the whole truth.
The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with
millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor
man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.
“Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir,” said the Mason. “You
cannot know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy.”
“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” assented Pierre. “But what am I to
do?”
“You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do
not know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in
thee, and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!”
pronounced the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.
He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.
“If He were not,” he said quietly, “you and I would not be
speaking of Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom
hast thou denied?” he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and
authority in his voice. “Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence
came thy conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being?
didst thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the
existence of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful,
eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?...”
He stopped and remained silent for a long time.
Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.
“He exists, but to understand Him is hard,” the Mason began again,
looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves
of his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep
still. “If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could
bring him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But
how can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity,
and all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may
not see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness
and sinfulness?” He paused again. “Who art thou? Thou dreamest that
thou art wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words,” he
went on, with a somber and scornful smile. “And thou art more foolish
and unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a
skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand
its use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is
hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to
attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but
in our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His
greatness....”
Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason’s face with
shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with
his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise
reasoning contained in the Mason’s words, or believed as a child
believes, in the speaker’s tone of conviction and earnestness, or
the tremor of the speaker’s voice—which sometimes almost broke—or
those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm
firmness and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole
being (and which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own
dejection and hopelessness)—at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole
soul to believe and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort,
regeneration, and return to life.
“He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life,” said the
Mason.
“I do not understand,” said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts
reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in
the Mason’s arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him.
“I don’t understand,” he said, “how it is that the mind of man
cannot attain the knowledge of which you speak.”
The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.
“The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish
to imbibe,” he said. “Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure
vessel and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself
can I retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive.”
“Yes, yes, that is so,” said Pierre joyfully.
“The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those
worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into
which intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one.
The highest wisdom has but one science—the science of the whole—the
science explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it. To
receive that science it is necessary to purify and renew one’s inner
self, and so before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to
perfect one’s self. And to attain this end, we have the light called
conscience that God has implanted in our souls.”
“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.
“Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask
thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained
relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you
are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these
good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?”
“No, I hate my life,” Pierre muttered, wincing.
“Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art
purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir.
How have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving
everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become
the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done
for your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands
of slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have
profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have
done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your
neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my
dear sir—took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young
woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way
of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and
misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not
know God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear
sir!”
After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again
leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre
looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved
his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, “Yes, a vile,
idle, vicious life!” but dared not break the silence.
The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his
servant.
“How about the horses?” he asked, without looking at Pierre.
“The exchange horses have just come,” answered the servant. “Will
you not rest here?”
“No, tell them to harness.”
“Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me
all, and without promising to help me?” thought Pierre, rising with
downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at
the Mason. “Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible
and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,”
thought Pierre. “But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to,
could disclose it to me.”
Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The
traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began
fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezúkhov, and
said in a tone of indifferent politeness:
“Where are you going to now, my dear sir?”
“I?... I’m going to Petersburg,” answered Pierre, in a childlike,
hesitating voice. “I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But
do not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you
would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is
I, above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and
perhaps I may...”
Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.
The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.
“Help comes from God alone,” he said, “but such measure of help as
our Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to
Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski” (he took out his notebook
and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four).
“Allow me to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital,
first of all devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do
not resume your former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey,
my dear sir,” he added, seeing that his servant had entered... “and
success.”
The traveler was Joseph Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre saw from the
postmaster’s book. Bazdéev had been one of the best-known Freemasons
and Martinists, even in Novíkov’s time. For a long while after he had
gone, Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down
the room, pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense
of beginning anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable,
virtuous future that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had
been vicious only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to
be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He
firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in
the aim of supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how
Freemasonry presented itself to him.
CHAPTER III
On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival,
he went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas à Kempis, whose
book had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually
realized as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him,
of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the
possibility of active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexéevich
had revealed to him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count,
Willarski, whom Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came
into his room one evening in the official and ceremonious manner in
which Dólokhov’s second had called on him, and, having closed the
door behind him and satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the
room, addressed Pierre.
“I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count,” he
said without sitting down. “A person of very high standing in our
Brotherhood has made application for you to be received into our Order
before the usual term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I
consider it a sacred duty to fulfill that person’s wishes. Do you wish
to enter the Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?”
The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met
at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women,
surprised Pierre.
“Yes, I do wish it,” said he.
Willarski bowed his head.
“One more question, Count,” he said, “which I beg you to answer
in all sincerity—not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you
renounced your former convictions—do you believe in God?”
Pierre considered.
“Yes... yes, I believe in God,” he said.
“In that case...” began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.
“Yes, I do believe in God,” he repeated.
“In that case we can go,” said Willarski. “My carriage is at your
service.”
Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre’s inquiries as
to what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that
brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to
tell the truth.
Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its
headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small
well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of
a servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange
attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said
something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small
wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen
before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound
Pierre’s eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some
hairs painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and
taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt
Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.
His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though
smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.
Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.
“Whatever happens to you,” he said, “you must bear it all manfully
if you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood.” (Pierre nodded
affirmatively.) “When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover
your eyes,” added Willarski. “I wish you courage and success,”
and, pressing Pierre’s hand, he went out.
Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice
he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if
wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent
with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb,
his legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He
experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what
would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt
curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to
him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he
would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively
virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph
Alexéevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage
off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness,
only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer
and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book.
The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a
human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words
of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God,” Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled
with something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all
surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite
unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more
unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel—it
seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying
to stimulate his emotions he looked around. “God, death, love, the
brotherhood of man,” he kept saying to himself, associating these
words with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in.
By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he
saw a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the
darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the
table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.
This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and
part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high
white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from
below.
“For what have you come hither?” asked the newcomer, turning in
Pierre’s direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. “Why have
you, who do not believe in the truth of the light and who have not
seen the light, come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue,
enlightenment?”
At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a
sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at
confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete
stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated
breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the
brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was
known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew,
Smolyanínov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an
acquaintance—he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor.
For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to
repeat his question.
“Yes... I... I... desire regeneration,” Pierre uttered with
difficulty.
“Very well,” said Smolyanínov, and went on at once: “Have you any
idea of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your
aim?” said he quietly and quickly.
“I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration,” said Pierre,
with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his
excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in
Russian.
“What is your conception of Freemasonry?”
“I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who
have virtuous aims,” said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy
of his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. “I
imagine...”
“Good!” said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with
this answer. “Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in
religion?”
“No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it,” said Pierre,
so softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was
saying. “I have been an atheist,” answered Pierre.
“You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,
therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?” said the
Rhetor, after a moment’s pause.
“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.
The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,
and began to speak.
“Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order,” he said,
“and if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood
with profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on
which it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation
and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which
has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man—a
mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this
mystery is of such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be
prepared by long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope
to attain it quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing
our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and
enlighten their minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those
who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them
capable of receiving it.
“By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve
the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety
and virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which
sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again.”
“To combat the evil which sways the world...” Pierre repeated, and a
mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.
He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he
addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself
vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed,
imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three
objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,
especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the
Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,
and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not
much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he
was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all
that was good.
Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the
seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon’s temple,
which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:
1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to
those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.
Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.
“In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death,” the
Rhetor said, “to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but
as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue
from this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and
peace.”
“Yes, that must be so,” thought Pierre, when after these words the
Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. “It must be so,
but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only
now gradually opening before me.” But five of the other virtues which
Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his
soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially
obedience—which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now
felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will
to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh
virtue was and could not recall it.
The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre
whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to
all that would be required of him.
“I am ready for everything,” said Pierre.
“I must also inform you,” said the Rhetor, “that our Order
delivers its teaching not in words only but also by other means, which
may perhaps have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom
and virtue than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein
should already have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than
words could do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a
like method of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies
that explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph,” said
the Rhetor, “is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses
but which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol.”
Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He
listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his
ordeal was about to begin.
“If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation,” said the Rhetor
coming closer to Pierre. “In token of generosity I ask you to give me
all your valuables.”
“But I have nothing here,” replied Pierre, supposing that he was
asked to give up all he possessed.
“What you have with you: watch, money, rings....”
Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for
some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been
done, the Rhetor said:
“In token of obedience, I ask you to undress.”
Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the
Rhetor’s instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre’s
left breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers
to above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also
and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the
trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him
a slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment,
doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will,
Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his
brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.
“And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief
passion,” said the latter.
“My passion! I have had so many,” replied Pierre.
“That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the
path of virtue,” said the Mason.
Pierre paused, seeking a reply.
“Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?”
He went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give
the pre-eminence.
“Women,” he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.
The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this
answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay
on the table, again bound his eyes.
“For the last time I say to you—turn all your attention upon
yourself, put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in
passion but in your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without
us but within....”
Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source
of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.
CHAPTER IV
Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not
the Rhetor but Pierre’s sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his
voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre
replied: “Yes, yes, I agree,” and with a beaming, childlike smile,
his fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered
and one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his
bare chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned
backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the
Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the Masonic knock with
mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still
blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was
born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded,
and as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his
pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the
universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and
dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken
of now as the “Seeker,” now as the “Sufferer,” and now as the
“Postulant,” to the accompaniment of various knockings with
mallets and swords. As he was being led up to some object he noticed a
hesitation and uncertainty among his conductors. He heard those around
him disputing in whispers and one of them insisting that he should be
led along a certain carpet. After that they took his right hand, placed
it on something, and told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left
breast with the other hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud
an oath of fidelity to the laws of the Order. The candles were then
extinguished and some spirit lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and
he was told that he would now see the lesser light. The bandage was
taken off his eyes and, by the faint light of the burning spirit,
Pierre, as in a dream, saw several men standing before him, wearing
aprons like the Rhetor’s and holding swords in their hands pointed at
his breast. Among them stood a man whose white shirt was stained with
blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved forward with his breast toward the
swords, meaning them to pierce it. But the swords were drawn back from
him and he was at once blindfolded again.
“Now thou hast seen the lesser light,” uttered a voice. Then the
candles were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the
bandage was again removed and more than ten voices said together: “Sic
transit gloria mundi.”
Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room
and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some
twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them
Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President’s chair sat a
young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his
neck. On his right sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had met at
Anna Pávlovna’s two years before. There were also present a very
distinguished dignitary and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the
Kurágins’. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the words
of the President, who held a mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was
a star-shaped light. At one side of the table was a small carpet with
various figures worked upon it, at the other was something resembling an
altar on which lay a Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large
candlesticks like those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre
up to the altar, placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down,
saying that he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.
“He must first receive the trowel,” whispered one of the brothers.
“Oh, hush, please!” said another.
Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without
obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. “Where am I? What am
I doing? Aren’t they laughing at me? Shan’t I be ashamed to remember
this?” But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at
the serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone
through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast
at his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling,
prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the
feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When
he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather
apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel
and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He
told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that
apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained
trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice,
and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the
first pair of gloves, a man’s, he said that Pierre could not know
their meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man’s gloves
he was to wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of
women’s gloves, he said: “Dear brother, these woman’s gloves are
intended for you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most
of all. This gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom
you select to be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry.” And after a pause,
he added: “But beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck
hands that are unclean.” While the Grand Master said these last words
it seemed to Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still
more confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began
looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.
This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the
rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of
all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a
trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and
so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of
the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down.
The Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and
Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to
understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words
of the statutes and these remained in his mind.
“In our temples we recognize no other distinctions,” read the Grand
Master, “but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any
distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother’s aid
whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth,
never bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.
Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy
neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy
enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling
the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which
thou hast lost.”
He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears
of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the
congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all
sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only
brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.
The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in
their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of
humility.
The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed,
and the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of “Collector
of Alms” went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked
to subscribe all he had, but fearing that it might look like pride
subscribed the same amount as the others.
The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had
returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had
become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits
and way of life.
CHAPTER V
The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at
home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square,
one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third
physical things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then
his attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in
imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he
had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it
would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his
estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs.
He was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasíli suddenly
entered the room.
“My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you
quarreled with Hélène, mon cher? You are under a delusion,” said
Prince Vasíli, as he entered. “I know all about it, and I can tell
you positively that Hélène is as innocent before you as Christ was
before the Jews.”
Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasíli interrupted him.
“And why didn’t you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I
know all about it and understand it all,” he said. “You behaved as
becomes a man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won’t
go into that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and
me in the eyes of society, and even of the court,” he added, lowering
his voice. “She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember,
dear boy,” and he drew Pierre’s arm downwards, “it is simply a
misunderstanding. I expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her
a letter at once, and she’ll come here and all will be explained, or
else, my dear boy, let me tell you it’s quite likely you’ll have to
suffer for it.”
Prince Vasíli gave Pierre a significant look.
“I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a
keen interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to
Hélène.”
Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasíli
did not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to
speak in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had
firmly resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the
Masonic statutes, “be kindly and courteous,” recurred to him. He
blinked, went red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself
to do what was for him the most difficult thing in life—to say an
unpleasant thing to a man’s face, to say what the other, whoever
he might be, did not expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince
Vasíli’s tone of careless self-assurance that he felt he would be
unable to withstand it now, but he also felt that on what he said now
his future depended—whether he would follow the same old road, or that
new path so attractively shown him by the Masons, on which he firmly
believed he would be reborn to a new life.
“Now, dear boy,” said Prince Vasíli playfully, “say ‘yes,’
and I’ll write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf.”
But before Prince Vasíli had finished his playful speech, Pierre,
without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his
father, muttered in a whisper:
“Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!” And he jumped up
and opened the door for him.
“Go!” he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of
confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasíli’s face.
“What’s the matter with you? Are you ill?”
“Go!” the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasíli had to go
without receiving any explanation.
A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,
and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his
estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons
and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.
CHAPTER VI
The duel between Pierre and Dólokhov was hushed up and, in spite of
the Emperor’s severity regarding duels at that time, neither the
principals nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel,
confirmed by Pierre’s rupture with his wife, was the talk of society.
Pierre who had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was
an illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best
match in Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his
marriage—when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing
to hope from him—especially as he did not know how, and did not
wish, to court society’s favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had
happened, he was said to be insanely jealous and subject like his
father to fits of bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre’s
departure Hélène returned to Petersburg, she was received by all her
acquaintances not only cordially, but even with a shade of deference
due to her misfortune. When conversation turned on her husband Hélène
assumed a dignified expression, which with characteristic tact she had
acquired though she did not understand its significance. This expression
suggested that she had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly
and that her husband was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasíli
expressed his opinion more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre
was mentioned and, pointing to his forehead, remarked:
“A bit touched—I always said so.”
“I said from the first,” declared Anna Pávlovna referring to
Pierre, “I said at the time and before anyone else” (she insisted
on her priority) “that that senseless young man was spoiled by the
depraved ideas of these days. I said so even at the time when everybody
was in raptures about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and
when, if you remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees.
And how has it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold
all that has happened.”
Anna Pávlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of
soirees as before—such as she alone had the gift of arranging—at
which was to be found “the cream of really good society, the bloom
of the intellectual essence of Petersburg,” as she herself put it.
Besides this refined selection of society Anna Pávlovna’s receptions
were also distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new
and interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the
state of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court
society so dearly and distinctly indicated.
Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon’s
destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the
surrender of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our
troops had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon
was beginning, Anna Pávlovna gave one of her soirees. The “cream of
really good society” consisted of the fascinating Hélène, forsaken
by her husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had
just returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man
referred to in that drawing room as “a man of great merit” (un homme
de beaucoup de mérite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother,
and several other less noteworthy persons.
The novelty Anna Pávlovna was setting before her guests that evening
was Borís Drubetskóy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from
the Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage.
The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that
evening was this:
“Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to
countenance Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and
mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease
to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the
King of Prussia and others: ‘So much the worse for you. Tu l’as
voulu, George Dandin,’ that’s all we have to say about it!”
When Borís, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing
room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided
by Anna Pávlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and
the hope of an alliance with her.
Borís, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,
entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an
aide-de-camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and
then brought back to the general circle.
Anna Pávlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to
several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description
of each.
“Prince Hippolyte Kurágin—charming young fellow; M.
Kronq,—chargé d’affaires from Copenhagen—a profound intellect,”
and simply, “Mr. Shítov—a man of great merit”—this of the man
usually so described.
Thanks to Anna Mikháylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the
peculiarities of his reserved nature, Borís had managed during his
service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a
very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to
Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had
become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had
been so pleased at Olmütz and according to which an ensign might rank
incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was
needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or
perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can
grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his
success and at the inability of others to understand these things.
In consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all
his relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were
completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to
be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many
pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear
in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with
and sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and
who could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised
Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostóvs’ house and of his childish
love for Natásha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see
the Rostóvs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna
Pávlovna’s drawing room he considered an important step up in the
service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make
use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned
each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with
each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took
the seat indicated to him beside the fair Hélène and listened to the
general conversation.
“Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable
that not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure
them, and she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the
actual phrase used by the Vienna cabinet,” said the Danish chargé
d’affaires.
“The doubt is flattering,” said “the man of profound intellect,”
with a subtle smile.
“We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of
Austria,” said Mortemart. “The Emperor of Austria can never have
thought of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it.”
“Ah, my dear vicomte,” put in Anna Pávlovna, “L’Urope” (for
some reason she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined
French pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with
a Frenchman), “L’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincère.” *
* “Europe will never be our sincere ally.”
After that Anna Pávlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King
of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the conversation.
Borís listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,
but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the
beautiful Hélène, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome
young aide-de-camp with a smile.
Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pávlovna very naturally asked
Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he
found the Prussian army. Borís, speaking with deliberation, told them
in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and
the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his
own about the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the
general attention, and Anna Pávlovna felt that the novelty she had
served up was received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest
attention of all to Borís’ narrative was shown by Hélène. She asked
him several questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in
the state of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to
him with her usual smile.
“You absolutely must come and see me,” she said in a tone that
implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was
absolutely necessary.
“On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure.”
Borís promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a
conversation with her, when Anna Pávlovna called him away on the
pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.
“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pávlovna, closing her
eyes and indicating Hélène with a sorrowful gesture. “Ah, she is
such an unfortunate and charming woman! Don’t mention him before
her—please don’t! It is too painful for her!”
CHAPTER VII
When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte
had the ear of the company.
Bending forward in his armchair he said: “Le Roi de Prusse!” and
having said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.
“Le Roi de Prusse?” Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing,
and then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna
waited for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more
she began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the
sword of Frederick the Great.
“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I...” she began, but
Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: “Le Roi de Prusse...” and
again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no
more.
Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte’s friend, addressed him
firmly.
“Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?”
Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I only wished to say...” (he wanted to repeat
a joke he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that
evening to get in) “I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight
pour le Roi de Prusse!”
Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical
or appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody
laughed.
“Your joke is too bad, it’s witty but unjust,” said Anna
Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him.
“We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.
Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said.
The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the
political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the
evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.
“You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last
year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn’t
S— S— get the same distinction?”
“Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor’s portrait is a reward but
not a distinction,” said the diplomatist—“a gift, rather.”
“There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.”
“It’s impossible,” replied another.
“Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter....”
When everybody rose to go, Hélène who had spoken very little all
the evening again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of caressing
significant command to come to her on Tuesday.
“It is of great importance to me,” she said, turning with a smile
toward Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same sad smile with
which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Hélène’s wish.
It seemed as if from some words Borís had spoken that evening about the
Prussian army, Hélène had suddenly found it necessary to see him.
She seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on
Tuesday.
But on Tuesday evening, having come to Hélène’s splendid salon,
Borís received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for
him to come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to
him, and only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly
and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: “Come to dinner
tomorrow... in the evening. You must come.... Come!”
During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became an intimate in the
countess’ house.
CHAPTER VIII
The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one
heard curses on Bonaparte, “the enemy of mankind.” Militiamen and
recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of
war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously
interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andrew, and
Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.
In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief
then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.
Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable
since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think
it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor
himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy
and strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces
entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe
to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the
minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in
mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went
to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his
grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet
nurse and nurse Sávishna in the late princess’ rooms and Princess
Mary spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother’s place to
her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed
passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself
to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel—as she
called her nephew—and playing with him.
Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the
tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument
brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to
fly upwards. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as though
about to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and
Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel’s face reminded
them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,
though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the
expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel’s face, Prince
Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead
wife: “Ah, why have you done this to me?”
Soon after Prince Andrew’s return the old prince made over to him a
large estate, Boguchárovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.
Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,
partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with
his father’s peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,
Prince Andrew made use of Boguchárovo, began building and spent most of
his time there.
After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not
to continue his military service, and when the war recommenced
and everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the
recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son
seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,
roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,
while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and
secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.
On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.
Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father’s
absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who
had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters
for Prince Andrew.
Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the
letters to Princess Mary’s apartments, but did not find him there. He
was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
“If you please, your excellency, Pétrusha has brought some papers,”
said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a
child’s little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he
poured drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.
“What is it?” he said crossly, and, his hand shaking
unintentionally, he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the
mixture onto the floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought
it.
There were in the room a child’s cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a
table, a child’s table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew
was sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on
the table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall
on the cot.
“My dear,” said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside
the cot where she was standing, “better wait a bit... later...”
“Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things
off—and this is what comes of it!” said Prince Andrew in an
exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.
“My dear, really... it’s better not to wake him... he’s asleep,”
said the princess in a tone of entreaty.
Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass
in hand.
“Perhaps we’d really better not wake him,” he said hesitating.
“As you please... really... I think so... but as you please,” said
Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion
had prevailed. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid who was
calling him in a whisper.
It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy
who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household
doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had
been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness
and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and
reproached and disputed with each other.
“Pétrusha has come with papers from your father,” whispered the
maid.
Prince Andrew went out.
“Devil take them!” he muttered, and after listening to the verbal
instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his
father’s letter, he returned to the nursery.
“Well?” he asked.
“Still the same. Wait, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivánich always says
that sleep is more important than anything,” whispered Princess Mary
with a sigh.
Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.
“Confound you and your Karl Ivánich!” He took the glass with the
drops and again went up to the cot.
“Andrew, don’t!” said Princess Mary.
But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,
and stooped glass in hand over the infant.
“But I wish it,” he said. “I beg you—give it him!”
Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively
and calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed
hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat
down on a sofa in the next room.
He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he
began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote
in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:
Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful
news—if it’s not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete
victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing,
and the rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a
German—I congratulate him! I can’t make out what the commander at
Kórchevo—a certain Khandrikóv—is up to; till now the additional
men and provisions have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and
say I’ll have his head off if everything is not here in a week.
Have received another letter about the Preussisch-Eylau battle
from Pétenka—he took part in it—and it’s all true. When
mischief-makers don’t meddle even a German beats Buonaparte. He is
said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop off to Kórchevo
without delay and carry out instructions!
Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was
a closely written letter of two sheets from Bilíbin. He folded it up
without reading it and reread his father’s letter, ending with the
words: “Gallop off to Kórchevo and carry out instructions!”
“No, pardon me, I won’t go now till the child is better,” thought
he, going to the door and looking into the nursery.
Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.
“Ah yes, and what else did he say that’s unpleasant?” thought
Prince Andrew, recalling his father’s letter. “Yes, we have gained
a victory over Bonaparte, just when I’m not serving. Yes, yes, he’s
always poking fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!” And he began reading
Bilíbin’s letter which was written in French. He read without
understanding half of it, read only to forget, if but for a moment, what
he had too long been thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all
else.
CHAPTER IX
Bilíbin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and
though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms,
he described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and
self-derision genuinely Russian. Bilíbin wrote that the obligation of
diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince
Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he
had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army.
The letter was old, having been written before the battle at
Preussisch-Eylau.
“Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,” wrote
Bilíbin, “as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I
have certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me;
what I have seen during these last three months is incredible.
“I begin ab ovo. ‘The enemy of the human race,’ as you know,
attacks the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have
only betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but
it turns out that ‘the enemy of the human race’ pays no heed to
our fine speeches and in his rude and savage way throws himself on the
Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they had begun,
and in two twists of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs
himself in the palace at Potsdam.
“‘I most ardently desire,’ writes the King of Prussia to
Bonaparte, ‘that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my
palace in a manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances
allowed, I have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have
succeeded!’ The Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to
the French and lay down their arms at the first demand.
“The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the
King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All
this is absolutely true.
“In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude,
it turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more,
in war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have
everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely,
a commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success
might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so
young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozoróvski
and Kámenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us,
Suvórov-like, in a kibítka, and is received with acclamations of joy
and triumph.
“On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails
are taken to the field marshal’s room, for he likes to do everything
himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant
for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed
to him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows
impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor
to Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild
furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens
them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. ‘Ah! So
that’s the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep
an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!’ So he writes the
famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:
“‘I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the
army. You have brought your army corps to Pultúsk, routed: here it is
exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as
you yourself reported to Count Buxhöwden yesterday, you must think of
retreating to our frontier—which do today.’
“‘From all my riding,’ he writes to the Emperor, ‘I have got a
saddle sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents
my riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the
command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhöwden, having sent
him my whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is
a lack of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only
one day’s ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all,
as reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmorétzki, and
all that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in
hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly
submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its
present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left
in it by spring.
“‘Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is
already in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and
glorious task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious
permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a
secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army
does not produce the slightest stir—a blind man has left it. There are
thousands such as I in Russia.’
“The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,
isn’t it logical?
“This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly
interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal’s departure
it appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.
Buxhöwden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen
does not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who
are within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity
to fight a battle ‘on his own hand’ as the Germans say. He does so.
This is the battle of Pultúsk, which is considered a great victory but
in my opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have
a very bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who
retreat after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to
that it is we who lost the battle of Pultúsk. In short, we retreat
after the battle but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a
victory, and General Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the
post of commander in chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up
the command of the army to General Buxhöwden. During this interregnum
we begin a very original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is
no longer, as it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to
avoid General Buxhöwden who by right of seniority should be our chief.
So energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable
river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at
the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhöwden. General Buxhöwden was all
but attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one
of these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhöwden pursues
us—we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we
recross to the other. At last our enemy, Buxhöwden, catches us and
attacks. Both generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on
Buxhöwden’s part and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen’s. But at the
critical moment the courier who carried the news of our victory at
Pultúsk to Petersburg returns bringing our appointment as commander in
chief, and our first foe, Buxhöwden, is vanquished; we can now turn
our thoughts to the second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at
that moment a third enemy rises before us—namely the Orthodox Russian
soldiers, loudly demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot!
The stores are empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting,
and in a way of which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the
regiments form bands and scour the countryside and put everything
to fire and sword. The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals
overflow with sick, and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even
attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief has to ask for a
battalion to disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off
my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give
all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much
fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.”
At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while,
in spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust
Bilíbin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he
had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was
not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out
there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,
rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he
had read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he
thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with
alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was
reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.
Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him
with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.
“My dear,” he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind
him.
As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was
seized by an unreasoning panic—it occurred to him that the child was
dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.
“All is over,” he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his
forehead. He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it
empty and that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the
curtain aside and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not
find the baby. At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he
lay across the bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking
his lips in his sleep and breathing evenly.
Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had
already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,
tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft
forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even
the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,
but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew
longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless
little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his
head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He
heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of
the cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant’s face
listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,
who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain,
and dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without
looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.
“He has perspired,” said Prince Andrew.
“I was coming to tell you so.”
The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead
against the pillow.
Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her
luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that
were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly
catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture
and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing
to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the
world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair
against the muslin of the curtain.
“Yes, this is the one thing left me now,” he said with a sigh.
CHAPTER X
Soon after his admission to the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the
Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with
him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to
what he should do on his estates.
When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office
and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps
would be taken immediately to free his serfs—and that till then they
were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies
were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs,
punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals,
asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of
the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with
alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased
with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first
fright were amused by Pierre’s lisp and the new words they had not
heard before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while
the cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from
this speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends.
The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre’s intentions,
but remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into
the general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.
Despite Count Bezúkhov’s enormous wealth, since he had come into an
income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,
Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him
an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the
following budget:
About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about
30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,
and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in
pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to
the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a
new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last
two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was
spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the
chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests,
or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first
task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or
inclination—practical business.
He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But
he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these
consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with
them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state
of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of
paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor,
to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that
steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by
showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,
and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.
The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling
the forests in the province of Kostromá, the land lower down the river,
and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which
operations according to him were connected with such complicated
measures—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so
on—that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:
“Yes, yes, do so.”
Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him
to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried
to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward
for his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these
consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to
himself.
In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make
his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the
largest landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre’s greatest
weakness—the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the
Lodge—were so strong that he could not resist them. Again whole days,
weeks, and months of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much
occupied with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him
no time for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had
hoped to lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings.
Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not
fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral
life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two—morality and the
love of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled
another of the precepts—that of reforming the human race—and had
other virtues—love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.
In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he
intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders
had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had
entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.
The chief steward, who considered the young count’s attempts almost
insane—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs—made
some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs
as impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large
buildings—schools, hospitals, and asylums—on all the estates
before the master arrived. Everywhere preparations were made not for
ceremonious welcomes (which he knew Pierre would not like), but for just
such gratefully religious ones, with offerings of icons and the bread
and salt of hospitality, as, according to his understanding of his
master, would touch and delude him.
The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna
carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on
Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque
than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly
grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions,
which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the
depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread
and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission,
as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them,
to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor
of Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with
infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard
work. On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet
him surrounded by children whom, by the count’s generosity, he was
instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre
saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,
all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon
to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards’ accounts, according to
which the serfs’ manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the
touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue
coats.
What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him
with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and
Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter’s day,
and that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun
the chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that
villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that
since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they
did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest
who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and
that the pupils’ parents wept at having to let him take their children
and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the
brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial
labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know
that where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs’
payments had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work
had been increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit
to his estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which
he had left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his
“brother-instructor” as he called the Grand Master.
“How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,”
thought Pierre, “and how little attention we pay to it!”
He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at
receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do
for these simple, kindly people.
The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly
through the naïve and intelligent count and played with him as with
a toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,
pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all
the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.
Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be
difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would
happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly,
on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to
carry out the count’s wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the
count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for
the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank,
but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the
newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued
to give in money and work all that other people’s serfs gave—that is
to say, all that could be got out of them.
CHAPTER XI
Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state
of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his
friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years.
Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among
fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The
house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and
with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that
stretched along the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were
a few fir trees.
The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a
bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular façade
still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid
out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a
water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight,
the bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of
tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply
to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly
built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince
Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the
prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after
the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in
Petersburg.
He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered
wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón
ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
“A visitor,” answered Antón.
“Ask him to wait,” and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed
back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to
face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre
embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek
and looked at him closely.
“Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad,” said Prince Andrew.
Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He
was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a
smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in
spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous
and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more
manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used
to it were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged
concentration on some one thought.
As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,
it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They
put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to
be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on
some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans
for the future, Pierre’s journeys and occupations, the war, and so
on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his
friend’s look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile
with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful
animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would
have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not.
The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his
enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince
Andrew’s presence. He was ashamed to express his new Masonic views,
which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.
He checked himself, fearing to seem naïve, yet he felt an irresistible
desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite
different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
“I can’t tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly
know myself again.”
“Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,” said Prince
Andrew.
“Well, and you? What are your plans?”
“Plans!” repeated Prince Andrew ironically. “My plans?” he said,
as if astonished at the word. “Well, you see, I’m building. I mean
to settle here altogether next year....”
Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew’s face,
which had grown much older.
“No, I meant to ask...” Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted
him.
“But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels
and all you have been doing on your estates.”
Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far
as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been
made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre’s story of what he
had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened
not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was
telling him.
Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend’s company
and at last became silent.
“I’ll tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrew, who
evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, “I am
only bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back
to my sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know
her already,” he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with
whom he now found nothing in common. “We will go after dinner. And
would you now like to look round my place?”
They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political
news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other
intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of
the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,
while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future
arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:
“However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then
we’ll set off.”
At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre’s marriage.
“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andrew.
Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said
hurriedly: “I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you
know it is all over, and forever.”
“Forever?” said Prince Andrew. “Nothing’s forever.”
“But you know how it all ended, don’t you? You heard of the duel?”
“And so you had to go through that too!”
“One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,” said
Pierre.
“Why so?” asked Prince Andrew. “To kill a vicious dog is a very
good thing really.”
“No, to kill a man is bad—wrong.”
“Why is it wrong?” urged Prince Andrew. “It is not given to man
to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will
err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
“What does harm to another is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with
pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was
roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to
his present state.
“And who has told you what is bad for another man?” he asked.
“Bad! Bad!” exclaimed Pierre. “We all know what is bad for
ourselves.”
“Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is
something I cannot inflict on others,” said Prince Andrew, growing
more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook
to Pierre. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real evils in
life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils.
To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy
now.”
“And love of one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre.
“No, I can’t agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and
not to have to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for
myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least
trying” (Pierre’s modesty made him correct himself) “to live for
others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I
shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are
saying.” Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
“When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you’ll get on with her,”
he said. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added after
a short pause, “but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for
yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness
when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I
lived for glory.—And after all what is glory? The same love of others,
a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I
lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have
become calmer since I began to live only for myself.”
“But what do you mean by living only for yourself?” asked Pierre,
growing excited. “What about your son, your sister, and your
father?”
“But that’s just the same as myself—they are not others,”
explained Prince Andrew. “The others, one’s neighbors, le prochain,
as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and
evil. Le prochain—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good.”
And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He
evidently wished to draw him on.
“You are joking,” replied Pierre, growing more and more excited.
“What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even
doing a little—though I did very little and did it very badly? What
evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like
ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth
beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in
a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and
consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying
of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be
rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum
for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a
peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give
them rest and leisure?” said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. “And
I have done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done
something toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good
action, and more than that, you can’t make me believe that you do not
think so yourself. And the main thing is,” he continued, “that I
know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the
only sure happiness in life.”
“Yes, if you put it like that it’s quite a different matter,” said
Prince Andrew. “I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build
hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what’s
right and what’s good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by
us. Well, you want an argument,” he added, “come on then.”
They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served
as a veranda.
“Come, let’s argue then,” said Prince Andrew, “You talk of
schools,” he went on, crooking a finger, “education and so forth;
that is, you want to raise him” (pointing to a peasant who passed by
them taking off his cap) “from his animal condition and awaken in him
spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only
happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of.
I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my
means. Then you say, ‘lighten his toil.’ But as I see it, physical
labor is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as
mental activity is to you or me. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed
after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can’t sleep but toss
about till dawn, because I think and can’t help thinking, just as
he can’t help plowing and mowing; if he didn’t, he would go to the
drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical
labor but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical
idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing—what else was
it you talked about?” and Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. “Ah,
yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and
bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to
everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for
him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is.
It would be different if you grudged losing a laborer—that’s how I
regard him—but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not
want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine ever cured anyone!
Killed them, yes!” said he, frowning angrily and turning away from
Pierre.
Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was
evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke
readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His
glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.
“Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!” said Pierre. “I don’t
understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments
myself not long ago, in Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I
collapsed so that I don’t live at all—everything seems hateful to
me... myself most of all. Then I don’t eat, don’t wash... and how is
it with you?...”
“Why not wash? That is not cleanly,” said Prince Andrew; “on the
contrary one must try to make one’s life as pleasant as possible.
I’m alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I
can without hurting others.”
“But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit
without moving, undertaking nothing....”
“Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do
nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the
honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get
out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary
qualifications for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness
necessary for the position. Then there’s this house, which must be
built in order to have a nook of one’s own in which to be quiet. And
now there’s this recruiting.”
“Why aren’t you serving in the army?”
“After Austerlitz!” said Prince Andrew gloomily. “No, thank you
very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active
Russian army. And I won’t—not even if Bonaparte were here at
Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn’t serve in the
Russian army! Well, as I was saying,” he continued, recovering his
composure, “now there’s this recruiting. My father is chief in
command of the Third District, and my only way of avoiding active
service is to serve under him.”
“Then you are serving?”
“I am.”
He paused a little while.
“And why do you serve?”
“Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of
his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too
energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is
terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander in chief of
the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late
a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster’s clerk at Yúkhnovna
hanged,” said Prince Andrew with a smile. “So I am serving because
I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him
from actions which would torment him afterwards.”
“Well, there you see!”
“Yes, but it is not as you imagine,” Prince Andrew continued. “I
did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk
who had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been
very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again
is for myself.”
Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly
while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no
desire to do good to his neighbor.
“There now, you wish to liberate your serfs,” he continued; “that
is a very good thing, but not for you—I don’t suppose you ever had
anyone flogged or sent to Siberia—and still less for your serfs. If
they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don’t suppose they are
any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the
stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is
a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon
themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being
able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I
pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You
may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those
traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable,
become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain
themselves and grow more and more miserable.”
Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking
that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his
father’s case.
He did not reply.
“So that’s what I’m sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind,
purity, and not the serfs’ backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave
as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads.”
“No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you,” said
Pierre.
CHAPTER XII
In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to
Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and
then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper.
Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in
his husbandry.
Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and
apparently immersed in his own thoughts.
He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not
see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and
raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that
Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching,
and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule
what to him was precious and sacred.
“No, but why do you think so?” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his
head and looking like a bull about to charge, “why do you think so?
You should not think so.”
“Think? What about?” asked Prince Andrew with surprise.
“About life, about man’s destiny. It can’t be so. I myself thought
like that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don’t
smile. Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought
it was: Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal,
aspects of humanity.”
And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince
Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed
from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood,
and love.
“Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest
is a dream,” said Pierre. “Understand, my dear fellow, that outside
this union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you
that nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out
his life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our
fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up
to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I
have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of
which is hidden in heaven,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to
Pierre’s words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented
his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the
peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew’s eyes and by his silence,
Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would
not interrupt him or laugh at what he said.
They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to
cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it,
they also stepped on the raft.
Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at
the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.
“Well, what do you think about it?” Pierre asked. “Why are you
silent?”
“What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It’s all very
well.... You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of
life, the destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who
are we? Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what
you see? You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don’t
see it.”
Pierre interrupted him.
“Do you believe in a future life?” he asked.
“A future life?” Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no
time to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he
knew Prince Andrew’s former atheistic convictions.
“You say you can’t see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor
could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end
of everything. On earth, here on this earth” (Pierre pointed to
the fields), “there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the
universe, in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who
are now the children of earth are—eternally—children of the
whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast
harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I form one link, one step, between
the lower and higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of
beings in whom the Deity—the Supreme Power if you prefer the term—is
manifest? If I see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man,
why should I suppose it breaks off at me and does not go farther and
farther? I feel that I cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this
world, but that I shall always exist and always have existed. I feel
that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world
there is truth.”
“Yes, that is Herder’s theory,” said Prince Andrew, “but it is
not that which can convince me, dear friend—life and death are what
convince. What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound
up with one’s own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to
make it right” (Prince Andrew’s voice trembled and he turned away),
“and suddenly that being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to
exist.... Why? It cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there
is.... That’s what convinces, that is what has convinced me,” said
Prince Andrew.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Pierre, “isn’t that what I’m
saying?”
“No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the
necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with
someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and
you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked
in....”
“Well, that’s it then! You know that there is a there and there is a
Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is—God.”
Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been
taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half
below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near
the ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,
coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.
“If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and
man’s highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must
live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on
this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in
the Whole,” said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.
Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to
Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the
sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre
became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the
current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound
of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre’s words, whispering:
“It is true, believe it.”
He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at
Pierre’s face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior
friend.
“Yes, if it only were so!” said Prince Andrew. “However, it is
time to get on,” he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up
at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since
Austerlitz saw that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on
that battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering, something
that was best within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his
soul. It vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions
of his life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to
develop existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in
Prince Andrew’s life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the
same old way, inwardly he began a new life.
CHAPTER XIII
It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front
entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,
Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre’s attention to a commotion
going on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her
back, and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed
back to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out
after them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay
up the steps of the back porch.
“Those are Mary’s ‘God’s folk,’” said Prince Andrew. “They
have mistaken us for my father. This is the one matter in which she
disobeys him. He orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she
receives them.”
“But what are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre.
Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them,
and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back
soon.
The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.
Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept
in perfect order and readiness for him in his father’s house; he
himself went to the nursery.
“Let us go and see my sister,” he said to Pierre when he returned.
“I have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her
‘God’s folk.’ It will serve her right, she will be confused, but
you will see her ‘God’s folk.’ It’s really very curious.”
“What are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre.
“Come, and you’ll see for yourself.”
Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face
when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon
stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk’s
cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an
armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on
her childlike face.
“Andrew, why didn’t you warn me?” said the princess, with mild
reproach, as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her
chickens.
“Charmée de vous voir. Je suis très contente de vous voir,” * she
said to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and
now his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above
all his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She
looked at him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, “I
like you very much, but please don’t laugh at my people.” After
exchanging the first greetings, they sat down.
* “Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you.”
“Ah, and Ivánushka is here too!” said Prince Andrew, glancing with
a smile at the young pilgrim.
“Andrew!” said Princess Mary, imploringly. “Il faut que vous
sachiez que c’est une femme,” * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.
“Andrew, au nom de Dieu!” *(2) Princess Mary repeated.
* “You must know that this is a woman.”
* (2) “For heaven’s sake.”
It was evident that Prince Andrew’s ironical tone toward the pilgrims
and Princess Mary’s helpless attempts to protect them were their
customary long-established relations on the matter.
“Mais, ma bonne amie,” said Prince Andrew, “vous devriez au
contraire m’être reconnaissante de ce que j’explique à Pierre
votre intimité avec ce jeune homme.” *
* “But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to
me for explaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young
man.”
“Really?” said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and
seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into
Ivánushka’s face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked
round at them all with crafty eyes.
Princess Mary’s embarrassment on her people’s account was quite
unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering
her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup
upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat
quietly in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea.
Ivánushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes
from under her brows at the young men.
“Where have you been? To Kiev?” Prince Andrew asked the old woman.
“I have, good sir,” she answered garrulously. “Just at
Christmastime I was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly
sacrament at the shrine of the saint. And now I’m from Kolyázin,
master, where a great and wonderful blessing has been revealed.”
“And was Ivánushka with you?”
“I go by myself, benefactor,” said Ivánushka, trying to speak in a
bass voice. “I only came across Pelagéya in Yúkhnovo....”
Pelagéya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what
she had seen.
“In Kolyázin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed.”
“What is it? Some new relics?” asked Prince Andrew.
“Andrew, do leave off,” said Princess Mary. “Don’t tell him,
Pelagéya.”
“No... why not, my dear, why shouldn’t I? I like him. He is kind,
he is one of God’s chosen, he’s a benefactor, he once gave me ten
rubles, I remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he’s
one of God’s own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says,
‘Why are you not going to the right place? Go to Kolyázin where a
wonder-working icon of the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.’ On
hearing those words I said good-by to the holy folk and went.”
All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,
drawing in her breath.
“So I come, master, and the people say to me: ‘A great blessing has
been revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother,
the Holy Virgin Mother of God.’...”
“All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards,” said Princess
Mary, flushing.
“Let me ask her,” said Pierre. “Did you see it yourselves?” he
inquired.
“Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face
like the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother’s cheek it drops
and drops....”
“But, dear me, that must be a fraud!” said Pierre, naïvely, who had
listened attentively to the pilgrim.
“Oh, master, what are you saying?” exclaimed the horrified
Pelagéya, turning to Princess Mary for support.
“They impose on the people,” he repeated.
“Lord Jesus Christ!” exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself.
“Oh, don’t speak so, master! There was a general who did not
believe, and said, ‘The monks cheat,’ and as soon as he’d said it
he went blind. And he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev
catacombs came to him and said, ‘Believe in me and I will make you
whole.’ So he begged: ‘Take me to her, take me to her.’ It’s the
real truth I’m telling you, I saw it myself. So he was brought, quite
blind, straight to her, and he goes up to her and falls down and says,
‘Make me whole,’ says he, ‘and I’ll give thee what the Tsar
bestowed on me.’ I saw it myself, master, the star is fixed into the
icon. Well, and what do you think? He received his sight! It’s a sin
to speak so. God will punish you,” she said admonishingly, turning to
Pierre.
“How did the star get into the icon?” Pierre asked.
“And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?” said
Prince Andrew, with a smile.
Pelagéya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.
“Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!” she began,
her pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. “Master, what have you
said? God forgive you!” And she crossed herself. “Lord forgive him!
My dear, what does it mean?...” she asked, turning to Princess
Mary. She got up and, almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She
evidently felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a
house where such things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to
have now to forgo the charity of this house.
“Now, why need you do it?” said Princess Mary. “Why did you come
to me?...”
“Come, Pelagéya, I was joking,” said Pierre. “Princesse, ma
parole, je n’ai pas voulu l’offenser. * I did not mean anything,
I was only joking,” he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his
offense. “It was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking.”
* “Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her.”
Pelagéya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre’s face there was such a
look of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at
her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.
CHAPTER XIV
The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a
long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his
hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks
she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking
some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with
the saints. “I’d pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to
another. I’d sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and
there was such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don’t want
to come out, even into the light of heaven again.”
Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out
of the room, and then, leaving “God’s folk” to finish their tea,
Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.
“You are very kind,” she said to him.
“Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so
well and have the greatest respect for them.”
Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.
“I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a
brother,” she said. “How do you find Andrew?” she added hurriedly,
not giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. “I am very
anxious about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring
his wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a
cure. And I am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a
character like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows.
He keeps it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits,
but that is the effect of your visit—he is not often like that. If
you could persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet
regular life is very bad for him. Others don’t notice it, but I see
it.”
Toward ten o’clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing
the bells of the old prince’s carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and
Pierre also went out into the porch.
“Who’s that?” asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out
of the carriage.
“Ah! Very glad! Kiss me,” he said, having learned who the young
stranger was.
The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.
Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father’s study, found
him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time
would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it
chaffingly, but without getting angry.
“Drain the blood from men’s veins and put in water instead, then
there will be no more war! Old women’s nonsense—old women’s
nonsense!” he repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately
on the shoulder, and then went up to the table where Prince Andrew,
evidently not wishing to join in the conversation, was looking over the
papers his father had brought from town. The old prince went up to him
and began to talk business.
“The marshal, a Count Rostóv, hasn’t sent half his contingent. He
came to town and wanted to invite me to dinner—I gave him a pretty
dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy,” the old prince
went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. “A
fine fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says
clever things and one doesn’t care to listen, but this one talks
rubbish yet stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I’ll
come and sit with you at supper. We’ll have another dispute. Make
friends with my little fool, Princess Mary,” he shouted after Pierre,
through the door.
Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the
strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was
not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family
and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid
Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt
like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess
Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her
most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old “Prince Nicholas” (as
his grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken
in his arms, and Michael Ivánovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at
him with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince.
The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre’s
account. And during the two days of the young man’s visit he was
extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.
When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they
began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new
acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but
what was good of him.
CHAPTER XV
When returning from his leave, Rostóv felt, for the first time, how
close was the bond that united him to Denísov and the whole regiment.
On approaching it, Rostóv felt as he had done when approaching his home
in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform
of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Deméntyev and saw the
picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrúshka gleefully shouted to
his master, “The count has come!” and Denísov, who had been asleep
on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him,
and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostóv
experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his
sister had embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could
not speak. The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and
precious as his parents’ house.
When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had
been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone
out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests
of the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one
narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of
moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own
place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of
all that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right
place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sónya with whom he
ought, or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of
going there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours
in the day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not
that innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or
farther from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and
undefined money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that
terrible loss to Dólokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and
simple. The whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our
Pávlograd regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no
concern of his. In the regiment, everything was definite: who was
lieutenant, who captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most
of all, who was a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one’s
pay came every four months, there was nothing to think out or decide,
you had only to do nothing that was considered bad in the Pávlograd
regiment and, when given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly,
and definitely ordered—and all would be well.
Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental
life, Rostóv felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to
rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter
for him, because, after his loss to Dólokhov (for which, in spite
of all his family’s efforts to console him, he could not forgive
himself), he had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving,
not as he had done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly
first-rate comrade and officer—in a word, a splendid man altogether, a
thing which seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the
regiment.
After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents
in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved
to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his
parents.
Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultúsk
and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting
the Emperor’s arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.
The Pávlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had
served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in
Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the
campaign. It had been neither at Pultúsk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,
when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,
was attached to Plátov’s division.
Plátov’s division was acting independently of the main army. Several
times parts of the Pávlograd regiment had exchanged shots with
the enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal
Oudinot’s carriages. In April the Pávlograds were stationed immovably
for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.
A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,
and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the
men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could
arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,
searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.
Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled—if any
remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken
from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking
anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.
The Pávlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had
lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals,
death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling
that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able
to drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals.
When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the
ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called
“Máshka’s sweet root.” It was very bitter, but they wandered
about the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it,
though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That
spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the
arms, legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root.
But in spite of all this, the soldiers of Denísov’s squadron fed
chiefly on “Máshka’s sweet root,” because it was the second week
that the last of the biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a
pound a man and the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.
The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched
roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of
felty winter hair.
Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just
as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the
hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their
horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in
place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which
they rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As
usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before
them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told
and listened to stories of Potëmkin’s and Suvórov’s campaigns, or
to legends of Alësha the Sly, or the priest’s laborer Mikólka.
The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless,
half-ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and,
in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as
before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was
no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles.
The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because
nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague
feeling that in the main it was going badly.
Rostóv lived, as before, with Denísov, and since their furlough they
had become more friendly than ever. Denísov never spoke of Rostóv’s
family, but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostóv
felt that the elder hussar’s luckless love for Natásha played a part
in strengthening their friendship. Denísov evidently tried to expose
Rostóv to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his
safe return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in
a deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of
provisions, Rostóv found a family consisting of an old Pole and his
daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak
to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostóv
brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and
kept them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his
comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostóv, saying that he was
more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he
introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostóv took
the joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the
officer that it was all Denísov could do to prevent a duel. When
the officer had gone away, Denísov, who did not himself know what
Rostóv’s relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid
him for his quickness of temper, and Rostóv replied:
“Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can’t tell
you how it offended me... because... well, for that reason....”
Denísov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room
without looking at Rostóv, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.
“Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostóvs are!” he muttered, and Rostóv
noticed tears in his eyes.
CHAPTER XVI
In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor’s arrival,
but Rostóv had no chance of being present at the review he held at
Bartenstein, as the Pávlograds were at the outposts far beyond that
place.
They were bivouacking. Denísov and Rostóv were living in an earth hut,
dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The
hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A
trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep,
and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and
these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room,
in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board,
lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On
each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two
and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof
was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench
and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table.
Denísov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his
squadron liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end,
with a piece of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it
was very cold, embers from the soldiers’ campfire were placed on
a bent sheet of iron on the steps in the “reception room”—as
Denísov called that part of the hut—and it was then so warm that the
officers, of whom there were always some with Denísov and Rostóv, sat
in their shirt sleeves.
In April, Rostóv was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and
eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed
his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,
then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and,
his face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his
shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was
pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days
for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denísov, who
had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.
Suddenly he heard Denísov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut,
evidently much excited. Rostóv moved to the window to see whom he was
speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topchéenko.
“I ordered you not to let them eat that Máshka woot stuff!”
Denísov was shouting. “And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchúk
bwought some fwom the fields.”
“I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don’t
obey,” answered the quartermaster.
Rostóv lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: “Let
him fuss and bustle now, my job’s done and I’m lying
down—capitally!” He could hear that Lavrúshka—that sly, bold
orderly of Denísov’s—was talking, as well as the quartermaster.
Lavrúshka was saying something about loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen
he had seen when he had gone out for provisions.
Then Denísov’s voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.
“Saddle! Second platoon!”
“Where are they off to now?” thought Rostóv.
Five minutes later, Denísov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots
on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took
his leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to
Rostóv’s inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly
that he had some business.
“Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!” said Denísov
going out, and Rostóv heard the hoofs of several horses splashing
through the mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denísov had
gone. Having got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave
the hut till toward evening. Denísov had not yet returned. The weather
had cleared up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were
playing sváyka, laughing as they threw their missiles which buried
themselves in the soft mud. Rostóv joined them. In the middle of the
game, the officers saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on
their skinny horses behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew
up to the picket ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them.
“There now, Denísov has been worrying,” said Rostóv, “and here
are the provisions.”
“So they are!” said the officers. “Won’t the soldiers be
glad!”
A little behind the hussars came Denísov, accompanied by two infantry
officers with whom he was talking.
Rostóv went to meet them.
“I warn you, Captain,” one of the officers, a short thin man,
evidently very angry, was saying.
“Haven’t I told you I won’t give them up?” replied Denísov.
“You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny—seizing the transport
of one’s own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days.”
“And mine have had nothing for two weeks,” said Denísov.
“It is robbery! You’ll answer for it, sir!” said the infantry
officer, raising his voice.
“Now, what are you pestewing me for?” cried Denísov, suddenly
losing his temper. “I shall answer for it and not you, and you’d
better not buzz about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!” he shouted
at the officers.
“Very well, then!” shouted the little officer, undaunted and not
riding away. “If you are determined to rob, I’ll...”
“Go to the devil! quick ma’ch, while you’re safe and sound!” and
Denísov turned his horse on the officer.
“Very well, very well!” muttered the officer, threateningly, and
turning his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.
“A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!” shouted
Denísov after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can
address to a mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostóv, he burst out
laughing.
“I’ve taken twansports from the infantwy by force!” he said.
“After all, can’t let our men starve.”
The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an
infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrúshka that the transport
was unescorted, Denísov with his hussars had seized it by force. The
soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared
them with the other squadrons.
The next day the regimental commander sent for Denísov, and holding his
fingers spread out before his eyes said:
“This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and
won’t begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff
and settle the business there in the commissariat department and if
possible sign a receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as
the demand was booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row
and the affair may end badly.”
From the regimental commander’s, Denísov rode straight to the staff
with a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came
back to his dugout in a state such as Rostóv had never yet seen him in.
Denísov could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostóv asked what
was the matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a
hoarse, feeble voice.
Alarmed at Denísov’s condition, Rostóv suggested that he should
undress, drink some water, and send for the doctor.
“Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but
I’ll always thwash scoundwels... and I’ll tell the Empewo’...
Ice...” he muttered.
The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary
to bleed Denísov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy
arm and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.
“I get there,” began Denísov. “‘Now then, where’s your
chief’s quarters?’ They were pointed out. ‘Please to wait.’
‘I’ve widden twenty miles and have duties to attend to and no time
to wait. Announce me.’ Vewy well, so out comes their head
chief—also took it into his head to lecture me: ‘It’s
wobbewy!’—‘Wobbewy,’ I say, ‘is not done by man who seizes
pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to fill his
own pockets!’ ‘Will you please be silent?’ ‘Vewy good!’ Then
he says: ‘Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair
will be passed on to headquarters.’ I go to the commissioner. I enter,
and at the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it
that’s starving us?” shouted Denísov, hitting the table with the
fist of his newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down
and the tumblers on it jumped about. “Telyánin! ‘What? So it’s
you who’s starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!’ and I
hit him so pat, stwaight on his snout... ‘Ah, what a... what a...!’
and I sta’ted fwashing him... Well, I’ve had a bit of fun I can tell
you!” cried Denísov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing
under his black mustache. “I’d have killed him if they hadn’t
taken him away!”
“But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself,” said Rostóv.
“You’ve set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up
again.”
Denísov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and
cheerful.
But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostóv’s and
Denísov’s dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed
them a paper addressed to Major Denísov from the regimental commander
in which inquiries were made about yesterday’s occurrence. The
adjutant told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad
turn: that a court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the
severity with which marauding and insubordination were now regarded,
degradation to the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for.
The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after
seizing the transports, Major Denísov, being drunk, went to the chief
quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened
to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given
two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.
In answer to Rostóv’s renewed questions, Denísov said, laughing,
that he thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up
in it, but that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the
least fear any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack
him he would give them an answer that they would not easily forget.
Denísov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostóv knew him
too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart
he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was
evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices
from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denísov was ordered
to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before
the staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat
office. On the previous day Plátov reconnoitered with two Cossack
regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denísov, as was his wont, rode
out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by
a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at
another time Denísov would not have left the regiment for so slight a
wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing
at the staff and went into hospital.
CHAPTER XVII
In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pávlograds did
not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostóv, who
felt his friend’s absence very much, having no news of him since he
left and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his
affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denísov
in hospital.
The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated
by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so
beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly
dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,
tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.
The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and
panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence
that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale
swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the
yard.
Directly Rostóv entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of
putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army
doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.
“I can’t tear myself to pieces,” the doctor was saying. “Come to
Makár Alexéevich in the evening. I shall be there.”
The assistant asked some further questions.
“Oh, do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?” The doctor
noticed Rostóv coming upstairs.
“What do you want, sir?” said the doctor. “What do you want?
The bullets having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a
pesthouse, sir.”
“How so?” asked Rostóv.
“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makéev and I” (he
pointed to the assistant), “keep on here. Some five of us doctors have
died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,”
said the doctor with evident satisfaction. “Prussian doctors have been
invited here, but our allies don’t like it at all.”
Rostóv explained that he wanted to see Major Denísov of the hussars,
who was wounded.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in
charge of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It’s
well that the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee
and some lint each month or we should be lost!” he laughed. “Four
hundred, sir, and they’re always sending me fresh ones. There are four
hundred? Eh?” he asked, turning to the assistant.
The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient
for the talkative doctor to go.
“Major Denísov,” Rostóv said again. “He was wounded at
Molliten.”
“Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makéev?” queried the doctor, in a tone of
indifference.
The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor’s words.
“Is he tall and with reddish hair?” asked the doctor.
Rostóv described Denísov’s appearance.
“There was one like that,” said the doctor, as if pleased. “That
one is dead, I fancy. However, I’ll look up our list. We had a list.
Have you got it, Makéev?”
“Makár Alexéevich has the list,” answered the assistant. “But if
you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for yourself,”
he added, turning to Rostóv.
“Ah, you’d better not go, sir,” said the doctor, “or you may
have to stay here yourself.”
But Rostóv bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant
to show him the way.
“Only don’t blame me!” the doctor shouted up after him.
Rostóv and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so
strong there that Rostóv held his nose and had to pause and collect
his strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an
emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped
out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious
eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostóv
saw that the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and
overcoats.
“May I go in and look?”
“What is there to see?” said the assistant.
But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,
Rostóv entered the soldiers’ ward. The foul air, to which he had
already begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It
was a little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where
it originated.
In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows,
the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and
leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and
paid no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised
themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at
Rostóv with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and
envy of another’s health. Rostóv went to the middle of the room and
looking through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same
thing there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all
expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the
passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge
by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs
outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that
only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were
still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of
his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept
repeating. Rostóv listened and made out the word. It was “drink,
drink, a drink!” Rostóv glanced round, looking for someone who would
put this man back in his place and bring him water.
“Who looks after the sick here?” he asked the assistant.
Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the
next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostóv.
“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostóv and
evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.
“Get him to his place and give him some water,” said Rostóv,
pointing to the Cossack.
“Yes, your honor,” the soldier replied complacently, and rolling
his eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not
move.
“No, it’s impossible to do anything here,” thought Rostóv,
lowering his eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense
look fixed on him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on
an overcoat, sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a
skeleton, with a stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostóv.
The man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to him, pointing
at Rostóv, who noticed that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew
nearer and saw that the old man had only one leg bent under him, the
other had been amputated above the knee. His neighbor on the other side,
who lay motionless some distance from him with his head thrown back, was
a young soldier with a snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled
and his eyes were rolled back. Rostóv looked at the young soldier and a
cold chill ran down his back.
“Why, this one seems...” he began, turning to the assistant.
“And how we’ve been begging, your honor,” said the old soldier,
his jaw quivering. “He’s been dead since morning. After all we’re
men, not dogs.”
“I’ll send someone at once. He shall be taken away—taken away at
once,” said the assistant hurriedly. “Let us go, your honor.”
“Yes, yes, let us go,” said Rostóv hastily, and lowering his
eyes and shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of
reproachful envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the
room.
CHAPTER XVIII
Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers’
wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There
were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or
sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing
gowns. The first person Rostóv met in the officers’ ward was a thin
little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a
nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.
Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.
“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Túshin,
Túshin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schön Grabern?
And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see...” he went on with a smile,
pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing gown. “Looking for
Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard
who Rostóv wanted. “Here, here,” and Túshin led him into the next
room, from whence came sounds of several laughing voices.
“How can they laugh, or even live at all here?” thought Rostóv,
still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong
in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those
envious looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face
of that young soldier with eyes rolled back.
Denísov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though
it was nearly noon.
“Ah, Wostóv? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in the
same voice as in the regiment, but Rostóv noticed sadly that under this
habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed
itself in the expression of Denísov’s face and the intonations of his
voice.
His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks
after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces
of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostóv.
What struck him was that Denísov did not seem glad to see him, and
smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about
the general state of affairs, and when Rostóv spoke of these matters
did not listen.
Rostóv even noticed that Denísov did not like to be reminded of the
regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on
outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and
was only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On
Rostóv’s inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from
under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the
rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began
reading his paper and specially drew Rostóv’s attention to the
stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions,
who had gathered round Rostóv—a fresh arrival from the world
outside—gradually began to disperse as soon as Denísov began reading
his answer. Rostóv noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had
already heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the
man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed,
gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Túshin still
listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading,
the Uhlan interrupted Denísov.
“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostóv, “it would be
best simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards
will now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted....”
“Me petition the Empewo’!” exclaimed Denísov, in a voice to which
he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like
an expression of irritable impotence. “What for? If I were a wobber I
would ask mercy, but I’m being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers
to book. Let them twy me, I’m not afwaid of anyone. I’ve served
the Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be
degwaded?... Listen, I’m w’iting to them stwaight. This is what I
say: ‘If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...’”
“It’s certainly well written,” said Túshin, “but that’s not
the point, Vasíli Dmítrich,” and he also turned to Rostóv. “One
has to submit, and Vasíli Dmítrich doesn’t want to. You know the
auditor told you it was a bad business.”
“Well, let it be bad,” said Denísov.
“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Túshin,
“and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt
he” (indicating Rostóv) “has connections on the staff. You won’t
find a better opportunity.”
“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denísov interrupted
him, went on reading his paper.
Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denísov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Túshin and the other
officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of
service to Denísov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty
temper.
When the reading of Denísov’s virulent reply, which took more than an
hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day
in a most dejected state of mind amid Denísov’s hospital comrades,
who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to
their stories. Denísov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov
whether he had no commission for him.
“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denísov, glancing round at the officers,
and taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where
he had an inkpot, and sat down to write.
“It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!” he
said, coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In
it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in
which Denísov, without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat
officials, simply asked for pardon.
“Hand it in. It seems...”
He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.
CHAPTER XIX
Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of
Denísov’s affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the
Emperor.
On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he
was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at
Tilsit.
“I should like to see the great man,” he said, alluding to Napoleon,
whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.
“You are speaking of Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling.
Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was
being tested.
“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The
general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.
“You will go far,” he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.
Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two
Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon
pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the
pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern
on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both
Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft
first—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand
to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun
to move in the highest circles Borís had made it his habit to watch
attentively all that went on around him and to note it down. At the time
of the meeting at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with
Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to
words spoken by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went
into the pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at
it again when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and
fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other
facts he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor’s suite
was a very small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who
valued his success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of
this interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this,
Borís felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not
only become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted
him. Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so
that the latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from
cold-shouldering him as at first when they considered him a newcomer,
would now have been surprised had he been absent.
Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski.
Zhilínski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately
fond of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French
officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and
lunching with him and Borís.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilínski arranged a
supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of
Napoleon’s, there were also several French officers of the Guard,
and a page of Napoleon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French
family. That same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being
recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging
occupied by Borís and Zhilínski.
Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far
from having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the
French—who from being foes had suddenly become friends—that had
taken place at headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and
the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt,
and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack
officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he
would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately,
happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had
maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate
sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly
struck by the presence of French officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed
in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite a different point
of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French
officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of
hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly
seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether
Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the
anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance showed itself
for a moment on his face on first recognizing Rostóv.
“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however,
coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first
impulse.
“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have
business,” he said coldly.
“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment.
Dans un moment je suis à vous,” * he said, answering someone who
called him.
* “In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”
“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face:
having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took
both Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking
serenely and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something,
as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to
Rostóv.
“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Borís,
and he led him into the room where the supper table was laid and
introduced him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but
an hussar officer, and an old friend of his.
“Count Zhilínski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S. S.,” said he,
naming his guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed
reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilínski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not
appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same
pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which
he had met Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the
Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,
addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had
probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv, briefly.
Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of
dissatisfaction on Borís’ face, and as always happens to those in a
bad humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion
and that he was in everybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he
alone took no part in the conversation which again became general. The
looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: “And what is he sitting
here for?” He rose and went up to Borís.
“Anyhow, I’m in your way,” he said in a low tone. “Come and talk
over my business and I’ll go away.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you are tired, come and
lie down in my room and have a rest.”
“Yes, really...”
They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without
sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in
some way) telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking him whether,
through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on
Denísov’s behalf and get Denísov’s petition handed in. When he
and Borís were alone, Rostóv felt for the first time that he could not
look Borís in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one
leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender
fingers of his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to the
report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into
Rostóv’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened
Rostóv felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.
“I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe
in such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the
Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,
I think...”
“So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!” Rostóv
almost shouted, not looking Borís in the face.
Borís smiled.
“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought...”
At that moment Zhilínski’s voice was heard calling Borís.
“Well then, go, go, go...” said Rostóv, and refusing supper and
remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long
time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.
CHAPTER XX
Rostóv had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition
on Denísov’s behalf. He could not himself go to the general in
attendance as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission
to do so, and Borís, even had he wished to, could not have done so on
the following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were
signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross
of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the
First Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by
a battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhénsk battalion. The
Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
Rostóv felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Borís that, when the
latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next
morning went away, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a
round hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their
uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French
Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and
preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors
draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In
the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.
“Borís doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask him.
That’s settled,” thought Nicholas. “All is over between us, but
I won’t leave here without having done all I can for Denísov and
certainly not without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!...
He is here!” thought Rostóv, who had unconsciously returned to the
house where Alexander lodged.
Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were
assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.
“I may see him at any moment,” thought Rostóv. “If only I were
to hand the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really
arrest me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on
whose side justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything.
Who can be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did
arrest me for being here, what would it matter?” thought he, looking
at an officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. “After
all, people do go in.... It’s all nonsense! I’ll go in and hand
the letter to the Emperor myself so much the worse for Drubetskóy who
drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination he himself did not
expect, Rostóv felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to
the house.
“No, I won’t miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz,”
he thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of
the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. “I will fall at
his feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even
thank me. ‘I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is
the greatest happiness,’” Rostóv fancied the sovereign saying. And
passing people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch
of the Emperor’s house.
A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he
saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the
lower floor.
“Whom do you want?” someone inquired.
“To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,” said Nicholas,
with a tremor in his voice.
“A petition? This way, to the officer on duty” (he was shown the
door leading downstairs), “only it won’t be accepted.”
On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostóv grew frightened at what
he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so
fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,
but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv
entered.
A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and
a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that
room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a
new pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,
attracted Rostóv’s attention. This man was speaking to someone in the
adjoining room.
“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing
Rostóv, he stopped short and frowned.
“What is it? A petition?”
“What is it?” asked the person in the other room.
“Another petitioner,” answered the man with the braces.
“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly, we must
go.”
“Later... later! Tomorrow. It’s too late...”
Rostóv turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped
him.
“Whom have you come from? Who are you?”
“I come from Major Denísov,” answered Rostóv.
“Are you an officer?”
“Lieutenant Count Rostóv.”
“What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with
you... go,” and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed
him.
Rostóv went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were
many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.
Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding
himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to
shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety
of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was
making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a
familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.
“What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?” asked a deep
voice.
It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor’s special favor
during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in
which Rostóv was serving.
Rostóv, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,
jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice
told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denísov, whom
the general knew. Having heard Rostóv to the end, the general shook his
head gravely.
“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”
Hardly had Rostóv handed him the letter and finished explaining
Denísov’s case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard
on the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The
gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite ran down the stairs and went to their
horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the
Emperor’s horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostóv knew at
once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,
Rostóv went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive
civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:
that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and
mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign
rose again in Rostóv’s soul in all its old force. In the uniform of
the Preobrazhénsk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches and high
boots—and wearing a star Rostóv did not know (it was that of the
Légion d’honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on
his gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked
about him, brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few
words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of
Rostóv’s division, smiled and beckoned to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostóv saw the general talking for some
time to the Emperor.
The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.
Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom
was Rostóv) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse,
with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general
and said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:
“I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than
I,” and he raised his foot to the stirrup.
The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and
rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm,
Rostóv ran after him with the crowd.
CHAPTER XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion
of the Preobrazhénsk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the
French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented
arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and
at the head of them Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one
else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over
a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding
a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered
saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did
so, Rostóv, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing
that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions
shouted “Hurrah!” and “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon said
something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each
other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial
smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which
were pushing back the crowd, Rostóv kept his eyes on every movement
of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander
treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with
the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter
to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached
the right flank of the Preobrazhénsk battalion and came straight up to
the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close
to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, was afraid he
might be recognized.
“Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the
bravest of your soldiers,” said a sharp, precise voice, articulating
every letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into
Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to
him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
“To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war,” added
Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance
exasperating to Rostóv, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn
up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their
Emperor.
“Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?” said Alexander
and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlóvski, the commander of
the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,
tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him
rushed forward and picked it up.
“To whom shall it be given?” the Emperor Alexander asked Kozlóvski,
in Russian in a low voice.
“To whomever Your Majesty commands.”
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,
remarked:
“But we must give him an answer.”
Kozlóvski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostóv in his
scrutiny.
“Can it be me?” thought Rostóv.
“Lázarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lázarev, the
first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lázarev who
did not know where to go. Lázarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at
his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers
called before the ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out
behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing
at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed
something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostóv
had seen the previous evening at Borís’—ran forward and, bowing
respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a
moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking,
pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he
approached Lázarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his
own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what
he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white
hand holding the Order touched one of Lázarev’s buttons. It was as if
Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch
that soldier’s breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,
and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid
the cross on Lázarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward
Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it
really did.
Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and
fastened it to the uniform. Lázarev glanced morosely at the little
man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing
motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s
eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do
something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in
that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhénsk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables
prepared for them.
Lázarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced
him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and
civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French
voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square.
Two officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by
Rostóv.
“What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,” one of them
was saying. “Have you seen Lázarev?”
“I have.”
“Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhénskis will give them a dinner.”
“Yes, but what luck for Lázarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension for
life.”
“Here’s a cap, lads!” shouted a Preobrazhénsk soldier, donning a
shaggy French cap.
“It’s a fine thing! First-rate!”
“Have you heard the password?” asked one Guards’ officer of
another. “The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoléon, France,
bravoure’; yesterday, ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’ One day our
Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send
a St. George’s Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be
done. He must respond in kind.”
Borís, too, with his friend Zhilínski, came to see the Preobrazhénsk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostóv standing by the corner of a
house.
“Rostóv! How d’you do? We missed one another,” he said, and could
not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and
troubled was Rostóv’s face.
“Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostóv.
“You’ll call round?”
“Yes, I will.”
Rostóv stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a
distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could
not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he
remembered Denísov with his changed expression, his submission, and the
whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So
vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he
looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that
self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an
Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed
arms and legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lázarev
rewarded and Denísov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself
harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhénskis were eating and a sense of
hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to
eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.
There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,
had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a
dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation
naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of
the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of
Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would
have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.
Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a
couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on
tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to
his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the
officers’ saying that it was humiliating to look at the French,
Rostóv began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to
the surprise of the officers:
“How can you judge what’s best?” he cried, the blood suddenly
rushing to his face. “How can you judge the Emperor’s actions? What
right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor’s aims
or his actions!”
“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer,
justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostóv’s outburst,
except on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostóv did not listen to him.
“We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,”
he went on. “If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we’re
punished, it means that we have deserved it, it’s not for us to judge.
If the Emperor pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude
an alliance with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If
once we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred
will be left! That way we shall be saying there is no God—nothing!”
shouted Nicholas, banging the table—very little to the point as it
seemed to his listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own
thoughts.
“Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That’s
all....” said he.
“And to drink,” said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.
“Yes, and to drink,” assented Nicholas. “Hullo there! Another
bottle!” he shouted.
In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with
the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was
much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.
CHAPTER XXII
In 1809 the intimacy between “the world’s two arbiters,” as
Napoleon and Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared
war on Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with
our old enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and
in court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one
of Alexander’s sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of
foreign policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly
directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the
departments of government.
Life meanwhile—real life, with its essential interests of health and
sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,
science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions—went on
as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity
with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.
BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10
CHAPTER I
Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.
All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly
changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were carried
out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.
He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,
and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.
On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became
free agricultural laborers—this being one of the first examples of
the kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs’ compulsory labor was
commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Boguchárovo
at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to
the children of the peasants and household serfs.
Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his
son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in
“Boguchárovo Cloister,” as his father called Prince Andrew’s
estate. Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had
expressed to Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received
many books, and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had
visitors from Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged
behind himself—who never left the country—in knowledge of what was
happening in home and foreign affairs.
Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of
books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of
our last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a
reform of the army rules and regulations.
In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazán estates which had
been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the calèche looking at the new
grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white
spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of
anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.
They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.
They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green
fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,
uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of
stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a
birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was
almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green
leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades
of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year’s leaves. The
coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there
among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the
forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.
Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.
But apparently the coachman’s sympathy was not enough for Peter, and
he turned on the box toward his master.
“How pleasant it is, your excellency!” he said with a respectful
smile.
“What?”
“It’s pleasant, your excellency!”
“What is he talking about?” thought Prince Andrew. “Oh, the
spring, I suppose,” he thought as he turned round. “Yes, really
everything is green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and
alders too are coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is
one oak!”
At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the
birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as
tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a
man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been
broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling
unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,
stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the
dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,
refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or
the sunshine.
“Spring, love, happiness!” this oak seemed to say. “Are you not
weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the
same and always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look
at those cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out
my broken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my
back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in
your hopes and your lies.”
As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to
look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak,
too, were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,
misshapen, and grim as ever.
“Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,” thought Prince
Andrew. “Let others—the young—yield afresh to that fraud, but we
know life, our life is finished!”
A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose
in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as
it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,
restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything
anew—but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and
not disturbing himself or desiring anything.
CHAPTER II
Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district
in connection with the affairs of the Ryazán estate of which he was
trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilyá Rostóv, and in the middle of May
Prince Andrew went to visit him.
It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in
green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to
bathe.
Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which
he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds
of the Rostóvs’ house at Otrádnoe. He heard merry girlish cries
behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross
the path of his calèche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a
dark-haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with
a white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair
escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a
stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.
Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,
the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl
did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and
cheerful in her own separate—probably foolish—but bright and happy
life. “What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of
the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazán serfs’
quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?” Prince
Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilyá Rostóv was living at Otrádnoe just as he had done
in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with
hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince
Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying
the night.
During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by
his elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old
count’s house was crowded on account of an approaching name day),
Prince Andrew repeatedly glanced at Natásha, gay and laughing among the
younger members of the company, and asked himself each time, “What is
she thinking about? Why is she so glad?”
That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He
read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the
room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the
stupid old man (as he called Rostóv), who had made him stay by assuring
him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he
was vexed with himself for having stayed.
He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the
shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst
into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and
very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking
black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the
trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit
leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a
roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly
white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its
full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his
elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.
His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also
awake. He heard female voices overhead.
“Just once more,” said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew
recognized at once.
“But when are you coming to bed?” replied another voice.
“I won’t, I can’t sleep, what’s the use? Come now for the last
time.”
Two girlish voices sang a musical passage—the end of some song.
“Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there’s an end of it.”
“You go to sleep, but I can’t,” said the first voice, coming
nearer to the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the
rustle of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything
was stone-still, like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince
Andrew, too, dared not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional
presence.
“Sónya! Sónya!” he again heard the first speaker. “Oh, how can
you sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
Sónya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never,
never was such a lovely night before!”
Sónya made some reluctant reply.
“Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....
Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down
on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,
as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this....”
“Take care, you’ll fall out.”
He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sónya’s disapproving voice:
“It’s past one o’clock.”
“Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!”
Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting
there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.
“O God, O God! What does it mean?” she suddenly exclaimed. “To bed
then, if it must be!” and she slammed the casement.
“For her I might as well not exist!” thought Prince Andrew while he
listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she
might say something about him. “There she is again! As if it were on
purpose,” thought he.
In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful
thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable
to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.
CHAPTER III
Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not
waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.
It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove
into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and
memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded
yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was
thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest
did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood
around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.
The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only
a small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road
and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,
the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely
swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales
trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.
“Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed,” thought
Prince Andrew. “But where is it?” he again wondered, gazing at
the left side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with
admiration at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured,
spreading out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and
slightly trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled
fingers nor old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in
evidence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were
no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old
veteran could have produced.
“Yes, it is the same oak,” thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he
was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All
the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz
with the lofty heavens, his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at
the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night
itself and the moon, and... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.
“No, life is not over at thirty-one!” Prince Andrew suddenly decided
finally and decisively. “It is not enough for me to know what I have
in me—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to
fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be
lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that
it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!”
On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn
and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of
sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him
to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing
up in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have
doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month
before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country
could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his
experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to
some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not
even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical
arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if
he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe
in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness
or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey
to Ryazán he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer
interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,
went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would
turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled à la
grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She
did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,
merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his
arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as
he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a
crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with
fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty
and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was
particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.
“My dear,” Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say,
“little Nicholas can’t go out today, it’s very cold.”
“If it were hot,” Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly
to his sister, “he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he
must wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is
what follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who
needs fresh air should remain at home,” he would add with extreme
logic, as if punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that
stirred within him.
At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries
men up.
CHAPTER IV
Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time
when the youthful Speránski was at the zenith of his fame and his
reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same
August the Emperor was thrown from his calèche, injured his leg, and
remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speránski every day and no
one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared
that so agitated society—abolishing court ranks and introducing
examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and
State Councilor—and not merely these but a whole state constitution,
intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal,
administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the
district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the
Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to put
into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartorýski, Novosíltsev,
Kochubéy, and Strógonov—whom he himself in jest had called his
Comité de salut public—were taking shape and being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speránski on the civil side, and
Arakchéev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a
gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The
Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.
It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic
to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality
generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he
now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained
the Emperor’s neglect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure at
Bolkónski’s not having served since 1805.
“I know myself that one cannot help one’s sympathies and
antipathies,” thought Prince Andrew, “so it will not do to present
my proposal for the reform of the army regulations to the Emperor
personally, but the project will speak for itself.”
He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend
of his father’s. The field marshal made an appointment to see him,
received him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few
days later Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the
Minister of War, Count Arakchéev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakchéev’s waiting
room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakchéev personally, had never seen him, and all he
had heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.
“He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not
concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to
consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted,” thought Prince
Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people
in Count Arakchéev’s waiting room.
During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the
anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms
were well known to him. Count Arakchéev’s anteroom had quite a
special character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their
turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of
those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered
by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and
the person for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and
down, others whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname
“Síla Andréevich” and the words, “Uncle will give it to us
hot,” in reference to Count Arakchéev. One general (an important
personage), evidently feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat
crossing and uncrossing his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.
But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all
faces—that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the
adjutant on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and
was told that his turn would come in due course. After some others had
been shown in and out of the minister’s room by the adjutant on duty,
an officer who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air
was admitted at that terrible door. This officer’s audience lasted a
long time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard
from the other side of the door, and the officer—with pale face and
trembling lips—came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching
his head.
After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on
duty said in a whisper, “To the right, at the window.”
Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of
forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,
scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red
nose. Arakchéev turned his head toward him without looking at him.
“What is your petition?” asked Arakchéev.
“I am not petitioning, your excellency,” returned Prince Andrew
quietly.
Arakchéev’s eyes turned toward him.
“Sit down,” said he. “Prince Bolkónski?”
“I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has
deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me...”
“You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,” interrupted
Arakchéev, uttering only the first words amiably and then—again
without looking at Prince Andrew—relapsing gradually into a tone of
grumbling contempt. “You are proposing new military laws? There are
many laws but no one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody
designs laws, it is easier writing than doing.”
“I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from your
excellency how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have
presented,” said Prince Andrew politely.
“I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the
committee. I do not approve of it,” said Arakchéev, rising and taking
a paper from his writing table. “Here!” and he handed it to Prince
Andrew.
Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,
misspelled, and without punctuation: “Unsoundly constructed because
resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles
of War needlessly deviating.”
“To what committee has the memorandum been referred?” inquired
Prince Andrew.
“To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that
your honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary.”
Prince Andrew smiled.
“I don’t want one.”
“A member without salary,” repeated Arakchéev. “I have the
honor... Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?” he shouted, bowing
to Prince Andrew.
CHAPTER V
While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee
Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he
knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now
experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when
troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling
circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was
being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the
uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation
of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose
existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in
Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in
chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was
supposed to be a man of genius—Speránski. And this movement of
reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speránski
its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question
of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his
consciousness.
Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the
highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming
party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because
he was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by
liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.
The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,
turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the
reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine
society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a
good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account
of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this
the general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had
greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown
more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,
and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about
him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.
The day after his interview with Count Arakchéev, Prince Andrew spent
the evening at Count Kochubéy’s. He told the count of his interview
with Síla Andréevich (Kochubéy spoke of Arakchéev by that nickname
with the same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of
War’s anteroom).
“Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Michael
Mikháylovich Speránski. He manages everything. I’ll speak to him. He
has promised to come this evening.”
“What has Speránski to do with the army regulations?” asked Prince
Andrew.
Kochubéy shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkónski’s
simplicity.
“We were talking to him about you a few days ago,” Kochubéy
continued, “and about your freed plowmen.”
“Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?” said an old man
of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkónski.
“It was a small estate that brought in no profit,” replied Prince
Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man
uselessly.
“Afraid of being late...” said the old man, looking at Kochubéy.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he continued. “Who
will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but
difficult to rule.... Just the same as now—I ask you, Count—who will
be heads of the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?”
“Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,” replied Kochubéy,
crossing his legs and glancing round.
“Well, I have Pryánichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a
priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for examination?”
“Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general,
but...”
Count Kochubéy did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,
and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open
forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was
just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a
cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was
Speránski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb
within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from
respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speránski’s whole
figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In
the society in which Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who
together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and
self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression
as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that
expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft
voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or
hands—hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such
whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of
soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Speránski, Secretary
of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he
had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.
Speránski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people
involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to
speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and
he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.
Prince Andrew followed Speránski’s every word and movement with
particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men
who judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting
anyone new—especially anyone whom, like Speránski, he knew by
reputation—expected to discover in him the perfection of human
qualities.
Speránski told Kochubéy he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner
as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor
had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.
When Kochubéy introduced Prince Andrew, Speránski slowly turned
his eyes to Bolkónski with his customary smile and looked at him in
silence.
“I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as
everyone has,” he said after a pause.
Kochubéy said a few words about the reception Arakchéev had given
Bolkónski. Speránski smiled more markedly.
“The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend
Monsieur Magnítski,” he said, fully articulating every word and
syllable, “and if you like I can put you in touch with him.” He
paused at the full stop. “I hope you will find him sympathetic and
ready to co-operate in promoting all that is reasonable.”
A circle soon formed round Speránski, and the old man who had talked
about his subordinate Pryánichnikov addressed a question to him.
Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement
of Speránski’s: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity
student, who now, Bolkónski thought, held in his hands—those plump
white hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the
extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speránski answered
the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from
an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud,
Speránski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or
disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign.
Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speránski rose
and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the
room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in
Bolkónski.
“I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated
conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me,” he said
with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he
and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom
he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. “I have known
of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your
serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should
be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen
of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new
decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so
much gossip and tittle-tattle.”
“No,” said Prince Andrew, “my father did not wish me to take
advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade.”
“Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our
contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely re-establishes
natural justice.”
“I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,”
returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speránski’s influence, of
which he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in
everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily
and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking
with Speránski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous
man’s personality.
“Grounds of personal ambition maybe,” Speránski put in quietly.
“And of state interest to some extent,” said Prince Andrew.
“What do you mean?” asked Speránski quietly, lowering his eyes.
“I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” replied Prince Andrew, “and
his idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur me paraît
incontestable. Certains droits et privilèges de la noblesse me
paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment.” *
* “The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me
incontestable. Certain rights and privileges for the
aristocracy appear to me a means of maintaining that
sentiment.”
The smile vanished from Speránski’s white face, which was much
improved by the change. Probably Prince Andrew’s thought interested
him.
“Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,” * he began,
pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower
than in Russian but quite calmly.
* “If you regard the question from that point of view.”
Speránski went on to say that honor, l’honneur, cannot be upheld by
privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l’honneur, is either a
negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of
emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.
His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.
“An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one
similar to the Légion d’honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not
harmful but helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or
court privilege.”
“I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges
have attained the same end,” returned Prince Andrew. “Every courtier
considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily.”
“Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince,”
said Speránski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably
an argument which was embarrassing for his companion. “If you will
do me the honor of calling on me on Wednesday,” he added, “I will,
after talking with Magnítski, let you know what may interest you, and
shall also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you.”
Closing his eyes, he bowed à la française, without taking leave, and
trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.
CHAPTER VI
During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the
whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite
overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.
On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four
or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism
of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,
absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did
not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked
successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.
He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same
remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for
whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking
of nothing.
As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubéy’s, Speránski
produced a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he
received him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and
confidentially.
To Bolkónski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant
creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that
perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in
Speránski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous
man. Had Speránski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed
the same breeding and traditions, Bolkónski would soon have discovered
his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speránski’s strange
and logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because
he did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speránski, either because he
appreciated the other’s capacity or because he considered it necessary
to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness
before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which
goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption
that one’s companion is the only man besides oneself capable of
understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness
and profundity of one’s own ideas.
During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speránski more
than once remarked: “We regard everything that is above the common
level of rooted custom...” or, with a smile: “But we want the wolves
to be fed and the sheep to be safe...” or: “They cannot understand
this...” and all in a way that seemed to say: “We, you and I,
understand what they are and who we are.”
This first long conversation with Speránski only strengthened in Prince
Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.
He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by
his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely
for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew’s eyes Speránski was the
man he would himself have wished to be—one who explained all the facts
of life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and
was capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything
seemed so simple and clear in Speránski’s exposition that Prince
Andrew involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and
argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and
not submit to Speránski’s opinions entirely. Everything was right
and everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince
Andrew. This was Speránski’s cold, mirrorlike look, which did not
allow one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which
Prince Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of
those who possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands
irritated Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly
struck, too, by the excessive contempt for others that he observed in
Speránski, and by the diversity of lines of argument he used to
support his opinions. He made use of every kind of mental device, except
analogy, and passed too boldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one
to another. Now he would take up the position of a practical man and
condemn dreamers; now that of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his
opponents; now grow severely logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of
metaphysics. (This last resource was one he very frequently employed.)
He would transfer a question to metaphysical heights, pass on to
definitions of space, time, and thought, and, having deduced the
refutation he needed, would again descend to the level of the original
discussion.
In general the trait of Speránski’s mentality which struck Prince
Andrew most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and
authority of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur
to him which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is
after all impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never
felt the doubt, “Is not all I think and believe nonsense?” And
it was just this peculiarity of Speránski’s mind that particularly
attracted Prince Andrew.
During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkónski felt a
passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for
Bonaparte. The fact that Speránski was the son of a village priest,
and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his
humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his
sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.
On that first evening Bolkónski spent with him, having mentioned the
Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speránski told him
sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty
years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf
had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.
“And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent,” said
he. “We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no
laws. That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in
these times!”
Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was
needed which he did not possess.
“But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious
circle from which we must break a way out.”
A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army
Regulations and—what he had not at all expected—was chairman of a
section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speránski’s
request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up
and, with the aid of the Code Napoléon and the Institutes of Justinian,
he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights.
CHAPTER VII
Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg
after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading
position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral
lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various
lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection
of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,
in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular.
He supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in
Petersburg.
His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and
dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered
it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the
bachelor circles in which he moved.
Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at
the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest
upon it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.
At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the
closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined
the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently
steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it
sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put
his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and
involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.
Joseph Alexéevich was not in Petersburg—he had of late stood aside
from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in
Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary
life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in
Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Iván Vasílevich D., whom he knew
in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the Masonic
aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they
aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up
twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a
dozen members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre
remembered the Masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote
all his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to
dwell arose in his soul.
He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he
put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges
or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical
science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of
God, the three primordial elements—sulphur, mercury, and salt—or
the meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of
Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones
chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexéevich himself,
but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical
aspect of Freemasonry.
In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,
seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight
and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.
In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw
nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized
the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their
purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master
of the principal lodge.
Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,
particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre’s
observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for
anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy
young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,
and of whom there were very many in the lodge.
Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,
at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely
on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but
suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated
from its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went
abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.
In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew
from correspondence with those abroad that Bezúkhov had obtained the
confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many
mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with
him much that might conduce to the advantage of the Masonic cause
in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to
ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was
preparing something for them and concealing it.
A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at
which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what
he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The
meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began
his address.
“Dear Brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
speech in his hand, “it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in
the seclusion of our lodge—we must act—act! We are drowsing, but we
must act.” Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.
“For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of
virtue,” he read, “we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and
folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity
of purpose and possessed of authority and power.
“To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice
and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,
receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we
are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is
to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow
everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.
Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy
evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no
violence.
“The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of
preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of
conviction—aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing
talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and attaching
them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the power
unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to
control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must found a
form of government holding universal sway, which should be diffused over
the whole world without destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside
which all other governments can continue in their customary course and
do everything except what impedes the great aim of our order, which
is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of
Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise and good and for their
own benefit to follow the example and instruction of the best and wisest
men.
“At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching
alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with
special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is
now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue
a charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the
passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is
therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions
within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.
“As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state,
each of them again training two others and all being closely united,
everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret
accomplished much for the welfare of mankind.”
This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in
the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs
of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand
Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with
more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a
meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others
supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by
the endless variety of men’s minds, which prevents a truth from ever
presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members
who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with
limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always
wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself
understood it.
* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for
monarchical institutions.
At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will
reproved Bezúkhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue
alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.
Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would
be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the
usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.
CHAPTER VIII
Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three
days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at
home receiving no one and going nowhere.
It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored
him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she
wished to devote her whole life to him.
At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would
return to Petersburg from abroad.
Following this letter one of the Masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected
less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the
conversation upon Pierre’s matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal
advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong
and that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not
forgiving the penitent.
At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasíli’s wife, sent to
him imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most
important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and
that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then
was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him.
Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the
influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his
liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.
“No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to
blame,” he thought.
If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it
was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take
any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away.
Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference
whether he lived with his wife or not?
Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late
one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph
Alexéevich. This is what he noted in his diary:
Moscow, 17th November
I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I
have experienced. Joseph Alexéevich is living poorly and has for three
years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has
ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till
late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working
at science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed
on which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of
Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild
smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges.
I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed
to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of
my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexéevich, having remained silent
and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which
at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow.
He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of
the order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The
purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The
improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which
is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and
self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently
of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the
greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of
this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our
impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of
the human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and
profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is
attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground
Joseph Alexéevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the
depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said
to me, “the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in
perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties
of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary,
my dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain
our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge—for man can only know himself
by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by
conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue—love of death.
Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our
innate love of death or of rebirth to a new life.” These words are all
the more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings,
Joseph Alexéevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for
which—in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man—he does
not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained
to me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out
to me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He
advised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but
to take up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while
diverting the Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path
self-knowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for
myself personally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end
he gave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will
in future note down all my actions.
Petersburg, 23rd November
I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and
said that Hélène was here and that she implored me to hear her; that
she was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew
that if I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on
refusing what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and
advice to seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what
to do. I went to my room and reread Joseph Alexéevich’s letters and
recalled my conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I
ought not to refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to
everyone—especially to one so closely bound to me—and that I must
bear my cross. But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then
let union with her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided,
and what I wrote to Joseph Alexéevich. I told my wife that I begged her
to forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her,
and that I had nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She
need not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on
the upper floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of
regeneration.
CHAPTER IX
At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court
and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its
own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the
Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt.
In this group Hélène, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with
her husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members
of the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for
their intellect and polished manners.
Hélène had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors
and had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic
notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself
had noticed her in the theater and said of her: “C’est un superbe
animal.” * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not
surprise Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did
surprise him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded
in gaining the reputation “d’ une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle
que belle.” *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her
eight-page letters. Bilíbin saved up his epigrams to produce them
in Countess Bezúkhova’s presence. To be received in the Countess
Bezúkhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men
read books before attending Hélène’s evenings, to have something to
say in her salon, and secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors,
confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that in a way Hélène was a
power. Pierre, who knew she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a
strange feeling of perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties,
where politics, poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties
his feelings were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick
to be found out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just
what was needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived
found pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and
Hélène Bezúkhova’s reputation as a lovely and clever woman became
so firmly established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest
things and everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers
and look for a profound meaning in it of which she herself had no
conception.
* “That’s a superb animal.”
* (2) “Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely.”
Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was
that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one’s
way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the
drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an
advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during
the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract
interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his
wife’s circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,
indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired
artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered
his wife’s drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with
everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to
them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him
and, regardless of whether any “gentlemen of the embassy” were
present or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not
at all in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general
opinion concerning the queer husband of “the most distinguished woman
in Petersburg” was so well established that no one took his freaks
seriously.
Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Borís
Drubetskóy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was
the most intimate friend of the Bezúkhov household since Hélène’s
return from Erfurt. Hélène spoke of him as “mon page” and treated
him like a child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody,
but sometimes that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Borís
behaved with a particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade
of deference also disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three
years before from the mortification to which his wife had subjected him
that he now protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first
by not being a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself
to suspect.
“No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced
her former infatuations,” he told himself. “There has never been
an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the
heart”—a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source,
he believed implicitly. Yet strange to say Borís’ presence in his
wife’s drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical
effect upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs and destroyed the
unconsciousness and freedom of his movements.
“What a strange antipathy,” thought Pierre, “yet I used to like
him very much.”
In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind
and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did
nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But
a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place
all this time in Pierre’s soul, revealing much to him and causing him
many spiritual doubts and joys.
CHAPTER X
Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during
that time:
24th November
Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph
Alexéevich’s advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and
served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined
alone—the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank
moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers.
In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about
B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody
laughed loudly at it.
I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to
walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation,
(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw
from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family
duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs.
27th November
I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,
help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures,
but without proper feeling. Brother Urúsov came and we talked about
worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor’s new projects. I began
to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor’s
words—that a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state
when his aid is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to
assist. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we
had a preliminary talk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid
on me the duty of Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our
talk turned to the interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the
Temple, the seven sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the
evening the admission took place. The new decoration of the Premises
contributed much to the magnificence of the spectacle. It was Borís
Drubetskóy who was admitted. I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A
strange feeling agitated me all the time I was alone with him in the
dark chamber. I caught myself harboring a feeling of hatred toward him
which I vainly tried to overcome. That is why I should really like
to save him from evil and lead him into the path of truth, but evil
thoughts of him did not leave me. It seemed to me that his object in
entering the Brotherhood was merely to be intimate and in favor with
members of our lodge. Apart from the fact that he had asked me several
times whether N. and S. were members of our lodge (a question to which I
could not reply) and that according to my observation he is incapable of
feeling respect for our holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied
with the outer man to desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to
doubt him, but he seemed to me insincere, and all the time I stood
alone with him in the dark temple it seemed to me that he was smiling
contemptuously at my words, and I wished really to stab his bare breast
with the sword I held to it. I could not be eloquent, nor could I
frankly mention my doubts to the Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great
Architect of Nature, help me to find the true path out of the labyrinth
of lies!
After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the
following was written:
I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who
advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was
revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim
is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable
which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and
support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place.
The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our
sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect
everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the
holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and
life. The Trinity—the three elements of matter—are sulphur, mercury,
and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with
salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means
of which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination
produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.
Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!...
3rd December
Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and
paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my
imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dólokhov,
meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying
perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife’s absence. At the time I
gave him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in
my mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected
myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with
anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Borís Drubetskóy
came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the
first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared
up and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became
silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I
cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set
myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient
to my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God,
grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave
so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was
drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, “Thy
day!”
I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by
dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left
thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with
my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began
biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and
heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led
me to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank.
I stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a
fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I
dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on
the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and
pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large
and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature,
help me to tear from myself these dogs—my passions especially the
last, which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and
aid me to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in
my dream.
7th December
I dreamed that Joseph Alexéevich was sitting in my house, and that I
was very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered
incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could
not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But
as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young,
and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order,
but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left
the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on
the floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my
sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing
to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying
me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he
looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I
felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern
me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly
found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down
on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down
too. And he said, “Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do
you know it? I think you know it already.” Abashed by this question,
I replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head
incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living
with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To
this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one’s embraces
and gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that
I should be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I
awoke and found in my mind the text from the Gospel: “The life was
the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness
comprehended it not.” Joseph Alexéevich’s face had looked young
and bright. That day I received a letter from my benefactor in which he
wrote about “conjugal duties.”
9th December
I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that
I was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph
Alexéevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that
the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed
to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, “Hast
thou noticed that my face is different?” I looked at him, still
holding him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he
had no hair on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said,
“I should have known you had I met you by chance,” and I thought to
myself, “Am I telling the truth?” And suddenly I saw him lying like
a dead body; then he gradually recovered and went with me into my study
carrying a large book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, “I drew
that,” and he answered by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on
all the pages there were excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew
that these drawings represented the love adventures of the soul with its
beloved. And on its pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden
in transparent garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the
clouds. And I seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a
representation of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I
dreamed I felt that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away
from them. Lord, help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy
will be done; but if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I
shall perish of my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!
CHAPTER XI
The Rostóvs’ monetary affairs had not improved during the two years
they had spent in the country.
Though Nicholas Rostóv had kept firmly to his resolution and was still
serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little,
the way of life at Otrádnoe—Mítenka’s management of affairs, in
particular—was such that the debts inevitably increased every year.
The only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to
apply for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one
and also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last
time.
Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Véra and was
accepted.
Though in Moscow the Rostóvs belonged to the best society without
themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of
acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were
provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without
inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them.
The Rostóvs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in
Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country
neighbors from Otrádnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters,
Perónskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezúkhov, and the son of their
district postmaster who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the
men who very soon became frequent visitors at the Rostóvs’ house in
Petersburg were Borís, Pierre whom the count had met in the street and
dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostóvs’
and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Véra, the attentions a young man
pays when he intends to propose.
Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at
Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He
narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that
everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had
obtained two decorations for Austerlitz.
In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked
up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near
the commander in chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had
done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and
so insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do
this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In
1809 he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special
lucrative posts in Petersburg.
Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg’s merits, it could not
be denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent
terms with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career
before him and an assured position in society.
Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow
theater, Berg had pointed out Véra Rostóva to him and had said in
German, “das soll mein Weib werden,” * and from that moment had
made up his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the
Rostóvs’ position and his own, he decided that the time had come to
propose.
* “That girl shall be my wife.”
Berg’s proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not
flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure
Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostóva; but
Berg’s chief characteristic was such a naïve and good natured egotism
that the Rostóvs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing,
since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed
excellent. Moreover, the Rostóvs’ affairs were seriously embarrassed,
as the suitor could not but know; and above all, Véra was twenty-four,
had been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking
and sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their
consent.
“You see,” said Berg to his comrade, whom he called “friend”
only because he knew that everyone has friends, “you see, I have
considered it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out
or if it were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and
mamma are now provided for—I have arranged that rent for them in the
Baltic Provinces—and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with
her fortune and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not
marrying for money—I consider that dishonorable—but a wife should
bring her share and a husband his. I have my position in the service,
she has connections and some means. In our times that is worth
something, isn’t it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl,
and she loves me....”
Berg blushed and smiled.
“And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good.
Now the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite
different—an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence.
She is so... you know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancée!... Well, you
will be coming,” he was going to say, “to dine,” but changed his
mind and said “to take tea with us,” and quickly doubling up his
tongue he blew a small round ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying
his dream of happiness.
After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg’s
proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took
possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.
In the family’s feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness
and constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved
Véra sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The
old count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state
the cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his
affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted
to, or what dowry he could give Véra. When his daughters were born
he had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three
hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the
other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would
have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Véra. Nor had
he any money.
Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before
the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the
question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the
count thought of giving her the Ryazán estate or of selling a forest,
at another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before
the wedding Berg entered the count’s study early one morning and, with
a pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let
him know what Véra’s dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by
this long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first
reply that came into his head. “I like your being businesslike about
it.... I like it. You shall be satisfied....”
And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the
conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not
know for certain how much Véra would have and did not receive at least
part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.
“Because, consider, Count—if I allowed myself to marry now
without having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting
badly....”
The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to
avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand
for eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the
shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible
for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in
ready money. “Or at least twenty thousand, Count,” he added, “and
then a note of hand for only sixty thousand.”
“Yes, yes, all right!” said the count hurriedly. “Only excuse me,
my dear fellow, I’ll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for
eighty thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me.”
CHAPTER XII
Natásha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which
she had counted on her fingers with Borís after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sónya and her
mother, if Borís happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of
that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not
worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question
whether her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding
promise tormented her.
Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the
Rostóvs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near
Otrádnoe, but had never been to see them.
Sometimes it occurred to Natásha that he did not wish to see her, and
this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke
of him.
“Nowadays old friends are not remembered,” the countess would say
when Borís was mentioned.
Anna Mikháylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed
to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously
and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on
which he had entered. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg Borís called
on them.
He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha was
his most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of
letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations between
himself and Natásha could not be binding either on her or on him. He
had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess
Bezúkhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage
of an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he
was beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in
Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered
the Rostóvs’ drawing room Natásha was in her own room. When she
heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and
beaming with a more than cordial smile.
Borís remembered Natásha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from
under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her
four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different
Natásha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This
expression on his face pleased Natásha.
“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the
countess.
Borís kissed Natásha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.
“How handsome you have grown!”
“I should think so!” replied Natásha’s laughing eyes.
“And is Papa older?” she asked.
Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís’ conversation with
the countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood’s suitor. He
felt the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced
at her occasionally.
Borís’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all
comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natásha noticed at once.
He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging
with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand
like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his
lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling
with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was
not accidentally, Natásha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the
highest aristocracy, to an ambassador’s ball he had attended, and to
invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.
All this time Natásha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her
brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Borís more and more. He looked
round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.
He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The
same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked
at him. After his first visit Borís said to himself that Natásha
attracted him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that
feeling, because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would
mean ruin to his career, while to renew their former relations without
intending to marry her would be dishonorable. Borís made up his mind
to avoid meeting Natásha, but despite that resolution he called again
a few days later and began calling often and spending whole days at the
Rostóvs’. It seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with
Natásha and tell her that the old times must be forgotten, that in
spite of everything... she could not be his wife, that he had no means,
and they would never let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt
awkward about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he
became more and more entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sónya that
Natásha was in love with Borís as of old. She sang him his favorite
songs, showed him her album, making him write in it, did not allow him
to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful was the
present; and every day he went away in a fog, without having said what
he meant to, and not knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how
it would all end. He left off visiting Hélène and received reproachful
notes from her every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with
the Rostóvs.
CHAPTER XIII
One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,
without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing
under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and
bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natásha, also in
a dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in
curlpapers, ran in. The countess—her prayerful mood dispelled—looked
round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: “Can it be that
this couch will be my grave?” Natásha, flushed and eager, seeing
her mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and
unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that
her mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly
slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and
jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This
couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than
the one below. Natásha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled
over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled
down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost
inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her
mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a
stern face, but seeing that Natásha’s head was covered, she smiled
in her kind, weak way.
“Now then, now then!” said she.
“Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?” said Natásha. “Now, just one on
your throat and another... that’ll do!” And seizing her mother round
the neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother
Natásha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however
she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her
or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.
“Well, what is it tonight?” said the mother, having arranged her
pillows and waited until Natásha, after turning over a couple of times,
had settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and
assumed a serious expression.
These visits of Natásha’s at night before the count returned from his
club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.
“What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you...”
Natásha put her hand on her mother’s mouth.
“About Borís... I know,” she said seriously; “that’s what I
have come about. Don’t say it—I know. No, do tell me!” and she
removed her hand. “Tell me, Mamma! He’s nice?”
“Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Borís
is nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?...
What are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see
that....”
As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natásha
was lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany
sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess
only saw her daughter’s face in profile. That face struck her by its
peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.
Natásha was listening and considering.
“Well, what then?” said she.
“You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You
know you can’t marry him.”
“Why not?” said Natásha, without changing her position.
“Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...
and because you yourself don’t love him.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. It is not right, darling!”
“But if I want to...” said Natásha.
“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess.
“But if I want to...”
“Natásha, I am in earnest...”
Natásha did not let her finish. She drew the countess’ large hand to
her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it
over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the
knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, “January, February,
March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don’t you say anything? Speak!”
said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter
and in that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to
say.
“It won’t do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship
dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may
injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all
it torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and
wealthy match, and now he’s half crazy.”
“Crazy?” repeated Natásha.
“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin...”
“I know! Cyril Matvéich... but he is old.”
“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natásha, I’ll
have a talk with Borís. He need not come so often....”
“Why not, if he likes to?”
“Because I know it will end in nothing....”
“How can you know? No, Mamma, don’t speak to him! What nonsense!”
said Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property.
“Well, I won’t marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy
it.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to marry, but
just so,” she added.
“How so, my pet?”
“Just so. There’s no need for me to marry him. But... just so.”
“Just so, just so,” repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she
went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.
“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole
bed! You’re awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait...”
and she seized the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of the little
finger, saying, “June,” and continued, kissing, “July, August,”
on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you
think? Was anybody ever so much in love with you? And he’s very nice,
very, very nice. Only not quite my taste—he is so narrow, like the
dining-room clock.... Don’t you understand? Narrow, you know—gray,
light gray...”
“What rubbish you’re talking!” said the countess.
Natásha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nicholas would
understand.... Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is
square.”
“You flirt with him too,” said the countess, laughing.
“No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and
red.... How can I explain it to you?”
“Little countess!” the count’s voice called from behind the door.
“You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers,
and ran barefoot to her own room.
It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one
could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.
“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little
kitten with her enormous plait of hair. “No, how could she? She’s
virtuous. She fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know
anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how
clever I am and how... charming she is,” she went on, speaking
of herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise
man—the wisest and best of men—who was saying it of her. “There
is everything, everything in her,” continued this man. “She is
unusually intelligent, charming... and then she is pretty, uncommonly
pretty, and agile—she swims and rides splendidly... and her voice! One
can really say it’s a wonderful voice!”
She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself
on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately
fall asleep, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before
Dunyásha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier
world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in
reality, and even more so because it was different.
Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after
which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs’.
CHAPTER XIV
On the thirty-first of December, New Year’s Eve, 1809 - 10 an old
grandee of Catherine’s day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The
diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.
The grandee’s well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with
innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance
which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of
police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.
Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried
footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men
wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine
cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them
with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize
at the entrance.
Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the
crowd and caps were doffed.
“The Emperor?... No, a minister... prince... ambassador. Don’t you
see the plumes?...” was whispered among the crowd.
One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and
mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.
A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were
to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the
Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that
the dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged
as it should be.
Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at
the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the
countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society,
was to accompany them to the ball.
They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten
o’clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were
not yet dressed.
Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that
morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All
her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they
all—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya—should be as well dressed as
possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands.
The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two
girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and
their hair dressed à la grecque.
Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and
ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork
silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the
hairdressing was almost done. Sónya was finishing dressing and so was
the countess, but Natásha, who had bustled about helping them all, was
behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing
jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sónya stood ready dressed in
the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her
dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went
through it.
“That’s not the way, that’s not the way, Sónya!” cried Natásha
turning her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the
maid who was dressing it had not time to release. “That bow is not
right. Come here!”
Sónya sat down and Natásha pinned the ribbon on differently.
“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was
holding Natásha’s hair.
“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sónya.”
“Aren’t you ready? It is nearly ten,” came the countess’ voice.
“Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?”
“I have only my cap to pin on.”
“Don’t do it without me!” called Natásha. “You won’t do it
right.”
“But it’s already ten.”
They had decided to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha had
still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under
which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket,
ran up to Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning
her mother’s head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and,
hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning
up the hem of her skirt.
The cause of the delay was Natásha’s skirt, which was too long.
Two maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of
thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the
countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment
up high on one uplifted hand.
“Mávra, quicker, darling!”
“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there...”
“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door.
“Here is some scent. Perónskaya must be tired of waiting.”
“It’s ready, Miss,” said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze
dress with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if
by this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what
she held.
Natásha began putting on the dress.
“In a minute! In a minute! Don’t come in, Papa!” she cried to her
father as he opened the door—speaking from under the filmy skirt which
still covered her whole face.
Sónya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was
wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed
and his hair pomaded.
“Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!” cried Natásha, as she
stood in the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.
“If you please, Miss! allow me,” said the maid, who on her knees was
pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her
mouth to the other with her tongue.
“Say what you like,” exclaimed Sónya, in a despairing voice as she
looked at Natásha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.”
Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress
was too long.
“Really, madam, it is not at all too long,” said Mávra, crawling on
her knees after her young lady.
“Well, if it’s too long we’ll tack it up... we’ll tack it up
in one minute,” said the resolute Dunyásha taking a needle that was
stuck on the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor,
set to work once more.
At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap
and velvet gown.
“Oo-oo, my beauty!” exclaimed the count, “she looks better than
any of you!”
He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to
be rumpled.
“Mamma, your cap, more to this side,” said Natásha. “I’ll
arrange it,” and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking
up her skirt could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn
off.
“Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!”
“Never mind, I’ll run it up, it won’t show,” said Dunyásha.
“What a beauty—a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the
door. “And Sónya! They are lovely!”
At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.
But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.
Perónskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she
had gone through the same process as the Rostóvs, but with less
flurry—for to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was
washed, perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed
behind her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing
room in her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old
lady’s maid was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostóvs’
servants had been.
She praised the Rostóvs’ toilets. They praised her taste and toilet,
and at eleven o’clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they
settled themselves in their carriages and drove off.
CHAPTER XV
Natásha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once
had time to think of what lay before her.
In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she
for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at
the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances,
the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The
prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true,
so out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the
carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping
over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her
fur cloak, and, beside Sónya and in front of her mother, mounted the
brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she
remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic
air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,
fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing
clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed
at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her
ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying
with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that
became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,
also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the
landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with
diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.
Natásha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection
from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession.
On entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and
greetings deafened Natásha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still
more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door
for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,
“Charmé de vous voir,” * greeted the Rostóvs and Perónskaya in
the same manner.
* “Delighted to see you.”
The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her
black hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess’ eye
involuntarily rested longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her
and gave her alone a special smile in addition to her usual smile as
hostess. Looking at her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable
days of her own girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed
Natásha with his eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.
“Charming!” said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.
In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting
the Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows
of that crowd. Natásha heard and felt that several people were asking
about her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked
her, and this observation helped to calm her.
“There are some like ourselves and some worse,” she thought.
Perónskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people
at the ball.
“That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,”
she said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly
hair, who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.
“Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova,”
said Perónskaya, indicating Hélène who had just entered. “How
lovely! She is quite equal to Márya Antónovna. See how the men, young
and old, pay court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince
—— is quite mad about her. But see, those two, though not
good-looking, are even more run after.”
She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain
daughter.
“She is a splendid match, a millionairess,” said Perónskaya. “And
look, here come her suitors.”
“That is Bezúkhova’s brother, Anatole Kurágin,” she said,
indicating a handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them
with head erect, looking at something over the heads of the ladies.
“He’s handsome, isn’t he? I hear they will marry him to that rich
girl. But your cousin, Drubetskóy, is also very attentive to her. They
say she has millions. Oh yes, that’s the French ambassador himself!”
she replied to the countess’ inquiry about Caulaincourt. “Looks as
if he were a king! All the same, the French are charming, very charming.
No one more charming in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the
most beautiful of them all, our Márya Antónovna! And how simply she
is dressed! Lovely! And that stout one in spectacles is the universal
Freemason,” she went on, indicating Pierre. “Put him beside his wife
and he looks a regular buffoon!”
Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd
and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he
were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently
looking for someone.
Natásha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the
buffoon,” as Perónskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for
them, and for her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and
introduce partners to her.
But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark
man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window
talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natásha at once
recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was
Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and
better-looking.
“There’s someone else we know—Bolkónski, do you see, Mamma?”
said Natásha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed a
night with us at Otrádnoe.”
“Oh, you know him?” said Perónskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait
à présent la pluie et le beau temps. * He’s too proud for anything.
Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speránski,
writing some project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies!
There’s one talking to him and he has turned away,” she said,
pointing at him. “I’d give it to him if he treated me as he does
those ladies.”
* “He is all the rage just now.”
CHAPTER XVI
Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then
back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to
the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked
his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left
as if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band
played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that
had been set to it, beginning: “Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts
you ravish quite...” The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the
crowd made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces
hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from
the drawing room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the
hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,
asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete
forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the
detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take
their places for the polonaise.
Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing
room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the
music. The host followed with Márya Antónovna Narýshkina; then
came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Perónskaya
diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners
and were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the
polonaise. Natásha felt that she would be left with her mother and
Sónya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, not having
been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging down,
her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with
bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straight before
her, evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. She was
not concerned about the Emperor or any of those great people whom
Perónskaya was pointing out—she had but one thought: “Is it
possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first to
dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me?
They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as if they
were saying, ‘Ah, she’s not the one I’m after, so it’s not worth
looking at her!’ No, it’s impossible,” she thought. “They must
know how I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would
enjoy dancing with me.”
The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable
time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natásha’s ears.
She wanted to cry. Perónskaya had left them. The count was at the
other end of the room. She and the countess and Sónya were standing by
themselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers,
with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew
with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome
Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at
Natásha as one looks at a wall. Borís passed them twice and each time
turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.
This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natásha—as if there were
nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not
listen to or look at Véra, who was telling her something about her own
green dress.
At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced
with three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the
Rostóvs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they
were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the
distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor
looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun
dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess
Bezúkhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and
laid it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an
adept in his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with
confident deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of
the circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Hélène’s
left hand and turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the
ever-quickening music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his
rapid, agile feet, while at every third beat his partner’s velvet
dress spread out and seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natásha
gazed at them and was ready to cry because it was not she who was
dancing that first turn of the waltz.
Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing
stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the
front row of the circle not far from the Rostóvs. Baron Firhoff was
talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be
held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speránski
and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give
reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors
were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was
gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who
had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.
Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor’s
presence, and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to
dance.
Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.
“You always dance. I have a protégée, the young Rostóva, here. Ask
her,” he said.
“Where is she?” asked Bolkónski. “Excuse me!” he added, turning
to the baron, “we will finish this conversation elsewhere—at a ball
one must dance.” He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated.
The despairing, dejected expression of Natásha’s face caught his eye.
He recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her début,
remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of
pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostóva.
“Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, with
heightened color.
“I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess
remembers me,” said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite
belying Perónskaya’s remarks about his rudeness, and approaching
Natásha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed
his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on
Natásha’s face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly
brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.
“I have long been waiting for you,” that frightened happy little
girl seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as
she raised her hand to Prince Andrew’s shoulder. They were the second
couple to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of
his day and Natásha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white
satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently
of herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender
bare arms and neck were not beautiful—compared to Hélène’s her
shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Hélène seemed, as
it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had
scanned her person, while Natásha was like a girl exposed for the first
time, who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured
that this was absolutely necessary.
Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as
possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed
to him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,
caused by the Emperor’s presence, he danced, and had chosen Natásha
because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first
pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that
slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling
so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he
felt himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood
breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.
CHAPTER XVII
After Prince Andrew, Borís came up to ask Natásha for a dance, and
then the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young
men, so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners
to Sónya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and
saw nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to
notice that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador,
and how particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince
So-and-so and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Hélène
had great success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so,
but she did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone
because the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the
merry cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He
reminded her of their first encounter in the Otrádnoe avenue, and how
she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he
had involuntarily overheard her. Natásha blushed at that recollection
and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be
ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.
Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting
someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was
Natásha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her
mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and
tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most
unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the
cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natásha, still out of
breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was
tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately
put her hand gaily on the man’s shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.
“I’d be glad to sit beside you and rest: I’m tired; but you see
how they keep asking me, and I’m glad of it, I’m happy and I love
everybody, and you and I understand it all,” and much, much more was
said in her smile. When her partner left her Natásha ran across the
room to choose two ladies for the figure.
“If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be
my wife,” said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as
he watched her. She did go first to her cousin.
“What rubbish sometimes enters one’s head!” thought Prince Andrew,
“but what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original,
that she won’t be dancing here a month before she will be married....
Such as she are rare here,” he thought, as Natásha, readjusting a
rose that was slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.
When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to
the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked
his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natásha did not answer
at once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: “How
can you ask such a question?”
“I have never enjoyed myself so much before!” she said, and Prince
Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her
father and instantly dropped again. Natásha was happier than she had
ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes
completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of
evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.
At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position
his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A
deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared
over his spectacles seeing no one.
On her way to supper Natásha passed him.
Pierre’s gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him.
She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own
happiness.
“How delightful it is, Count!” said she. “Isn’t it?”
Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.
“Yes, I am very glad,” he said.
“How can people be dissatisfied with anything?” thought Natásha.
“Especially such a capital fellow as Bezúkhov!” In Natásha’s
eyes all the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid
people, loving one another; none of them capable of injuring
another—and so they ought all to be happy.
CHAPTER XVIII
Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell
on it long. “Yes, it was a very brilliant ball,” and then... “Yes,
that little Rostóva is very charming. There’s something fresh,
original, un-Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her.” That
was all he thought about yesterday’s ball, and after his morning tea
he set to work.
But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work
and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he
often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.
The visitor was Bítski, who served on various committees, frequented
all the societies in Petersburg, and was a passionate devotee of the new
ideas and of Speránski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger—one of
those men who choose their opinions like their clothes according to
the fashion, but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest
partisans. Hardly had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince
Andrew’s room with a preoccupied air and at once began talking. He
had just heard particulars of that morning’s sitting of the Council
of State opened by the Emperor, and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The
Emperor’s speech had been extraordinary. It had been a speech such as
only constitutional monarchs deliver. “The Sovereign plainly said
that the Council and Senate are estates of the realm, he said that the
government must rest not on authority but on secure bases. The Emperor
said that the fiscal system must be reorganized and the accounts
published,” recounted Bítski, emphasizing certain words and opening
his eyes significantly.
“Ah, yes! Today’s events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our
history,” he concluded.
Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of
State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached
such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had
taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He
listened with quiet irony to Bítski’s enthusiastic account of it. A
very simple thought occurred to him: “What does it matter to me or to
Bítski what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that
make me any happier or better?”
And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince
Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that
evening at Speránski’s, “with only a few friends,” as the host
had said when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate
home circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince
Andrew, especially as he had not yet seen Speránski in his domestic
surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.
At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speránski
owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room of this small
house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a
monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly
gathering of Speránski’s intimate acquaintances already assembled
at five o’clock. There were no ladies present except Speránski’s
little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The
other guests were Gervais, Magnítski, and Stolýpin. While still in
the anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato
laugh—a laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded
like Speránski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew
had never before heard Speránski’s famous laugh, and this ringing,
high-pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.
He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two
windows at a small table laid with hors-d’oeuvres. Speránski, wearing
a gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still
the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of
the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His
guests surrounded him. Magnítski, addressing himself to Speránski,
was relating an anecdote, and Speránski was laughing in advance at
what Magnítski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room
Magnítski’s words were again crowned by laughter. Stolýpin gave
a deep bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais
laughed softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speránski in a high-pitched
staccato manner.
Still laughing, Speránski held out his soft white hand to Prince
Andrew.
“Very pleased to see you, Prince,” he said. “One moment...” he
went on, turning to Magnítski and interrupting his story. “We have
agreed that this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about
business!” and turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.
Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speránski with astonishment,
regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not
Speránski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared
mysterious and fascinating in Speránski suddenly became plain and
unattractive.
At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to
consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnítski
had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something
still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state
service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this
company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted
that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored
ridicule. Speránski related how at the Council that morning a deaf
dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too.
Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the
stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolýpin, stuttering, broke into
the conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed
under the former order of things—threatening to give a serious turn
to the conversation. Magnítski starting quizzing Stolýpin about his
vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its
former lively tone.
Evidently Speránski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement
in a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried
to enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince
Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speránski’s high-pitched voice struck
him unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false
note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper
on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being
out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay.
He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were
tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could
not jest with them.
There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and
might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the
salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed.
After dinner Speránski’s daughter and her governess rose. He patted
the little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture,
too, seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.
The men remained at table over their port—English fashion. In the
midst of a conversation that was started about Napoleon’s Spanish
affairs, which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to
express a contrary opinion. Speránski smiled and, with an evident wish
to prevent the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a
story that had no connection with the previous conversation. For a few
moments all were silent.
Having sat some time at table, Speránski corked a bottle of wine and,
remarking, “Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair,” passed
it to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly
went into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed
to Speránski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left
the room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse
sensibly and quietly with one another.
“Now for the recitation!” said Speránski on returning from
his study. “A wonderful talent!” he said to Prince Andrew, and
Magnítski immediately assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous
verses in French which he had composed about various well-known
Petersburg people. He was interrupted several times by applause. When
the verses were finished Prince Andrew went up to Speránski and took
his leave.
“Where are you off to so early?” asked Speránski.
“I promised to go to a reception.”
They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike,
impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have
expected anything from Speránski and from any of his own activities
connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what
Speránski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince
Andrew’s ears long after he had left the house.
When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in
Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He
recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project
of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they
were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor
one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought
of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered
how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and
procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and
promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He
recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had
translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian,
and he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself
Boguchárovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazán;
he remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally
applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he
felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless
work.
CHAPTER XIX
Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,
and among them at the Rostóvs’ with whom he had renewed acquaintance
at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the
call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a
pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.
Natásha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue
house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in
her ball dress. She and all the Rostóv family welcomed him as an old
friend, simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly
judged severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple,
and kindly people. The old count’s hospitality and good nature, which
struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such
that Prince Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. “Yes,”
he thought, “they are capital people, who of course have not the
slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natásha; but they are
kindly folk and form the best possible setting for this strikingly
poetic, charming girl, overflowing with life!”
In Natásha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely
alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world,
that in the Otrádnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night
had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no
longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it
found in it a new enjoyment.
After dinner Natásha, at Prince Andrew’s request, went to the
clavichord and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking
to the ladies and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased
speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought
impossible for him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new
and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad.
He had absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What
about? His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?...
His hopes for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden,
vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great
and illimitable within him and that limited and material something that
he, and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him
while she sang.
As soon as Natásha had finished she went up to him and asked how he
liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that
she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he
liked her singing as he liked everything she did.
Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed
from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his
candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all
troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he
had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not
enter his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking
about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all
life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this
narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open
to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long
while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he
must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting
the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go
abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom
while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself.
“Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of
happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead
bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”
thought he.
CHAPTER XX
One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in
Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate
brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his
temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.
“I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she
could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate
with you,” he said with a smile.
“What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service.”
“I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count” (Berg said
this with perfect conviction that this information could not but be
agreeable), “and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own
and my wife’s friends.” (He smiled still more pleasantly.) “I
wished to ask the countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea
and to supper.”
Only Countess Hélène, considering the society of such people as the
Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.
Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small
but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though
he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared
to run into some expense for the sake of good society—that Pierre
could not refuse, and promised to come.
“But don’t be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten
minutes to eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is
coming. He is very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will
do me the favor.”
Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the
Bergs’ house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.
Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready
for their guests’ arrival.
In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures
and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in
his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always
could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then
does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.
“You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I
managed from my first promotion.” (Berg measured his life not by years
but by promotions.) “My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only
waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to
be your husband.” (He rose and kissed Véra’s hand, and on the way
to her straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) “And
how have I obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my
aquaintances. It goes without saying that one must be conscientious and
methodical.”
Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and
paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak
woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man’s dignity,
what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Véra at the same time smiling with a
sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the
same understood life wrongly, as according to Véra all men did. Berg,
judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Véra, judging
only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed
that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and
selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.
* To be a man.
Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace
fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the
lips.
“The only thing is, we mustn’t have children too soon,” he
continued, following an unconscious sequence of ideas.
“Yes,” answered Véra, “I don’t at all want that. We must live
for society.”
“Princess Yusúpova wore one exactly like this,” said Berg, pointing
to the fichu with a happy and kindly smile.
Just then Count Bezúkhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one
another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming
the honor of this visit.
“This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,” thought
Berg. “This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself.”
“But please don’t interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests,”
said Véra, “because I know what interests each of them and what to
say to different people.”
Berg smiled again.
“It can’t be helped: men must sometimes have masculine
conversation,” said he.
They received Pierre in their small, new drawing room, where it was
impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,
neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that
Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair
or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully
undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle
the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a
chair for himself, and Berg and Véra immediately began their evening
party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their
guest.
Véra, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be
entertained with conversation about the French embassy, at once began
accordingly. Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was
required, interrupted his wife’s remarks and touched on the question
of the war with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general
subject to personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take
part in the Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them.
Though the conversation was very incoherent and Véra was angry at the
intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with
satisfaction that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had
begun very well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party
with its talk, tea, and lighted candles.
Before long Borís, Berg’s old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of
condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Véra. After
Borís came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the
Rostóvs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other
evening parties. Berg and Véra could not repress their smiles of
satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room,
at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the
bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,
especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the
shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of
the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilyá Rostóv, who
was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with
the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on
which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as
the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere
else.
CHAPTER XXI
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston
with Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he
happened to be directly facing Natásha, and was struck by a curious
change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not
only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by
her look of gentle indifference to everything around.
“What’s the matter with her?” thought Pierre, glancing at her.
She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without
looking at him, made some reply to Borís who sat down beside her. After
playing out a whole suit and to his partner’s delight taking five
tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had
entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at
Natásha.
“What has happened to her?” he asked himself with still greater
surprise.
Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a
look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up
at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And
the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again
alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had
again become what she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and
youthful expression in his friend’s face.
Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with
his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six
rubbers he watched her and his friend.
“Something very important is happening between them,” thought
Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and
made him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing
like that, and Pierre was released. Natásha on one side was talking
with Sónya and Borís, and Véra with a subtle smile was saying
something to Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking
whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Véra, having
noticed Prince Andrew’s attentions to Natásha, decided that at a
party, a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were
absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone,
began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her
sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to
be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.
When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Véra was being carried away
by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a
thing that rarely happened with him.
“What do you think?” Véra was saying with an arch smile. “You are
so discerning, Prince, and understand people’s characters so well at
a glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her
attachments? Could she, like other women” (Véra meant herself),
“love a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what
I consider true love. What do you think, Prince?”
“I know your sister too little,” replied Prince Andrew, with a
sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, “to
be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that
the less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,”
he added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.
“Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,” continued
Véra—mentioning “our days” as people of limited intelligence are
fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the
peculiarities of “our days” and that human characteristics change
with the times—“in our days a girl has so much freedom that the
pleasure of being courted often stifles real feeling in her. And it must
be confessed that Natalie is very susceptible.” This return to
the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew to knit his brows with
discomfort: he was about to rise, but Véra continued with a still more
subtle smile:
“I think no one has been more courted than she,” she went on, “but
till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know,
Count,” she said to Pierre, “even our dear cousin Borís, who,
between ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness...”
(alluding to a map of love much in vogue at that time).
Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.
“You are friendly with Borís, aren’t you?” asked Véra.
“Yes, I know him....”
“I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natásha?”
“Oh, there was childish love?” suddenly asked Prince Andrew,
blushing unexpectedly.
“Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le
cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don’t you think so?”
* “Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.”
“Oh, undoubtedly!” said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural
liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful
with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these
jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.
“Well?” asked Pierre, seeing his friend’s strange animation with
surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natásha as he rose.
“I must... I must have a talk with you,” said Prince Andrew. “You
know that pair of women’s gloves?” (He referred to the Masonic
gloves given to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he
loved.) “I... but no, I will talk to you later on,” and with a
strange light in his eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince
Andrew approached Natásha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how
Prince Andrew asked her something and how she flushed as she replied.
But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he
should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on
the affairs in Spain.
Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.
The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had
seen. Everything was similar: the ladies’ subtle talk, the cards, the
general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea
cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening
parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation
among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now
the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.
CHAPTER XXII
Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the
Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there.
Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and
without concealing it he tried to be with Natásha all day. Not only in
the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, but in the
whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was
bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes
at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natásha and timidly started some
artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.
Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when
she was with them. Natásha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when
she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by
his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could
not bring himself to do so.
In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to
Natásha and whispered: “Well, what?”
“Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t
talk about that,” said Natásha.
But all the same that night Natásha, now agitated and now frightened,
lay a long time in her mother’s bed gazing straight before her. She
told her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going
abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then
how he had asked her about Borís.
“But such a... such a... never happened to me before!” she said.
“Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I’m
with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it’s the real thing?
Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?”
“No, my love; I am frightened myself,” answered her mother. “Now
go!”
“All the same I shan’t sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy!
Mummy! such a thing never happened to me before,” she said, surprised
and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. “And could we
ever have thought!...”
It seemed to Natásha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew
at Otrádnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared
this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had
then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding
him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.
“And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg
while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that
ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this!
Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar.”
“What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them...”
said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew
had written in Natásha’s album.
“Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?”
“Don’t, Natásha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in
heaven,’” said her mother.
“Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!” cried Natásha,
shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.
At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him
of his love for Natásha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.
That day Countess Hélène had a reception at her house. The French
ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of
late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and
gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and
struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.
Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression
and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of
his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a
gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel
oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity
of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time
the feeling he had noticed between his protégée Natásha and Prince
Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position
and his friend’s. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife,
and about Natásha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him
insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?
presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic
labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward
midnight, after he had left the countess’ apartments, he was sitting
upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction
of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy
with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.
“Ah, it’s you!” said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air.
“And I, you see, am hard at it.” He pointed to his manuscript book
with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy
people look at their work.
Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on
his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,
smiled at him with the egotism of joy.
“Well, dear heart,” said he, “I wanted to tell you about it
yesterday and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything
like it before. I am in love, my friend!”
Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on
the sofa beside Prince Andrew.
“With Natásha Rostóva, yes?” said he.
“Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it,
but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and
suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in
the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can’t
live without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why
don’t you speak?”
“I? I? What did I tell you?” said Pierre suddenly, rising and
beginning to pace up and down the room. “I always thought it.... That
girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend,
I entreat you, don’t philosophize, don’t doubt, marry, marry,
marry.... And I am sure there will not be a happier man than you.”
“But what of her?”
“She loves you.”
“Don’t talk rubbish...” said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking
into Pierre’s eyes.
“She does, I know,” Pierre cried fiercely.
“But do listen,” returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the
arm. “Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to
someone.”
“Well, go on, go on. I am very glad,” said Pierre, and his face
really changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince
Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite
a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his
disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind
to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he
boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not
sacrifice his own happiness to his father’s caprice, and spoke of how
he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her,
or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that
had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of
himself.
“I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of
such love,” said Prince Andrew. “It is not at all the same feeling
that I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two
halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the
other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and
darkness....”
“Darkness and gloom,” reiterated Pierre: “yes, yes, I understand
that.”
“I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very
happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake.”
“Yes, yes,” Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched
and sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot
appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own.
CHAPTER XXIII
Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to his marriage, and to
obtain this he started for the country next day.
His father received his son’s communication with external composure,
but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to
alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life
was already ending. “If only they would let me end my days as I want
to,” thought the old man, “then they might do as they please.”
With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for
important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole
matter.
In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards
birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young
as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress
on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would
be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. “Fourthly and finally,”
the father said, looking ironically at his son, “I beg you to put it
off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for
a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or
obstinacy—as you please—is still as great, marry! And that’s my
last word on it. Mind, the last...” concluded the prince, in a tone
which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision.
Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or
his fiancée’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old
prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his
father’s wish—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostóvs,
Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.
Next day after her talk with her mother Natásha expected Bolkónski all
day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.
Pierre did not come either and Natásha, not knowing that Prince Andrew
had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.
Three weeks passed in this way. Natásha had no desire to go out
anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and
listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the
evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her
that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and
pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity
intensified her misery.
Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began
to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why
it is being punished.
The countess began to soothe Natásha, who after first listening to her
mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:
“Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about
it! He just came and then left off, left off....”
Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went
on quietly:
“And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I
have now become quite calm, quite calm.”
The day after this conversation Natásha put on the old dress which
she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the
mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had
abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to
the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and
began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise
she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that
particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not
expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the
whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt
cheerful. “What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice
as it is,” she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the
room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with
each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair
of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of
the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a
mirror she glanced into it. “There, that’s me!” the expression of
her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. “Well, and very
nice too! I need nobody.”
A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she
would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her
walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood—love of,
and delight in, herself. “How charming that Natásha is!” she said
again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. “Pretty,
a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in
peace.” But however much they left her in peace she could not now be
at peace, and immediately felt this.
In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, “At home?” and
then footsteps were heard. Natásha was looking at the mirror, but did
not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw
herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though
she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.
Pale and agitated, Natásha ran into the drawing room.
“Mamma! Bolkónski has come!” she said. “Mamma, it is awful, it is
unbearable! I don’t want... to be tormented? What am I to do?...”
Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with
an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natásha his face
brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natásha’s, and sat
down beside the sofa.
“It is long since we had the pleasure...” began the countess,
but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question,
obviously in haste to say what he had to.
“I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my
father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only
got back last night,” he said glancing at Natásha; “I want to have
a talk with you, Countess,” he added after a moment’s pause.
The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
“I am at your disposal,” she murmured.
Natásha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:
something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared
straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
“At once? This instant!... No, it can’t be!” she thought.
Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not
mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.
“Go, Natásha! I will call you,” said the countess in a whisper.
Natásha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at
her mother and went out.
“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said
Prince Andrew.
The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
“Your offer...” she began at last sedately. He remained silent,
looking into her eyes. “Your offer...” (she grew confused) “is
agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I
hope... but it will depend on her....”
“I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to
me?” said Prince Andrew.
“Yes,” replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with
a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his
forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a
son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. “I
am sure my husband will consent,” said the countess, “but your
father...”
“My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express
condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a
year. And I wished to tell you of that,” said Prince Andrew.
“It is true that Natásha is still young, but—so long as that?...”
“It is unavoidable,” said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
“I will send her to you,” said the countess, and left the room.
“Lord have mercy upon us!” she repeated while seeking her daughter.
Sónya said that Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on
the bed, pale and dry-eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering
something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped
up and flew to her.
“Well, Mamma?... Well?...”
“Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,” said the countess,
coldly it seemed to Natásha. “Go... go,” said the mother, sadly and
reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.
Natásha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she
came in and saw him she paused. “Is it possible that this stranger
has now become everything to me?” she asked herself, and immediately
answered, “Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than
everything in the world.” Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast
eyes.
“I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?”
He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of
her face. Her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?
Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?”
She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, yes!” Natásha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed
loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I am so happy!” she replied, smiled through her tears, bent
over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether
she might, and then kissed him.
Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find
in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly
changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of
desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear
at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of
the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though
not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
“Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?” asked
Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
“Is it possible that I—the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called
me,” thought Natásha—“is it possible that I am now to be the
wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father
looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no
more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies
a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask
me?”
“No,” she replied, but she had not understood his question.
“Forgive me!” he said. “But you are so young, and I have already
been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
yourself.”
Natásha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to
take in the meaning of his words.
“Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,” continued
Prince Andrew, “it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask
you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall
remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should
you come to love...” said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted him. “You know that
from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe I have loved you,” she
cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.
“In a year you will learn to know yourself....”
“A whole year!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that
the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a
year?...”
Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.
Natásha did not hear him.
“And can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply,
but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.
“It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!” Natásha suddenly cried,
and again burst into sobs. “I shall die, waiting a year: it’s
impossible, it’s awful!” She looked into her lover’s face and saw
in it a look of commiseration and perplexity.
“No, no! I’ll do anything!” she said, suddenly checking her tears.
“I am so happy.”
The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple
their blessing.
From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostóvs’ as
Natásha’s affianced lover.
CHAPTER XXIV
No betrothal ceremony took place and Natásha’s engagement to
Bolkónski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said
that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole
burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but
that he did not wish to bind Natásha and gave her perfect freedom. If
after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full
right to reject him. Naturally neither Natásha nor her parents wished
to hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the
Rostóvs’, but did not behave to Natásha as an affianced lover: he
did not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her
hand. After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural
relations sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each
other till now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other
when as yet they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves
now quite different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and
sincere. At first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with
Prince Andrew; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time
Natásha trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them
all that he only appeared to be different, but was really just like all
of them, and that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be.
After a few days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in
his presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part.
He could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the
countess and Natásha, and about albums and fancywork with Sónya.
Sometimes the household both among themselves and in his presence
expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident
omens there had been of it: Prince Andrew’s coming to Otrádnoe and
their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natásha and Prince
Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew’s
encounter with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening
that it had to be.
In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always
accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting
together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and
go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely
spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to
speak of it. Natásha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she
constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince
Andrew blushed, as he often did now—Natásha particularly liked it in
him—and said that his son would not live with them.
“Why not?” asked Natásha in a frightened tone.
“I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides...”
“How I should have loved him!” said Natásha, immediately guessing
his thought; “but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding
fault with us.”
Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask
his advice about Pétya’s education or Nicholas’ service. The
old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sónya was always getting
frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for
leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew
spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natásha listened to him
with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed
attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity:
“What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by
looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?” Sometimes
she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and
then she particularly loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed.
He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his
laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natásha
would have been completely happy if the thought of the separation
awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere
thought of it made him turn pale and cold.
On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with
him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostóvs’ once since the ball.
Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the
countess, and Natásha sat down beside a little chess table with Sónya,
thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.
“You have known Bezúkhov a long time?” he asked. “Do you like
him?”
“Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd.”
And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his
absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.
“Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him
from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie,” Prince
Andrew said with sudden seriousness—“I am going away and heaven
knows what may happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not
to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not
here...”
“What can happen?”
“Whatever trouble may come,” Prince Andrew continued, “I beg
you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for
advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he
has a heart of gold.”
Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sónya, nor Prince Andrew
himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act
on Natásha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,
dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding
what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed
her hand for the last time. “Don’t go!” she said in a tone
that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he
remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but
for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in
anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?”
But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around
her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became
her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a
child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.
CHAPTER XXV
During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas
Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more
irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his
frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out
her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible.
Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew,
little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects
of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would
bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting
and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”—little
Nicholas—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew
wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence
how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them.
He continually hurt Princess Mary’s feelings and tormented her, but it
cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or
could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?
And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word
“justice.” All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear
and simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who
lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to
do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and
love, and that she did.
During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,
gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a
long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said
nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with
his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his
departure they were dissatisfied with one another.
Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend
Julie Karágina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)
of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her
own brother, killed in Turkey.
Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.
Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a
special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your
excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can—I
will not say comfort us—but save us from despair. Religion alone can
explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what
cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life—not merely
harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others—are called
away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a
burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I
saw, and one I shall never forget—that of my dear sister-in-law—left
that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother
had to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged
anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to
die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since
then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly
why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression
of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though
generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite
love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically
innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother’s duties. As a
young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so
as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince
Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will
there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of
her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent
influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at
the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should
then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and
certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you
of the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not
a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is
governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for
our good.
You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my
wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will
be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is
this: my father’s health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand
any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as
you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure
the notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the
sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the
Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but
from my father’s remarks and his talks with Michael Ivánovich I know
all that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred
on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is
not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my
father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of
his political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to
Moscow; for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way
of expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might
derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the
disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will
be decided very shortly.
Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew’s
absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After
his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again
become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that
heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,
that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change
he has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more
nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad
which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You
write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,
cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a
relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody
here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his
arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the
way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as
that you write about—I mean the report of my brother’s betrothal to
the little Rostóva. I do not think my brother will ever marry again,
and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he
rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss
has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a
successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far
as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince
Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do
not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second
sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty
care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.
MARY
CHAPTER XXVI
In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter
from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and
surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natásha Rostóva.
The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender
and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved
as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life
was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his
resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it
to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her
father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt
of his displeasure without attaining her object. “Besides,” he
wrote, “the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now.
My father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months,
half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever.
If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in
Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You
know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have
been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and
arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short
time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about
the same question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the
letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether
there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months.”
After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the
letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:
“Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won’t be
long—I shall soon set him free.”
The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak
and, raising his voice more and more, cried:
“Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich,
eh? Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him
that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas’
stepmother and I’ll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn’t be
without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted
in my house—let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go
and live with him too?” he added, turning to Princess Mary. “Go in
heaven’s name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!”
After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.
But repressed vexation at his son’s poor-spirited behavior found
expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts
for irony a fresh one was now added—allusions to stepmothers and
amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
“Why shouldn’t I marry her?” he asked his daughter. “She’ll
make a splendid princess!”
And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary
noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the
Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his
letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the
idea.
Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion
were Princess Mary’s joys and consolations; but besides that, since
everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest
depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief
consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her
by God’s folk—the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited
her without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, the more
experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder
at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here
on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to
obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had
loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind
his happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he
wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they
all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their
souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure
but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the
Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for
a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find
happiness in it. “How is it that no one realizes this?” thought
Princess Mary. “No one except these despised God’s folk who, wallet
on back, come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the
prince, not for fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him
to sin. To leave family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in
order without clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place
to place under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for
all—for those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one:
higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!”
There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called
Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn
heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in
a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of
her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of
life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to
become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary
thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,
strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed
this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akínfi, the monk,
and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the
pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim’s complete costume for
herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.
Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,
Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to
put her project into execution.
Often, listening to the pilgrims’ tales, she was so stimulated by
their simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep
meaning, that several times she was on the point of abandoning
everything and running away from home. In imagination she already
pictured herself by Theodosia’s side, dressed in coarse rags, walking
with a staff, a wallet on her back, along the dusty road, directing her
wanderings from one saint’s shrine to another, free from envy, earthly
love, or desire, and reaching at last the place where there is no more
sorrow or sighing, but eternal joy and bliss.
“I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get
used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till
my legs fail, and I’ll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last
reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor
sighing...” thought Princess Mary.
But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko
(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she
was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.
BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11
CHAPTER I
The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor—idleness—was a
condition of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man
has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not
only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but
because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at
ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man
could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling
his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man’s primitive
blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness
is the lot of a whole class—the military. The chief attraction of
military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and
irreproachable idleness.
Nicholas Rostóv experienced this blissful condition to the full when,
after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pávlograd regiment, in which
he already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denísov.
Rostóv had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow
acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked
and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well
contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home
more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling
into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come
back to gladden and comfort his old parents.
Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to
take him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the
entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that
sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with
its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts
with stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with
Sónya’s love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult
and complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters
in French, beginning: “My dear Mamma,” and ending: “Your obedient
son,” which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received
letters from his parents, in which they told him of Natásha’s
engagement to Bolkónski, and that the wedding would be in a year’s
time because the old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and
mortified Nicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natásha, for
whom he cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to
the home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not
to have been there to show that fellow Bolkónski that connection with
him was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natásha he
might dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he
hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natásha
before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations
about Sónya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas
again put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter
from his mother, written without his father’s knowledge, and that
letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and
take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and
they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted
Mítenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage
of him and things were going from bad to worse. “For God’s sake, I
implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole
family wretched,” wrote the countess.
This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a
matter-of-fact man which showed him what he ought to do.
The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate
to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his
after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious
gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when
he returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrúshka
(Denísov’s servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who
turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going
home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would
go away without having heard from the staff—and this interested him
extremely—whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the
Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think
that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish
Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostóv had betted
he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it
seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish
Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the Uhlans who had given
one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place
without him—he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to
somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he
obtained his leave. His hussar comrades—not only those of his own
regiment, but the whole brigade—gave Rostóv a dinner to which the
subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two
bands and two choirs of singers. Rostóv danced the Trepák with Major
Básov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostóv; the
soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted “hurrah!”
and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first
post station.
During the first half of the journey—from Kremenchúg to Kiev—all
Rostóv’s thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with
the squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget
his three roans and Dozhoyvéyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder
anxiously how things would be at Otrádnoe and what he would find
there. Thoughts of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it—far
stronger, as though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which
the force of attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the
distance. At the last post station before Otrádnoe he gave the driver a
three-ruble tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the
steps of his home.
After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied
expectation—the feeling that “everything is just the same, so why
did I hurry?”—Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world.
His father and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was
new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there
used not to be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the
bad state of their affairs. Sónya was nearly twenty; she had stopped
growing prettier and promised nothing more than she was already, but
that was enough. She exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas
returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a
gladdening effect on him. Pétya and Natásha surprised Nicholas
most. Pétya was a big handsome boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and
mischievous, with a voice that was already breaking. As for Natásha,
for a long while Nicholas wondered and laughed whenever he looked at
her.
“You’re not the same at all,” he said.
“How? Am I uglier?”
“On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!” he whispered to
her.
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Natásha, joyfully.
She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to
Otrádnoe and showed him his last letter.
“Well, are you glad?” Natásha asked. “I am so tranquil and happy
now.”
“Very glad,” answered Nicholas. “He is an excellent fellow.... And
are you very much in love?”
“How shall I put it?” replied Natásha. “I was in love with
Borís, with my teacher, and with Denísov, but this is quite different.
I feel at peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists,
and I am calm and contented now. Not at all as before.”
Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage
for a year; but Natásha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving
to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing
to enter a family against the father’s will, and that she herself
wished it so.
“You don’t at all understand,” she said.
Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.
Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at
all like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was
even-tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed
Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkónski’s courtship skeptically.
He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had
not seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was
something not quite right about this intended marriage.
“Why this delay? Why no betrothal?” he thought. Once, when he had
touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise
and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too
had doubts about this marriage.
“You see he writes,” said she, showing her son a letter of Prince
Andrew’s, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a
daughter’s future married happiness, “he writes that he won’t come
before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health
is very delicate. Don’t tell Natásha. And don’t attach importance
to her being so bright: that’s because she’s living through the last
days of her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive
a letter from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!”
(She always ended with these words.) “He is an excellent man!”
CHAPTER II
After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was
worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business
matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this
burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he
went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he
was going, to Mítenka’s lodge and demanded an account of everything.
But what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less
than the frightened and bewildered Mítenka. The conversation and the
examination of the accounts with Mítenka did not last long. The village
elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in
the passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count’s voice
roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of
abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.
“Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I’ll hack the dog to pieces! I’m
not my father!... Robbing us!...” and so on.
Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in
the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mítenka out by the scruff of
the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility
at convenient moments between the words, shouting, “Be off! Never let
me see your face here again, you villain!”
Mítenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the
shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits
at Otrádnoe. Mítenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used
to hide there, and many of the residents at Otrádnoe, hiding from
Mítenka, knew of its protective qualities.)
Mítenka’s wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened
faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and
where the steward’s high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.
The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by
with resolute strides and went into the house.
The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the
lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly
improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this
excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on
tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.
Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed
smile, said to him:
“But you know, my dear boy, it’s a pity you got excited! Mítenka
has told me all about it.”
“I knew,” thought Nicholas, “that I should never understand
anything in this crazy world.”
“You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they
were carried forward—and you did not look at the other page.”
“Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have
done, I have done; but, if you like, I won’t speak to him again.”
“No, my dear boy” (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had
mismanaged his wife’s property and was to blame toward his children,
but he did not know how to remedy it). “No, I beg you to attend to the
business. I am old. I...”
“No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I
understand it all less than you do.”
“Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings
forward from page to page,” he thought. “I used to understand what
a ‘corner’ and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to
another page I don’t understand at all,” said he to himself, and
after that he did not meddle in business affairs. But once the countess
called her son and informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna
Mikháylovna for two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of
doing with it.
“This,” answered Nicholas. “You say it rests with me. Well, I
don’t like Anna Mikháylovna and I don’t like Borís, but they were
our friends and poor. Well then, this!” and he tore up the note, and
by so doing caused the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that,
young Rostóv took no further part in any business affairs, but
devoted himself with passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new
pursuit—the chase—for which his father kept a large establishment.
CHAPTER III
The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed
an earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its
bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye
trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the
spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of
August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had
become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The
hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were
beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was
the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young
sportsman Rostóv had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were
so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them
a three days’ rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on
a distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an
undisturbed litter of wolf cubs.
All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was
sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw.
On the fifteenth, when young Rostóv, in his dressing gown, looked out
of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it
was as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any
wind. The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic
particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with
transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in
the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed
and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist.
Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of
decaying leaves and of dog. Mílka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched
bitch with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched
her hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and
licked him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog,
catching sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back
and, rushing headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing
himself against his legs.
“O-hoy!” came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman’s call
which unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round
the corner came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray,
wrinkled old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian
fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence
and scorn of everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his
Circassian cap to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn
was not offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel,
disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all
the same his serf and huntsman.
“Daniel!” Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the
weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away
by that irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all
his previous resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his
mistress.
“What orders, your excellency?” said the huntsman in his deep bass,
deep as a proto-deacon’s and hoarse with hallooing—and two flashing
black eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent.
“Can you resist it?” those eyes seemed to be asking.
“It’s a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?” asked
Nicholas, scratching Mílka behind the ears.
Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.
“I sent Uvárka at dawn to listen,” his bass boomed out after a
minute’s pause. “He says she’s moved them into the Otrádnoe
enclosure. They were howling there.” (This meant that the she-wolf,
about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otrádnoe
copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.)
“We ought to go, don’t you think so?” said Nicholas. “Come to me
with Uvárka.”
“As you please.”
“Then put off feeding them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Five minutes later Daniel and Uvárka were standing in Nicholas’ big
study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was
like seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and
surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood
just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of
breaking something in the master’s apartment, and he hastened to say
all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into
the open under the sky once more.
Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that
the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas
ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to
go Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or
finished dressing and with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped round
her. Pétya ran in at the same time.
“You are going?” asked Natásha. “I knew you would! Sónya said
you wouldn’t go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you
couldn’t help going.”
“Yes, we are going,” replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he
intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya.
“We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you.”
“You know it is my greatest pleasure,” said Natásha. “It’s not
fair; you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said
nothing to us about it.”
“‘No barrier bars a Russian’s path’—we’ll go!” shouted
Pétya.
“But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,” said Nicholas to
Natásha.
“Yes, I’ll go. I shall certainly go,” said Natásha decisively.
“Daniel, tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my
dogs,” she added to the huntsman.
It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to
have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He
cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,
careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young
lady.
CHAPTER IV
The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment
but had now handed it all completely over to his son’s care, being
in very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out
with the others.
In an hour’s time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,
with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for
attending to trifles, went past Natásha and Pétya who were trying to
tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent
a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his
chestnut Donéts, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off
across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otrádnoe wood.
The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyánka, was led by
the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in
a small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.
They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and
whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen
and more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash
belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and
thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.
Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his
business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the
fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,
along the road and field leading to the Otrádnoe covert.
The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then
splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still
seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air
was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman,
the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling
hound could be heard.
When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with
dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostóvs. In front rode a
fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.
“Good morning, Uncle!” said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.
“That’s it. Come on!... I was sure of it,” began “Uncle.” (He
was a distant relative of the Rostóvs’, a man of small means, and
their neighbor.) “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it and
it’s a good thing you’re going. That’s it! Come on!” (This was
“Uncle’s” favorite expression.) “Take the covert at once, for my
Gírchik says the Ilágins are at Kornikí with their hounds. That’s
it. Come on!... They’ll take the cubs from under your very nose.”
“That’s where I’m going. Shall we join up our packs?” asked
Nicholas.
The hounds were joined into one pack, and “Uncle” and Nicholas rode
on side by side. Natásha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her
eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by
Pétya who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a
groom appointed to look after her. Pétya, who was laughing, whipped and
pulled at his horse. Natásha sat easily and confidently on her black
Arábchik and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.
“Uncle” looked round disapprovingly at Pétya and Natásha. He did
not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.
“Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!” shouted Pétya.
“Good morning, good morning! But don’t go overriding the hounds,”
said “Uncle” sternly.
“Nicholas, what a fine dog Truníla is! He knew me,” said Natásha,
referring to her favorite hound.
“In the first place, Truníla is not a ‘dog,’ but a harrier,”
thought Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her
feel the distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natásha
understood it.
“You mustn’t think we’ll be in anyone’s way, Uncle,” she said.
“We’ll go to our places and won’t budge.”
“A good thing too, little countess,” said “Uncle,” “only mind
you don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “because—that’s it,
come on!—you’ve nothing to hold on to.”
The oasis of the Otrádnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,
the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostóv, having finally settled
with “Uncle” where they should set on the hounds, and having shown
Natásha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly
run out—went round above the ravine.
“Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,” said “Uncle.”
“Mind and don’t let her slip!”
“That’s as may happen,” answered Rostóv. “Karáy, here!” he
shouted, answering “Uncle’s” remark by this call to his borzoi.
Karáy was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having
tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places.
The old count, knowing his son’s ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not
to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count
Ilyá Rostóv, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up
with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,
where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened
on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,
and comfortable horse, Viflyánka, which was turning gray, like himself.
His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyá Rostóv, though not at
heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to
the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,
settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked
about with a smile.
Beside him was Simon Chekmár, his personal attendant, an old horseman
now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmár held in leash three
formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master
and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces
farther along the edge of the wood stood Mítka, the count’s other
groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by
old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken
a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.
He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were
rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,
wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an
outing.
The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmár, having got everything ready, kept
glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for
thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant
chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was
plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This
person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak, with a tall
peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman’s
name, Nastásya Ivánovna.
“Well, Nastásya Ivánovna!” whispered the count, winking at him.
“If you scare away the beast, Daniel’ll give it you!”
“I know a thing or two myself!” said Nastásya Ivánovna.
“Hush!” whispered the count and turned to Simon. “Have you seen
the young countess?” he asked. “Where is she?”
“With young Count Peter, by the Zhárov rank grass,” answered Simon,
smiling. “Though she’s a lady, she’s very fond of hunting.”
“And you’re surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?” said the
count. “She’s as good as many a man!”
“Of course! It’s marvelous. So bold, so easy!”
“And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyádov upland, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well
that Daniel and I are often quite astounded,” said Simon, well knowing
what would please his master.
“Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?”
“A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the
Zavárzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight
when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles
and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to
find another as smart.”
“To search far...” repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not
said more. “To search far,” he said, turning back the skirt of his
coat to get at his snuffbox.
“The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael
Sidórych...” Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had
distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds
giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning
finger at his master. “They are on the scent of the cubs...” he
whispered, “straight to the Lyádov uplands.”
The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into
the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding
the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds
came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel’s hunting horn; the
pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,
with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after
a wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the
cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel’s voice, now a deep
bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and
carried far beyond out into the open field.
After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant
convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the
sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in
the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and
it was with this that Daniel’s voice was heard calling ulyulyu.
The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were
becoming more distant.
Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had
entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,
opened it and took a pinch. “Back!” cried Simon to a borzoi that
was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the
snuffbox. Nastásya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and
Simon were looking at him.
Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly
approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just
in front of them.
The count turned and saw on his right Mítka staring at him with eyes
starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the
other side.
“Look out!” he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long
fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped
toward the count.
The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a
wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet
lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing.
The angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the
horses’ feet at the wolf.
The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,
like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying
from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail
disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry
like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang
helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across
the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel
bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel’s chestnut horse appeared,
dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,
his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.
“Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!...” he cried. When he caught sight of the
count his eyes flashed lightning.
“Blast you!” he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the
count.
“You’ve let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!” and as if scorning to
say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving
flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count
had aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished
schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon’s sympathy for
his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the
bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head
the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.
CHAPTER V
Nicholas Rostóv meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf.
By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs
whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen
approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the
copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had
separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and
that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any
moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and
from what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope
alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God
that the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and
shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement
arising from trivial causes. “What would it be to Thee to do this for
me?” he said to God. “I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to
ask this of Thee, but for God’s sake do let the old wolf come my way
and let Karáy spring at it—in sight of ‘Uncle’ who is watching
from over there—and seize it by the throat in a death grip!” A
thousand times during that half-hour Rostóv cast eager and restless
glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising
above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and
“Uncle’s” cap just visible above the bush on his right.
“No, I shan’t have such luck,” thought Rostóv, “yet what
wouldn’t it be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in
war, I am always unlucky.” Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov
flashed rapidly and clearly through his mind. “Only once in my life
to get an old wolf, I want only that!” thought he, straining eyes and
ears and looking to the left and then to the right and listening to the
slightest variation of note in the cries of the dogs.
Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across
the deserted field. “No, it can’t be!” thought Rostóv, taking a
deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for.
The height of happiness was reached—and so simply, without warning, or
noise, or display, that Rostóv could not believe his eyes and remained
in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over
a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and
big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no
one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.
They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.
Old Karáy had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,
baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.
“Ulyulyulyu!” whispered Rostóv, pouting his lips. The borzois
jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears.
Karáy finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got
up with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.
“Shall I loose them or not?” Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf’s whole
physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never
seen before—human eyes fixed upon her—and turning her head a little
toward Rostóv, she paused.
“Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward...” the wolf seemed to say
to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a
quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.
“Ulyulyu!” cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own
accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies
to head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still.
Nicholas did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor
see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the
wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along
the hollow. The first to come into view was Mílka, with her black
markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and
nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face
her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Mílka suddenly
raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.
“Ulyulyulyulyu!” shouted Nicholas.
The reddish Lyubím rushed forward from behind Mílka, sprang
impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but
immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her
teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a
couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.
“She’ll get away! No, it’s impossible!” thought Nicholas, still
shouting with a hoarse voice.
“Karáy, ulyulyu!...” he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi
who was now his only hope. Karáy, with all the strength age had left
him, stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped
heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf’s
lope and the borzoi’s slower pace made it plain that Karáy had
miscalculated. Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the
wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But,
coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost
straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish
young borzoi, one Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed
impetuously at the wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But
the wolf jumped up more quickly than anyone could have expected and,
gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing
yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding from a gash in its
side.
“Karáy? Old fellow!...” wailed Nicholas.
Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf’s path, the
old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five
paces of it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on
Karáy, tucked her tail yet further between her legs, and increased
her speed. But here Nicholas only saw that something happened to
Karáy—the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together
down into a gully just in front of them.
That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully
with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
laid back (Karáy was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest
moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to
dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from
among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the
gully. She clicked her teeth (Karáy no longer had her by the throat),
leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having
disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went
forward. Karáy, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded,
climbed with difficulty out of the gully.
“Oh my God! Why?” Nicholas cried in despair.
“Uncle’s” huntsman was galloping from the other side across the
wolf’s path and his borzois once more stopped the animal’s advance.
She was again hemmed in.
Nicholas and his attendant, with “Uncle” and his huntsman, were all
riding round the wolf, crying “ulyulyu!” shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward
again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she
would be safe.
Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,
had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karáy seize the wolf, and checked
his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the
horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for
safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight
toward the wood, just as Karáy had run to cut the animal off. As
a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been
stopped a second time by “Uncle’s” borzois.
Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and
thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if
it were a flail.
Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing
heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel
lying on the wolf’s back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the
ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself
that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and
tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took
a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on
the wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but
Daniel whispered, “Don’t! We’ll gag her!” and, changing his
position, set his foot on the wolf’s neck. A stick was thrust between
her jaws and she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were
bound together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to
side.
With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying
and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her
to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of
the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty
and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her
broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws,
gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding
her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly
yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostóv also rode up and touched the
wolf.
“Oh, what a formidable one!” said he. “A formidable one, eh?” he
asked Daniel, who was standing near.
“Yes, your excellency,” answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.
The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with
Daniel.
“Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!” said the count.
For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable
smile.
CHAPTER VI
The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very
soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday
they put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.
Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.
Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone
in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed
before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltórn, giving tongue at intervals;
other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A
moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been
found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine
toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.
He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the
ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself
at any moment on the ryefield opposite.
The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and
Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard
across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close
to the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper
curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed
in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois
formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with
tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up
to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.
“What’s this?” thought Nicholas. “Where’s that huntsman from?
He is not ‘Uncle’s’ man.”
The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping
it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood
near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their
arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of
a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.
“That’s Ilágin’s huntsman having a row with our Iván,” said
Nicholas’ groom.
Nicholas sent the man to call Natásha and Pétya to him, and rode at a
footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.
Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.
Nicholas dismounted, and with Natásha and Pétya, who had ridden up,
stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of
the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward
his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a
distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was
pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,
but he probably was not even aware of it.
“What has happened?” asked Nicholas.
“A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray
bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I
gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste
of this?...” said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably
imagining himself still speaking to his foe.
Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Pétya
to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy’s, Ilágin’s,
hunting party was.
The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,
surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.
The facts were that Ilágin, with whom the Rostóvs had a quarrel and
were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostóvs,
and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the
Rostóvs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had
chased.
Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilágin, with his usual absence
of moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his
arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He
rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully
prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his
enemy.
Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in
a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,
accompanied by two hunt servants.
Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilágin a stately and courteous
gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count’s
acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilágin raised his beaver
cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the
man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone
else’s borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count
and invited him to draw his covert.
Natásha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly
greetings, she rode up to them. Ilágin lifted his beaver cap still
higher to Natásha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young
countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her
beauty, of which he had heard much.
To expiate his huntsman’s offense, Ilágin pressed the Rostóvs to
come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for
himself and which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the
hunt, now doubled, moved on.
The way to Iligin’s upland was across the fields. The hunt servants
fell into line. The masters rode together. “Uncle,” Rostóv, and
Ilágin kept stealthily glancing at one another’s dogs, trying not
to be observed by their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to
their own borzois.
Rostóv was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred,
red-spotted bitch on Ilágin’s leash, slender but with muscles like
steel, a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of
the swiftness of Ilágin’s borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a
rival to his own Mílka.
In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilágin about the
year’s harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.
“A fine little bitch, that!” said he in a careless tone. “Is she
swift?”
“That one? Yes, she’s a good dog, gets what she’s after,”
answered Ilágin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erzá, for
which, a year before, he had given a neighbor three families of house
serfs. “So in your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of,
Count?” he went on, continuing the conversation they had begun. And
considering it polite to return the young count’s compliment, Ilágin
looked at his borzois and picked out Mílka who attracted his attention
by her breadth. “That black-spotted one of yours is fine—well
shaped!” said he.
“Yes, she’s fast enough,” replied Nicholas, and thought: “If
only a full-grown hare would cross the field now I’d show you what
sort of borzoi she is,” and turning to his groom, he said he would
give a ruble to anyone who found a hare.
“I don’t understand,” continued Ilágin, “how some sportsmen can
be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count,
I enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?” (he
again raised his cap to Natásha) “but as for counting skins and what
one takes, I don’t care about that.”
“Of course not!”
“Or being upset because someone else’s borzoi and not mine catches
something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,
Count? For I consider that...”
“A-tu!” came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in,
who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip
aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, “A-tu!” (This call and
the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)
“Ah, he has found one, I think,” said Ilágin carelessly. “Yes, we
must ride up.... Shall we both course it?” answered Nicholas, seeing
in Erzá and “Uncle’s” red Rugáy two rivals he had never yet had
a chance of pitting against his own borzois. “And suppose they outdo
my Mílka at once!” he thought as he rode with “Uncle” and Ilágin
toward the hare.
“A full-grown one?” asked Ilágin as he approached the whip who
had sighted the hare—and not without agitation he looked round and
whistled to Erzá.
“And you, Michael Nikanórovich?” he said, addressing “Uncle.”
The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.
“How can I join in? Why, you’ve given a village for each of your
borzois! That’s it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours
against one another, you two, and I’ll look on!”
“Rugáy, hey, hey!” he shouted. “Rugáyushka!” he added,
involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes
he placed on this red borzoi. Natásha saw and felt the agitation the
two elderly men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself
excited by it.
The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the
gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off
on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the
gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.
“How is it pointing?” asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward
the whip who had sighted the hare.
But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming
next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed
downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that
were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,
who had been moving slowly, shouted, “Stop!” calling in the hounds,
while the borzoi whips, with a cry of “A-tu!” galloped across the
field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilágin, Nicholas,
Natásha, and “Uncle” flew, reckless of where and how they went,
seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even
for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and
swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his
ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from all
sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the
borzois gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and
realized his danger, laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had
been lying in the stubble, but in front of him was the autumn sowing
where the ground was soft. The two borzois of the huntsman who had
sighted him, having been the nearest, were the first to see and pursue
him, but they had not gone far before Ilágin’s red-spotted Erzá
passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare with terrible
swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled
over like a ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more
swiftly. From behind Erzá rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted
Mílka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.
“Miláshka, dear!” rose Nicholas’ triumphant cry. It looked as if
Mílka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and
flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erzá reached him,
but when close to the hare’s scut paused as if measuring the distance,
so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.
“Erzá, darling!” Ilágin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erzá
did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have
seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the
winter rye and the stubble. Again Erzá and Mílka were abreast, running
like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but
it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not
overtake him so quickly.
“Rugáy, Rugáyushka! That’s it, come on!” came a third voice just
then, and “Uncle’s” red borzoi, straining and curving its back,
caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless
of the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off
the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously,
sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was
how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois
surrounded him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd
of dogs. Only the delighted “Uncle” dismounted, and cut off a pad,
shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round
with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without
himself knowing whom to or what about. “That’s it, come on! That’s
a dog!... There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as
the one-ruble borzois. That’s it, come on!” said he, panting and
looking wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they
were all his enemies and had insulted him, and only now had he at
last succeeded in justifying himself. “There are your thousand-ruble
ones.... That’s it, come on!...”
“Rugáy, here’s a pad for you!” he said, throwing down the
hare’s muddy pad. “You’ve deserved it, that’s it, come on!”
“She’d tired herself out, she’d run it down three times by
herself,” said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless
of whether he were heard or not.
“But what is there in running across it like that?” said Ilágin’s
groom.
“Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take
it,” Ilágin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop
and his excitement. At the same moment Natásha, without drawing
breath, screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set
everyone’s ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others
expressed by all talking at once, and it was so strange that she must
herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have
been amazed at it at any other time. “Uncle” himself twisted up the
hare, threw it neatly and smartly across his horse’s back as if by
that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not
wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The others all
followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much later were they able
to regain their former affectation of indifference. For a long time they
continued to look at red Rugáy who, his arched back spattered with
mud and clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind
“Uncle’s” horse with the serene air of a conqueror.
“Well, I am like any other dog as long as it’s not a question of
coursing. But when it is, then look out!” his appearance seemed to
Nicholas to be saying.
When, much later, “Uncle” rode up to Nicholas and began talking
to him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, “Uncle”
deigned to speak to him.
CHAPTER VII
Toward evening Ilágin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were
so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” offer that the hunting
party should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna.
“And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That’s it,
come on!” said “Uncle.” “You see it’s damp weather, and you
could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap.”
“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe for
a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s”
house.
Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front
porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as
well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at
the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a
lady, and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a
degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and
unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some
prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what
was said about her.
“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
dangles.... See, she’s got a little hunting horn!”
“Goodness gracious! See her knife?...”
“Isn’t she a Tartar!”
“How is it you didn’t go head over heels?” asked the boldest of
all, addressing Natásha directly.
“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which
stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take
themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to
receive the guests and the visitors.
The serfs all dispersed. “Uncle” lifted Natásha off her horse and
taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The
house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it
did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but
neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of
fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.
“Uncle” led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with
a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round
birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where
there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of
the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The
study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” asked his visitors
to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.
Rugáy, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the
sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study
was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be
seen. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha,
Nicholas, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.
Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nicholas
were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful.
They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in
the house, Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly
superiority over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither
refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before
they had a pretext ready to account for it.
After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and
small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she
had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrádnoe, was just the
right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.
“Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the
brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that
they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the
merriment.
“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw
anyone like her!” said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem
and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that
had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as
fresh as ever!”
Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently
from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking
woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered
carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in
her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with
a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional
stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw
back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod
very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her
plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors
d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had
finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her
face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her
expression said to Rostóv. How could one help understanding? Not only
Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the meaning of his puckered brow
and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when
Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine,
different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with
buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples,
nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought
a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves
made with sugar.
All this was the fruit of Anísya Fëdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered
and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack
of Anísya Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness,
whiteness, and pleasant smiles.
“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered
Natásha first one thing and then another.
Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such
buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such
a chicken anywhere. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room.
After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked
of past and future hunts, of Rugáy and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha
sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried
several times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he
only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so
lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared
the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as
often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own
house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’
minds, said:
“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.
That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?”
“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said
this. Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about
him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province
“Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and
disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,
chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a
justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public
appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay
gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in
summer.
“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?”
“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come
on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you—I haven’t
brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter—that’s it, come on!
Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?”
The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they
called the room for the hunt servants.
There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the
door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a
balaláyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was
playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and
now went out into the passage to hear better.
“That’s Mítka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balaláyka.
I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.”
It was the custom for Mítka to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s
room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of
such music.
“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas with some unintentional
superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him
very much.
“Very good?” said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s
tone. “Not ‘very good’--it’s simply delicious!”
Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had
seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment,
seemed to her the acme of musical delight.
“More, please, more!” cried Natásha at the door as soon as the
balaláyka ceased. Mítka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming
the balaláyka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations.
“Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side.
The air was repeated a hundred times. The balaláyka was retuned several
times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did
not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anísya
Fëdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.
“You like listening?” she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely
like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added.
“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with
an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out—that’s it, come
on!—ought to burst out.”
“Do you play then?” asked Natásha.
“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled.
“Anísya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I
haven’t touched it for a long time. That’s it—come on! I’ve
given it up.”
Anísya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her
errand and brought back the guitar.
Without looking at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off it and, tapping
the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in
his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching
his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at
Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then
quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not
My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The
tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the
hearts of Nicholas and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of
sober mirth as radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna’s whole being. Anísya
Fëdorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing
out of the room. “Uncle” continued to play correctly, carefully,
with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression
at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to
be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches,
especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here
and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to
snap.
“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as
he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nicholas,
Nicholas!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What
is it moves me so?”
Nicholas too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and
“Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling
face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces...
Fetching water clear and sweet,
Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—
played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the
strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.
“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her
life depended on it.
“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of
them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck
a naïve and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.
“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that
had just struck a chord.
Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face
“Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her
shoulders and struck an attitude.
Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigrée
French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit
and obtained that manner which the pas de châle * would, one would have
supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were
those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had
expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled
triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at
first seized Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right
thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.
* The French shawl dance.
She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,
that Anísya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she
needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she
watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so
different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was
in Anísya and in Anísya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every
Russian man and woman.
“Well, little countess; that’s it—come on!” cried “Uncle,”
with a joyous laugh, having finished the dance. “Well done, niece! Now
a fine young fellow must be found as husband for you. That’s it—come
on!”
“He’s chosen already,” said Nicholas smiling.
“Oh?” said “Uncle” in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha,
who nodded her head with a happy smile.
“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she had said it a new
train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nicholas’
smile mean when he said ‘chosen already’? Is he glad of it or not?
It is as if he thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand
our gaiety. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she
thought, and her face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a
second. “Don’t dare to think about it,” she said to herself,
and sat down again smilingly beside “Uncle,” begging him to play
something more.
“Uncle” played another song and a valse; then after a pause he
cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:
As ‘twas growing dark last night
Fell the snow so soft and light...
“Uncle” sang as peasants sing, with full and naïve conviction that
the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes
of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists
only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered
tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in
ecstasies over “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to give up learning
the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his
guitar and at once found the chords of the song.
After nine o’clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent
to look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and
countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of
the men.
Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two
traps. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped
Natásha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He
accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,
so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride
in front with lanterns.
“Good-by, dear niece,” his voice called out of the darkness—not
the voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung As
‘twas growing dark last night.
In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a
cheerful smell of smoke.
“What a darling Uncle is!” said Natásha, when they had come out
onto the highroad.
“Yes,” returned Nicholas. “You’re not cold?”
“No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!” answered
Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long
while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but
only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.
What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught
and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all
find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she
suddenly struck up the air of As ‘twas growing dark last night—the
tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last
caught.
“Got it?” said Nicholas.
“What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?” inquired
Natásha.
They were fond of asking one another that question.
“I?” said Nicholas, trying to remember. “Well, you see, first I
thought that Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were
a man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then
for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?...
Well, and you?”
“I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving
along and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows
where we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and
suddenly find that we are not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I
thought... No, nothing else.”
“I know, I expect you thought of him,” said Nicholas, smiling as
Natásha knew by the sound of his voice.
“No,” said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about
Prince Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would
have liked “Uncle.” “And then I was saying to myself all the way,
‘How well Anísya carried herself, how well!’” And Nicholas heard
her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. “And do you know,” she
suddenly said, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and
tranquil as I am now.”
“Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!” exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought:
“How charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like
her and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive
about together!”
“What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!” thought Natásha.
“Ah, there are still lights in the drawing room!” she said, pointing
to the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety
darkness of the night.
CHAPTER VIII
Count Ilyá Rostóv had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility
because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs
did not improve. Natásha and Nicholas often noticed their parents
conferring together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of
selling the fine ancestral Rostóv house and estate near Moscow. It was
not necessary to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal,
and life at Otrádnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the
enormous house and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty
sat down to table every day. These were all their own people who had
settled down in the house almost as members of the family, or persons
who were, it seemed, obliged to live in the count’s house. Such were
Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his
family, Belóva, an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many
others such as Pétya’s tutors, the girls’ former governess, and
other people who simply found it preferable and more advantageous to
live in the count’s house than at home. They had not as many visitors
as before, but the old habits of life without which the count and
countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged. There was
still the hunting establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the
same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive
presents and dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there
were still the count’s games of whist and boston, at which—spreading
out his cards so that everybody could see them—he let himself be
plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked
upon an opportunity to play a rubber with Count Rostóv as a most
profitable source of income.
The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe
that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and
feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and
patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt
that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count’s fault
for he could not help being what he was—that (though he tried to
hide it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and
his children’s ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the
position. From her feminine point of view she could see only one
solution, namely, for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to
be their last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found
for him, she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters
right. This match was with Julie Karágina, the daughter of excellent
and virtuous parents, a girl the Rostóvs had known from childhood, and
who had now become a wealthy heiress through the death of the last of
her brothers.
The countess had written direct to Julie’s mother in Moscow suggesting
a marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer
from her. Karágina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and
everything depend on her daughter’s inclination. She invited Nicholas
to come to Moscow.
Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that
now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him
married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that
were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl
and tried to discover what he thought about marriage.
At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to
Moscow during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his
mother’s remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations
induced her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope
of getting their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie
Karágina.
“But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would
you expect me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of
money?” he asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question
and only wishing to show his noble-mindedness.
“No, you have not understood me,” said his mother, not knowing how
to justify herself. “You have not understood me, Nikólenka. It is
your happiness I wish for,” she added, feeling that she was telling an
untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.
“Mamma, don’t cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I
will give my life, anything, to put you at ease,” said Nicholas. “I
would sacrifice anything for you—even my feelings.”
But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not
want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice
for him.
“No, you have not understood me, don’t let us talk about it,” she
replied, wiping away her tears.
“Maybe I do love a poor girl,” said Nicholas to himself. “Am I to
sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could
speak so to me. Because Sónya is poor I must not love her,” he
thought, “must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should
certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can
always sacrifice my feelings for my family’s welfare,” he said to
himself, “but I can’t coerce my feelings. If I love Sónya, that
feeling is for me stronger and higher than all else.”
Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the
conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes
with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and
the portionless Sónya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could
not refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sónya, often pulling her up
without reason, addressing her stiffly as “my dear,” and using the
formal “you” instead of the intimate “thou” in speaking to her.
The kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sónya because that
poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly
grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and
unselfishly in love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for
finding fault with her.
Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had
come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have
been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly
reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till
the beginning of the new year. Natásha was still as much in love with
her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as
ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at
the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits
of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:
sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to
anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.
Things were not cheerful in the Rostóvs’ home.
CHAPTER IX
Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and
wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the
new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though
the calm frost of twenty degrees Réaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day,
and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special
celebration of the season.
On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the
inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time
of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,
was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his
study. Sónya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a
design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastásya
Ivánovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old
ladies. Natásha came into the room, went up to Sónya, glanced at
what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without
speaking.
“Why are you wandering about like an outcast?” asked her mother.
“What do you want?”
“Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!” said Natásha,
with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.
The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.
“Don’t look at me, Mamma! Don’t look; I shall cry directly.”
“Sit down with me a little,” said the countess.
“Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?”
Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to
hide them and left the room.
She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then
went into the maids’ room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at
a young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from
the serfs’ quarters.
“Stop playing—there’s a time for everything,” said the old
woman.
“Let her alone, Kondrátevna,” said Natásha. “Go, Mavrúshka,
go.”
Having released Mavrúshka, Natásha crossed the dancing hall and went
to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing
cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.
“What can I do with them?” thought Natásha.
“Oh, Nikíta, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the
yard and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some
oats.”
“Just a few oats?” said Misha, cheerfully and readily.
“Go, go quickly,” the old man urged him.
“And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk.”
On her way past the butler’s pantry she told them to set a samovar,
though it was not at all the time for tea.
Fóka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house.
Natásha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and
asked whether the samovar was really wanted.
“Oh dear, what a young lady!” said Fóka, pretending to frown at
Natásha.
No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as
Natásha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send
them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would
get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one’s orders
so readily as they did hers. “What can I do, where can I go?”
thought she, as she went slowly along the passage.
“Nastásya Ivánovna, what sort of children shall I have?” she asked
the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman’s jacket.
“Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,” answered the buffoon.
“O Lord, O Lord, it’s always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What
am I to do with myself?” And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly
upstairs to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.
Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were
plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing
whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natásha sat down,
listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got
up again.
“The island of Madagascar,” she said, “Ma-da-gas-car,” she
repeated, articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to
Madame Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the
room.
Her brother Pétya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him
he was preparing fireworks to let off that night.
“Pétya! Pétya!” she called to him. “Carry me downstairs.”
Pétya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her
arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.
“No, don’t... the island of Madagascar!” she said, and jumping off
his back she went downstairs.
Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made
sure that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull,
Natásha betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down
in a dark corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over
the strings in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an
opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from
the guitar would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her
imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds.
She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light
escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She
was in a mood for brooding on the past.
Sónya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natásha glanced
at her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that
she remembered the light falling through that crack once before and
Sónya passing with a glass in her hand. “Yes it was exactly the
same,” thought Natásha.
“Sónya, what is this?” she cried, twanging a thick string.
“Oh, you are there!” said Sónya with a start, and came near and
listened. “I don’t know. A storm?” she ventured timidly, afraid of
being wrong.
“There! That’s just how she started and just how she came up smiling
timidly when all this happened before,” thought Natásha, “and in
just the same way I thought there was something lacking in her.”
“No, it’s the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!” and Natásha
sang the air of the chorus so that Sónya should catch it. “Where were
you going?” she asked.
“To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design.”
“You always find something to do, but I can’t,” said Natásha.
“And where’s Nicholas?”
“Asleep, I think.”
“Sónya, go and wake him,” said Natásha. “Tell him I want him to
come and sing.”
She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened
before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting
not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was
with him and he was looking at her with a lover’s eyes.
“Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!
And, worst of all, I am growing old—that’s the thing! There won’t
then be in me what there is now. But perhaps he’ll come today, will
come immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing
room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it.” She rose,
put down the guitar, and went to the drawing room.
All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already
at the tea table. The servants stood round the table—but Prince Andrew
was not there and life was going on as before.
“Ah, here she is!” said the old count, when he saw Natásha enter.
“Well, sit down by me.” But Natásha stayed by her mother and
glanced round as if looking for something.
“Mamma!” she muttered, “give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly,
quickly!” and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.
She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the
elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. “My God, my God!
The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the
same way!” thought Natásha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion
rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the
same.
After tea, Nicholas, Sónya, and Natásha went to the sitting room, to
their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.
CHAPTER X
“Does it ever happen to you,” said Natásha to her brother, when
they settled down in the sitting room, “does it ever happen to you to
feel as if there were nothing more to come—nothing; that everything
good is past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?”
“I should think so!” he replied. “I have felt like that when
everything was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come
into my mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all
die. Once in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there
was music... and suddenly I felt so depressed...”
“Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!” Natásha interrupted him. “When
I was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when
I was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat
sobbing in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry
for everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent—that
was the chief thing,” said Natásha. “Do you remember?”
“I remember,” answered Nicholas. “I remember that I came to you
afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed
to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give
it to you. Do you remember?”
“And do you remember,” Natásha asked with a pensive smile, “how
once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into
the study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and
suddenly there stood...”
“A Negro,” chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. “Of course
I remember. Even now I don’t know whether there really was a Negro, or
if we only dreamed it or were told about him.”
“He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked
at us....”
“Sónya, do you remember?” asked Nicholas.
“Yes, yes, I do remember something too,” Sónya answered timidly.
“You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,” said
Natásha, “and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you
remember!”
“Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them.”
“How strange it is! It’s as if it were a dream! I like that.”
“And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom,
and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that
real or not? Do you remember what fun it was?”
“Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in
the porch?”
So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad
memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of
one’s most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they
laughed with quiet enjoyment.
Sónya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared
the same reminiscences.
Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she
recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She
simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.
She only really took part when they recalled Sónya’s first arrival.
She told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a
corded jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up
with cords.
“And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a
cabbage,” said Natásha, “and I remember that I dared not disbelieve
it then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable.”
While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of
the sitting room.
“They have brought the cock, Miss,” she said in a whisper.
“It isn’t wanted, Pólya. Tell them to take it away,” replied
Natásha.
In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and
went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth
covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.
“Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,” came the
old countess’ voice from the drawing room.
Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nicholas, and Sónya,
remarked: “How quiet you young people are!”
“Yes, we’re philosophizing,” said Natásha, glancing round for a
moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing
dreams.
Dimmler began to play; Natásha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,
took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly
in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were
sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of
the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but
still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently
uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.
“Do you know,” said Natásha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas
and Sónya, “that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at
last begins to remember what happened before one was in the world....”
“That is metempsychosis,” said Sónya, who had always learned well,
and remembered everything. “The Egyptians believed that our souls have
lived in animals, and will go back into animals again.”
“No, I don’t believe we ever were in animals,” said Natásha,
still in a whisper though the music had ceased. “But I am certain that
we were angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we
remember....”
“May I join you?” said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat
down by them.
“If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?” said Nicholas.
“No, that can’t be!”
“Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I
was before?” Natásha rejoined with conviction. “The soul is
immortal—well then, if I shall always live I must have lived before,
lived for a whole eternity.”
“Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,” remarked Dimmler,
who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now
spoke as quietly and seriously as they.
“Why is it hard to imagine eternity?” said Natásha. “It is now
today, and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and
the day before....”
“Natásha! Now it’s your turn. Sing me something,” they heard the
countess say. “Why are you sitting there like conspirators?”
“Mamma, I don’t at all want to,” replied Natásha, but all the
same she rose.
None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off
their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but
Natásha got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing
as usual in the middle of the hall and choosing the place where the
resonance was best, Natásha began to sing her mother’s favorite song.
She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had
sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The
count, from his study where he was talking to Mítenka, heard her and,
like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk
while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mítenka
stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take
his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sónya, as she
listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself
and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as
bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad
smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She
thought of Natásha and of her own youth, and of how there was something
unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natásha and Prince
Andrew.
Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with
closed eyes.
“Ah, Countess,” he said at last, “that’s a European talent, she
has nothing to learn—what softness, tenderness, and strength....”
“Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!” said the countess,
not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her
that Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this
she would not be happy. Before Natásha had finished singing,
fourteen-year-old Pétya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers
had arrived.
Natásha stopped abruptly.
“Idiot!” she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw
herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long
time.
“It’s nothing, Mamma, really it’s nothing; only Pétya startled
me,” she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs
still choked her.
The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,
innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with
them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first
timidly, into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed
into the ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily
and heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas
games. The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their
costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,
smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had
disappeared.
Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the
ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish
girl was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a
Circassian was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.
After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those
who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their
costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.
Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take
them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a
dozen of the serf mummers and drive to “Uncle’s.”
“No, why disturb the old fellow?” said the countess. “Besides,
you wouldn’t have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the
Melyukóvs’.”
Melyukóva was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and
governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.
“That’s right, my dear,” chimed in the old count, thoroughly
aroused. “I’ll dress up at once and go with them. I’ll make
Pashette open her eyes.”
But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all
these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if
Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies
might go to the Melyukóvs’, Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more
urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.
Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were
extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,
and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some
inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and
in her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivánovna
consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and
small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,
drove up to the porch.
Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing
from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all
came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to
one another, laughing, and shouting.
Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the
old count’s with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse,
the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.
Nicholas, in his old lady’s dress over which he had belted his hussar
overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.
It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal
harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm
at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.
Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas’
sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count’s, and the
rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.
“You go ahead, Zakhár!” shouted Nicholas to his father’s
coachman, wishing for a chance to race past him.
The old count’s troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,
squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned
bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the
middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,
and threw it up.
Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others
moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady
trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows
of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant
moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain
bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering
like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the
first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of
the other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the
frost-bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one
after the other.
“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks!” rang out Natásha’s voice
through the frost-bound air.
“How light it is, Nicholas!” came Sónya’s voice.
Nicholas glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer.
Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up
at him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in the
moonlight.
“That used to be Sónya,” thought he, and looked at her closer and
smiled.
“What is it, Nicholas?”
“Nothing,” said he and turned again to the horses.
When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh runners
and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the
moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and
increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking
into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from
side to side, moving his ears as if asking: “Isn’t it time to begin
now?” In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing
farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhár could be
clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the
shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.
“Gee up, my darlings!” shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one
side and flourishing the whip.
It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the
side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that
one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With
screams, squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses
to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily
beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and
ready to put on speed when required.
Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and
coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.
“Where are we?” thought he. “It’s the Kosóy meadow, I suppose.
But no—this is something new I’ve never seen before. This isn’t
the Kosóy meadow nor the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it
is! It is something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be...”
And shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.
Zakhár held back his horses and turned his face, which was already
covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.
Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms,
clucked his tongue and let his horses go.
“Now, look out, master!” he cried.
Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved
the feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead.
Zakhár, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the
reins.
“No you won’t, master!” he shouted.
Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses
showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside
them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of
swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing.
The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls
shrieking were heard from different sides.
Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still
surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with
stars.
“Zakhár is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the
left?” thought Nicholas. “Are we getting to the Melyukóvs’? Is
this Melyukóvka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows
what is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever
it is.” And he looked round in the sleigh.
“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!” said one of the
strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and
mustache.
“I think this used to be Natásha,” thought Nicholas, “and that
was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it’s not, and this Circassian with the
mustache I don’t know, but I love her.”
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind
shouted something—probably something funny—but they could not make
out what he said.
“Yes, yes!” some voices answered, laughing.
“But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter
of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy
buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really
Melyukóvka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and
have come to Melyukóvka,” thought Nicholas.
It really was Melyukóvka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came
running, out to the porch carrying candles.
“Who is it?” asked someone in the porch.
“The mummers from the count’s. I know by the horses,” replied some
voices.
CHAPTER XI
Pelagéya Danílovna Melyukóva, a broadly built, energetic woman
wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded
by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They
were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows
the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and
voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.
Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their
throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule,
came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The
clown—Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—started a dance. Surrounded
by the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and
disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves
about the room.
“Dear me! there’s no recognizing them! And Natásha! See whom
she looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr
Dimmler—isn’t he good! I didn’t know him! And how he dances. Dear
me, there’s a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sónya.
And who is that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikíta and Vanya—clear
away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The
hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can’t look at
him...” different voices were saying.
Natásha, the young Melyukóvs’ favorite, disappeared with them into
the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments
were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from
behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukóvs joined the
mummers.
Pelagéya Danílovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the
visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,
went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering
into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any
of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostóvs she failed to
recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late
husband’s, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.
“And who is this?” she asked her governess, peering into the face of
her own daughter dressed up as a Kazán-Tartar. “I suppose it is one
of the Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?”
she asked Natásha. “Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!”
she ordered the butler who was handing things round. “That’s not
forbidden by his law.”
Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the
dancers, who—having decided once for all that being disguised, no one
would recognize them—were not at all shy, Pelagéya Danílovna hid
her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with
irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.
“My little Sásha! Look at Sásha!” she said.
After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelagéya Danílovna
made the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string,
and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.
In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked
eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed,
and merry faces. Pelagéya Danílovna began to recognize the mummers,
admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they
suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained
her so well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room,
and the serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.
“Now to tell one’s fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!”
said an old maid who lived with the Melyukóvs, during supper.
“Why?” said the eldest Melyukóv girl.
“You wouldn’t go, it takes courage....”
“I’ll go,” said Sónya.
“Tell what happened to the young lady!” said the second Melyukóv
girl.
“Well,” began the old maid, “a young lady once went out, took a
cock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting
a while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with
harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a
man, like an officer—comes in and sits down to table with her.”
“Ah! ah!” screamed Natásha, rolling her eyes with horror.
“Yes? And how... did he speak?”
“Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading
her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got
frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he
caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then....”
“Now, why frighten them?” said Pelagéya Danílovna.
“Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself...” said her daughter.
“And how does one do it in a barn?” inquired Sónya.
“Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what
you hear; hammering and knocking—that’s bad; but a sound of shifting
grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too.”
“Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn.”
Pelagéya Danílovna smiled.
“Oh, I’ve forgotten...” she replied. “But none of you would
go?”
“Yes, I will; Pelagéya Danílovna, let me! I’ll go,” said Sónya.
“Well, why not, if you’re not afraid?”
“Louisa Ivánovna, may I?” asked Sónya.
Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or
talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sónya’s side, and gazed at her
with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks
to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And
really, that evening, Sónya was brighter, more animated, and prettier
than Nicholas had ever seen her before.
“So that’s what she is like; what a fool I have been!” he thought
gazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous
smile dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Sónya. “May I go at once?”
She got up.
They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,
and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and
shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.
“What a darling that girl is!” thought he. “And what have I been
thinking of till now?”
Sónya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went
hastily to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people
really had made the house stuffy.
Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even
brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with
so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real
stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was
gay.
“I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?” thought
Nicholas, and running out from the porch he went round the corner of
the house and along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sónya
would pass that way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and
across and along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees
fell on the snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log
walls of the barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out
of some precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden
snapped with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His
bosom seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and
gladness.
From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the
bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard
the voice of an old maidservant saying, “Straight, straight, along the
path, Miss. Only, don’t look back.”
“I am not afraid,” answered Sónya’s voice, and along the path
toward Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sónya’s feet
in her thin shoes.
Sónya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces
away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had
known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman’s dress, with
tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sónya. She ran rapidly toward
him.
“Quite different and yet the same,” thought Nicholas, looking at her
face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak
that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her
on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sónya
kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed
them to his cheeks.
“Sónya!... Nicholas!”... was all they said. They ran to the barn
and then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back
porch.
CHAPTER XII
When they all drove back from Pelagéya Danílovna’s, Natásha, who
always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss
should go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sónya with Nicholas and
the maids.
On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and
kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sónya’s
face and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and
his present Sónya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again.
He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sónya, and
being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss,
inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground
flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in
fairyland.
“Sónya, is it well with thee?” he asked from time to time.
“Yes!” she replied. “And with thee?”
When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for
a moment to Natásha’s sleigh and stood on its wing.
“Natásha!” he whispered in French, “do you know I have made up my
mind about Sónya?”
“Have you told her?” asked Natásha, suddenly beaming all over with
joy.
“Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...
Natásha—are you glad?”
“I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did
not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she
has, Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy
while Sónya was not,” continued Natásha. “Now I am so glad! Well,
run back to her.”
“No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!” cried Nicholas, peering
into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and
bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. “Natásha,
it’s magical, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she replied. “You have done splendidly.”
“Had I seen her before as she is now,” thought Nicholas, “I should
long ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me,
and all would have been well.”
“So you are glad and I have done right?”
“Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.
Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I
nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of
Sónya, for there is nothing but good in her.”
“Then it’s all right?” said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the
expression of his sister’s face to see if she was in earnest. Then he
jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh.
The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes
looking up from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that
Circassian was Sónya, and that Sónya was certainly his future happy
and loving wife.
When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the
evening at the Melyukóvs’, the girls went to their bedroom. When they
had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a
long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live
when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how
happy they would be. On Natásha’s table stood two looking glasses
which Dunyásha had prepared beforehand.
“Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too
good!” said Natásha, rising and going to the looking glasses.
“Sit down, Natásha; perhaps you’ll see him,” said Sónya.
Natásha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking
glasses, and sat down.
“I see someone with a mustache,” said Natásha, seeing her own face.
“You mustn’t laugh, Miss,” said Dunyásha.
With Sónya’s help and the maid’s, Natásha got the glass she held
into the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious
expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the
receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from
tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that
last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the
smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.
She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.
“Why is it others see things and I don’t?” she said. “You sit
down now, Sónya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I
feel so frightened!”
Sónya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began
looking.
“Now, Miss Sónya is sure to see something,” whispered Dunyásha;
“while you do nothing but laugh.”
Sónya heard this and Natásha’s whisper:
“I know she will. She saw something last year.”
For about three minutes all were silent.
“Of course she will!” whispered Natásha, but did not finish...
suddenly Sónya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her
eyes with her hand.
“Oh, Natásha!” she cried.
“Did you see? Did you? What was it?” exclaimed Natásha, holding up
the looking glass.
Sónya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get
up when she heard Natásha say, “Of course she will!” She did not
wish to disappoint either Dunyásha or Natásha, but it was hard to sit
still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her
when she covered her eyes.
“You saw him?” urged Natásha, seizing her hand.
“Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him,” Sónya could not help saying, not
yet knowing whom Natásha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.
“But why shouldn’t I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who
can tell whether I saw anything or not?” flashed through Sónya’s
mind.
“Yes, I saw him,” she said.
“How? Standing or lying?”
“No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying
down.”
“Andrew lying? Is he ill?” asked Natásha, her frightened eyes fixed
on her friend.
“No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he
turned to me.” And when saying this she herself fancied she had really
seen what she described.
“Well, and then, Sónya?...”
“After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and
red....”
“Sónya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how
afraid I am for him and for myself and about everything!...” Natásha
began, and without replying to Sónya’s words of comfort she got into
bed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless,
gazing at the moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.
CHAPTER XIII
Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love
for Sónya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who
had long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this
declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he
might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would
give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time,
felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love
for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son,
she sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to
inform him of the facts, in her son’s presence, but unable to restrain
herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old
count began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his
purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his
father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and
went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count
was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the
family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to
marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sónya. On this occasion, he
was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not
been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sónya could have
been wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mítenka and
his uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family
finances.
The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,
but a few days later the countess sent for Sónya and, with a cruelty
neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch
Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sónya listened silently with downcast
eyes to the countess’ cruel words, without understanding what
was required of her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her
benefactors. Self-sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case
she could not see what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could
not help loving the countess and the whole Rostóv family, but neither
could she help loving Nicholas and knowing that his happiness depended
on that love. She was silent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt
the situation to be intolerable and went to have an explanation with his
mother. He first implored her to forgive him and Sónya and consent to
their marriage, then he threatened that if she molested Sónya he would
at once marry her secretly.
The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,
replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his
father’s consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never
receive that intriguer as her daughter.
Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told
his mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his
feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he
had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face
caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have
forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it,
for Natásha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door
at which she had been listening.
“Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I
tell you!...” she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.
“Mamma darling, it’s not at all so... my poor, sweet darling,” she
said to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of
a rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and
excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way.
“Nicholas, I’ll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling,”
said Natásha.
Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she
was aiming.
The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter’s breast,
while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.
Natásha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded
that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sónya should not
be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything
without his parents’ knowledge.
Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment,
to retire from the army and return and marry Sónya, Nicholas, serious,
sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,
passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his
regiment.
After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostóv household were more
depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.
Sónya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on
account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward
her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his
affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and
estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to
go to Moscow. But the countess’ health obliged them to delay their
departure from day to day.
Natásha, who had borne the first period of separation from her
betrothed lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and
impatient every day. The thought that her best days, which she would
have employed in loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage
to anyone, tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part
irritated her. It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the
thought of him, he was living a real life, seeing new places and new
people that interested him. The more interesting his letters were
the more vexed she felt. Her letters to him, far from giving her any
comfort, seemed to her a wearisome and artificial obligation. She could
not write, because she could not conceive the possibility of expressing
sincerely in a letter even a thousandth part of what she expressed by
voice, smile, and glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry
letters, to which she attached no importance herself, and in the rough
copies of which the countess corrected her mistakes in spelling.
There was still no improvement in the countess’ health, but it was
impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natásha’s
trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew
was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkónski was spending the
winter, and Natásha felt sure he had already arrived.
So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sónya
and Natásha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.
BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12
CHAPTER I
After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any
apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.
Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his
benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to
which he had devoted himself with such ardor—all the zest of such a
life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natásha and the death
of Joseph Alexéevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same
time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife
who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance
with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities.
And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He
ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going
to the club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch
with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Hélène
thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that
she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.
In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and
fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,
driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable
tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Krémlin
Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and
hovels of the Sívtsev Vrazhók, those old Moscovites who desired
nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he
saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he
felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at
home, warm and dirty as in an old dressing gown.
Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre
like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.
For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,
merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of
the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to
everyone.
Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,
gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,
churches, and books—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him,
and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from
him and taken him under their protection, he would have given everything
away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As
soon as he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux
he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there
were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the
antagonists. The Masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not
there.
When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,
yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere
with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men.
At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and
unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was
equally amiable to all, especially after supper. “Il est charmant; il
n’a pas de sexe,” * they said of him.
* “He is charming; he has no sex.”
Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were
hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.
How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first
arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him
to seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally
predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in
his position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one
time longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia;
then himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then
a strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the
possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful
human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?
Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?
But instead of all that—here he was, the wealthy husband of an
unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and
drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government
a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in
Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the
idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting
he had so despised seven years before.
Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living
this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how
many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,
with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single
tooth or hair remained.
In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to
him that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired
gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,
contented fellows, satisfied with their position, “while I am still
discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these
comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a
path in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of
circumstances, society, and race—by that elemental force against which
man is powerless—to the condition I am in,” said he to himself in
moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer
despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his
comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.
Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust
with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such
acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment.
“What for? Why? What is going on in the world?” he would ask himself
in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect
anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience
that there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away
from them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollón
Nikoláevich’s, to exchange the gossip of the town.
“Hélène, who has never cared for anything but her own body and
is one of the stupidest women in the world,” thought Pierre, “is
regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they
pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he
was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor
Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The
Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their
victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French,
also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same
fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear
by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their
neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the
poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers,
and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody
needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not
understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries
and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in
Moscow forty times forty churches—but yesterday a deserter was knouted
to death and a minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a
priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution.” So
thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone
accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time as if it
were something new. “I understand the deception and confusion,” he
thought, “but how am I to tell them all that I see? I have tried, and
have always found that they too in the depths of their souls understand
it as I do, and only try not to see it. So it appears that it must
be so! But I—what is to become of me?” thought he. He had the
unfortunate capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and
believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the
evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part
in it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with evil and
deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and
falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every path of activity. Yet he
had to live and to find occupation. It was too dreadful to be under
the burden of these insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to
any distraction in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of
society, drank much, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above
all—read.
He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while
his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and
began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to
gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;
from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more
and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors
warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he
drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several
glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant
warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a
readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it
deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the
terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was
not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some
aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or
supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the
influence of wine he said to himself: “It doesn’t matter. I’ll
get it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now—I’ll
think it all out later on!” But the later on never came.
In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as
insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and
if anyone came to see him he was glad.
Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when
entrenched under the enemy’s fire, if they have nothing to do, try
hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To
Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life:
some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women,
some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some
in wine, and some in governmental affairs. “Nothing is trivial, and
nothing is important, it’s all the same—only to save oneself from it
as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that dreadful
it!”
CHAPTER II
At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and his daughter
moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander’s
regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed
there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his
originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkónski an object of
particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow
opposition to the government.
The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of
senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent
events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which
he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this
the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful
veneration—especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his
old-fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his
abrupt stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing
criticisms of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with
its gigantic mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and
the stern shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his
gentle daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted
to him presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors
did not reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw
their host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the
private and intimate life of the house continued.
Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.
There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures—talks with
the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills—and
she had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not
go out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her
go anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out
himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She
had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness
and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the
young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She
had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in
the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom
she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to
her, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom
she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved
to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the
death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow,
was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young
men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth.
Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels
that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be
decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a
mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie—whose
presence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the
old émigré who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his
evenings for years, she regretted Julie’s presence and having no one
to write to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to
whom to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then.
The time for Prince Andrew’s return and marriage was approaching, but
his request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried
out; in fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every
mention of the young Countess Rostóva the old prince (who apart from
that was usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another
lately added sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old
nephew. To her consternation she detected in herself in relation to
little Nicholas some symptoms of her father’s irritability. However
often she told herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her
nephew, almost every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show
him the French alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly
and easily into the child—who was already afraid that Auntie might at
any moment get angry—that at his slightest inattention she trembled,
became flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him
by the arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner
she would herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little
Nicholas, following her example, would sob, and without permission would
leave his corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and
comfort her. But what distressed the princess most of all was her
father’s irritability, which was always directed against her and had
of late amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to
the ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water,
it would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but
this loving despot—the more cruel because he loved her and for that
reason tormented himself and her—knew how not merely to hurt and
humiliate her deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame
for everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented
Princess Mary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing
intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment
of receiving the news of his son’s intentions had occurred to him in
jest—that if Andrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne—had
evidently pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it
seemed to Princess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments
to the companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by
demonstrations of love of Bourienne.
One day in Moscow in Princess Mary’s presence (she thought her father
did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle
Bourienne’s hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately.
Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later
Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary’s room smiling and
making cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily
wiped away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne,
and evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry
haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: “It’s horrible, vile,
inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness...” She did not finish.
“Leave my room,” she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.
Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed
that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be
served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from
habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious,
threw his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him
conscripted for the army.
“He doesn’t obey... I said it twice... and he doesn’t obey! She
is the first person in this house; she’s my best friend,” cried
the prince. “And if you allow yourself,” he screamed in a fury,
addressing Princess Mary for the first time, “to forget yourself again
before her as you dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master
in this house. Go! Don’t let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!”
Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne’s pardon, and also her
father’s pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged
for her intervention.
At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her
soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his
spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or
would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with
his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness,
or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him
would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking
head sink over his plate. “He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn
him!” she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against
herself.
CHAPTER III
In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor—Métivier—who had
rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable
as Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever
doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but
as an equal.
Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on
Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice had allowed this doctor to visit him
and had grown accustomed to him. Métivier came to see the prince about
twice a week.
On December 6—St. Nicholas’ Day and the prince’s name day—all
Moscow came to the prince’s front door but he gave orders to admit no
one and to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave
to Princess Mary.
Métivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered
it proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told
Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that
morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had
been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone
and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be
understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed
querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she
went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun
and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival the
morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary
sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she
could hear all that passed in the study.
* To force the guard.
At first she heard only Métivier’s voice, then her father’s, then
both voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open,
and on the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified
Métivier with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing
gown and fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes
rolled downwards.
“You don’t understand?” shouted the prince, “but I do! French
spy, slave of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell
you...” and he slammed the door.
Métivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne
who at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.
“The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep
calm, I will call again tomorrow,” said Métivier; and putting his
fingers to his lips he hastened away.
Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:
“Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment’s peace in my
own house!”
After Métivier’s departure the old prince called his daughter in, and
the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy
had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list,
and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that
scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he
could not have a moment’s peace and could not die quietly.
“No, ma’am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand
it! I cannot endure any more,” he said, and left the room. Then, as if
afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying
to appear calm added: “And don’t imagine I have said this in a
moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be
carried out—we must part; so find some place for yourself....” But
he could not restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one
who loves is capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at
her and screamed:
“If only some fool would marry her!” Then he slammed the door, sent
for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.
At two o’clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.
These guests—the famous Count Rostopchín, Prince Lopukhín with his
nephew, General Chatróv an old war comrade of the prince’s, and
of the younger generation Pierre and Borís Drubetskóy—awaited the
prince in the drawing room.
Borís, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been
anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, and had contrived
to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an
exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.
The prince’s house did not belong to what is known as fashionable
society, but his little circle—though not much talked about in
town—was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other.
Borís had realized this the week before when the commander in chief in
his presence invited Rostopchín to dinner on St. Nicholas’ Day, and
Rostopchín had replied that he could not come:
“On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince
Nicholas Bolkónski.”
“Oh, yes, yes!” replied the commander in chief. “How is he?...”
The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned
drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of
a court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince
Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter
and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address
her, feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count
Rostopchín alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest
town news, and now the latest political gossip.
Lopukhín and the old general occasionally took part in the
conversation. Prince Bolkónski listened as a presiding judge receives a
report, only now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that
he took heed of what was being reported to him. The tone of the
conversation was such as indicated that no one approved of what was
being done in the political world. Incidents were related evidently
confirming the opinion that everything was going from bad to worse, but
whether telling a story or giving an opinion the speaker always stopped,
or was stopped, at the point beyond which his criticism might touch the
sovereign himself.
At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon’s
seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and the Russian Note,
hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.
“Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel,” said
Count Rostopchín, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times
before. “One only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the
crowned heads. Now the Pope’s turn has come and Bonaparte doesn’t
scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church—yet all keep silent!
Our sovereign alone has protested against the seizure of the Duke
of Oldenburg’s territory, and even...” Count Rostopchín paused,
feeling that he had reached the limit beyond which censure was
impossible.
“Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of
Oldenburg,” said Prince Bolkónski. “He shifts the Dukes about as
I might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Boguchárovo or my Ryazán
estates.”
“The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable
strength of character and resignation,” remarked Borís, joining in
respectfully.
He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor
of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkónski glanced at the
young man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,
evidently considering him too young.
“I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised
how badly the Note was worded,” remarked Count Rostopchín in the
casual tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him.
Pierre looked at Rostopchín with naïve astonishment, not understanding
why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.
“Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded,” he asked, “so
long as its substance is forcible?”
“My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be
easy to have a good style,” returned Count Rostopchín.
Pierre now understood the count’s dissatisfaction with the wording of
the Note.
“One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up,”
remarked the old prince. “There in Petersburg they are always
writing—not notes only but even new laws. My Andrew there has written
a whole volume of laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!”
and he laughed unnaturally.
There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared
his throat to draw attention.
“Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The
figure cut by the new French ambassador.”
“Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His
Majesty’s presence.”
“His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march
past,” continued the general, “and it seems the ambassador took
no notice and allowed himself to reply that: ‘We in France pay no
attention to such trifles!’ The Emperor did not condescend to reply.
At the next review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address
him.”
All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was
impossible to pass any judgment.
“Impudent fellows!” said the prince. “You know Métivier? I turned
him out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in
spite of my request that they should let no one in,” he went on,
glancing angrily at his daughter.
And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and
the reasons that convinced him that Métivier was a spy. Though these
reasons were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.
After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate
the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.
He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled,
clean-shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told
her that he had not forgotten the morning’s talk, that his decision
remained in force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his
speaking of it to her now.
When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old
men sat together.
Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the
impending war.
He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we
sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European
affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. “We
ought not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political
interests are all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing
is to have an armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare
to cross the Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!”
“How can we fight the French, Prince?” said Count Rostopchín.
“Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at
our youths, look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our
Kingdom of Heaven.”
He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.
“French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned
Métivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and
a scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to
a party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman
Catholics and had the Pope’s indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays.
And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our
Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people,
Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great’s old cudgel out of the
museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps
out of them.”
All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchín with a smile and
wagged his head approvingly.
“Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!” said Rostopchín,
getting up with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the
prince.
“Good-by, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of
hearing him!” said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and
offering his cheek to be kissed.
Following Rostopchín’s example the others also rose.
CHAPTER IV
Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men’s talk and
faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered
whether the guests had all observed her father’s hostile attitude
toward her. She did not even notice the special attentions and
amiabilities shown her during dinner by Borís Drubetskóy, who was
visiting them for the third time already.
Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who
hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to
approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone
in the drawing room.
“May I stay a little longer?” he said, letting his stout body sink
into an armchair beside her.
“Oh yes,” she answered. “You noticed nothing?” her look asked.
Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before
him and smiled quietly.
“Have you known that young man long, Princess?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Drubetskóy.”
“No, not long....”
“Do you like him?”
“Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?” said
Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning’s conversation with her
father.
“Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from
Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an
heiress.”
“You have observed that?” said Princess Mary.
“Yes,” returned Pierre with a smile, “and this young man now
manages matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is
too. I can read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay
siege to—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karágina. He is very attentive to
her.”
“He visits them?”
“Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?” said
Pierre with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good
humored raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.
“No,” replied Princess Mary.
“To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very
melancholy with Mademoiselle Karágina,” said Pierre.
“Really?” asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre’s kindly
face and still thinking of her own sorrow. “It would be a relief,”
thought she, “if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone.
I should like to tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It
would be a relief. He would give me advice.”
“Would you marry him?”
“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!”
she cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice.
“Ah, how bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel
that...” she went on in a trembling voice, “that you can do nothing
for him but grieve him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then
there is only one thing left—to go away, but where could I go?”
“What is wrong? What is it, Princess?”
But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into
tears.
“I don’t know what is the matter with me today. Don’t take any
notice—forget what I have said!”
Pierre’s gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the
princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but
she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that
she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble
except the one he knew of—that Prince Andrew’s marriage threatened
to cause a rupture between father and son.
“Have you any news of the Rostóvs?” she asked, to change the
subject. “I was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew
any day. I should like them to meet here.”
“And how does he now regard the matter?” asked Pierre, referring to
the old prince.
Princess Mary shook her head.
“What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing
is impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments.
I wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have
known them a long time,” said Princess Mary. “Tell me honestly
the whole truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of
her?—The real truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing
this against his father’s will that I should like to know....”
An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and
repeated requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on
the princess’ part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that
he should disapprove of Andrew’s choice; but in reply he said what he
felt rather than what he thought.
“I don’t know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing
without knowing why. “I really don’t know what sort of girl she is;
I can’t analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I
don’t know. That is all one can say about her.”
Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: “Yes,
that’s what I expected and feared.”
“Is she clever?” she asked.
Pierre considered.
“I think not,” he said, “and yet—yes. She does not deign to be
clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all.”
Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.
“Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do.”
“I hear they are expected very soon,” said Pierre.
Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future
sister-in-law as soon as the Rostóvs arrived and to try to accustom the
old prince to her.
CHAPTER V
Borís had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so
with the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between
the two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess
Mary despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he,
without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they
had last met on the old prince’s name day, she had answered at random
all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what
he was saying.
Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a
manner peculiar to herself.
She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become
very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not
merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She
was confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very
wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less
dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate
with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated
company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation.
A man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day
to the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of
compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day
and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance.
That winter the Karágins’ house was the most agreeable and hospitable
in Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large
company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight
and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a
promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion.
But in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and
told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love,
or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only “yonder.” She
adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a
girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by
him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in
that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered
much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing
herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from
passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid
his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused
himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts
rimés, which were in vogue at the Karágins’. Only a few of these
young men, among them Borís, entered more deeply into Julie’s
melancholy, and with these she had prolonged conversations in private
on the vanity of all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums
filled with mournful sketches, maxims, and verses.
To Borís, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early
disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship
as she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him
her album. Borís sketched two trees in the album and wrote: “Rustic
trees, your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me.”
On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:
La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille.
Ah! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asile. *
* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.
Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.
Julie said this was charming
“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy,” she
said to Borís, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a
book. “It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness
and despair, showing the possibility of consolation.”
In reply Borís wrote these lines:
Aliment de poison d’une âme trop sensible,
Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
Tendre mélancholie, ah, viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite,
Et mêle une douceur secrète
A ces pleurs que je sens couler. *
*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul,
Thou, without whom happiness would for me be impossible,
Tender melancholy, ah, come to console me,
Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat,
And mingle a secret sweetness
With these tears that I feel to be flowing.
For Borís, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Borís
read Poor Liza aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading
because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings
Julie and Borís looked on one another as the only souls who understood
one another in a world of indifferent people.
Anna Mikháylovna, who often visited the Karágins, while playing cards
with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie’s dowry (she was
to have two estates in Pénza and the Nizhegórod forests). Anna
Mikháylovna regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the
wealthy Julie with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.
“You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie,” she said to
the daughter. “Borís says his soul finds repose at your house. He has
suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” said she to
the mother. “Ah, my dear, I can’t tell you how fond I have grown
of Julie latterly,” she said to her son. “But who could help loving
her? She is an angelic being! Ah, Borís, Borís!”—she paused.
“And how I pity her mother,” she went on; “today she showed me her
accounts and letters from Pénza (they have enormous estates there), and
she, poor thing, has no one to help her, and they do cheat her so!”
Borís smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He
laughed blandly at her naïve diplomacy but listened to what she had
to say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Pénza and
Nizhegórod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and
was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,
for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and
a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still
restrained Borís. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole
days at the Karágins’, and every day on thinking the matter over
told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie’s presence,
looking at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist
eyes, and her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from
melancholy to an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Borís could not
utter the decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded
himself as the possessor of those Pénza and Nizhegórod estates and
had apportioned the use of the income from them. Julie saw Borís’
indecision, and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was
repulsive to him, but her feminine self-deception immediately supplied
her with consolation, and she told herself that he was only shy from
love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn to irritability, and not
long before Borís’ departure she formed a definite plan of action.
Just as Borís’ leave of absence was expiring, Anatole Kurágin made
his appearance in Moscow, and of course in the Karágins’ drawing
room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning her melancholy, became cheerful and
very attentive to Kurágin.
“My dear,” said Anna Mikháylovna to her son, “I know from a
reliable source that Prince Vasíli has sent his son to Moscow to get
him married to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for
her. What do you think of it, my dear?”
The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole
month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all
the revenue from the Pénza estates which he had already mentally
apportioned and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and
especially into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Borís. He drove
to the Karágins’ with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met
him in a gay, careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed
yesterday’s ball, and asked when he was leaving. Though Borís had
come intentionally to speak of his love and therefore meant to be
tender, he began speaking irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how
easily women can turn from sadness to joy, and how their moods depend
solely on who happens to be paying court to them. Julie was offended and
replied that it was true that a woman needs variety, and the same thing
over and over again would weary anyone.
“Then I should advise you...” Borís began, wishing to sting her;
but at that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might
have to leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have
vainly wasted his efforts—which was a thing he never allowed to
happen.
He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to
avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:
“I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary...”
He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had
suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on
him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange so as not to see
her often,” thought Borís. “The affair has been begun and must be
finished!” He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:
“You know my feelings for you!”
There was no need to say more: Julie’s face shone with triumph and
self-satisfaction; but she forced Borís to say all that is said on such
occasions—that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more
than her. She knew that for the Pénza estates and Nizhegórod forests
she could demand this, and she received what she demanded.
The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and
melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in
Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.
CHAPTER VI
At the end of January old Count Rostóv went to Moscow with Natásha and
Sónya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was
impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in
Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near
Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his
future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkónski while he was in Moscow
could not be missed. The Rostóvs’ Moscow house had not been heated
that winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess
was not with them, the count decided to stay with Márya Dmítrievna
Akhrosímova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.
Late one evening the Rostóvs’ four sleighs drove into Márya
Dmítrievna’s courtyard in the old Konyúsheny street. Márya
Dmítrievna lived alone. She had already married off her daughter, and
her sons were all in the service.
She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,
loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach
to others for any weakness, passion, or temptation—the possibility of
which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing
jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out:
on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on
affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after
dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there
were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal
at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played
a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read
to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to
pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.
She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostóvs arrived and the pulley of
the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostóvs and their
servants. Márya Dmítrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her
nose and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with
a stern, grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was
angry with the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she
not at the same time been giving careful instructions to the servants
for the accommodation of the visitors and their belongings.
“The count’s things? Bring them here,” she said, pointing to the
portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. “The young ladies’? There
to the left. Now what are you dawdling for?” she cried to the maids.
“Get the samovar ready!... You’ve grown plumper and prettier,” she
remarked, drawing Natásha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold)
to her by the hood. “Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things,
quick!” she shouted to the count who was going to kiss her hand.
“You’re half frozen, I’m sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour,
Sónya dear!” she added, turning to Sónya and indicating by this
French greeting her slightly contemptuous though affectionate attitude
toward her.
When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and
tidied themselves up after their journey, Márya Dmítrievna kissed them
all in due order.
“I’m heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was
high time,” she said, giving Natásha a significant look. “The old
man is here and his son’s expected any day. You’ll have to make his
acquaintance. But we’ll speak of that later on,” she added, glancing
at Sónya with a look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her
presence. “Now listen,” she said to the count. “What do you want
tomorrow? Whom will you send for? Shinshín?” she crooked one of her
fingers. “The sniveling Anna Mikháylovna? That’s two. She’s here
with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezúkhov, eh? He is here
too, with his wife. He ran away from her and she came galloping after
him. He dined with me on Wednesday. As for them”—and she pointed to
the girls—“tomorrow I’ll take them first to the Iberian shrine
of the Mother of God, and then we’ll drive to the Super-Rogue’s.
I suppose you’ll have everything new. Don’t judge by me: sleeves
nowadays are this size! The other day young Princess Irína Vasílevna
came to see me; she was an awful sight—looked as if she had put two
barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now without some new
fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?” she asked the count
sternly.
“One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a
purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you
will be so kind, I’ll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a
day, and leave my lassies with you.”
“All right. All right. They’ll be safe with me, as safe as in
Chancery! I’ll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and
pet them a bit,” said Márya Dmítrievna, touching her goddaughter and
favorite, Natásha, on the cheek with her large hand.
Next morning Márya Dmítrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian
shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so
afraid of Márya Dmítrievna that she always let her have costumes at
a loss merely to get rid of her. Márya Dmítrievna ordered almost the
whole trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room
except Natásha, and then called her pet to her armchair.
“Well, now we’ll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed.
You’ve hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I’ve known
him since he was so high.” She held her hand a couple of feet from the
ground. Natásha blushed happily. “I like him and all his family.
Now listen! You know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son’s
marrying. The old fellow’s crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not
a child and can shift without him, but it’s not nice to enter a family
against a father’s will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly.
You’re a clever girl and you’ll know how to manage. Be kind, and use
your wits. Then all will be well.”
Natásha remained silent, from shyness Márya Dmítrievna supposed, but
really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love
of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs
that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he
loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She
wanted nothing more.
“You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your
future sister-in-law. ‘Husbands’ sisters bring up blisters,’
but this one wouldn’t hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two
together. Tomorrow you’ll go with your father to see her. Be very
nice and affectionate to her: you’re younger than she. When he comes,
he’ll find you already know his sister and father and are liked by
them. Am I right or not? Won’t that be best?”
“Yes, it will,” Natásha answered reluctantly.
CHAPTER VII
Next day, by Márya Dmítrievna’s advice, Count Rostóv took Natásha
to call on Prince Nicholas Bolkónski. The count did not set out
cheerfully on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered
the last interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the
enrollment, when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to
listen to an angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of
men. Natásha, on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in
the highest spirits. “They can’t help liking me,” she thought.
“Everybody always has liked me, and I am so willing to do anything
they wish, so ready to be fond of him—for being his father—and of
her—for being his sister—that there is no reason for them not to
like me....”
They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvízhenka and entered
the vestibule.
“Well, the Lord have mercy on us!” said the count, half in jest,
half in earnest; but Natásha noticed that her father was flurried on
entering the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince
and princess were at home.
When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the
servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by
another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a
maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning
the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced
to the Rostóvs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess
begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors
was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter
with special politeness and showed them to the princess’ room. The
princess, looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran
in to meet the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear
cordial and at ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like
Natásha. She thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and
vain. She did not at all realize that before having seen her future
sister-in-law she was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her
beauty, youth, and happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother’s
love for her. Apart from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess
Mary was agitated just then because on the Rostóvs’ being announced,
the old prince had shouted that he did not wish to see them, that
Princess Mary might do so if she chose, but they were not to be admitted
to him. She had decided to receive them, but feared lest the prince
might at any moment indulge in some freak, as he seemed much upset by
the Rostóvs’ visit.
“There, my dear princess, I’ve brought you my songstress,” said
the count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince
might appear. “I am so glad you should get to know one another... very
sorry the prince is still ailing,” and after a few more commonplace
remarks he rose. “If you’ll allow me to leave my Natásha in your
hands for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I’ll drive round to see Anna
Semënovna, it’s quite near in the Dogs’ Square, and then I’ll
come back for her.”
The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his
daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk
to one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of
encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention
this to his daughter, but Natásha noticed her father’s nervousness
and anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still
angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and
defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The
princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him
to stay longer at Anna Semënovna’s, and he departed.
Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary—who wished
to have a tête-à-tête with Natásha—Mademoiselle Bourienne
remained in the room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and
theaters. Natásha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in
the anteroom, by her father’s nervousness, and by the unnatural manner
of the princess who—she thought—was making a favor of receiving her,
and so everything displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom
she thought very plain, affected, and dry. Natásha suddenly shrank
into herself and involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated
Princess Mary still more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained
conversation, they heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly
approaching. Princess Mary looked frightened.
The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white
nightcap, came in.
“Ah, madam!” he began. “Madam, Countess... Countess Rostóva, if
I am not mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not
know, madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with
a visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you
to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn’t know—” he repeated,
stressing the word “God” so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that
Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her
father or at Natásha.
Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.
Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.
“I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not
know,” muttered the old man, and after looking Natásha over from head
to foot he went out.
Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this
apparition and began speaking about the prince’s indisposition.
Natásha and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the
longer they did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater
grew their antipathy to one another.
When the count returned, Natásha was impolitely pleased and hastened
to get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who
could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an
hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. “I couldn’t
begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,” thought
Natásha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She
knew what she ought to have said to Natásha, but she had been unable
to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because,
without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the
marriage. When the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary
went up hurriedly to Natásha, took her by the hand, and said with a
deep sigh:
“Wait, I must...”
Natásha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.
“Dear Natalie,” said Princess Mary, “I want you to know that I am
glad my brother has found happiness....”
She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natásha noticed
this and guessed its reason.
“I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,”
she said with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears
choking her.
“What have I said and what have I done?” thought she, as soon as she
was out of the room.
They waited a long time for Natásha to come to dinner that day. She sat
in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sónya
stood beside her, kissing her hair.
“Natásha, what is it about?” she asked. “What do they matter to
you? It will all pass, Natásha.”
“But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...”
“Don’t talk about it, Natásha. It wasn’t your fault so why should
you mind? Kiss me,” said Sónya.
Natásha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed
her wet face against her.
“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said
Natásha—“It’s my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why
doesn’t he come?...”
She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how
the prince had received the Rostóvs, pretended not to notice how upset
Natásha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count
and the other guests.
CHAPTER VIII
That evening the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya
Dmítrievna had taken a box.
Natásha did not want to go, but could not refuse Márya Dmítrievna’s
kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready
dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large
mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more
sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
“O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but
differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply
embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching
inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I
would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I see those
eyes!” thought Natásha. “And what do his father and sister matter
to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with
his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of
him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present.
I can’t bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!” and she
turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. “And how
can Sónya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so
patiently?” thought she, looking at Sónya, who also came in quite
ready, with a fan in her hand. “No, she’s altogether different. I
can’t!”
Natásha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not
enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at
once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of
love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her
father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on
the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot
where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of
carriages, the Rostóvs’ carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels
squeaking over the snow. Natásha and Sónya, holding up their dresses,
jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,
passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,
they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.
Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
“Natásha, your hair!...” whispered Sónya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and
opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the
door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and
shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before
their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy
at Natásha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being
played. Natásha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sónya and sat down,
scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not
experienced for a long time—that of hundreds of eyes looking at
her bare arms and neck—suddenly affected her both agreeably and
disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and
emotions associated with that feeling.
The two remarkably pretty girls, Natásha and Sónya, with Count Rostóv
who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general
attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natásha’s engagement
to Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostóvs had lived in the country
ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancée who was making
one of the best matches in Russia.
Natásha’s looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country,
and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty.
She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty,
combined with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes
looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare
to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently
unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,
crumpling her program. “Look, there’s Alénina,” said Sónya,
“with her mother, isn’t it?”
“Dear me, Michael Kirílovich has grown still stouter!” remarked the
count.
“Look at our Anna Mikháylovna—what a headdress she has on!”
“The Karágins, Julie—and Borís with them. One can see at once that
they’re engaged....”
“Drubetskóy has proposed?”
“Oh yes, I heard it today,” said Shinshín, coming into the
Rostóvs’ box.
Natásha looked in the direction in which her father’s eyes were
turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her
face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck—which Natásha
knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning
over with an ear to Julie’s mouth, was Borís’ handsome smoothly
brushed head. He looked at the Rostóvs from under his brows and said
something, smiling, to his betrothed.
“They are talking about us, about me and him!” thought Natásha.
“And he no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn’t trouble
themselves! If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of
them.”
Behind them sat Anna Mikháylovna wearing a green headdress and with a
happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was
pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natásha knew
so well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all
that had been so humiliating in her morning’s visit.
“What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh,
better not think of it—not till he comes back!” she told herself,
and began looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in
the stalls. In the front, in the very center, leaning back against
the orchestra rail, stood Dólokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair
brushed up into a huge shock. He stood in full view of the audience,
well aware that he was attracting everyone’s attention, yet as much at
ease as though he were in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow’s
most brilliant young men, whom he evidently dominated.
The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sónya and pointed to her
former adorer.
“Do you recognize him?” said he. “And where has he sprung from?”
he asked, turning to Shinshín. “Didn’t he vanish somewhere?”
“He did,” replied Shinshín. “He was in the Caucasus and ran
away from there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling
prince in Persia, where he killed the Shah’s brother. Now all the
Moscow ladies are mad about him! It’s ‘Dólokhov the Persian’ that
does it! We never hear a word but Dólokhov is mentioned. They swear
by him, they offer him to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet.
Dólokhov and Anatole Kurágin have turned all our ladies’ heads.”
A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed
plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of
large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress
and took a long time settling into her place.
Natásha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls
and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.
While Natásha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady
looked round and, meeting the count’s eyes, nodded to him and smiled.
She was the Countess Bezúkhova, Pierre’s wife, and the count, who
knew everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.
“Have you been here long, Countess?” he inquired. “I’ll call,
I’ll call to kiss your hand. I’m here on business and have brought
my girls with me. They say Semënova acts marvelously. Count Pierre
never used to forget us. Is he here?”
“Yes, he meant to look in,” answered Hélène, and glanced
attentively at Natásha.
Count Rostóv resumed his seat.
“Handsome, isn’t she?” he whispered to Natásha.
“Wonderful!” answered Natásha. “She’s a woman one could easily
fall in love with.”
Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor
tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls,
and the curtain rose.
As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and
all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the
women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with
eager curiosity to the stage. Natásha too began to look at it.
CHAPTER IX
The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was
some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth
stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red
bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat
apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard
was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song
the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box and a man with tight
silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,
went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.
First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they
both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand
of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with
her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping
and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who represented
lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.
After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this
seemed grotesque and amazing to Natásha. She could not follow the opera
nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the
queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in
that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but
it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed
for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the
audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she
herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening
on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natásha seemed feigned.
“I suppose it has to be like this!” she thought. She kept looking
round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at
the seminude women in the boxes, especially at Hélène in the next box,
who—apparently quite unclothed—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not
taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded
the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha little
by little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not
experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she
was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the
strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her
mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and
singing the aria the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with
her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to
Hélène and tickle her.
At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door
leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostóvs’ box creaked,
and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. “There’s Kurágin!”
whispered Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned smiling to the newcomer,
and Natásha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally
handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet
courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurágin whom she had seen
and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an
adjutant’s uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with
a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been
so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an expression
of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was
proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword
and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high.
Having looked at Natásha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved
hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a
question, with a motion toward Natásha.
“Mais charmante!” said he, evidently referring to Natásha, who did
not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his
lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down
beside Dólokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way
that Dólokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,
smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.
“How like the brother is to the sister,” remarked the count. “And
how handsome they both are!”
Shinshín, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue
of Kurágin’s in Moscow, and Natásha tried to overhear it just
because he had said she was “charmante.”
The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going
out and coming in.
Borís came to the Rostóvs’ box, received their congratulations very
simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to
Natásha and Sónya his fiancée’s invitation to her wedding, and
went away. Natásha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and
congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Borís with whom
she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,
everything seemed simple and natural.
The scantily clad Hélène smiled at everyone in the same way, and
Natásha gave Borís a similar smile.
Hélène’s box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most
distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another
in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.
During the whole of that entr’acte Kurágin stood with Dólokhov
in front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostóvs’ box.
Natásha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure.
She even turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought
was its most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act
Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostóvs had not seen him since
their arrival. His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since
Natásha last saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing
anyone. Anatole went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and
indicating the Rostóvs’ box. On seeing Natásha Pierre grew animated
and, hastily passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he
got there he leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long
time. While conversing with Pierre, Natásha heard a man’s voice in
Countess Bezúkhova’s box and something told her it was Kurágin. She
turned and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her
eyes with such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be
so near him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and
not to be acquainted with him.
In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a
round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over
the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many
people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding
things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then
some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been
in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,
but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and
behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and
everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly
interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.
During this act every time Natásha looked toward the stalls she saw
Anatole Kurágin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair,
staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and
it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.
When the second act was over Countess Bezúkhova rose, turned to the
Rostóvs’ box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned the old
count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had
entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.
“Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,” said she.
“The whole town is singing their praises and I don’t even know
them!”
Natásha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased
by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.
“I want to become a Moscovite too, now,” said Hélène. “How is it
you’re not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?”
Countess Bezúkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating
woman. She could say what she did not think—especially what was
flattering—quite simply and naturally.
“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am
not staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse
them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get
to know you,” said she to Natásha with her stereotyped and lovely
smile. “I had heard about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Have you
heard he is getting married? And also from my husband’s friend
Bolkónski, Prince Andrew Bolkónski,” she went on with special
emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natásha. To get
better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come
into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natásha moved over to
it.
The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles
were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the
walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The
king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly
and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white
and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the
throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the
queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare
legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the
violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick
bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the
wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and
began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the
stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!” Then one of the men
went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra
struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and
waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty
thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,
and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the
man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men
and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the
sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm
came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the
orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,
and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and
clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began
shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natásha no longer thought this
strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.
“Isn’t Duport delightful?” Hélène asked her.
“Oh, yes,” replied Natásha.
CHAPTER X
During the entr’acte a whiff of cold air came into Hélène’s box,
the door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush
against anyone.
“Let me introduce my brother to you,” said Hélène, her eyes
shifting uneasily from Natásha to Anatole.
Natásha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer
and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome
at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he
had long wished to have this happiness—ever since the Narýshkins’
ball in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing
her. Kurágin was much more sensible and simple with women than among
men. He talked boldly and naturally, and Natásha was strangely and
agreeably struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this
man about whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his
smile was most naïve, cheerful, and good-natured.
Kurágin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a
previous performance Semënova had fallen down on the stage.
“And do you know, Countess,” he said, suddenly addressing her as an
old, familiar acquaintance, “we are getting up a costume tournament;
you ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at
the Karágins’! Please come! No! Really, eh?” said he.
While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face,
her neck, and her bare arms. Natásha knew for certain that he was
enraptured by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel
constrained and oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that
he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye
so that he should look into hers rather than this. But looking into his
eyes she was frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of
modesty she had always felt between herself and other men. She did not
know how it was that within five minutes she had come to feel herself
terribly near to this man. When she turned away she feared he might
seize her from behind by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They
spoke of most ordinary things, yet she felt that they were closer to
one another than she had ever been to any man. Natásha kept turning to
Hélène and to her father, as if asking what it all meant, but Hélène
was engaged in conversation with a general and did not answer her
look, and her father’s eyes said nothing but what they always said:
“Having a good time? Well, I’m glad of it!”
During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole’s
prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natásha, to break
the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and
blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing
something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.
“At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant
ce sont les jolies femmes, * isn’t that so? But now I like it very
much indeed,” he said, looking at her significantly. “You’ll come
to the costume tournament, Countess? Do come!” and putting out his
hand to her bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, “You will be the
prettiest there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a
pledge!”
* Are the pretty women.
Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did
himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper
intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had
not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that
he was there, behind, so close behind her.
“How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?” she
asked herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked
straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the
good-natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just
as he was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with
horror that no barrier lay between him and her.
The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natásha
went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the
world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed
quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her
betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once
recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.
In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm
about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared
down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natásha saw.
She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kurágin whom
she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole
came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was
putting Natásha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and
flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes,
smiling tenderly.
Only after she had reached home was Natásha able clearly to think over
what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she
was horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she
gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.
“O God! I am lost!” she said to herself. “How could I let him?”
She sat for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to
realize what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand
what had happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure,
and terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the
bare-legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the
music on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly
naked Hélène with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried
“bravo!”—there in the presence of that Hélène it had all seemed
clear and simple; but now, alone by herself, it was incomprehensible.
“What is it? What was that terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing
of conscience I am feeling now?” she thought.
Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natásha have told all
she was feeling. She knew that Sónya with her severe and simple views
would either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such
a confession. So Natásha tried to solve what was torturing her by
herself.
“Am I spoiled for Andrew’s love or not?” she asked herself, and
with soothing irony replied: “What a fool I am to ask that! What did
happen to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn’t lead him on
at all. Nobody will know and I shall never see him again,” she told
herself. “So it is plain that nothing has happened and there is
nothing to repent of, and Andrew can love me still. But why ‘still?’
O God, why isn’t he here?” Natásha quieted herself for a moment,
but again some instinct told her that though all this was true, and
though nothing had happened, yet the former purity of her love for
Prince Andrew had perished. And again in imagination she went over her
whole conversation with Kurágin, and again saw the face, gestures, and
tender smile of that bold handsome man when he pressed her arm.
CHAPTER XI
Anatole Kurágin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him
away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles
a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his
creditors demanded from his father.
His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the
last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to
the commander in chief—a post his father had procured for him—and
would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him
Princess Mary and Julie Karágina.
Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre’s
house. Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him
after a while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave
him money under the guise of loans.
As Shinshín had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had
turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that
he slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French
actresses—with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to
be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danílov’s
or other Moscow revelers’, drank whole nights through, outvying
everyone else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society.
There was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted
with a few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried
girls, especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain.
There was a special reason for this, as he had got married two years
before—a fact known only to his most intimate friends. At that time
while with his regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had
forced him to marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his
wife and, for a payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law,
had arranged to be free to pass himself off as a bachelor.
Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with
others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was
impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had
never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering
how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or
that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made
that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend
thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in
society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were
persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place
in society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and
evidently would not repay.
He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was
not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could
he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by
spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He
was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared
about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there
was nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of
considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others,
he honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues
and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.
Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence
similar to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of
forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all
will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.”
Dólokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and
his Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and
dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kurágin and
made use of him for his own ends.
Anatole was sincerely fond of Dólokhov for his cleverness and
audacity. Dólokhov, who needed Anatole Kurágin’s name, position, and
connections as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made
use of him and amused himself at his expense without letting the other
feel it. Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very
process of dominating another’s will was in itself a pleasure, a
habit, and a necessity to Dólokhov.
Natásha had made a strong impression on Kurágin. At supper after
the opera he described to Dólokhov with the air of a connoisseur the
attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his
intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable
of considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any
notion of the outcome of any of his actions.
“She’s first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us,” replied
Dólokhov.
“I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner,” said Anatole.
“Eh?”
“You’d better wait till she’s married....”
“You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once,”
pursued Anatole.
“You have been caught once already by a ‘little girl,’” said
Dólokhov who knew of Kurágin’s marriage. “Take care!”
“Well, that can’t happen twice! Eh?” said Anatole, with a
good-humored laugh.
CHAPTER XII
The day after the opera the Rostóvs went nowhere and nobody came to see
them. Márya Dmítrievna talked to the count about something which they
concealed from Natásha. Natásha guessed they were talking about the
old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her.
She was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a
manservant to the Vozdvízhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had
not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow.
To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant
recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince,
and a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She
continually fancied that either he would never come or that something
would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by
herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she
began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess
Mary, of the theater, and of Kurágin mingled with her thoughts. The
question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she
had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found
herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and
every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had
been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying
feeling. To the family Natásha seemed livelier than usual, but she was
far less tranquil and happy than before.
On Sunday morning Márya Dmítrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her
parish church—the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of
victims of the plague.
“I don’t like those fashionable churches,” she said, evidently
priding herself on her independence of thought. “God is the same
everywhere. We have an excellent priest, he conducts the service
decently and with dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is
there in giving concerts in the choir? I don’t like it, it’s just
self-indulgence!”
Márya Dmítrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole
house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the
servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At
her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka
and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the
holiday so noticeable as in Márya Dmítrievna’s broad, stern face,
which on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.
After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room
where the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant
announced that the carriage was ready, and Márya Dmítrievna rose with
a stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and
announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to have
an explanation with him about Natásha.
After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on
the Rostóvs, and Natásha, very glad of this diversion, having shut
herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying
on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and
only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how
the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds
of her father’s voice and another’s—a woman’s—that made her
flush. It was Hélène. Natásha had not time to take off the bodice
before the door opened and Countess Bezúkhova, dressed in a purple
velvet gown with a high collar, came into the room beaming with
good-humored amiable smiles.
“Oh, my enchantress!” she cried to the blushing Natásha.
“Charming! No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count,” said
she to Count Rostóv who had followed her in. “How can you live in
Moscow and go nowhere? No, I won’t let you off! Mademoiselle George
will recite at my house tonight and there’ll be some people, and if
you don’t bring your lovely girls—who are prettier than Mademoiselle
George—I won’t know you! My husband is away in Tver or I would send
him to fetch you. You must come. You positively must! Between eight and
nine.”
She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied
respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the
looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She
did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising
Natásha’s beauty. She looked at Natásha’s dresses and praised
them, as well as a new dress of her own made of “metallic gauze,”
which she had received from Paris, and advised Natásha to have one like
it.
“But anything suits you, my charmer!” she remarked.
A smile of pleasure never left Natásha’s face. She felt happy and as
if she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezúkhova
who had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was
now so kind to her. Natásha brightened up and felt almost in love with
this woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Hélène for her part was
sincerely delighted with Natásha and wished to give her a good time.
Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natásha together, and she was
calling on the Rostóvs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her
brother and Natásha together amused her.
Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natásha
for drawing Borís away, she did not think of that now, and in her own
way heartily wished Natásha well. As she was leaving the Rostóvs she
called her protégée aside.
“My brother dined with me yesterday—we nearly died of laughter—he
ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite
madly, in love with you, my dear.”
Natásha blushed scarlet when she heard this.
“How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!” said Hélène. “You
must certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a
reason to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your
fiancé would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to
death.”
“So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre—that good
Pierre—have talked and laughed about this. So it’s all right.” And
again, under Hélène’s influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed
simple and natural. “And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and
evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?” thought
Natásha, gazing at Hélène with wide-open, wondering eyes.
Márya Dmítrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having
evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince’s. She was still too
agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In
answer to the count’s inquiries she replied that things were all
right and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess
Bezúkhova’s visit and the invitation for that evening, Márya
Dmítrievna remarked:
“I don’t care to have anything to do with Bezúkhova and don’t
advise you to; however, if you’ve promised—go. It will divert your
thoughts,” she added, addressing Natásha.
CHAPTER XIII
Count Rostóv took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova’s. There were
a good many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natásha. Count
Rostóv was displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely
of men and women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle
George was standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young
men. There were several Frenchmen present, among them Métivier who from
the time Hélène reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The
count decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight
and to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George’s performance was over.
Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostóvs.
Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natásha and followed
her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had
had at the opera—gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at
the absence of a moral barrier between them.
Hélène welcomed Natásha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her
beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went
out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began
arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for
Natásha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never
lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.
Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl
draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and
assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.
Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and
began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her
son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,
lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse
sounds, rolling her eyes.
“Adorable! divine! delicious!” was heard from every side.
Natásha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor
understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself
again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so
remote from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to know
what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole,
and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of
expectancy.
After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded
Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.
“How beautiful she is!” Natásha remarked to her father who had also
risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.
“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, following
Natásha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. “You
are enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased...”
“Come, come, Natásha!” said the count, as he turned back for his
daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natásha without saying anything
stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring
eyes.
After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess
Bezúkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.
The count wished to go home, but Hélène entreated him not to spoil her
improvised ball, and the Rostóvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natásha for
a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her
she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which
she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be
by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natásha lifted her frightened
eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate
look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she
had to say. She lowered her eyes.
“Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,”
she said rapidly.... She glanced at him.
Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.
“Don’t speak to me of that! What can I do?” said he. “I tell
you I am madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are
enchanting?... It’s our turn to begin.”
Natásha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open
frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly
anything that went on that evening. They danced the écossaise and the
Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.
Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes
upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let
her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Hélène had
followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother’s love, and that she
again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Hélène had disappeared
leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender
voice:
“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see
you? I love you madly. Can I never...?” and, blocking her path, he
brought his face close to hers.
His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw
nothing but them.
“Natalie?” he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being
painfully pressed. “Natalie?”
“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes replied.
Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt
herself released, and Hélène’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress
were heard in the room. Natásha looked round at her, and then, red
and trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved
toward the door.
“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole.
She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what
had happened and to which she could find no answer.
“Natalie, just a word, only one!” he kept repeating, evidently not
knowing what to say and he repeated it till Hélène came up to them.
Hélène returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs went
away without staying for supper.
After reaching home Natásha did not sleep all night. She was tormented
by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.
She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved
him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. “Else how
could all this have happened?” thought she. “If, after that, I could
return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to
that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is
kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to
do if I love him and the other one too?” she asked herself, unable to
find an answer to these terrible questions.
CHAPTER XIV
Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began
to move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Márya Dmítrievna
appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natásha kept looking
uneasily at everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept
every glance directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.
After breakfast, which was her best time, Márya Dmítrievna sat down in
her armchair and called Natásha and the count to her.
“Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is
my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince
Bolkónski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to
begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had
to say!”
“Well, and he?” asked the count.
“He? He’s crazy... he did not want to listen. But what’s the use
of talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out,” said Márya
Dmítrievna. “My advice to you is finish your business and go back
home to Otrádnoe... and wait there.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Natásha.
“Yes, go back,” said Márya Dmítrievna, “and wait there. If your
betrothed comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but
alone with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to
you.”
Count Rostóv approved of this suggestion, appreciating its
reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to
visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,
against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otrádnoe.
“That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took
her,” said the old count.
“No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he
won’t—that’s his affair,” said Márya Dmítrievna, looking for
something in her reticule. “Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there
is nothing to wait for; and what is not ready I’ll send after you.
Though I don’t like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with
God’s blessing!”
Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to
Natásha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.
“She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She’s
afraid you might think that she does not like you.”
“But she doesn’t like me,” said Natásha.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Márya Dmítrievna.
“I shan’t believe anyone, I know she doesn’t like me,” replied
Natásha boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold
and angry resolution that caused Márya Dmítrievna to look at her more
intently and to frown.
“Don’t answer like that, my good girl!” she said. “What I say is
true! Write an answer!”
Natásha did not reply and went to her own room to read Princess
Mary’s letter.
Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that
had occurred between them. Whatever her father’s feelings might be,
she begged Natásha to believe that she could not help loving her as
the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to
sacrifice everything.
“Do not think, however,” she wrote, “that my father is
ill-disposed toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be
forgiven; but he is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his
son happy.” Princess Mary went on to ask Natásha to fix a time when
she could see her again.
After reading the letter Natásha sat down at the writing table
to answer it. “Dear Princess,” she wrote in French quickly and
mechanically, and then paused. What more could she write after all that
had happened the evening before? “Yes, yes! All that has happened, and
now all is changed,” she thought as she sat with the letter she had
begun before her. “Must I break off with him? Must I really? That’s
awful...” and to escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to
Sónya and began sorting patterns with her.
After dinner Natásha went to her room and again took up Princess
Mary’s letter. “Can it be that it is all over?” she thought.
“Can it be that all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all
that went before?” She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its
former strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurágin. She
vividly pictured herself as Prince Andrew’s wife, and the scenes of
happiness with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and
at the same time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of
yesterday’s interview with Anatole.
“Why could that not be as well?” she sometimes asked herself in
complete bewilderment. “Only so could I be completely happy; but now I
have to choose, and I can’t be happy without either of them. Only,”
she thought, “to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide
it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is
spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew’s
love, in which I have lived so long?”
“Please, Miss!” whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious
air. “A man told me to give you this—” and she handed Natásha a
letter.
“Only, for Christ’s sake...” the girl went on, as Natásha,
without thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter
from Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only
that it was a letter from him—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved
him, or else how could that have happened which had happened? And how
could she have a love letter from him in her hand?
With trembling hands Natásha held that passionate love letter which
Dólokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it
an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.
“Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you
or to die. There is no other way for me,” the letter began. Then he
went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for
this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her—but that if
she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could
hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and
carry her off to the ends of the earth.
“Yes, yes! I love him!” thought Natásha, reading the letter for the
twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of
it.
That evening Márya Dmítrievna was going to the Akhárovs’ and
proposed to take the girls with her. Natásha, pleading a headache,
remained at home.
CHAPTER XV
On returning late in the evening Sónya went to Natásha’s room, and
to her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on
the table, beside her lay Anatole’s letter. Sónya picked it up and
read it.
As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natásha, trying to find in her
face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her
face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself
from choking, Sónya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat
down in an armchair and burst into tears.
“How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have
left off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kurágin go to
such lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that’s plain! What will
Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is
the meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before
yesterday, yesterday, and today,” thought Sónya. “But it can’t be
that she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who
it was from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a
thing!”
Sónya wiped away her tears and went up to Natásha, again scanning her
face.
“Natásha!” she said, just audibly.
Natásha awoke and saw Sónya.
“Ah, you’re back?”
And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of
awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sónya’s look of
embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.
“Sónya, you’ve read that letter?” she demanded.
“Yes,” answered Sónya softly.
Natásha smiled rapturously.
“No, Sónya, I can’t any longer!” she said. “I can’t hide it
from you any longer. You know, we love one another! Sónya, darling, he
writes... Sónya...”
Sónya stared open-eyed at Natásha, unable to believe her ears.
“And Bolkónski?” she asked.
“Ah, Sónya, if you only knew how happy I am!” cried Natásha.
“You don’t know what love is....”
“But, Natásha, can that be all over?”
Natásha looked at Sónya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp
the question.
“Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?” said Sónya.
“Oh, you don’t understand anything! Don’t talk nonsense, just
listen!” said Natásha, with momentary vexation.
“But I can’t believe it,” insisted Sónya. “I don’t
understand. How is it you have loved a man for a whole year and
suddenly... Why, you have only seen him three times! Natásha, I don’t
believe you, you’re joking! In three days to forget everything and
so...”
“Three days?” said Natásha. “It seems to me I’ve loved him a
hundred years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You
can’t understand it.... Sónya, wait a bit, sit here,” and Natásha
embraced and kissed her.
“I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it
too, but it’s only now that I feel such love. It’s not the same as
before. As soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave,
and that I could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders
I shall do. You don’t understand that. What can I do? What can I do,
Sónya?” cried Natásha with a happy yet frightened expression.
“But think what you are doing,” cried Sónya. “I can’t leave
it like this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so
far?” she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.
“I told you that I have no will,” Natásha replied. “Why can’t
you understand? I love him!”
“Then I won’t let it come to that... I shall tell!” cried Sónya,
bursting into tears.
“What do you mean? For God’s sake... If you tell, you are my
enemy!” declared Natásha. “You want me to be miserable, you want us
to be separated....”
When she saw Natásha’s fright, Sónya shed tears of shame and pity
for her friend.
“But what has happened between you?” she asked. “What has he said
to you? Why doesn’t he come to the house?”
Natásha did not answer her questions.
“For God’s sake, Sónya, don’t tell anyone, don’t torture
me,” Natásha entreated. “Remember no one ought to interfere in such
matters! I have confided in you....”
“But why this secrecy? Why doesn’t he come to the house?” asked
Sónya. “Why doesn’t he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince
Andrew gave you complete freedom—if it is really so; but I don’t
believe it! Natásha, have you considered what these secret reasons can
be?”
Natásha looked at Sónya with astonishment. Evidently this question
presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how
to answer it.
“I don’t know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!”
Sónya sighed and shook her head incredulously.
“If there were reasons...” she began.
But Natásha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.
“Sónya, one can’t doubt him! One can’t, one can’t! Don’t you
understand?” she cried.
“Does he love you?”
“Does he love me?” Natásha repeated with a smile of pity at her
friend’s lack of comprehension. “Why, you have read his letter and
you have seen him.”
“But if he is dishonorable?”
“He! dishonorable? If you only knew!” exclaimed Natásha.
“If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or
cease seeing you; and if you won’t do this, I will. I will write to
him, and I will tell Papa!” said Sónya resolutely.
“But I can’t live without him!” cried Natásha.
“Natásha, I don’t understand you. And what are you saying! Think of
your father and of Nicholas.”
“I don’t want anyone, I don’t love anyone but him. How dare you
say he is dishonorable? Don’t you know that I love him?” screamed
Natásha. “Go away, Sónya! I don’t want to quarrel with you, but
go, for God’s sake go! You see how I am suffering!” Natásha cried
angrily, in a voice of despair and repressed irritation. Sónya burst
into sobs and ran from the room.
Natásha went to the table and without a moment’s reflection wrote
that answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all
the morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their
misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the
magnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her
freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her
if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his
wife. At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to
Natásha.
On Friday the Rostóvs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday
the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow.
On the day the count left, Sónya and Natásha were invited to a big
dinner party at the Karágins’, and Márya Dmítrievna took them
there. At that party Natásha again met Anatole, and Sónya noticed
that she spoke to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through
dinner she was more agitated than ever. When they got home Natásha was
the first to begin the explanation Sónya expected.
“There, Sónya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,”
Natásha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be
praised. “We have had an explanation today.”
“Well, what happened? What did he say? Natásha, how glad I am
you’re not angry with me! Tell me everything—the whole truth. What
did he say?”
Natásha became thoughtful.
“Oh, Sónya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I
had promised Bolkónski. He was glad I was free to refuse him.”
Sónya sighed sorrowfully.
“But you haven’t refused Bolkónski?” said she.
“Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkónski. Why do
you think so badly of me?”
“I don’t think anything, only I don’t understand this...”
“Wait a bit, Sónya, you’ll understand everything. You’ll see what
a man he is! Now don’t think badly of me or of him. I don’t think
badly of anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?”
Sónya did not succumb to the tender tone Natásha used toward her.
The more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natásha’s face
became, the more serious and stern grew Sónya’s.
“Natásha,” said she, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I
haven’t spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don’t trust him,
Natásha. Why this secrecy?”
“Again, again!” interrupted Natásha.
“Natásha, I am afraid for you!”
“Afraid of what?”
“I am afraid you’re going to your ruin,” said Sónya resolutely,
and was herself horrified at what she had said.
Anger again showed in Natásha’s face.
“And I’ll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It’s not
your business! It won’t be you, but I, who’ll suffer. Leave me
alone, leave me alone! I hate you!”
“Natásha!” moaned Sónya, aghast.
“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!” And Natásha
ran out of the room.
Natásha did not speak to Sónya again and avoided her. With the same
expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house,
taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.
Hard as it was for Sónya, she watched her friend and did not let her
out of her sight.
The day before the count was to return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat
by the drawing room window all the morning as if expecting something and
that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya took to
be Anatole.
Sónya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that
at dinner and all that evening Natásha was in a strange and unnatural
state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not
finish, and laughed at everything.
After tea Sónya noticed a housemaid at Natásha’s door timidly
waiting to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at
the door learned that another letter had been delivered.
Then suddenly it became clear to Sónya that Natásha had some dreadful
plan for that evening. Sónya knocked at her door. Natásha did not let
her in.
“She will run away with him!” thought Sónya. “She is capable of
anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in
her face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle,” Sónya
remembered. “Yes, that’s it, she means to elope with him, but
what am I to do?” thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly
indicated that Natásha had some terrible intention. “The count is
away. What am I to do? Write to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But
what is there to oblige him to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew
asked me to in case of some misfortune?... But perhaps she really
has already refused Bolkónski—she sent a letter to Princess Mary
yesterday. And Uncle is away....” To tell Márya Dmítrievna who had
such faith in Natásha seemed to Sónya terrible. “Well, anyway,”
thought Sónya as she stood in the dark passage, “now or never I must
prove that I remember the family’s goodness to me and that I love
Nicholas. Yes! If I don’t sleep for three nights I’ll not leave this
passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the family
be disgraced,” thought she.
CHAPTER XVI
Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov’s. The plan for Natalie
Rostóva’s abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by
Dólokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening
at Natásha’s door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been
put into execution. Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the
back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka
he would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of
Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a
marriage ceremony over them. At Kámenka a relay of horses was to wait
which would take them to the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would
hasten abroad with post horses.
Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles
he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with
Dólokhov’s help.
Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvóstikov, a retired petty
official whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and
Makárin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded
affection for Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front
room.
In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with
Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dólokhov in a traveling cloak
and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles
of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from
the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room
behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his
things. Dólokhov was counting the money and noting something down.
“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.”
“Give it to him, then,” said Anatole.
“Makárka” (their name for Makárin) “will go through fire and
water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,” said
Dólokhov, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?”
“Yes, of course,” returned Anatole, evidently not listening to
Dólokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not
leave his face.
Dólokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an
ironic smile:
“Do you know? You’d really better drop it all. There’s still
time!”
“Fool,” retorted Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only
knew... it’s the devil knows what!”
“No, really, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I am speaking
seriously. It’s no joke, this plot you’ve hatched.”
“What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?” said Anatole, making a
grimace. “Really it’s no time for your stupid jokes,” and he left
the room.
Dólokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had
gone out.
“You wait a bit,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I’m
talking sense. Come here, come here!”
Anatole returned and looked at Dólokhov, trying to give him his
attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.
“Now listen to me. I’m telling you this for the last time. Why
should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for
you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I
did it all.”
“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?” And
Anatole sighed and embraced Dólokhov.
“I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a
dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well,
you’ll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It
will come out that you’re already married. Why, they’ll have you in
the criminal court....”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” Anatole ejaculated and again made a
grimace. “Didn’t I explain to you? What?” And Anatole, with the
partiality dull-witted people have for any conclusion they have reached
by their own reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to
Dólokhov a hundred times. “Didn’t I explain to you that I have come
to this conclusion: if this marriage is invalid,” he went on, crooking
one finger, “then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no
matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn’t that so? And
don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t.”
“Seriously, you’d better drop it! You’ll only get yourself into a
mess!”
“Go to the devil!” cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the
room, but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of
Dólokhov with his feet turned under him. “It’s the very devil!
What? Feel how it beats!” He took Dólokhov’s hand and put it on his
heart. “What a foot, my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!” he
added in French. “What?”
Dólokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes
looked at him—evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.
“Well and when the money’s gone, what then?”
“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought
of the future. “What then?... Then, I don’t know.... But why talk
nonsense!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time!”
Anatole went into the back room.
“Now then! Nearly ready? You’re dawdling!” he shouted to the
servants.
Dólokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring
something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into
the room where Khvóstikov and Makárin were sitting.
Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling
pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.
“Come and eat something. Have a drink!” Dólokhov shouted to him
from the other room.
“I don’t want to,” answered Anatole continuing to smile.
“Come! Balagá is here.”
Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balagá was a famous troyka
driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole some six years and had given
them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole’s
regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the
evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again
the next night. More than once he had enabled Dólokhov to escape when
pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies
and “ladykins” as he called the cocottes. More than once in their
service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets
of Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by “my
gentlemen” as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in
their service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once
they had made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and
he knew more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have
sent an ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balagá into their
orgies and made him drink and dance at the gypsies’, and more than one
thousand rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their
service he risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in
their service had lost more horses than the money he had from them would
buy. But he liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour,
liked upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at
full gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild,
tipsy shouts behind him: “Get on! Get on!” when it was impossible
to go any faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some
peasant who, more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way.
“Real gentlemen!” he considered them.
Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balagá too for his masterly driving and
because he liked the things they liked. With others Balagá bargained,
charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours’ drive, and rarely
drove himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with “his
gentlemen” he always drove himself and never demanded anything for
his work. Only a couple of times a year—when he knew from their valets
that they had money in hand—he would turn up of a morning quite sober
and with a deep bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always
made him sit down.
“Do help me out, Theodore Iványch, sir,” or “your excellency,”
he would say. “I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to
go to the fair.”
And Anatole and Dólokhov, when they had money, would give him a
thousand or a couple of thousand rubles.
Balagá was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about
twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering
little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined
cloth coat over a sheepskin.
On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front
corner of the room, and went up to Dólokhov, holding out a small, black
hand.
“Theodore Iványch!” he said, bowing.
“How d’you do, friend? Well, here he is!”
“Good day, your excellency!” he said, again holding out his hand to
Anatole who had just come in.
“I say, Balagá,” said Anatole, putting his hands on the man’s
shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service....
What horses have you come with? Eh?”
“As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,” replied Balagá.
“Well, listen, Balagá! Drive all three to death but get me there in
three hours. Eh?”
“When they are dead, what shall I drive?” said Balagá with a wink.
“Mind, I’ll smash your face in! Don’t make jokes!” cried
Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.
“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d grudge my
gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast
we’ll go!”
“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”
“Yes, sit down!” said Dólokhov.
“I’ll stand, Theodore Iványch.”
“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large
glass of Madeira for him.
The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing
it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk
handkerchief he took out of his cap.
“And when are we to start, your excellency?”
“Well...” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once.
Mind, Balagá! You’ll get there in time? Eh?”
“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be
there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in
seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”
“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole,
smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makárin who gazed
rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it,
Makárka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across
a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?”
“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the tale. “That time I’d
harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went
on, turning to Dólokhov. “Will you believe it, Theodore Iványch,
those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew
numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—‘Catch hold
yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom
of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on,
there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took
us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.”
CHAPTER XVII
Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing
a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one
side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,
and standing before Dólokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,
he lifted a glass of wine.
“Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!” said
Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends...” he considered for a moment “...
of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makárin and the others.
Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make
something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He
spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed
one leg.
“All take glasses; you too, Balagá. Well, comrades and friends of my
youth, we’ve had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when
shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—now
farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!...” he cried, and emptying his
glass flung it on the floor.
“To your health!” said Balagá who also emptied his glass, and wiped his
mouth with his handkerchief.
Makárin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!
“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole.
Balagá was about to leave the room.
“No, stop!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have first to sit down.
That’s the way.”
They shut the door and all sat down.
“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, rising.
Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all
went out into the vestibule.
“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dólokhov. “Hey, Ignátka! Go to
Matrëna Matrévna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what
elopements are like,” continued Dólokhov with a wink. “Why, she’ll rush
out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay
at all there’ll be tears and ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’s frozen in a
minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing
and carry her to the sleigh.”
The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak.
“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrëna, the sable!” he shouted so
that his voice rang far through the rooms.
A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes
and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable
mantle on her arm.
“Here, I don’t grudge it—take it!” she said, evidently afraid of her
master and yet regretful of her cloak.
Dólokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrëna, and
wrapped her up in it.
“That’s the way,” said Dólokhov, “and then so!” and he turned the collar
up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. “And
then so, do you see?” and he pushed Anatole’s head forward to meet the
gap left by the collar, through which Matrëna’s brilliant smile was
seen.
“Well, good-by, Matrëna,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my revels here
are over. Remember me to Stëshka. There, good-by! Good-by, Matrëna, wish
me luck!”
“Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!” said Matrëna in her gypsy
accent.
Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were
holding the horses. Balagá took his seat in the front one and holding
his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dólokhov
got in with him. Makárin, Khvóstikov, and a valet seated themselves in
the other sleigh.
“Well, are you ready?” asked Balagá.
“Go!” he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore
down the Nikítski Boulevard.
“Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!...” The shouting of Balagá
and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could
be heard. On the Arbát Square the troyka caught against a carriage;
something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the
Arbát Street.
After taking a turn along the Podnovínski Boulevard, Balagá began to
rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyúsheny
Street.
The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole
and Dólokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate
Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.
“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out directly,”
said she.
Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the
courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.
He was met by Gabriel, Márya Dmítrievna’s gigantic footman.
“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass,
intercepting any retreat.
“To what Mistress? Who are you?” asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.
“Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.”
“Kurágin! Come back!” shouted Dólokhov. “Betrayed! Back!”
Dólokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was
struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last
desperate effort Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran
back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back
with him to the troyka.
CHAPTER XVIII
Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya weeping in the corridor, made her
confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natásha she read it and
went into Natásha’s room with it in her hand.
“You shameless good-for-nothing!” said she. “I won’t hear a word.”
Pushing back Natásha who looked at her with astonished but tearless
eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to
admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them
out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she
seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.
When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run
away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced
through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward
midnight she went to Natásha’s room fingering the key in her pocket.
Sónya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. “Márya Dmítrievna, for God’s
sake let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked
the door and went in without giving her an answer.... “Disgusting,
abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I’m only sorry for her
father!” thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. “Hard as it may
be, I’ll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the
count.” She entered the room with resolute steps. Natásha lying on the
sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in
just the same position in which Márya Dmítrievna had left her.
“A nice girl! Very nice!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “Arranging meetings
with lovers in my house! It’s no use pretending: you listen when I speak
to you!” And Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. “Listen when I speak!
You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I’d treat you
differently, but I’m sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.”
Natásha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with
noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Márya Dmítrievna glanced
round at Sónya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natásha.
“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll find him!” she said in
her rough voice. “Do you hear what I am saying or not?” she added.
She put her large hand under Natásha’s face and turned it toward her.
Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were amazed when they saw how Natásha
looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her
cheeks sunken.
“Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!” she muttered,
wrenching herself from Márya Dmítrievna’s hands with a vicious effort
and sinking down again into her former position.
“Natalie!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “I wish for your good. Lie still,
stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how
guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back
tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?”
Again Natásha’s body shook with sobs.
“Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?”
“I have no betrothed: I have refused him!” cried Natásha.
“That’s all the same,” continued Márya Dmítrievna. “If they hear of
this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he
challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?”
“Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked
you to?” shouted Natásha, raising herself on the sofa and looking
malignantly at Márya Dmítrievna.
“But what did you want?” cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again.
“Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?
Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he
had carried you off... do you think they wouldn’t have found him?
Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he’s a scoundrel, a
wretch—that’s a fact!”
“He is better than any of you!” exclaimed Natásha getting up. “If you
hadn’t interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sónya,
why?... Go away!”
And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people
bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Márya
Dmítrievna was to speak again but Natásha cried out:
“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself
back on the sofa.
Márya Dmítrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her
that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody
would know anything about it if only Natásha herself would undertake
to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.
Natásha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold
and had a shivering fit. Márya Dmítrievna put a pillow under her head,
covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower
water, but Natásha did not respond to her.
“Well, let her sleep,” said Márya Dmítrievna as she went out of the room
supposing Natásha to be asleep.
But Natásha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she
looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and
did not speak to Sónya who got up and went to her several times.
Next day Count Rostóv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for
lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with
the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep
him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Márya
Dmítrievna met him and told him that Natásha had been very unwell the
day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was
better now. Natásha had not left her room that morning. With compressed
and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily
watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at
anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and
that he would come or would write to her.
When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound
of a man’s footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent
expression. She did not even get up to greet him. “What is the matter
with you, my angel? Are you ill?” asked the count.
After a moment’s silence Natásha answered: “Yes, ill.”
In reply to the count’s anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected
and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him
that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Márya Dmítrievna
confirmed Natásha’s assurances that nothing had happened. From
the pretense of illness, from his daughter’s distress, and by the
embarrassed faces of Sónya and Márya Dmítrievna, the count saw clearly
that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible
for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved
daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he
avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly
had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition
delayed their return to the country.
CHAPTER XIX
From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go
away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostóvs came
to Moscow the effect Natásha had on him made him hasten to carry out
his intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexéevich’s widow, who
had long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased
husband’s.
When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Márya
Dmítrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great
importance relating to Andrew Bolkónski and his betrothed. Pierre had
been avoiding Natásha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her
was stronger than a married man’s should be for his friend’s fiancée.
Yet some fate constantly threw them together.
“What can have happened? And what can they want with me?” thought he
as he dressed to go to Márya Dmítrievna’s. “If only Prince Andrew would
hurry up and come and marry her!” thought he on his way to the house.
On the Tverskóy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.
“Pierre! Been back long?” someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In
a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the
dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makárin dashed
past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military
dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his
head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,
tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled
with powdery snow.
“Yes, indeed, that’s a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing
beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is
always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn’t I give to be like
him!” he thought enviously.
In Márya Dmítrievna’s anteroom the footman who helped him off with his
fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.
When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natásha sitting at the
window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,
frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.
“What has happened?” asked Pierre, entering Márya Dmítrievna’s room.
“Fine doings!” answered Dmítrievna. “For fifty-eight years have I lived
in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!”
And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,
Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had refused Prince Andrew
without her parents’ knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole
Kurágin into whose society Pierre’s wife had thrown her and with whom
Natásha had tried to elope during her father’s absence, in order to be
married secretly.
Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told
him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew’s
deeply loved affianced wife—the same Natásha Rostóva who used to be so
charming—should give up Bolkónski for that fool Anatole who was already
secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as
to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive
and could not imagine.
He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natásha, whom
he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness,
folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. “They are all alike!” he
said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate
enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to
the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more
he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with
disgust of that Natásha who had just passed him in the ballroom with
such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natásha’s soul was
overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not
her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity
and severity.
“But how get married?” said Pierre, in answer to Márya Dmítrievna. “He
could not marry—he is married!”
“Things get worse from hour to hour!” ejaculated Márya Dmítrievna. “A
nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she’s expecting him—expecting him
since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won’t go on
expecting him.”
After hearing the details of Anatole’s marriage from Pierre, and giving
vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Márya Dmítrievna
told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or
Bolkónski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair
(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel,
and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to
leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre—only
now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince
Andrew—promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly
explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.
“Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,”
she said. “And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And
stay to dinner if you care to!” she called after Pierre.
Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning
Natásha had told him that she had rejected Bolkónski.
“Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!” he said to Pierre. “What troubles
one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having
come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken
off her engagement without consulting anybody? It’s true this engagement
never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but
still, with his father’s disapproval they wouldn’t have been happy, and
Natásha won’t lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and
to take such a step without father’s or mother’s consent! And now she’s
ill, and God knows what! It’s hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in
their mother’s absence....”
Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the
subject, but the count returned to his troubles.
Sónya entered the room with an agitated face.
“Natásha is not quite well; she’s in her room and would like to see you.
Márya Dmítrievna is with her and she too asks you to come.”
“Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkónski’s, no doubt she wants to send
him a message,” said the count. “Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all
was!”
And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the
room.
When Márya Dmítrievna told Natásha that Anatole was married, Natásha
did not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre
himself. Sónya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to
Natásha’s room.
Natásha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Márya Dmítrievna, and her
eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the
moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at
him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the
others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did
not exist for her.
“He knows all about it,” said Márya Dmítrievna pointing to Pierre and
addressing Natásha. “Let him tell you whether I have told the truth.”
Natásha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal
looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.
“Natálya Ilyníchna,” Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of
pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, “whether it is
true or not should make no difference to you, because...”
“Then it is not true that he’s married!”
“Yes, it is true.”
“Has he been married long?” she asked. “On your honor?...”
Pierre gave his word of honor.
“Is he still here?” she asked, quickly.
“Yes, I have just seen him.”
She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that
they should leave her alone.
CHAPTER XX
Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once.
He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kurágin, at the thought of
whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in
breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies’, nor at
Komoneno’s. Pierre drove to the Club. In the Club all was going on as
usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about
in groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman
having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him
there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince
Michael Zakhárych was in the library, but Paul Timoféevich had not yet
arrived. One of Pierre’s acquaintances, while they were talking about
the weather, asked if he had heard of Kurágin’s abduction of Rostóva
which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and
said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostóvs’. He asked
everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and
another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this
calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his
soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and
as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home.
Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dólokhov,
consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to
him essential to see Natásha. In the evening he drove to his sister’s
to discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home
after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince
Anatole was with the countess. The countess’ drawing room was full of
guests.
Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his
return—at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever—entered
the drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.
“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess going up to her husband. “You don’t know
what a plight our Anatole...”
She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband’s head, in his
glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that
rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his
duel with Dólokhov.
“Where you are, there is vice and evil!” said Pierre to his wife.
“Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you,” he added in French.
Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to
follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself
and was leading him from the room.
“If you allow yourself in my drawing room...” whispered Hélène, but
Pierre did not reply and went out of the room.
Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed
anxiety.
Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole
without looking at him.
“You promised Countess Rostóva to marry her and were about to elope with
her, is that so?”
“Mon cher,” answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French),
“I don’t consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that
tone.”
Pierre’s face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole
by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side
to side till Anatole’s face showed a sufficient degree of terror.
“When I tell you that I must talk to you!...” repeated Pierre.
“Come now, this is stupid. What?” said Anatole, fingering a button of
his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.
“You’re a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don’t know what deprives
me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!” said Pierre,
expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.
He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put
it back in its place.
“Did you promise to marry her?”
“I... I didn’t think of it. I never promised, because...”
Pierre interrupted him.
“Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?” he said, moving toward
Anatole.
Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket
and drew out his pocketbook.
Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table
that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.
“I shan’t be violent, don’t be afraid!” said Pierre in answer to a
frightened gesture of Anatole’s. “First, the letters,” said he, as if
repeating a lesson to himself. “Secondly,” he continued after a short
pause, again rising and again pacing the room, “tomorrow you must get
out of Moscow.”
“But how can I?...”
“Thirdly,” Pierre continued without listening to him, “you must never
breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostóva.
I know I can’t prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of
conscience...” Pierre paced the room several times in silence.
Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.
“After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such
a thing as other people’s happiness and peace, and that you are ruining
a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women
like my wife—with them you are within your rights, for they know what
you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience
of debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to
kidnap.... Don’t you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man
or a child?...”
Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a
questioning look.
“I don’t know about that, eh?” said Anatole, growing more confident as
Pierre mastered his wrath. “I don’t know that and don’t want to,” he
said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,
“but you have used such words to me—‘mean’ and so on—which as a man of
honor I can’t allow anyone to use.”
Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he
wanted.
“Though it was tête-à-tête,” Anatole continued, “still I can’t...”
“Is it satisfaction you want?” said Pierre ironically.
“You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as
you wish, eh?”
“I take them back, I take them back!” said Pierre, “and I ask you to
forgive me.” Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. “And if
you require money for your journey...”
Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which
Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.
“Oh, vile and heartless brood!” he exclaimed, and left the room.
Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.
CHAPTER XXI
Pierre drove to Márya Dmítrievna’s to tell her of the fulfillment of her
wish that Kurágin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in
a state of alarm and commotion. Natásha was very ill, having, as Márya
Dmítrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had
been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily
procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she
woke Sónya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had
been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so
weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and
so the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and
Sónya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natásha.
Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about
the attempted abduction of Rostóva. He resolutely denied these
rumors, assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his
brother-in-law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to
Pierre that it was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish
Natásha’s reputation.
He was awaiting Prince Andrew’s return with dread and went every day to
the old prince’s for news of him.
Old Prince Bolkónski heard all the rumors current in the town from
Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which
Natásha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than
usual and awaited his son with great impatience.
Some days after Anatole’s departure Pierre received a note from Prince
Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him.
As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his
father Natásha’s note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement
(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given
it to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natásha’s
elopement, with additions.
Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next
morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state
as Natásha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room
to hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some
intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince’s voice and another now
and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She
sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was,
evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre
saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the
way her brother had taken the news of Natásha’s faithlessness.
“He says he expected it,” she remarked. “I know his pride will not let
him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better,
than I expected. Evidently it had to be....”
“But is it possible that all is really ended?” asked Pierre.
Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand
how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince
Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh
horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing
his father and Prince Meshchérski, warmly disputing and vigorously
gesticulating. The conversation was about Speránski—the news of whose
sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow.
“Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him
a month ago,” Prince Andrew was saying, “and by those who were unable to
understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on
him all the blame of other men’s mistakes is very easy, but I maintain
that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by
him, by him alone.”
He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately
assumed a vindictive expression.
“Posterity will do him justice,” he concluded, and at once turned to
Pierre.
“Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?” he said with animation, but
the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. “Yes, I am well,” he said in
answer to Pierre’s question, and smiled.
To Pierre that smile said plainly: “I am well, but my health is now of
no use to anyone.”
After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish
frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and
about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son’s
tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about
Speránski which was still going on between the two old men.
“If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,
they would have been made public,” he said with warmth and haste. “I do
not, and never did, like Speránski personally, but I like justice!”
Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too
familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters
in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate.
When Prince Meshchérski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre’s arm and
asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made
up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince
Andrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a
packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He
stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed.
“Forgive me for troubling you....”
Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natásha, and his
broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince
Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:
“I have received a refusal from Countess Rostóva and have heard reports
of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that
kind. Is that true?”
“Both true and untrue,” Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
“Here are her letters and her portrait,” said he.
He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.
“Give this to the countess... if you see her.”
“She is very ill,” said Pierre.
“Then she is here still?” said Prince Andrew. “And Prince Kurágin?” he
added quickly.
“He left long ago. She has been at death’s door.”
“I much regret her illness,” said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his
father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.
“So Monsieur Kurágin has not honored Countess Rostóva with his hand?”
said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.
“He could not marry, for he was married already,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.
“And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?” he said.
“He has gone to Peters... But I don’t know,” said Pierre.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Prince Andrew. “Tell Countess Rostóva
that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is
good.”
Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether
he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say
anything, looked fixedly at him.
“I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?” asked Pierre,
“about...”
“Yes,” returned Prince Andrew hastily. “I said that a fallen woman
should be forgiven, but I didn’t say I could forgive her. I can’t.”
“But can this be compared...?” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: “Yes, ask her hand
again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but
I am unable to follow in that gentleman’s footsteps. If you wish to be
my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So
you’ll give her the packet?”
Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.
The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as
always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her
satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them
Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the
Rostóvs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention
the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.
At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming
evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father,
now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation,
the cause of which Pierre so well understood.
CHAPTER XXII
That same evening Pierre went to the Rostóvs’ to fulfill the commission
entrusted to him. Natásha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre,
after giving the letters to Sónya, went to Márya Dmítrievna who was
interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes
later Sónya came to Márya Dmítrievna.
“Natásha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirílovich,” said she.
“But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been
tidied up.”
“No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,” said Sónya.
Márya Dmítrievna only shrugged her shoulders.
“When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don’t
tell her everything!” said she to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold
her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.”
Natásha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with
a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find
her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided
whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.
Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as
usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms
hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she
went to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different
expression of face.
“Peter Kirílovich,” she began rapidly, “Prince Bolkónski was your
friend—is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that
everything that had once been must now be different.) “He told me once
to apply to you...”
Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had
reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so
sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.
“He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!” She stopped and
breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
“Yes... I will tell him,” answered Pierre; “but...”
He did not know what to say.
Natásha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she
had meant.
“No, I know all is over,” she said hurriedly. “No, that can never be.
I’m only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I
beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything....”
She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre’s heart.
“I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,” said Pierre.
“But... I should like to know one thing....”
“Know what?” Natásha’s eyes asked.
“I should like to know, did you love...” Pierre did not know how to
refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him—“did you love that
bad man?”
“Don’t call him bad!” said Natásha. “But I don’t know, don’t know at
all....”
She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love
welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and
hoped they would not be noticed.
“We won’t speak of it any more, my dear,” said Pierre, and his gentle,
cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natásha.
“We won’t speak of it, my dear—I’ll tell him everything; but one thing
I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice,
or simply to open your heart to someone—not now, but when your mind is
clearer--think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I shall be happy
if it’s in my power...”
Pierre grew confused.
“Don’t speak to me like that. I am not worth it!” exclaimed Natásha and
turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was
amazed at his own words.
“Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,” said he to her.
“Before me? No! All is over for me,” she replied with shame and
self-abasement.
“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest,
cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment
ask on my knees for your hand and your love!”
For the first time for many days Natásha wept tears of gratitude and
tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining
tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the
sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.
“Where to now, your excellency?” asked the coachman.
“Where to?” Pierre asked himself. “Where can I go now? Surely not to the
Club or to pay calls?” All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison
with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison
with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her
tears.
“Home!” said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit
he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the
air with joy.
It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the
black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky
did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane
things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.
At the entrance to the Arbát Square an immense expanse of dark starry
sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the
Prechístenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars
but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white
light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant
comet of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes
and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long
luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed
joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having
traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable
space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain
fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and
displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It
seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in
his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.
BOOK NINE: 1812
CHAPTER I
From the close of the year 1811 an intensified arming and concentrating of
the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—millions
of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—moved from the
west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 Russian
forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, the
forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began,
that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human
nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable
crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money,
burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not
recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which
those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.
What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The
historians tell us with naïve assurance that its causes were the wrongs
inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental
System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the
mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.
Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,
Rumyántsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have
taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to
have written to Alexander: “My respected Brother, I consent to restore
the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg”—and there would have been no war.
We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries.
It naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England’s
intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally
seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war
was Napoleon’s ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the
war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the
war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals
and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of
giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the
need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of
that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between
Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed
from Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It
is natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other
reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points
of view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to
posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and
perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.
To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and
tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander
was firm, or because England’s policy was astute or the Duke of
Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances
have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the
Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed
and ruined the people of Smolénsk and Moscow and were killed by them.
To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried
away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event
with unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present
themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of
them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears
to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance
compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence—apart
from the cooperation of all the other coincident causes—to occasion the
event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to
serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon’s refusal to
withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of
Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third,
and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have
been so many less men in Napoleon’s army and the war could not have
occurred.
Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw
beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would
have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second
term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been
a war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and
had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic
government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent
dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French
Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have
happened. So all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it
about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had
to occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human
feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows,
just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east
to the west, slaying their fellows.
The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed
to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was
drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be
otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom
the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of
innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event
could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in
whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who fired, or transported
provisions and guns—should consent to carry out the will of these weak
individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number
of diverse and complex causes.
We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational
events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do
not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history
reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to
us.
Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal
aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from
doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action
performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to
history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.
There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which
is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive
life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in
the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done
is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of
millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man
stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with
and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the
predestination and inevitability of his every action.
“The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.”
A king is history’s slave.
History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses
every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.
Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that
it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples
*—as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him—he had never
been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while
thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive
life—that is to say, for history—whatever had to be performed.
* “To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples.”
The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and
by the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and
co-ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the
nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg’s
wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken (as it seemed to
Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the
French Emperor’s love and habit of war coinciding with his people’s
inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the
expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages
to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received
in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of
contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,
but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of
other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or
coincided with it.
When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its
attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried
by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or
because the boy standing below wants to eat it?
Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in
which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist
who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so
forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says
the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally
right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he
wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and
he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because
the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic
events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and
like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.
Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is
in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of
history and predestined from eternity.
CHAPTER II
On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent
three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,
and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the
emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings
and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds
of his own—that is, which he had taken from other kings—to the Empress
of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the
Empress Marie Louise—who regarded him as her husband, though he had left
another wife in Paris—left her grieved by the parting which she seemed
hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly believed in
the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end, and though
the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander, calling him
Monsieur mon frère, and sincerely assured him that he did not want war
and would always love and honor him—yet he set off to join his army,
and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the movement of his
troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach with six horses,
surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to
Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. At each of these towns thousands
of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.
The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried
him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the
army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of
a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.
* Old style.
Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,
changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to
select a place for the crossing.
Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the
wide-spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow
(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia
into which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon unexpectedly, and
contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an
advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.
Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,
which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and
looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of
the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across
the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor’s presence, were on the
lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat
and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on
the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: “Vive l’Empereur!” and
one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest
that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three
bridges to the other side.
“Now we’ll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things
get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l’Empereur! So these
are the steppes of Asia! It’s a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,
Beauché; I’ll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good
luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l’Empereur!... preur!—If
they make me Governor of India, Gérard, I’ll make you Minister of
Kashmir—that’s settled. Vive l’Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The
Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! Vive l’Empereur! There he
is, do you see him? I’ve seen him twice, as I see you now. The little
corporal... I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive
l’Empereur!” came the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse
characters and social positions. On the faces of all was one common
expression of joy at the commencement of the long-expected campaign and
of rapture and devotion to the man in the gray coat who was standing on
the hill.
On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was
brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the
bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous
acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible
to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,
but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and
distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the
time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon
bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in
the direction of Kóvno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the
Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for
him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Víliya, he stopped
near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by the river.
“Vivat!” shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and
pressing against one another to see him.
Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log
that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed
him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,
and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid
out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of
his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish Uhlans.
“What? What did he say?” was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans
when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.
The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the
Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech
from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted
to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident
fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he
begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor’s
eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be
displeased at this excess of zeal.
As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,
with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted “Vivat!”
and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped
into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown
restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest
part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after
him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the
stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their
horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others
tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses’
manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,
though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they
were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who
sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When
the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,
ventured to draw the Emperor’s attention to the devotion of the Poles
to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having
summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving
him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the
drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.
For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of
the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to
dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for
his horse and rode to his quarters.
Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to
their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which
they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with
difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had
got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted “Vivat!”
and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he
no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.
That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper
money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as
possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter
containing information about the orders to the French army had been
found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who
had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Légion
d’honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.
Quos vult perdere dementat. *
* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.
CHAPTER III
The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vílna for more than a
month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the
war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come
from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation
between the various plans that were proposed had even increased after
the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three
armies had its own commander in chief, but there was no supreme
commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that
responsibility himself.
The longer the Emperor remained in Vílna the less did everybody—tired of
waiting—prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded the
sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time pleasantly
and forget that war was impending.
In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the
courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish
aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for
the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received.
The Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by
subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the
Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a
landowner in the Vílna province, offered his country house for the fete,
and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and
fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen’s country seat.
The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and
his vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier,
Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his
aides-de-camp at Bennigsen’s country house.
It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared
that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.
Countess Bezúkhova was present among other Russian ladies who had
followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vílna and eclipsed the refined
Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The
Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.
Borís Drubetskóy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the
present en garçon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an
aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Borís
was now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought
patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his
own age. He was meeting Hélène in Vílna after not having seen her for
a long time and did not recall the past, but as Hélène was enjoying
the favors of a very important personage and Borís had only recently
married, they met as good friends of long standing.
At midnight dancing was still going on. Hélène, not having a suitable
partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Borís. They were the
third couple. Borís, coolly looking at Hélène’s dazzling bare shoulders
which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her
of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and
unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor
who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the
doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which
he alone knew how to utter.
As the mazurka began, Borís saw that Adjutant General Balashëv, one of
those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary
to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish
lady. Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly
at Balashëv and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because
there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady
and turned to him. Hardly had Balashëv begun to speak before a look of
amazement appeared on the Emperor’s face. He took Balashëv by the arm
and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven
yards wide as the people on both sides made way for him. Borís noticed
Arakchéev’s excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashëv.
Arakchéev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with
his red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor
to address him. (Borís understood that Arakchéev envied Balashëv and
was displeased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor
otherwise than through himself.)
But the Emperor and Balashëv passed out into the illuminated garden
without noticing Arakchéev who, holding his sword and glancing
wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.
All the time Borís was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was
worried by the question of what news Balashëv had brought and how he
could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose
two ladies, he whispered to Hélène that he meant to choose Countess
Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over
the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashëv
and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were
moving toward the door. Borís, fluttering as if he had not had time to
withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head.
The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally
affronted, was finishing with these words:
“To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as
a single armed enemy remains in my country!” It seemed to Borís that it
gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with
the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that
Borís had overheard it.
“Let no one know of it!” the Emperor added with a frown.
Borís understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,
slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and
remained there about another half-hour.
Borís was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had
crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain
important personages that much that was concealed from others was
usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their
estimation.
The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was
particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at
a ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation
and resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully
expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home
at two o’clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkóv, and told
him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal
Prince Saltykóv, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that
he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on
Russian soil.
Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:
Monsieur mon frère,
Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept
my engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian
frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in
which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that
Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me
from the time Prince Kurákin asked for his passports. The reasons on
which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would
never have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for
aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was
never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of
it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain
at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our
peoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your
troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not
having occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In
the contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an
attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your
Majesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war.
I am, etc.,
(signed) Alexander
CHAPTER IV
At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having
sent for Balashëv and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to
take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching
Balashëv, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make
peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told
him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them
in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt
it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at
reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashëv to
repeat them personally to Napoleon.
Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a
bugler and two Cossacks, Balashëv reached the French outposts at the
village of Rykónty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he
was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.
A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a
shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashëv to halt. Balashëv did
not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking
pace.
The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse,
advanced his horse’s chest against Balashëv, put his hand to his saber,
and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that
he did not do as he was told? Balashëv mentioned who he was. The
noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental
matters without looking at the Russian general.
After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after
conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general
being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashëv
found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile,
and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to
himself.
The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was
fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from
the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after
another, like bubbles rising in water.
Balashëv looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the
village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked
silently at one another from time to time.
A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came
riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied
by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked
smart and well kept.
It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full
trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of
martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit
of enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.
The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and
evidently understood Balashëv’s importance. He led him past his soldiers
and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to
the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor’s
quarters were, he believed, not far off.
They rode through the village of Rykónty, past tethered French hussar
horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with
curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the
village. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile
and a quarter away and would receive Balashëv and conduct him to his
destination.
The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.
They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group
of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse
with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes
in his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red
mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man
rode toward Balashëv at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and
gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.
Balashëv was only two horses’ length from the equestrian with the
bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping
toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the
French colonel, whispered respectfully: “The King of Naples!” It was,
in fact, Murat, now called “King of Naples.” Though it was quite
incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so,
and was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more
solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really
was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that
city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians
called out to him: “Viva il re!” * he turned to his wife with a pensive
smile and said: “Poor fellows, they don’t know that I am leaving them
tomorrow!”
* “Long live the king.”
But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied
the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had
been ordered to return to military service—and especially since his last
interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had
told him: “I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in
yours!”—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a
well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows
skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and
expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the
roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither.
On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair
curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked
inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His
Majesty of Balashëv’s mission, whose name he could not pronounce.
“De Bal-machève!” said the King (overcoming by his assurance the
difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). “Charmed to
make your acquaintance, General!” he added, with a gesture of kingly
condescension.
As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity
instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his
natural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the
withers of Balashëv’s horse and said:
“Well, General, it all looks like war,” as if regretting a circumstance
of which he was unable to judge.
“Your Majesty,” replied Balashëv, “my master, the Emperor, does not
desire war and as Your Majesty sees...” said Balashëv, using the words
Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in
frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty.
Murat’s face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to “Monsieur
de Bal-machève.” But royauté oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on
him, as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander’s
envoy. He dismounted, took Balashëv’s arm, and moving a few steps away
from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down
with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that
the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his
troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known
and the dignity of France was thereby offended.
* “Royalty has its obligations.”
Balashëv replied that there was “nothing offensive in the demand,
because...” but Murat interrupted him.
“Then you don’t consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?” he asked
unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.
Balashëv told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the
war.
“Oh, my dear general!” Murat again interrupted him, “with all my heart I
wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war
begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!” said he,
in the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another
despite a quarrel between their masters.
And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his
health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent
with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity,
Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood
at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:
“I won’t detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,”
and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his
glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully
awaiting him.
Balashëv rode on, supposing from Murat’s words that he would very soon
be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next
village the sentinels of Davout’s infantry corps detained him as
the pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps
commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal
Davout.
CHAPTER V
Davout was to Napoleon what Arakchéev was to Alexander—though not a
coward like Arakchéev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to
express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.
In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are
necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always
appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their
proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone
can explain how the cruel Arakchéev, who tore out a grenadier’s mustache
with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face
danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to
maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was
chivalrous, noble, and gentle.
Balashëv found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant’s hut,
writing—he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been
found him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put
themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for
being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a
hurry. “How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I
am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?” the expression of
his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,
when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own
dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when
Balashëv was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when
the Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at
Balashëv’s face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and
by his talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still
more and sneered malevolently.
When he noticed in Balashëv’s face the disagreeable impression this
reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he
wanted.
Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because
Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor
Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashëv hastened to inform
him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after
hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.
“Where is your dispatch?” he inquired. “Give it to me. I will send it to
the Emperor.”
Balashëv replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the
Emperor.
“Your Emperor’s orders are obeyed in your army, but here,” said Davout,
“you must do as you’re told.”
And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his
dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer
on duty.
Balashëv took out the packet containing the Emperor’s letter and laid it
on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid
across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.
“You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,”
protested Balashëv, “but permit me to observe that I have the honor to
be adjutant general to His Majesty....”
Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the
signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashëv’s face.
“You will be treated as is fitting,” said he and, putting the packet in
his pocket, left the shed.
A minute later the marshal’s adjutant, de Castrès, came in and conducted
Balashëv to the quarters assigned him.
That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.
Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashëv to come to
him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the
baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one
except Monsieur de Castrès.
After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence
and insignificance—particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of
power in which he had so lately moved—and after several marches with
the marshal’s baggage and the French army, which occupied the
whole district, Balashëv was brought to Vílna—now occupied by the
French—through the very gate by which he had left it four days
previously.
Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came
to Balashëv and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon’s wish to honor him
with an audience.
Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhénsk regiment had stood in
front of the house to which Balashëv was conducted, and now two French
grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with
shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and Uhlans and a
brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting
for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle
horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashëv in the very
house in Vílna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.
CHAPTER VI
Though Balashëv was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury
and magnificence of Napoleon’s court.
The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many
generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates—several of whom
Balashëv had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia—were waiting.
Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going
for his ride.
After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into
the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashëv to follow
him.
Balashëv went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a
study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him
on his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried
footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all
was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps,
firm and resolute—they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished
dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over
a white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white
leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and
Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one
lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck
stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled
of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its
prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial
welcome.
He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly
thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick
shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that
imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in
comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that
day.
He nodded in answer to Balashëv’s low and respectful bow, and coming up
to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his
time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure
he will always say the right thing and say it well.
“Good day, General!” said he. “I have received the letter you brought
from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you.” He glanced with
his large eyes into Balashëv’s face and immediately looked past him.
It was plain that Balashëv’s personality did not interest him at all.
Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.
Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything
in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.
“I do not, and did not, desire war,” he continued, “but it has been
forced on me. Even now” (he emphasized the word) “I am ready to receive
any explanations you can give me.”
And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for
dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly
moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashëv
was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into
negotiations.
When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the
Russian envoy, Balashëv began a speech he had prepared long before:
“Sire! The Emperor, my master...” but the sight of the Emperor’s eyes
bent on him confused him. “You are flurried—compose yourself!” Napoleon
seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at
Balashëv’s uniform and sword.
Balashëv recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the
Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurákin’s demand for his passports a
sufficient cause for war; that Kurákin had acted on his own initiative
and without his sovereign’s assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not
desire war, and had no relations with England.
“Not yet!” interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his
feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashëv might
proceed.
After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashëv added that
the Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into
negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashëv hesitated:
he remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his
letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykóv and had
told Balashëv to repeat to Napoleon. Balashëv remembered these words,
“So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil,” but some
complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he
wished to do so. He grew confused and said: “On condition that the
French army retires beyond the Niemen.”
Napoleon noticed Balashëv’s embarrassment when uttering these last
words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver
rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in
a louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that
followed, Balashëv, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily
noticed the quivering of Napoleon’s left leg which increased the more
Napoleon raised his voice.
“I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander,” he began. “Have
I not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I
have waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin
negotiations, what is demanded of me?” he said, frowning and making an
energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.
“The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire,” replied Balashëv.
“The Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to retire beyond
the Niemen—only the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at
Balashëv.
The latter bowed his head respectfully.
Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania,
only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned
quickly and began to pace the room.
“You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen
before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago
the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder,
and yet you are willing to negotiate.”
He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again
stopped in front of Balashëv. Balashëv noticed that his left leg was
quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern
expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was
conscious of. “The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,”
he remarked at a later date.
“Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a
Prince of Baden, but not to me!” Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his
own surprise. “If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept
such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his
army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I
have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when
your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the
aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?” he continued
hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace
and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and
power and Alexander’s errors and duplicity.
The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the
intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing
that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,
and the more he talked the less could he control his words.
The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and
insult Alexander—just what he had least desired at the commencement of
the interview.
“I hear you have made peace with Turkey?”
Balashëv bowed his head affirmatively.
“Peace has been concluded...” he began.
But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the
talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and
unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.
“Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining
Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those
provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he went on, “I promised and would
have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he
won’t have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to
his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the
Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could
not have done more,” said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he
paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashëv almost the very words
he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. “All that, he would have
owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!” he repeated several
times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to
his nose, and greedily sniffed at it.
“What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander’s might have been!”
He looked compassionately at Balashëv, and as soon as the latter tried
to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.
“What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained
through my friendship?” demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders
in perplexity. “But no, he has preferred to surround himself with
my enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and
Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;
Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French
subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all
the same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who
should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander’s mind....
Granted that were they competent they might be made use of,” continued
Napoleon—hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts
that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his
perception the two were one and the same)—“but they are not even that!
They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the
most capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first
movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes,
Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act,
does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result.
Bagratión alone is a military man. He’s stupid, but he has experience,
a quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch
playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him
the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with
the army unless he is a general!” said Napoleon, evidently uttering
these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander
desired to be a military commander.
“The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven’t even been able to
defend Vílna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish
provinces. Your army is grumbling.”
“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” said Balashëv, hardly able to remember
what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with
difficulty, “the troops are burning with eagerness...”
“I know everything!” Napoleon interrupted him. “I know everything. I
know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have
not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give
you my word of honor,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor
could carry no weight—“I give you my word of honor that I have five
hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will
be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making
peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their fate to be governed by
mad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for
another—Bernadotte, who promptly went mad—for no Swede would ally
himself with Russia unless he were mad.”
Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.
Balashëv knew how to reply to each of Napoleon’s remarks, and would
have done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say
something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity
of the Swedes, Balashëv wished to reply that when Russia is on her side
Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation
to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which
a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is
in the right. Balashëv began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared
to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,
he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently
seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon
had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them
when he came to his senses. Balashëv stood with downcast eyes, looking
at the movements of Napoleon’s stout legs and trying to avoid meeting
his eyes.
“But what do I care about your allies?” said Napoleon. “I have
allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like
lions. And there will be two hundred thousand of them.”
And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this
obvious falsehood, and that Balashëv still stood silently before him in
the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned
round, drew close to Balashëv’s face, and, gesticulating rapidly and
energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:
“Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I’ll wipe it off the map
of Europe!” he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he
struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. “Yes, I
will throw you back beyond the Dvína and beyond the Dnieper, and will
re-erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of
Europe to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you.
That is what you have gained by alienating me!” And he walked silently
several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.
He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted
it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashëv. He
paused, looked ironically straight into Balashëv’s eyes, and said in a
quiet voice:
“And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!”
Balashëv, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the
Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was
silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to
him. Balashëv said that in Russia the best results were expected from
the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, “I know it’s
your duty to say that, but you don’t believe it yourself. I have
convinced you.”
When Balashëv had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed
at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door
opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor
his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,
without giving them a glance, turned to Balashëv:
“Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,” said he, taking his hat, “that
I am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly
esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you
shall receive my letter to the Emperor.”
And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room
rushed forward and descended the staircase.
CHAPTER VII
After all that Napoleon had said to him—those bursts of anger and the
last dryly spoken words: “I will detain you no longer, General; you
shall receive my letter,” Balashëv felt convinced that Napoleon would
not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him—an
insulted envoy—especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,
to his surprise, Balashëv received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine
with the Emperor that day.
Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.
Napoleon met Balashëv cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign
of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,
but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashëv. It was evident that
he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a
mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not
because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he
did it.
The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vílna, where
crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all
the windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his
monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved
their handkerchiefs to him.
At dinner, having placed Balashëv beside him, Napoleon not only treated
him amiably but behaved as if Balashëv were one of his own courtiers,
one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at
his success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and
questioned Balashëv about the Russian capital, not merely as an
interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as
if convinced that Balashëv, as a Russian, must be flattered by his
curiosity.
“How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true
that Moscow is called ‘Holy Moscow’? How many churches are there in
Moscow?” he asked.
And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,
he remarked:
“Why such a quantity of churches?”
“The Russians are very devout,” replied Balashëv.
“But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the
backwardness of a people,” said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for
appreciation of this remark.
Balashëv respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.
“Every country has its own character,” said he.
“But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that,” said Napoleon.
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” returned Balashëv, “besides Russia there
is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries.”
This reply of Balashëv’s, which hinted at the recent defeats of the
French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander’s
court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon’s dinner, where it
passed unnoticed.
The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they
were puzzled as to what Balashëv’s tone suggested. “If there is a point
we don’t see it, or it is not at all witty,” their expressions seemed
to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not
notice it at all and naïvely asked Balashëv through what towns the
direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashëv, who was on the alert
all through the dinner, replied that just as “all roads lead to Rome,”
so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and “among them the
road through Poltáva, which Charles XII chose.” Balashëv involuntarily
flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had
he uttered the word Poltáva before Caulaincourt began speaking of the
badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg
reminiscences.
After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon’s study, which four
days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat
down, toying with his Sèvres coffee cup, and motioned Balashëv to a
chair beside him.
Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than
any reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to
consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded
by men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,
Balashëv too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a
pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.
“They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,
isn’t it, General?” he said, evidently not doubting that this remark
would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon’s,
superiority to Alexander.
Balashëv made no reply and bowed his head in silence.
“Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were
deliberating,” continued Napoleon with the same derisive and
self-confident smile. “What I can’t understand,” he went on, “is that
the Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies.
That I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?”
and he turned inquiringly to Balashëv, and evidently this thought turned
him back on to the track of his morning’s anger, which was still fresh
in him.
“And let him know that I will do so!” said Napoleon, rising and pushing
his cup away with his hand. “I’ll drive all his Württemberg, Baden, and
Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I’ll drive them out. Let him
prepare an asylum for them in Russia!”
Balashëv bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to
make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help
hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;
he treated Balashëv not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man
now fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master’s
humiliation.
“And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is
the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign
and not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a
responsibility?”
Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down
the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to
Balashëv and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply
as if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to
Balashëv, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general’s
face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips
only.
To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest
honor and mark of favor at the French court.
“Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don’t you say
anything?” said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the
adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. “Are the horses
ready for the general?” he added, with a slight inclination of his head
in reply to Balashëv’s bow. “Let him have mine, he has a long way to
go!”
The letter taken by Balashëv was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander.
Every detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch,
and the war began....
CHAPTER VIII
After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to
Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet
Anatole Kurágin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching
Petersburg he inquired for Kurágin but the latter had already left the
city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on
his track. Anatole Kurágin promptly obtained an appointment from
the Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in
Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutúzov, his former commander who was
always well disposed toward him, and Kutúzov suggested that he should
accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had
been appointed commander in chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an
appointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.
Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kurágin.
He thought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might
compromise the young Countess Rostóva and so he wanted to meet Kurágin
personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again
failed to meet Kurágin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived,
the latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions,
Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken
faith with him—which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to
conceal its effects—the surroundings in which he had been happy became
trying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized
so highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the
thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the
field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which
had filled his solitude at Boguchárovo and then in Switzerland and Rome,
but he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons
they had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical
matters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more
eagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if
that lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him
had suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in
which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.
Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the
simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutúzov’s staff,
he applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised
Kutúzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found
Kurágin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back
to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might
be before he met Kurágin, despite his contempt for him and despite all
the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping
to a conflict with him—he knew that when he did meet him he would not
be able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help
snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet
avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and
poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in
Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and
ambitious activity.
In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached
Bucharest—where Kutúzov had been living for two months, passing his
days and nights with a Wallachian woman—Prince Andrew asked Kutúzov
to transfer him to the Western Army. Kutúzov, who was already weary of
Bolkónski’s activity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very
readily let him go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.
Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at
Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way,
being only two miles off the Smolénsk highroad. During the last three
years there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt,
and seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that
on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find
the way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail.
He entered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up
the avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted,
sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the
same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture,
the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only
somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden
getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of
her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was
the same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her
existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become
more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had
brought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and
talking broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly
intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince
had changed in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a
noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as
ever, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was
happening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,
become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite
unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just
as the little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of
immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally
all remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had
changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was
divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for
his sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged
the old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other
Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and
maids.
During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they
were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose
sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all
feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he
was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb
and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,
when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to
tell him of the young Count Kámensky’s campaign, the old prince
began unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her
superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,
was the only person really attached to him.
The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess
Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by
indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The
old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her
life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting
her and that she deserved it. “Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,
say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an
old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance
and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn’t understand, so I
must explain it, and he must hear me out,” thought the old prince.
And he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter’s
unreasonable character.
“If you ask me,” said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was
censuring his father for the first time in his life), “I did not wish to
speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If
there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can’t
blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since
you ask me,” continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable—as he was
always liable to do of late—“I can only say that if there are any
misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not
fit to be my sister’s companion.”
The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile
disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could
not get accustomed.
“What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You’ve already been talking it over!
Eh?”
“Father, I did not want to judge,” said Prince Andrew, in a hard and
bitter tone, “but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall
say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame—the one to blame—is
that Frenchwoman.”
“Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!” said the old man in a
low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment,
but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: “Be off, be off! Let not a
trace of you remain here!...”
Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him
to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not
leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and
Tíkhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,
before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son’s rooms. The boy,
curly-headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee,
and Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell
into a reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this
pretty child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He
sought in himself either remorse for having angered his father or regret
at leaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him,
and was horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that
he sought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son
which he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on
his knee.
“Well, go on!” said his son.
Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out
of the room.
As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and
especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had
been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,
and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as
soon as possible.
“So you’ve decided to go, Andrew?” asked his sister.
“Thank God that I can,” replied Prince Andrew. “I am very sorry you
can’t.”
“Why do you say that?” replied Princess Mary. “Why do you say that,
when you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle
Bourienne says he has been asking about you....”
As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears
began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.
“Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what—what trash—can cause
people misery!” he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary.
She understood that when speaking of “trash” he referred not only to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who
had ruined his own happiness.
“Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!” she said, touching his
elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. “I
understand you” (she looked down). “Don’t imagine that sorrow is the
work of men. Men are His tools.” She looked a little above Prince
Andrew’s head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks
at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. “Sorrow is sent by Him,
not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think
someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to
punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving.”
“If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman’s virtue. But
a man should not and cannot forgive and forget,” he replied, and though
till that moment he had not been thinking of Kurágin, all his unexpended
anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.
“If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long
ago to have punished him,” he thought. And giving her no further reply,
he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet
Kurágin who he knew was now in the army.
Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how
unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to
him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again
from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the
longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.
“Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are
never to blame,” were the last words he heard from his sister when he
took leave of her.
“Then it must be so!” thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the
avenue from the house at Bald Hills. “She, poor innocent creature, is
left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old
man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up
and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be
deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don’t know. I want
to meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and
laugh at me!”
These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were
all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless
things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to
Prince Andrew’s mind.
CHAPTER IX
Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of
June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified
camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a
junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by
large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course
of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of
invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would
extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.
Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on
the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large
village in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and
courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the
villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay
de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received
Bolkónski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he
would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,
but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kurágin, whom
Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had
gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind
was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting
a gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the
distraction caused by the thought of Kurágin. During the first four
days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the
whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by
talks with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the
question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained
for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had
seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in
war the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all
depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy—that cannot be
foreseen—are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled.
To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his
position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control
of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for
himself the following of the state of affairs.
While the Emperor had still been at Vílna, the forces had been divided
into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the
army under Bagratión, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormásov. The
Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander in chief. In the
orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,
but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had
with him not a commander in chief’s staff but the imperial headquarters
staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,
Quartermaster General Prince Volkónski, as well as generals, imperial
aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,
but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the
Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakchéev, the ex-Minister
of War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke
Tsarévich Constantine Pávlovich; Count Rumyántsev, the Chancellor;
Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,
the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general
and Sardinian émigré; Wolzogen—and many others. Though these men had no
military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,
and often a corps commander, or even the commander in chief, did not
know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,
Arakchéev, or Prince Volkónski, or was given this or that advice and did
not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated
from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be
executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential
significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,
from a courtier’s point of view (and in an Emperor’s vicinity all became
courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not
assume the title of commander in chief, but disposed of all the armies;
the men around him were his assistants. Arakchéev was a faithful
custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign’s bodyguard.
Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vílna province who appeared to be doing
the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful
as an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke
was there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there
because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high
esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general
full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.
Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The
adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the
Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up
the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to
believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business
of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel’s thoughts in
a more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish
theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was
able to do.
Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected
ideas every day—especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness
characteristic of people employed in a country not their own—there were
many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals
were there.
Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant,
and proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined
subdivisions of tendencies and parties:
The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military theorists
who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws of oblique
movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded
a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise
laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,
ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To
this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and
others, chiefly Germans.
The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as
always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of
this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vílna into Poland
and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold
action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still
more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagratión, Ermólov
(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a
famous joke of Ermólov’s was being circulated, that as a great favor he
had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,
remembering Suvórov, said that what one had to do was not to reason,
or stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of
Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.
To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—belonged the
courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. The
members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakchéev belonged,
thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to seem to
have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war, particularly
against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him Bonaparte now),
needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific knowledge and
in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time it had to be
acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and therefore one
should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen to what Pfuel’s
opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had to say, and
then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention of the camp
at Drissa, according to Pfuel’s plan, but on changing the movements of
the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim nor the other
could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of this third
party.
Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the
Tsarévich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where
he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry
uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but
unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid
the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality
and the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,
recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.
They said: “Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!
We have abandoned Vílna and Vítebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only
reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,
before we are turned out of Petersburg.”
This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support
also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyántsev, who, for other
reasons of state, was in favor of peace.
The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de
Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander in
chief. “Be he what he may” (they always began like that), “he is an
honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,
for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and
he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well
organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering
any defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to
be superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his
incapacity already in 1807.”
The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any
rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: “and
twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually.
Let the others make mistakes now!” said they, arguing that our
retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series
of blunders. “The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any
rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this.
What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen,
who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice—a
man whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the
only such man.”
The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to
be found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were
particularly many round Alexander—generals and imperial aides-de-camp
passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a
man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostóv had done
in 1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human
capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign
for refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive
modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign
should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place
himself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander in chief’s
staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where
necessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be
raised to the highest pitch.
The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the
others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither
peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa
or anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor
Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage
and pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of
conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor’s
headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at
other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would
today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after,
merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare
that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to
gain some advantage would attract the Emperor’s attention by loudly
advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before,
and would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and
challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving
that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,
in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit
a special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that
moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly
overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor’s
eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the
Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some
newly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more
or less forcible and correct.
All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and
promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial
favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole
drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it
was all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the
uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving
a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of
intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity
of race among these people—this eighth and largest party of those
preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and
obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these
drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew
over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of
those who were disputing honestly.
From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached
the army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning
to raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men
experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of
those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what
was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of
escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.
The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted
chiefly from the Emperor’s presence in the army with his military court
and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,
and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but
harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the
army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor
and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor
paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his
personal safety, and that the worst commander in chief, if independent,
would be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and
authority of the monarch.
Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,
Shishkóv, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of
this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakchéev and Balashëv
agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him
by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully
suggested—on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse
a warlike spirit in the people of the capital—that the Emperor should
leave the army.
That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to
defend their country—the very incitement which was the chief cause of
Russia’s triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar’s personal
presence in Moscow—was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him, as
a pretext for quitting the army.
CHAPTER X
This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one
day at dinner, informed Bolkónski that the sovereign wished to see him
personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to
present himself at Bennigsen’s quarters at six that evening.
News was received at the Emperor’s quarters that very day of a fresh
movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army—news subsequently
found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the
Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that
this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered
a chef-d’oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon’s
destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the
Russian army.
Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen’s quarters—a country gentleman’s
house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither
Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernýshev, the Emperor’s
aide-de-camp, received Bolkónski and informed him that the Emperor,
accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second
time that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the
suitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt.
Chernýshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel
in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still
an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood
the folding bedstead of Bennigsen’s adjutant. This adjutant was also
there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by
work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into
what had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study.
Through the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German
and occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by
the Emperor’s wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred
indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in
view of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but,
as it were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor
personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General
Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had
referred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein
who was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince
Andrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew
had an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon
after himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a
minute to speak to Chernýshev.
At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,
which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince
Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about
him something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German
theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more
typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German
theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to
such an extent.
Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build,
broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was
much wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily
brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint
little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily
around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly
holding up his sword, he addressed Chernýshev and asked in German where
the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms
as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down
to business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded
hurriedly in reply to Chernýshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that
the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had
planned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself
abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do—it might
have been “stupid fellow”... or “the whole affair will be ruined,” or
“something absurd will come of it.”... Prince Andrew did not catch
what he said and would have passed on, but Chernýshev introduced him to
Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the
war had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced—not so much at
Prince Andrew as past him—and said, with a laugh: “That must have been a
fine tactical war”; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the room
from which the sound of voices was heard.
Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly
disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect
and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with
Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to
form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly
and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of
martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident
on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed
knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he
regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly
attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a
citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an
Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as
an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because
he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian
is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know
anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The
German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more
repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the
truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the
absolute truth.
Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science—the theory of oblique
movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the Great’s wars,
and all he came across in the history of more recent warfare seemed to
him absurd and barbarous—monstrous collisions in which so many blunders
were committed by both sides that these wars could not be called wars,
they did not accord with the theory, and therefore could not serve as
material for science.
In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of
campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstädt, but he did not see the least
proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On
the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,
the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically
gleeful sarcasm he would remark, “There, I said the whole affair would
go to the devil!” Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love
their theory that they lose sight of the theory’s object—its practical
application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and
he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures
resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him
the accuracy of his theory.
He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernýshev about the present
war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,
and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts
of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples
expressed this most eloquently.
He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his
voice were at once heard from there.
CHAPTER XI
Prince Andrew’s eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when
Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkónski, but not
pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he
went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on
to make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.
Chernýshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,
who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to
him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the
left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward
evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited
Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.
“And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa camp,” said
Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew
scanned his unfamiliar face, “as to that person, sire...” continued
Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, “the man
who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum
or the gallows!”
Without heeding the end of the Italian’s remarks, and as though
not hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkónski, addressed him
graciously.
“I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait
for me.”
The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter
Mikháylovich Volkónski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.
Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor’s permission, accompanied
Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the
council was assembled.
Prince Peter Mikháylovich Volkónski occupied the position, as it were,
of chief of the Emperor’s staff. He came out of the study into the
drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put
questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen
present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be
false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to
outflank the Drissa camp.
The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that
presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position
away from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was
inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an
opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and
there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that
plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions
put—which, in fact, his plan did not answer—as to avail himself of the
opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as
good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown
what character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others
defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general’s views
more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from
his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to
read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,
totally different from Armfeldt’s or Pfuel’s plan of campaign. In answer
to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,
could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap
(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.
During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen
(his “bridge” in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted
contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean
himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when
Prince Volkónski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his
opinion, he merely said:
“Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an
exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman’s attack—very fine, or
a retreat, also good! Why ask me?” said he. “Why, you yourselves know
everything better than I do.”
But when Volkónski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor’s name
that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,
began to speak:
“Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they
knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There
is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly
adhered to,” said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. “What
is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!”
He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no
eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that
everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to
outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.
Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.
Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,
and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who
was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all
that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there
were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan
had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he
demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like
a mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of
a problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and
continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to
Pfuel and saying, “Is it not so, your excellency?” But Pfuel, like a man
heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at
his own supporter, Wolzogen:
“Well, of course, what more is there to explain?”
Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.
Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkónski in
Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.
Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,
determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,
evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no
hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a
theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was
ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary
respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks
of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable
at the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon’s
genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.
Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him
from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other’s
proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like
everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of
respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which
the courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to
speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation
in Pfuel’s own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel
himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence
and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly
brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he
concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was
evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his
theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world
was slipping away from him.
The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted
the more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and
personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general
conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this
polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,
felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had
long since and often occurred to him during his military activities—the
idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that
therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius—now appeared
to him an obvious truth. “What theory and science is possible about a
matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot
be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be
ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or
the enemy’s armies will be in a day’s time, and no one can gauge the
force of this or that detachment. Sometimes—when there is not a coward
at the front to shout, ‘We are cut off!’ and start running, but a brave
and jolly lad who shouts, ‘Hurrah!’—a detachment of five thousand
is worth thirty thousand, as at Schön Grabern, while at times fifty
thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can
there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing
can be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the
significance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives
no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci
says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that
the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it,
and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes
one plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the
advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial.
And why do they all speak of a ‘military genius’? Is a man a genius who
can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go
to the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are
invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power,
attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best
generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded
men. Bagratión was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of
Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the
field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any
special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest
and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic
inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he
is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient
patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he
should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just
and unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their ‘genius’ was
invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a
military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who
shouts, ‘We are lost!’ or who shouts, ‘Hurrah!’ And only in the ranks
can one serve with assurance of being useful.”
So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused
himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving.
At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would
like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles
forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign’s person, but
for permission to serve in the army.
CHAPTER XII
Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostóv had received a letter from
his parents in which they told him briefly of Natásha’s illness and the
breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by
Natásha’s having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from
the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not
even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the
army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her
engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their
wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.
“Adored friend of my soul!” he wrote. “Nothing but honor could keep
me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the
campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades’ eyes but
in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the
Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly
the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will
throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent
breast.”
It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented
Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The
autumn in Otrádnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas
holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil
rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now
allured him. “A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a
dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by
election...” thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had
to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostóv,
as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the
regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.
On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed
by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the
Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation
from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,
and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in
numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.
The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,
new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was
infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement
of a war, and Rostóv, conscious of his advantageous position in the
regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of
military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to
relinquish them.
The troops retired from Vílna for various complicated reasons of state,
political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by
a complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at
headquarters. For the Pávlograd hussars, however, the whole of this
retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies
was a very simple and agreeable business.
It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and
intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where
they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only
because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some
pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced
to enter anyone’s head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good
soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of
the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vílna, making
acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being
reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order
to retreat to Sventsyáni and destroy any provisions they could not carry
away with them. Sventsyáni was remembered by the hussars only as the
drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there,
and because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking
advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,
carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostóv remembered
Sventsyáni, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town
he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken
men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels
of old beer. From Sventsyáni they retired farther and farther to Drissa,
and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia
proper.
On the thirteenth of July the Pávlograds took part in a serious action
for the first time.
On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy
storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable
for its storms.
The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which
was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and
horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostóv, with a young
officer named Ilyín, his protégé, was sitting in a hastily constructed
shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending
onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the
rain, entered Rostóv’s shelter.
“I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raévski’s
exploit?”
And the officer gave them details of the Saltánov battle, which he had
heard at the staff.
Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water
trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional
glance at Ilyín, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad
of sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same
relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denísov seven years
before. Ilyín tried to imitate Rostóv in everything and adored him as a
girl might have done.
Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of
the Saltánov dam being “a Russian Thermopylae,” and of how a deed worthy
of antiquity had been performed by General Raévski. He recounted how
Raévski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had
charged with them beside him. Rostóv heard the story and not only said
nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski’s enthusiasm but, on the contrary,
looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no
intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and
of 1807 Rostóv knew by experience that men always lie when describing
military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides
that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at
all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski’s
tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches
extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was
his habit, and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shanty. Rostóv looked at him
in silence. “In the first place, there must have been such a confusion
and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raévski did lead
his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen
men nearest to him,” thought he, “the rest could not have seen how or
with whom Raévski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it
would not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with
Raévski’s tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?
And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether
they took the Saltánov dam or not, as we are told was the case at
Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose
his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Pétya
there, or even Ilyín, who’s a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would
have tried to put them somewhere under cover,” Nicholas continued
to think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his
thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew
that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to
pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.
“I can’t stand this any more,” said Ilyín, noticing that Rostóv did not
relish Zdrzhinski’s conversation. “My stockings and shirt... and the
water is running on my seat! I’ll go and look for shelter. The rain
seems less heavy.”
Ilyín went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.
Five minutes later Ilyín, splashing through the mud, came running back
to the shanty.
“Hurrah! Rostóv, come quick! I’ve found it! About two hundred yards away
there’s a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get
dry there, and Mary Hendríkhovna’s there.”
Mary Hendríkhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young
German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack
of means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in
the early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the
hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among
the hussar officers.
Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrúshka to
follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right
through it—set off with Ilyín in the lessening rain and the darkness
that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.
“Rostóv, where are you?”
“Here. What lightning!” they called to one another.
CHAPTER XIII
In the tavern, before which stood the doctor’s covered cart, there were
already some five officers. Mary Hendríkhovna, a plump little blonde
German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench
in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her.
Rostóv and Ilyín, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts
and laughter.
“Dear me, how jolly we are!” said Rostóv laughing.
“And why do you stand there gaping?”
“What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don’t make our
drawing room so wet.”
“Don’t mess Mary Hendríkhovna’s dress!” cried other voices.
Rostóv and Ilyín hastened to find a corner where they could change into
dry clothes without offending Mary Hendríkhovna’s modesty. They were
going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it
completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light
of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no
account yield their position. Mary Hendríkhovna obliged them with the
loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen
Rostóv and Ilyín, helped by Lavrúshka who had brought their kits,
changed their wet things for dry ones.
A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,
fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was
produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary
Hendríkhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a
clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket
under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat
over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies
off her husband’s face, lest he should wake up.
“Leave him alone,” said Mary Hendríkhovna, smiling timidly and happily.
“He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night.”
“Oh, no, Mary Hendríkhovna,” replied the officer, “one must look after
the doctor. Perhaps he’ll take pity on me someday, when it comes to
cutting off a leg or an arm for me.”
There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could
not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held
only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to
take turns in order of seniority to receive one’s tumbler from Mary
Hendríkhovna’s plump little hands with their short and not overclean
nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with
her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon
left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general
mood of courting Mary Hendríkhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by
such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as
she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her
husband moved in his sleep behind her.
There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything
else, but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary
Hendríkhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostóv received
his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendríkhovna to stir
it.
“But you take it without sugar?” she said, smiling all the time, as if
everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and
had a double meaning.
“It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir
my tea.”
Mary Hendríkhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone
meanwhile had pounced on.
“Use your finger, Mary Hendríkhovna, it will be still nicer,” said
Rostóv.
“Too hot!” she replied, blushing with pleasure.
Ilyín put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to
Mary Hendríkhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.
“This is my cup,” said he. “Only dip your finger in it and I’ll drink it
all up.”
When they had emptied the samovar, Rostóv took a pack of cards and
proposed that they should play “Kings” with Mary Hendríkhovna. They drew
lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostóv’s suggestion it
was agreed that whoever became “King” should have the right to kiss Mary
Hendríkhovna’s hand, and that the “Booby” should go to refill and reheat
the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.
“Well, but supposing Mary Hendríkhovna is ‘King’?” asked Ilyín.
“As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!”
They had hardly begun to play before the doctor’s disheveled head
suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendríkhovna. He had been awake for
some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing
entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and
depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked
to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he
had left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary
Hendríkhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became
still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor
told his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in
alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go
to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen.
“But I’ll send an orderly.... Two of them!” said Rostóv. “What an idea,
doctor!”
“I’ll stand guard on it myself!” said Ilyín.
“No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two
nights,” replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife,
waiting for the game to end.
Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew
still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for
which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking
his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart,
the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their
wet cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged
remarks, recalling the doctor’s uneasiness and his wife’s delight, now
they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the
covered trap. Several times Rostóv, covering his head, tried to go
to sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be
resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.
CHAPTER XIV
It was nearly three o’clock but no one was yet asleep, when the
quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town
of Ostróvna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly
getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But
Rostóv went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was
breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt
damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left
the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostóv and Ilyín both glanced
under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor’s cart, from
under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle
of which his wife’s nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing
audible.
“She really is a dear little thing,” said Rostóv to Ilyín, who was
following him.
“A charming woman!” said Ilyín, with all the gravity of a boy of
sixteen.
Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command
was heard to “mount” and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted.
Rostóv riding in front gave the order “Forward!” and the hussars, with
clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses’ hoofs splashing in the
mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch
trees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone
on in front.
Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding
before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass
which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still
wet with the night’s rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also
wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one
side. The soldiers’ faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostóv,
always closely followed by Ilyín, rode along the side of the road
between two rows of birch trees.
When campaigning, Rostóv allowed himself the indulgence of riding not
a regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman,
he had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donéts horse,
dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could
outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought
of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor’s wife, but not once of the
impending danger.
Formerly, when going into action, Rostóv had felt afraid; now he had
not the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown
used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because
he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown
accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would
seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger. During the
first period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached
himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time
it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyín under the birch trees,
occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes
touching his horse’s side with his foot, or, without turning round,
handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as
calm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He
glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyín, who talked much and in
great agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of
terror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could
help him.
As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds,
the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning
after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and
all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared
behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it
reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its
edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as
if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.
Before Rostóv had had time to consider and determine the distance of
that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstóy’s adjutant came galloping from
Vítebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.
The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery—which had
also quickened their pace—rode down a hill, and passing through an empty
and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather and the
men to flush.
“Halt! Dress your ranks!” the order of the regimental commander was
heard ahead. “Forward by the left. Walk, march!” came the order from in
front.
And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of
our position, halted behind our Uhlans who were in the front line. To
the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.
Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through
the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning
sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy’s
columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard
briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.
At these sounds, long unheard, Rostóv’s spirits rose, as at the strains
of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,
now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then
again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding
them.
The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade
began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron,
halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to
the guns.
After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the Uhlans.
“Form column! Prepare to charge!”
The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry
to pass. The Uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering,
and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to
the left.
As soon as the Uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up
the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the
Uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell
spent without taking effect.
The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more
pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostóv than the previous sounds
of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out
before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement
of the Uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something
confused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our
Uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more
to the left, and among the orange-colored Uhlans on chestnut horses and
behind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could
be seen.
CHAPTER XV
Rostóv, with his keen sportsman’s eye, was one of the first to catch
sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our Uhlans. Nearer and
nearer in disorderly crowds came the Uhlans and the French dragoons
pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small
at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their
arms and their sabers in the air.
Rostóv gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt
instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the
latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must
be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked
around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with
eyes fixed on the cavalry below them.
“Andrew Sevastyánych!” said Rostóv. “You know, we could crush them....”
“A fine thing too!” replied the captain, “and really...”
Rostóv, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to
the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the
word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following
him. Rostóv himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he
did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons
near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not
withstand an attack—knew there was only that moment and that if he let
it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so
stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could
not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command,
and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his
deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons.
Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace
instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they
drew nearer to our Uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after
them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the
foremost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same
feeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostóv
gave rein to his Donéts horse and galloped to intersect the path of the
dragoons’ disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot
flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless
horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were
galloping back. Rostóv, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after
him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and
almost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would
immediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his
uniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse
and urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostóv’s horse dashed
its breast against the hindquarters of the officer’s horse, almost
knocking it over, and at the same instant Rostóv, without knowing why,
raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.
The instant he had done this, all Rostóv’s animation vanished. The
officer fell, not so much from the blow—which had but slightly cut his
arm above the elbow—as from the shock to his horse and from fright.
Rostóv reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he
had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on
the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed
up with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at
Rostóv with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face—fair and
young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes—was not an enemy’s
face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face.
Before Rostóv had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, “I
surrender!” He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the
stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostóv’s face.
Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the
saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was
wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his
horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him;
a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the
French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily
back with their prisoners. Rostóv galloped back with the rest, aware of
an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and
confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with
the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.
Count Ostermann-Tolstóy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostóv,
thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor
and would recommend him for a St. George’s Cross. When sent for by Count
Ostermann, Rostóv, remembering that he had charged without orders,
felt sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of
discipline. Ostermann’s flattering words and promise of a reward should
therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt
that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. “But what
on earth is worrying me?” he asked himself as he rode back from the
general. “Ilyín? No, he’s safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No,
that’s not it.” Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. “Yes,
oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm
paused when I raised it.”
Rostóv saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have
a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in
his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about
him. The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He
glanced at Rostóv with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.
Rostóv still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame.
All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostóv,
without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied.
He drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something
over in his mind.
Rostóv was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to
his amazement had gained him the St. George’s Cross and even given him
a reputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all
understand. “So others are even more afraid than I am!” he thought. “So
that’s all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my
country’s sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes?
And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should
I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George’s
Cross.... I can’t make it out at all.”
But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach
no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the
service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at
Ostróvna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar
battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.
CHAPTER XVI
On receiving news of Natásha’s illness, the countess, though not quite
well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the
household, and the whole family moved from Márya Dmítrievna’s house to
their own and settled down in town.
Natásha’s illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for
her parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness,
her conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the
background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider
in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat
or sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them
feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help
her. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in
French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great
variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple
idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease
Natásha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be
known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always
has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to
medicine—not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so
on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the
innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple
thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard
that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their
lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best
years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought
was kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were
really useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostóv family. Their
usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for
the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they
were given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and
indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and
of those who loved her—and that is why there are, and always will be,
pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied
that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that
something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They
satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it
wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself
and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching
spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child
cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no
remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its
mother’s sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were
of use to Natásha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her
that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist’s in
the Arbát and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble
and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at
intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.
What would Sónya and the count and countess have done, how would they
have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills
to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the
other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which
supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would
the count have borne his dearly loved daughter’s illness had he not
known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not
grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her
illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take
her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain
the details of how Métivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,
but Frise had, and Múdrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the
countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid
for not strictly obeying the doctor’s orders?
“You’ll never get well like that,” she would say, forgetting her grief
in her vexation, “if you won’t obey the doctor and take your medicine at
the right time! You mustn’t trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to
pneumonia,” she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of
that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.
What would Sónya have done without the glad consciousness that she had
not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to
carry out all the doctor’s injunctions with precision, and that she
still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the
slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?
Even to Natásha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices
were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine
at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her
and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to
show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical
treatment and did not value her life.
The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and
regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had
gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he
assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though
there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and
one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And
the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,
slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient
with a more tranquil mind.
The symptoms of Natásha’s illness were that she ate little, slept
little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that
she could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the
stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostóvs did not move to the
country that summer of 1812.
In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out
of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of
such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of
the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natásha’s
grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased
to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,
and she began to recover physically.
CHAPTER XVII
Natásha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external
forms of pleasure—balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters—but she
never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not
sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears
choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure
times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so
uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.
Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy,
in face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to
coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no
man was more to her than Nastásya Ivánovna, the buffoon. Something stood
sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all
the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full
of hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, “Uncle,” and the Christmas
holidays spent with Nicholas at Otrádnoe were what she recalled oftenest
and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a
single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at
the time had not deceived her—that that state of freedom and readiness
for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live
on.
It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly
imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But
this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, “What next?”
But there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was
passing. Natásha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to
anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in
the house and felt at ease only with her brother Pétya. She liked to
be with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she
sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came
to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been
impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the
same time more seriously than did Count Bezúkhov. Natásha unconsciously
felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But
she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre’s part
seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind
to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natásha
noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,
especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that
something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She
noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,
which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.
After those involuntary words—that if he were free he would have asked
on his knees for her hand and her love—uttered at a moment when she was
so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natásha of his feelings;
and it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted
her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort
a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because
Natásha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of
which she had experienced with Kurágin that it never entered her head
that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her
part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,
romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known
several instances.
Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agraféna Ivánovna Belóva, a
country neighbor of the Rostóvs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at
the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natásha should fast
and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natásha gladly welcomed the idea.
Despite the doctor’s orders that she should not go out early in the
morning, Natásha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,
not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostóv family by attending
three services in their own house, but as Agraféna Ivánovna did, by
going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,
Matins, or Mass.
The countess was pleased with Natásha’s zeal; after the poor results of
the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer
might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without
fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natásha’s wish and
entrusted her to Belóva. Agraféna Ivánovna used to come to wake Natásha
at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was
afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on
her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natásha, shivering in the fresh
air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.
By Agraféna Ivánovna’s advice Natásha prepared herself not in their
own parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agraféna
Ivánovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were
never many people in the church; Natásha always stood beside Belóva in
the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the
screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of
humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when
at that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin
illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light
falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which
she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her
personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its
own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that
the wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to
understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit
oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She
crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror
at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,
everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered
herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an
early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men
sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,
Natásha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility
of correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of
happiness.
During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every
day. And the happiness of taking communion, or “communing” as Agraféna
Ivánovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natásha
so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.
But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in
white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for
many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life
that lay before her.
The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the
powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.
“She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening,” said
he, evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. “Only, please be
particular about it.
“Be quite easy,” he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold
coin in his palm. “She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The
last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened
up very much.”
The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her
nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.
CHAPTER XVIII
At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war
began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to
the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as
up to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,
exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of
Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was
in danger, it was said that Smolénsk had surrendered, that Napoleon had
an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.
On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received
but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostóvs’, promised
to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto
and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchín.
That Sunday, the Rostóvs went to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ private chapel
as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o’clock, when the Rostóvs
got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of
hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves
of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white
trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on
the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that
summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which
is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow
notabilities, all the Rostóvs’ acquaintances, were at the Razumóvskis’
chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families
who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that
summer. As Natásha, at her mother’s side, passed through the crowd
behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a
young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.
“That’s Rostóva, the one who...”
“She’s much thinner, but all the same she’s pretty!”
She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kurágin and Bolkónski. But
she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone
who looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a
sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself
in a crowd, Natásha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace
walked—as women can walk—with the more repose and stateliness the
greater the pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she
was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to.
On the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and
particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town. “It’s Sunday
again—another week past,” she thought, recalling that she had been here
the Sunday before, “and always the same life that is no life, and the
same surroundings in which it used to be so easy to live. I’m pretty,
I’m young, and I know that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I
know I am good,” she thought, “but yet my best years are slipping by
and are no good to anyone.” She stood by her mother’s side and exchanged
nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies’
dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not
crossing herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought
with vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others,
and suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own
vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to
her.
A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that
mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the
souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,
the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice
pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not
understand, made Natásha’s breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive
feeling agitated her.
“Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good
forever, forever!” she pleaded.
The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,
holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic
and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and
solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer....
“In peace let us pray unto the Lord.”
“As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united
by brotherly love—let us pray!” thought Natásha.
“For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls.”
“For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us,” prayed
Natásha.
When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and
Denísov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she
remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her
all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,
she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and
Sónya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward
them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they
prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and
people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her
enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her
father, and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she
remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm—and though he did not
hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did
she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,
as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and
devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,
she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself
that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at
any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.
When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his
breast and said, “Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ
the Lord!”
“Commit ourselves to God,” Natásha inwardly repeated. “Lord God, I
submit myself to Thy will!” she thought. “I want nothing, wish for
nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take
me!” prayed Natásha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing
herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some
invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,
from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.
The countess looked round several times at her daughter’s softened face
and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.
Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order
Natásha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he
knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors
of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet
biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.
Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in
surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod—a prayer for
the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.
“Lord God of might, God of our salvation!” began the priest in that
voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy
read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.
“Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and
blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and
have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay
waste the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered
together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy
beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to
desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked
triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?
“Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might
our most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pávlovich; be
mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his
righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his
counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by
Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou
gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over
Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who
have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength
for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;
confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may
they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the
wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may
they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid
in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants’
feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both
great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!
“God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness
which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our
unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not
our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew
a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our
hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of
spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and
to our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against
the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.
“O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us
not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy
blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and
be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art
the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,
and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice
in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath
the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,
and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all
glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without
end. Amen.”
In Natásha’s receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her
strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over
Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about
the destruction of “Thy Jerusalem,” and she prayed to God with the
tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without
fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She
shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,
for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation
by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under
foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more
of them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the
righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She
felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the
punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own
sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to
give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her
that God heard her prayer.
CHAPTER XIX
From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostóvs’ with Natásha’s
grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to
be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own
horizon—from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all
earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented
itself. That terrible question “Why?” “Wherefore?” which had come to him
amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a
reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or
himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of
human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did
not ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so
transient and incomprehensible—but he remembered her as he had last
seen her, and all his doubts vanished—not because she had answered
the questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her
transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual
activity in which no one could be justified or guilty—a realm of beauty
and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness
presented itself to him, he said to himself:
“Well, supposing N. N. has swindled the country and the Tsar, and the
country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She
smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and
no one will ever know it.” And his soul felt calm and peaceful.
Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle
and dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostóvs’
there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and
acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along
irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came
from the seat of war and Natásha’s health began to improve and she
no longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an
ever-increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took
possession of him. He felt that the condition he was in could not
continue long, that a catastrophe was coming which would change his
whole life, and he impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that
approaching catastrophe. One of his brother Masons had revealed to
Pierre the following prophecy concerning Napoleon, drawn from the
Revelation of St. John.
In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six.
And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two
months.
The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the
Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others
tens, will have the following significance:
a b c d e f g h i k
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
l m n o p q r s
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
t u v w x y
100 110 120 130 140 150
z
160
Writing the words L’Empereur Napoléon in numbers, it appears that the
sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold
in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words
quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that “spoke
great things and blasphemies,” the same number 666 was obtained; from
which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon’s power had come
in the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy
pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an
end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the
same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an
answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L’Empereur
Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums
were either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he
wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the
sum of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,
substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still
without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the
answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would
also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding
up the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was
represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the
word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the
answer he sought. L’russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.
How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in
the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for
a moment. His love for Natásha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the
comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoléon, and L’russe Besuhof—all this had to
mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere
of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a
great achievement and great happiness.
* Forty-two.
On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had
promised the Rostóvs to bring them, from Count Rostopchín whom he knew
well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the
morning, when he went to call at Rostopchín’s he met there a courier
fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at
Moscow balls.
“Do, please, for heaven’s sake, relieve me of something!” said the
courier. “I have a sackful of letters to parents.”
Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostóv to his father. Pierre
took that letter, and Rostopchín also gave him the Emperor’s appeal to
Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own
most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in
one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of
Nicholas Rostóv, awarded a St. George’s Cross of the Fourth Class for
courage shown in the Ostróvna affair, and in the same order the name
of Prince Andrew Bolkónski, appointed to the command of a regiment of
Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostóvs of Bolkónski,
Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their
son’s having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order
and Nicholas’ letter to the Rostóvs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,
and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.
His conversation with Count Rostopchín and the latter’s tone of anxious
hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly
things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in
Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised
to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the
Emperor’s being expected to arrive next day—all aroused with fresh force
that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been
conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially
since the beginning of the war.
He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so
had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of
Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual
peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he
saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking
patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief
reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the
vague idea that he was L’russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,
666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the
power of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been
predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake
anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.
CHAPTER XX
A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostóvs that day, as usual
on Sundays.
Pierre came early so as to find them alone.
He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he
not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his
bulk with evident ease.
He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did
not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was
at the Rostóvs’ he stayed till midnight. The Rostóvs’ footman rushed
eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and
stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the
anteroom.
The first person he saw in the house was Natásha. Even before he saw
her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa
exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her
illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He
opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at
church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he
opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised
face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.
“I want to try to sing again,” she said, adding as if by way of excuse,
“it is, at least, something to do.”
“That’s capital!”
“How glad I am you’ve come! I am so happy today,” she said, with the old
animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. “You know Nicholas
has received a St. George’s Cross? I am so proud of him.”
“Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don’t want to interrupt you,”
he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.
Natásha stopped him.
“Count, is it wrong of me to sing?” she said blushing, and fixing her
eyes inquiringly on him.
“No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?”
“I don’t know myself,” Natásha answered quickly, “but I should not like
to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You
don’t know how important you are to me, how much you’ve done for me....”
She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. “I
saw in that same army order that he, Bolkónski” (she whispered the name
hastily), “is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?”—she
was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail
her—“Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling
toward me? What do you think? What do you think?”
“I think...” Pierre replied, “that he has nothing to forgive.... If I
were in his place...”
By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day
when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but
the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her
hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession
of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him
time to say them.
“Yes, you... you...” she said, uttering the word you rapturously—“that’s
a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than
you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don’t
know what would have become of me, because...”
Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music
before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and
down the room.
Just then Pétya came running in from the drawing room.
Pétya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and
resembled Natásha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and
his friend Obolénski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.
Pétya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair.
He had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the
hussars.
Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Pétya
was saying.
Pétya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
“Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirílych, for heaven’s sake! You are my
only hope,” said Pétya.
“Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I’ll mention it, I’ll bring it
all up today.”
“Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?” asked the old count. “The
countess has been to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ and heard the new prayer.
She says it’s very fine.”
“Yes, I’ve got it,” said Pierre. “The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...
there’s to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are
talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate
you!”
“Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?”
“We are again retreating. They say we’re already near Smolénsk,” replied
Pierre.
“O Lord, O Lord!” exclaimed the count. “Where is the manifesto?”
“The Emperor’s appeal? Oh yes!”
Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find
them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess
who entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting
Natásha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing
room.
“On my word, I don’t know what I’ve done with it,” he said.
“There he is, always losing everything!” remarked the countess.
Natásha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and
sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre’s
features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still
searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
“No, really! I’ll drive home, I must have left them there. I’ll
certainly...”
“But you’ll be late for dinner.”
“Oh! And my coachman has gone.”
But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had
found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the
lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
“No, after dinner,” said the old count, evidently expecting much
enjoyment from that reading.
At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new
chevalier of St. George, Shinshín told them the town news, of the
illness of the old Georgian princess, of Métivier’s disappearance from
Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchín
and accused of being a French “spyer” (so Count Rostopchín had told the
story), and how Rostopchín let him go and assured the people that he was
“not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin.”
“People are being arrested...” said the count. “I’ve told the countess
she should not speak French so much. It’s not the time for it now.”
“And have you heard?” Shinshín asked. “Prince Golítsyn has engaged a
master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in
the streets.”
“And how about you, Count Peter Kirílych? If they call up the militia,
you too will have to mount a horse,” remarked the old count, addressing
Pierre.
Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not
to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.
“Oh yes, the war,” he said. “No! What sort of warrior should I make? And
yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can’t make it out. I don’t
know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no
one can answer for himself.”
After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and
with a serious face asked Sónya, who was considered an excellent reader,
to read the appeal.
“To Moscow, our ancient Capital!
“The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He
comes to despoil our beloved country.”
Sónya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened
with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.
Natásha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and
now at Pierre.
Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess
shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression
in the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger
threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshín, with a sarcastic
smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that
gave him the opportunity: Sónya’s reading, any remark of the count’s, or
even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.
After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the
Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,
Sónya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was
being paid to her, read the last words:
“We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital
and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction
of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy’s path and those
freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he
hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered
from bondage glorify the name of Russia!”
“Yes, that’s it!” cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing
repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he
added, “Let the Emperor but say the word and we’ll sacrifice everything
and begrudge nothing.”
Before Shinshín had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the
count’s patriotism, Natásha jumped up from her place and ran to her
father.
“What a darling our Papa is!” she cried, kissing him, and she again
looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her
with her better spirits.
“There! Here’s a patriot for you!” said Shinshín.
“Not a patriot at all, but simply...” Natásha replied in an injured
tone. “Everything seems funny to you, but this isn’t at all a joke....”
“A joke indeed!” put in the count. “Let him but say the word and we’ll
all go.... We’re not Germans!”
“But did you notice, it says, ‘for consultation’?” said Pierre.
“Never mind what it’s for....”
At this moment, Pétya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up
to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice
that was now deep and now shrill:
“Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it’s as you please,
but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I
can’t... that’s all....”
The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and
turned angrily to her husband.
“That comes of your talking!” said she.
But the count had already recovered from his excitement.
“Come, come!” said he. “Here’s a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must
study.”
“It’s not nonsense, Papa. Fédya Obolénski is younger than I, and he’s
going too. Besides, all the same I can’t study now when...” Pétya
stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,
“when our Fatherland is in danger.”
“That’ll do, that’ll do—nonsense....”
“But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything.”
“Pétya! Be quiet, I tell you!” cried the count, with a glance at his
wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.
“And I tell you—Peter Kirílych here will also tell you...”
“Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother’s milk has hardly dried on your lips
and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you,” and the
count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread
them in his study before having a nap.
“Well, Peter Kirílych, let’s go and have a smoke,” he said.
Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natásha’s unwontedly brilliant eyes,
continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced
him to this condition.
“No, I think I’ll go home.”
“Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don’t
often come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine,” said the count
good-naturedly, pointing to Natásha, “only brightens up when you’re
here.”
“Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business...” said
Pierre hurriedly.
“Well, then, au revoir!” said the count, and went out of the room.
“Why are you going? Why are you upset?” asked Natásha, and she looked
challengingly into Pierre’s eyes.
“Because I love you!” was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,
and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.
“Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply
I have business....”
“Why? No, tell me!” Natásha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.
They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried
to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently
kissed her hand and went out.
Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostóvs’ any more.
CHAPTER XXI
After the definite refusal he had received, Pétya went to his room
and there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,
silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to
notice anything.
Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostóvs’
domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That
morning Pétya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and
collar to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,
gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word
to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to
avoid notice. Pétya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and
to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor
to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostóv,
in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be
no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While
dressing, Pétya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the
gentleman-in-waiting.
It was on the very fact of being so young that Pétya counted for success
in reaching the Emperor—he even thought how surprised everyone would be
at his youthfulness—and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair
and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.
But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the
ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Krémlin, the less he remembered
to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached
the Krémlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck
out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he
was so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the
patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his
determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,
rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Pétya stood a peasant woman, a
footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some
time in the gateway, Pétya tried to move forward in front of the others
without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely
working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who
was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at
him:
“What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don’t you see we’re all
standing still? Then why push?”
“Anybody can shove,” said the footman, and also began working his elbows
to such effect that he pushed Pétya into a very filthy corner of the
gateway.
Pétya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp
collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man’s.
He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were
now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be
admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up
or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who
drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostóvs’, and Pétya thought of
asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a
manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,
carrying Pétya with it, streamed forward into the Krémlin Square which
was already full of people. There were people not only in the square,
but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Pétya found
himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous
voices of the crowd that filled the whole Krémlin.
For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,
and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Pétya was being pressed so
that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!” Pétya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see
nothing except the people about him.
All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A
tradesman’s wife standing beside Pétya sobbed, and the tears ran down
her cheeks.
“Father! Angel! Dear one!” she kept repeating, wiping away her tears
with her fingers.
“Hurrah!” was heard on all sides.
For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush
forward.
Quite beside himself, Pétya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes
ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting “hurrah!” as
if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but
on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed
forward and everybody shouted “hurrah!”
“So this is what the Emperor is!” thought Pétya. “No, I can’t petition
him myself—that would be too bold.” But in spite of this he continued
to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those
in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth
spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police
in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the
procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of
the Assumption—and Pétya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side
and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim
before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a
man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of
his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and
chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off
the pressure of the crowd with the other.
“You’ve crushed the young gentleman!” said the clerk. “What are you up
to? Gently!... They’ve crushed him, crushed him!”
The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread
out again more evenly, and the clerk led Pétya—pale and breathless—to
the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Pétya, and suddenly a
crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest
him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised
platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might
be) who had crushed him.
“One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing
people! Poor dear, he’s as white as a sheet!”—various voices were heard
saying.
Pétya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had
passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained
a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who
would be returning that way. Pétya no longer thought of presenting his
petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!
While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it
was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor’s
arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the
Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvass,
gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Pétya was particularly
fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman’s
wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had
cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk
who had rescued Pétya was talking to a functionary about the priests who
were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used
the word “plenary” (of the service), a word Pétya did not understand.
Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking
nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,
were such as might have had a particular charm for Pétya at his age, but
they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation—the pedestal of
the cannon—still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and by
his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced when
he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further
intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.
Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,
to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed
impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Pétya too would
have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under
his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when
officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the
cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were
again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back
again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the
cathedral doors. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the crowd again.
“Which is he? Which?” asked Pétya in a tearful voice, of those around
him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Pétya,
fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the
tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm
on him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically shouted
“Hurrah!” and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the
army.
The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began
to disperse. It was already late, and Pétya had not eaten anything and
was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with
that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while
the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew
not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance
to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,
glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.
While the Emperor was dining, Valúev, looking out of the window, said:
“The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.”
The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose
and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Pétya among them, rushed
toward the balcony.
“Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!...” cried the crowd, and Pétya with
it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Pétya among them, wept
with joy.
A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke
off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in
a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several
people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had
a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from
the balcony. Pétya’s eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the
danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,
but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar’s hand and he felt that he
must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was
catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated
though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but
her hand did not reach them. Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee,
seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted
“Hurrah!” with a voice already hoarse.
The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began
to disperse.
“There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!” was being joyfully said
by various people.
Happy as Pétya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all
the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from
the Krémlin, but called on his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen and was
also entering the regiment. On returning home Pétya announced resolutely
and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would
run away. And next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though he had not yet quite
yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for Pétya to serve where
there would be least danger.
CHAPTER XXII
Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages
were standing outside the Slobóda Palace.
The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in
their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats
of blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen’s hall there was
an incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on
high-backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor,
but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.
All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their own
houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine’s day, others in that
of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander’s time or
the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic
of being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these
diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,
dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,
were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their
places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached
themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces
of the crowd Pétya had seen in the Square, there was a striking
contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the
same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,
Zinaída Dmítrievna’s health, and so on.
Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman’s
uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated;
this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the
merchant-class—les états généraux (States-General)—evoked in him a whole
series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in
his soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The
words that had struck him in the Emperor’s appeal—that the sovereign was
coming to the capital for consultation with his people—strengthened this
idea. And imagining that in this direction something important which
he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching and
listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of the
ideas that occupied him.
The Emperor’s manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved
about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre
heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when
the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor’s
honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole
provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or
what the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and
indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.
A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired
naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was
pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round
the speaker and listened. Count Ilyá Rostóv, in a military uniform of
Catherine’s time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,
with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and
listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did,
to what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very
boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners
and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and
quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement
with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened,
and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views
quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly
sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly
swallowing his r’s and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of
a man calling out to his servant, “Heah! Bwing me my pipe!” It was
indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.
“What if the Smolénsk people have offahd to waise militia for the
Empewah? Ah we to take Smolénsk as our patte’n? If the noble awistocwacy
of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our
sov’weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo’gotten the waising of
the militia in the yeah ‘seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests’
sons and thieves and wobbahs....”
Count Ilyá Rostóv smiled blandly and nodded approval.
“And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined
our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o’ ou’ men will wetu’n
neithah soldiers no’ peasants, and we’ll get only depwavity fwom them.
The nobility don’t gwudge theah lives—evewy one of us will go and bwing
in more wecwuits, and the sov’weign” (that was the way he referred to
the Emperor) “need only say the word and we’ll all die fo’ him!” added
the orator with animation.
Count Rostóv’s mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but
Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred,
but not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he
opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his
head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first
speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and
to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:
“I imagine, sir,” said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, “that we
have been summoned here not to discuss whether it’s best for the empire
at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia.
We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign
the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—conscription or
the militia—we can leave to the supreme authority....”
Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart
against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude
into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and
interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he
began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing
himself in bookish Russian.
“Excuse me, your excellency,” he began. (He was well acquainted with
the senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him
formally.) “Though I don’t agree with the gentleman...” (he hesitated:
he wished to say, “Mon très honorable préopinant”—“My very honorable
opponent”) “with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing,
I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express
their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which
we can assist our Fatherland! I imagine,” he went on, warming to his
subject, “that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us
merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and
chair à canon * we are ready to make of ourselves—and not to obtain from
us any co-co-counsel.”
* “Food for cannon.”
Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator’s sarcastic
smile and the freedom of Pierre’s remarks. Only Count Rostóv was pleased
with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the
senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard.
“I think that before discussing these questions,” Pierre continued, “we
should ask the Emperor—most respectfully ask His Majesty—to let us know
the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our
forces now are, and then...”
But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from
three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance,
a boston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepán
Stepánovich Adráksin. Adráksin was in uniform, and whether as a result
of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a
different man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face,
Adráksin shouted at Pierre:
“In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor
about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the
Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved
according to the enemy’s movements and the number of men increases and
decreases....”
Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years
of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies’ and knew as a bad
cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre,
interrupted Adráksin.
“Yes, and this is not a time for discussing,” he continued, “but for
acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy
Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives
and children.” The nobleman smote his breast. “We will all arise,
everyone of us will go, for our father the Tsar!” he shouted, rolling
his bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd.
“We are Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith,
the throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of
our Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of
Russia!”
Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his
words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the
sound of his opponent’s voice.
Count Rostóv at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several
persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a
phrase, said:
“That’s right, quite right! Just so!”
Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his
serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in
order to be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices
shouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostóv had not time
to signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed,
re-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and
to the big table. Not only was Pierre’s attempt to speak unsuccessful,
but he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away
from him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were
displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten
after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a
tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the
latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in
the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality.
Glínka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries
of “author! author!” were heard in the crowd), said that “hell must be
repulsed by hell,” and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning
flashes and thunderclaps, but “we will not be that child.”
“Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!” was repeated approvingly in the back rows
of the crowd.
The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald
seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed, almost all of whom
Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing
boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced
to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the
chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together.
Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened
to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find
some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre
knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their
faces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very
hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that
they were ready to go to all lengths—which found expression in the tones
and looks more than in the substance of the speeches—infected him too.
He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to blame
and wished to justify himself.
“I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices
when we know what is needed!” said he, trying to be heard above the
other voices.
One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was
immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table.
“Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!” shouted
one man.
“He is the enemy of mankind!” cried another. “Allow me to speak....”
“Gentlemen, you are crushing me!...”
CHAPTER XXIII
At that moment Count Rostopchín with his protruding chin and alert eyes,
wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered
the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.
“Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment,” said Rostopchín.
“I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think
there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon
us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there”—he pointed
to the merchants’ hall—“but our business is to supply men and not spare
ourselves.... That is the least we can do!”
A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.
The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding
noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, “I
agree,” or for variety, “I too am of that opinion,” and so on had even a
mournful effect.
The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow
nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,
out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolénsk gentry had done. Their
chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose
with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to
stretch their legs and converse in couples.
“The Emperor! The Emperor!” a sudden cry resounded through the halls and
the whole throng hurried to the entrance.
The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of
nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre
stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From
what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger
threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow
nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the
resolution just arrived at.
“Gentlemen!” said the Emperor with a quivering voice.
There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that
Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying
with emotion:
“I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has
surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!
Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious....”
The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and
rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.
“Yes, most precious... a royal word,” said Count Rostóv, with a sob. He
stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood
everything in his own way.
From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants.
There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him
come out from the merchants’ hall with tears of emotion in his eyes.
As became known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants
before tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling
voice. When Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two
merchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchík. The other was
the mayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were
weeping. Tears filled the thin man’s eyes, and the fat otkupshchík
sobbed outright like a child and kept repeating:
“Our lives and property—take them, Your Majesty!”
Pierre’s one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was
ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now
felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought
an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamónov was
furnishing a regiment, Bezúkhov at once informed Rostopchín that he
would give a thousand men and their maintenance.
Old Rostóv could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and
at once consented to Pétya’s request and went himself to enter his name.
Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off
their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not
without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment,
feeling amazed themselves at what they had done.
BOOK TEN: 1812
CHAPTER I
Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going
to Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he
received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the
stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from
bursts of anger in the presence of Kurákin and then of Balashëv.
Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally
insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best
way, because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great
commander. Rostóv charged the French because he could not restrain
his wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the
innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their
personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were
moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining
that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will,
but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work
concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable
fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy
the less are they free.
The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal
interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that
time but its historic results.
Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to
further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all
expected—neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those
who did the actual fighting.
The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us
now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance
into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for
a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war
by the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused
among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems
so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand
men—the best in the world and led by the best general—could be destroyed
in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, and led by
inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only did no one
see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to hinder the
only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side, despite
Napoleon’s experience and so-called military genius, every effort was
directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer, that is, to
doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.
In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of
saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he
sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolénsk,
and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign
was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling
us that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was
adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some
of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to
Toll, and others again to Alexander himself—pointing to notes, projects,
and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But all these
hints at what happened, both from the French side and the Russian, are
advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that event not
occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have forgotten the
thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the contrary
which were current then but have now been forgotten because the event
falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of
any event that however it may end there will always be people to say:
“I said then that it would be so,” quite forgetting that amid their
innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.
Conjectures as to Napoleon’s awareness of the danger of extending his
line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths
of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can
historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals,
or such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat
contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war
not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French
into the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia
everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid
to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and
did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.
At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole
aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we
meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our
Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian
soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel’s
plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor
reproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could
not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolénsk, still less
could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did
unite he was displeased that Smolénsk was abandoned and burned without a
general engagement having been fought under its walls.
So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still
more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the
depths of the country.
Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and
missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at
Smolénsk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now
see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.
The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the
advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then
think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of
Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan,
for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex
interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in
the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one
way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies
were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite
them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the
enemy’s advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle
with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at
an acute angle—we led the French on to Smolénsk. But we withdrew at an
acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies;
the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because
Barclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagratión (who
would come under his command), and Bagratión—being in command of the
second army—tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay’s
command as long as he could. Bagratión was slow in effecting the
junction—though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters—because,
as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was
best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying
the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for
his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under
the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior
to his own.
The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and
ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and
plans, destroyed the first army’s energy and it retired.
The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,
aiming at becoming commander in chief, unexpectedly employed his energy
to influence Alexander, and Pfuel’s whole plan was abandoned and the
command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence
his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of
command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division,
and the unpopularity of the foreign commander in chief, there resulted
on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could
not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else,
instead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing
indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.
At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed
the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary
for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in
general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow
the strength of the Russian army was trebled.
He left in order not to obstruct the commander in chief’s undivided
control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then
be taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and
enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarévich, and a swarm of adjutants general
remained with the army to keep the commander in chief under observation
and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under
the observation of all these “eyes of the Emperor,” became still more
cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.
Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarévich hinted at treachery and
demanded a general engagement. Lubomírski, Bronnítski, Wlocki, and the
others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under
pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish
adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with
Bennigsen and the Tsarévich.
At Smolénsk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagratión disliked it.
Bagratión drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.
Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior
officer Bagratión.
Despite his seniority in rank Bagratión, in this contest of magnanimity,
took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him
less than ever. By the Emperor’s orders Bagratión reported direct to
him. He wrote to Arakchéev, the Emperor’s confidant: “It must be as
my sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning
Barclay). For God’s sake send me somewhere else if only in command of
a regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans
that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought
I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out
that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to.”
The swarm of Bronnítskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further
embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even
less unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before
Smolénsk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general,
hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander,
and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned,
as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not
seen.
While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of
battle, and while we were looking for the French—having lost touch with
them—the French stumbled upon Nevérovski’s division and reached the
walls of Smolénsk.
It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolénsk to save our
lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed
on both sides.
Smolénsk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the
whole people. But Smolénsk was burned by its own inhabitants who had
been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting
an example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own
losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we
retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.