I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
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Index of War and Peace
Next part (2)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi
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
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man
of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her
reception. Anna Pavlovna 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 Scherer.”
“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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna. “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 Novosiltsev’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 Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a
stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer 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 Pavlovna
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 Novosiltsev 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. A 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 emigres, the good
ones. And also the Abbe 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 Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others
were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it
for the baron.
Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna’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
Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak 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
Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna 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 Bolkonskaya.”
Prince Vasili 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 Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov’s and will be here
tonight.”
“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-
slafe wigh 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 Pavlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to Lise,
young Bolkonski’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 Pavlovna’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 Vasili’s daughter, the beautiful Helene, 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
Bolkonskaya, known as la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg,* 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 Vasili’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart,
whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio and many others had also come.
*The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.
To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Bolkonskaya 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 Pavlovna.
“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 Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.
“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” said Prince
Vasili to Anna Pavlovna.
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 Bezukhov, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty’s health.
Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: “Do you know
the Abbe 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 Pavlovna 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
abbe’s plan chimerical.
“We will talk of it later,” said Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 abbe.
Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna
Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna’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 abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the
beautiful Princess Helene, Prince Vasili’s daughter, and the little
Princess Bolkonskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump
for her age. The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna
Pavlovna.
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 Pavlovna was obviously serving him up
as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d’hotel 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 Pavlovna served
up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, 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 Pavlovna,
with a pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in
the sound of that sentence: “Contez nous cela, Vicomte.”
The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness
to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone
to listen to his tale.
“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pavlovna to 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, Helene, dear,” said Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna. Helene 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 Pavlovna, 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 Helene.
“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 effrayee, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 abbe, so she hurried to
the rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe
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 Pavlovna disapproved.
“The means are… the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people,” the abbe 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 Pavlovna 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 abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, 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
Bolkonski, 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 Pavlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned
the whole company.
“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pavlovna.
“General Kutuzov,” said Bolkonski, 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?”
“Andre,” 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Pavlovna.
His daughter, Princess Helene, 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 Vasili seized Pierre’s hand and said to Anna
Pavlovna: “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 Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew
his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili’s. The elderly lady who
had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook
Prince Vasili in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had
assumed had left her kindly and tearworn face and it now expressed
only anxiety and fear.
“How about my son Boris, 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 Vasili 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 Vasili, “but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I
should advise you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn.
That would be the best way.”
The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, 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 Vasili that she had
obtained an invitation to Anna Pavlovna’s reception and had sat
listening to the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasili’s words frightened
her, an embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a
moment; then she smiled again and dutched Prince Vasili’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
Golitsyn 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 Helene, 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 Vasili 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 Drubetskaya’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 Mikhaylovna,” 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 Ilarionovich
Kutuzov… recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at
rest, and then…”
Prince Vasili smiled.
“No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, I don’t promise.”
“Do promise, do promise, Vasili!” cried Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Pavlovna, “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 Pavlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.
“‘Dieu me la donne, gare a 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 Pavlovna 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 Conde
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much
gravity as if she had asked him to do it.
“Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d’ azur- maison Conde,” 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 Pavlovna,
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 Pavlovna, “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 Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna.
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 Pavlovna.
“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 Pavlovna, 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
Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna
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 Pavlovna 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, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna. “It is settled,” she added in
a low voice.
Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Scherer? 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 abbe 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 abbe as tutor,
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow
his father dismissed the abbe 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 Vasili, 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 abbe 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 naive 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 Pavlovna’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
Apraksins’ 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, Andre…” (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 naive 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 Bolkonski
who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna’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
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mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and
turning to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”
Natasha, 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 Natasha, “is Mimi a relation of
yours? A daughter, I suppose?”
Natasha 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: Boris, the officer, Anna
Mikhaylovna’s son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count’s eldest
son; Sonya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya,
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 Apraksina. 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. Boris 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. Boris on the contrary at once found
his footing, and related quietly and humorously how he had know 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 Natasha. 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. Boris 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.
Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. 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 Sonya, the niece. Sonya 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 Natasha
and Boris, escape from the drawing room.
“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and
pointing to Nicholas, “his friend Boris 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 Pavlograd 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 Sonya 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 Karagina turned to
young Rostov.
“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkharovs’ 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 Sonya, 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
Sonya.
“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!” said Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Boris already. Just fancy!” said the
countess with a gentle smile, looking at Boris’ 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 Vera, with a smile.
But the smile did not enhance Vera’s beauty as smiles generally
do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore
unpleasant, expression. Vera 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 Vera,” said the count. “Well, what of that? She’s turned
out splendidly all the same,” he added, winking at Vera.
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 Natasha 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 Boris 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 Natasha dashed swiftly
among the flower tubs and hid there.
Boris 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. Natasha, 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. Natasha
was about to call him but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,”
thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears,
and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha 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. Sonya, muttering
to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing-room door. It opened
and Nicholas came in.
“Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?” said he,
running up to her.
“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” sobbed Sonya.
“Ah, I know what it is.”
“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”
“So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like
that, for a mere fancy?” said Nicholas taking her hand.
Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not
stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with
sparkling eyes. “What will happen now?” thought she.
“Sonya! 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, Sonya!” He drew her to him
and kissed her.
“Oh, how nice,” thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.
“Boris, 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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.
“Natasha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but…”
“You are in love with me?” Natasha 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.”
Natasha 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 Boris.
“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 tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood,
Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she
returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna. “There
are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your
friendship.”
Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her
friend’s hand.
“Vera,” 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 Vera 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.
Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses
for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at
the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and
Natasha looked at Vera 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 Vera.
“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
Vera. “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 Natasha and
Boris, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”
“Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?” said Natasha in defense,
speaking very gently.
She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
everyone.
“Very silly,” said Vera. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”
“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natasha, getting warmer.
“We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”
“I should think not,” said Vera, “because there can never be
anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are
behaving with Boris.”
“Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me,” remarked Boris. “I have
nothing to complain of.”
“Don’t, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really
tiresome,” said Natasha 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 Vera, “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 Vera 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 Vera, “I said none
to anyone.”
“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices
through the door.
The handsome Vera, 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 Mikhaylovna, “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 Bory?” 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 Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to
everything, and put the matter before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she
had endured to gain her end.
“Has Prince Vasili aged much?” asked the countess. “I have not
seen him since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs’ 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 Mikhaylovna,
“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 Mikhaylovna,
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 Boris.” 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 Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If he will not assist
his godson- you know he is Bory’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 Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all
alone… that tremendous fortune… and what is his life worth? It’s a
burden to him, and Bory’s life is only just beginning….”
“Surely he will leave something to Boris,” said the countess.
“Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.
Still, I will take Boris 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vladimirovich, 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 Taras distinguishes himself today. He
says Count Orlov never gave such a dinner as ours will be!”
CHAPTER XV
“My dear Boris,” said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as
Countess Rostova’s carriage in which they were seated drove over the
straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
Vladimirovich Bezukhov’s house. “My dear Boris,” 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 Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, 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.
Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without
taking off his cloak.
“My friend,” said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the
hall porter, I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich 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 Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying
here, is he not? Please announce me.”
The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and
turned away.
“Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich,” 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 Vasili.
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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and
perplexed. Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging
the bow turned to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a
movement of the head and lips indicating very little hope for the
patient.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. “Oh, how awful! It
is terrible to think…. This is my son,” she added, indicating Boris.
“He wanted to thank you himself.”
Boris 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
Mikhaylovna,” said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in
tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed
under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than
he had done in Petersburg at Anna Scherer’s reception.
“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing
Boris 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 Boris, 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 Rostova’s,” replied Boris, again adding,
“your excellency.”
“That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina,” said
Anna Mikhaylovna.
“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna with a pathetic
smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov 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 Boris. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that this
fact ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.
Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw
that he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov’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 Pavlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid
of Anna Mikhaylovna.
“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna
Mikhaylovna?” 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
Vasili turned to her.
“Well, how is he?”
“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise…” said the
princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.
“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position
she had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili
to take a seat beside her.
“Boris,” 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 Rostovs’ 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 Boris 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 Rostov’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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Vasili 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 Boris 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 Boris was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten
him, but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the
hand with a friendly smile.
“Do you remember me?” asked Boris 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.
Boris 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 Rostov asks you to come to dinner today,” said he, after a
considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
“Ah, Count Rostov!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his
son, Ilya? 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 Boris deliberately, with a bold and
slightly sarcastic smile. “I am Boris, son of Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, 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 Boris? 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!
Boris 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 Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly,
looking straight into Pierre’s eyes.
“Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,” Boris 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 Boris 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 Boris under the elbow in his quick,
clumsy way, and, blushing far more than Boris, 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 Boris 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 Rostovs’?”
And Boris, 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 Boris’ 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
Boris with a smile.
Pierre saw that Boris 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 Boris- the princess was going. Pierre,
in order to make Boris’ better acquaintance, promised to come to
dinner, and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his
spectacles into Boris’ 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count
Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova 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 saute of game au madere we are to
have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras
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 saute, 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 Dmitri to me!”
Dmitri, 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, Dmitri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing
deeply.
“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmitri. “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 Dmitri 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 Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov’s the money,
all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the
countess’ little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be
ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
“This is for Boris from me, for his outfit.”
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Rostova, 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 Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le
terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but
for common sense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna 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
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, Shinshin, 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 Semenov regiment with whom
Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom Natasha had,
teased her elder sister Vera, 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 tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich,”
said Shinshin, 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’etat;* you want to make something out of your company?”
*You expect to make an income out of the government.
“No, Peter Nikolaevich; 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 Nikolaevich…”
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 Nikolaevich. 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 Shinshin 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 Nikolaevich, 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 Shinshin, 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
Shinshin 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 naivete 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 Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking
his feet off the sofa.
Berg smiled joyously. The count, 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 zakuska,* 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 naively 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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Razumovskis… It
was charming… You are very kind… Countess Apraksina…” was
heard on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.
“Marya Dmitrievna?” came her voice from there.
“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna
entered the room.
All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna 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. Marya Dmitrievna 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?” (Marya Dmitrievna always called
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 dearly 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 Marya
Dmitrievna.
The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, 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
Mikhaylovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling
Julie Karagina 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 Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna
Mikhaylovna 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
Shinshin and the other male visitors on his right. Midway down the
long table on one side sat the grownup young people: Vera beside Berg,
and Pierre beside Boris; 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 Vera that love is not an earthly but a
heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre who the
guests were and exchanging glances with Natasha, 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.
Natasha, who sat opposite, was looking at Boris 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 Sonya, beside Julie Karagina,
to whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya
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
Shinshin. “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 Shinshin’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 Shinshin, puckering his brows and
smiling. “Cela nous convient a merveille.*[2] Suvorov now- he knew
what he was about; yet they beat him a plate couture,*[3] and where
are we to find Suvorovs 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.
Sonya 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?” Marya
Dmitrievna’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, Marya Dmitrievna? 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 Marya Dmitrievna’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,” Natasha’s little brother was saying; “I know you
won’t ask!”
“I will,” replied Natasha.
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 a
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inherit… un batard!”* she added, as if supposing that this
translation of the word would effectively prove to Prince Vasili 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
Bezukhov, 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 Semenovna,” began Prince Vasili
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 Dmitri Onufrich”
(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 Vasili.
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
Vasili, 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 protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him)
was driving into the court of Count Bezukhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna,
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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna pass
and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.
“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna, 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
Mikhaylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasili and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili’s face so out of keeping with his dignity
that Pierre stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his
guide. Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre
who, hanging his head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna
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 naive 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 Vasili 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 Vasili
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
illness. Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Bezukhov, 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 Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and
all-forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door near the
strange lady. Prince Vasili 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
Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna
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 Vasili left the chair on which he had
been leaning, and- with 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna Mikhaylovna
with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed. Pierre
obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna
Mikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naively
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
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Vasili
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 Vasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. “Go and take something, my poor
Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna 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
Bezukhov’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 Vasili and the eldest
princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a
short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to
bar her path.
“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, 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
Mikhaylovna. 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 Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold
on the portfolio, and changed her grip.
Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna, “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 Vasili.
“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince
Vasili severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”
“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.
Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, stooping,
quickly caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom.
The eldest princess and Prince Vasili, 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned
he was fast asleep with his head on his arm.
In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Boris. 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 Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs’ and went to bed. On waking in the
morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezukhov’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 Vasili she spoke disapprovingly, but in whispers
and as a great secret.
CHAPTER XXV
At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski’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 Andreevich
(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 ante chamber 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 Heloise?” 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 Heloise 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 Karagina
who had been at the Rostovs’ 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 Rostov, 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 Bezukhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses
have received very little, Prince Vasili 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 Bezukhov and
possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince
Vasili 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
Bezukhov 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 Bezukhova. But you will understand that I have
no desire for the post. A propos of marriages: do you know that a
while ago that universal auntie Anna Mikhaylovna told me, under the
seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of marriage for you. It is neither
more nor less than with Prince Vasili’s son Anatole, whom they wish to
reform by marrying him to someone rich and distinguee, 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 Apraksins’. 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 Bezukhov’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 Vasili, 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 Vasili 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
Vasili. 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
Ivanovich. 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
Tikhon, 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. Tikhon 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
Tikhon; 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
Tikhon, 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, Tikhon,” 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 Spasski 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 Odyntsova 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, Tikhon 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 Tikhon.
“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the old
man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon 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 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- Tolstoy’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 Tikhon, who
ran after him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of
Sweden? How will they cross Pomera
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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 Mitrich, 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 Tsaritsin 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 Kutuzov the
day before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army
of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, 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 Mitrich, 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 Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov with his bluish-gray
uniform.
Dolokhov 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…”
Dolokhov hurriedly interrupted.
“No talking in the ranks!… No talking, no talking!”
“Not bound to endure insults,” Dolokhov 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 caleche, slightly creaking on its springs
and drawn by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped
the suite and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian
general, in a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian
black ones. The caleche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov
and the Austrian general were talking in low voices and Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, 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
Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade Nesvitski, a tall staff officer,
extremely stout, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes.
Nesvitski 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. Nesvitski laughed
and nudged the others to make them look at the wag.
Kutuzov 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, Timokhin!” 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 Timokhin 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski could not help
laughing. Kutuzov turned round. The officer evidently had complete
control of his face, and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a
grimace and then assume a most serious, deferential, and innocent
expression.
The third company was the last, and Kutuzov 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 Dolokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment.”
“Where is Dolokhov?” asked Kutuzov.
Dolokhov, 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?” Kutuzov asked with a slight frown.
“This is Dolokhov,” said Prince Andrew.
“Ah!” said Kutuzov. “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,” Dolokhov 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!”
Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov 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, Prokhor Ignatych?” said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timokhin 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. Dolokhov that I won’t forget him- he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please- I’ve been meaning to ask- how is 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 Timokhin.
“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 Timokhin, showing by his smile
that he understood his commander’s wish.
“Well, of course, of course!”
The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and,
reining in his horse, said to him:
“After the next affair… epaulettes.”
Dolokhov 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
Timokhin 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 Kutuzov 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, Fedeshon!… 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
Kamenski.” This song had been composed in the Turkish campaign and now
being sung in Austria, the only change being that the words “Father
Kamenski” were replaced by “Father Kutuzov.”
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.
Kutuzov 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 Dolokhov 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 Kutuzov’s suite who had mimicked the regimental commander,
fell back from the carriage and rode up to Dolokhov.
Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov
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?” Dolokhov answered coldly. “I am as you see.”
The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dolokhov’s reply.
“And how do you get on with the officers?” inquired Zherkov.
“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 Dolokhov.
“The devil only knows! They say so.”
“I’m glad,” answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.
“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!” said
Zherkov.
“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…”
Dolokhov 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…”
Zherkov 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, Kutuzov 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 Bolkonski came into the
room with the required papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of
the Hofkriegsrath were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread
out.
“Ah!…” said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov.
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 Kutuzov’s suggestion of an
Austrian victory sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew.
“Please have a look at it”- and Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’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 Kutuzov’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, Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.
“Well, Prince?” asked Kozlovski.
“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 Kutuzov?” 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 Kozlovski, 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 Kozlovski, who was
rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.
“The commander in chief is engaged,” repeated Kozlovski 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 Kozlovski, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov.
“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,” he uttered in a broken voice.
Kutuzov’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 Suvorov 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 Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag
Zherkov; they were as usual laughing.
“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew’s pale
face and glittering eyes.
“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkonski.
Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward
them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian
general who on Kutuzov’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 Zherkov,
pushing Nesvitski 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 Zherkov 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!”
Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkov. 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 Zherkov’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.”
Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.
“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkov.
“I am not jesting with you; please be silent!” cried Bolkonski,
and taking Nesvitski’s arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to
say.
“Come, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Nesvitski 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 massacres et l’armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la
le mot pour rire,”* he said, as if strengthening his views by this
French sentence. “C’ est bien pour un garcon de rein 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 Zherkov 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 Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet
Rostov, 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. Denisov, who had been losing at
cards all night, had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early
in the morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov 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, Bondarenko, 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 Bondarenko 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. Rostov 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 Rostov. “Schon gut Morgen! Schon
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 Rostov 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!”
Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and ctied
laughing, “Und vivat die ganze Welt!” Though neither the German
cleaning his cowshed nor Rostov 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 Rostov going to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.
“What about your master?” he asked Lavrushka, Denisov’s orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.
“Hasn’t been in since the evening. Must have been losing,”
answered Lavrushka. “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 Lavrushka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!”
said he. “Now for trouble!” Rostov looked out of the window and saw
Denisov coming home. Denisov 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.
“Lavwuska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off, blockhead!”
“Well, I am taking it off,” replied Lavrushka’s voice.
“Ah, you’re up already,” said Denisov, entering the room.
“Long ago,” answered Rostov, “I have already been for the hay, and
have seen Fraulein Mathilde.”
“Weally! And I’ve been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!” cried Denisov, 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 Rostov.
“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 Lavrushka.
Denisov’s face puckered still more.
“Wetched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in
it. “Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove
the purse undah the pillow,” he said, and went out to the
quartermaster.
Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new
coins in separate piles, began counting them.
“Ah! Telyanin! How d’ye do? They plucked me last night,” came
Denisov’s voice from the next room.
“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s… I knew it,” replied a piping
voice, and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same
squadron, entered the room.
Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little
hand which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been
transferred from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very
well in the regiment but was not liked; Rostov 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 Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)
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 Rostov, 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 Rostov.
“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 Rostov wishing to avoid
Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.
In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the
threshold facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing
Rostov, Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder
with his thumb to the room where Telyanin 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.
Rostov 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
Telyanin.
Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.
“Well there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostov as he
entered.
“Have you told them to bring the horse?” asked Telyanin, getting
up and looking carelessly about him.
“I have.”
“Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about
yesterday’s order. Have you got it, Denisov?”
“Not yet. But where are you off to?”
“I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,” said Telyanin.
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 Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on
the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a
sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov’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 Rostov 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 first day of cweation… Who’s that now? Send
him to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrushka, 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.”
Denisov 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 Rostov.
“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 Lavrushka.
“Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,” said
Rostov, blushing.
“Don’t like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don’t,” growled
Denisov.
“But if you won’t accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some,” Rostov repeated.
“No, I tell you.”
And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.
“Where have you put it, Wostov?”
“Under the lower pillow.”
“It’s not there.”
Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.
“That’s a miwacle.”
“Wait, haven’t you dropped it?” said Rostov, 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 Rostov. “I put it
just here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrushka.
“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 Rostov,
“but I remember putting it there.”
Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and
under the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of
the room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka’s movements, and when the
latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
Denisov glanced at Rostov.
“Wostov, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks…”
Rostov felt Denisov’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 Lavrushka.
“Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!”
shouted Denisov, 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.”
Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled
on his saber, and put on his cap.
“I must have that purse, I tell you,” shouted Denisov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.
“Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,” said Rostov,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused,
thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov 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 Rostov in an unsteady voice, and
went to the door.
“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Denisov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denisov 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
Rostov heard.
Rostov went to Telyanin’s quarters.
“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said Telyanin’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
Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to
it and saw Telyanin’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 Rostov 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 Telyanin 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. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.
“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him
the purse.
“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”
Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in
it, and looked at Telyanin. 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.”
Rostov did not speak.
“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here,” continued Telyanin. “Now then, let me have it.”
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go
of it. Telyanin 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 else’s business.”
“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostov’s eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin’s eyes to
Rostov’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.
“Come here,” said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin’s arm and almost
dragging him to the window. “That money is Denisov’s; you took
it…” he whispered just above Telyanin’s ear.
“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyanin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an
entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostov 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
Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room.
“We must have an explanation…”
“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostov.
“I…”
Every muscle of Telyanin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not
rising to Rostov’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!…”
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’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 Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
“Don’t touch me,” said Rostov, 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 Denisov’s quarters.
“And I tell you, Rostov, 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 Rostov who was crimson with
excitement.
The staff captain, Kirsten, 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 Rostov. “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 Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet
to demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?”
Denisov 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 Bogdanich” (the colonel
was called Bogdanich) “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 Rostov.
“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 Bogdanich 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
Bogdanich 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 Pavlograd
officers!’ But it’s not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denisov?
It’s not the same!”
Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked
with his glittering black eyes at Rostov.
“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 Bogdanich 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 Rostov.
“That’s twue, devil take it” shouted Denisov, jumping up. “Now then,
Wostov, now then!”
Rostov, 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 Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.
“I tell you,” shouted Denisov, “he’s a fine fellow.”
“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, beginning to address
Rostov 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 Rostov 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?”
Denisov began to laugh.
“It’ll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you’ll pay
for your obstinacy,” said Kirsten.
“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 Denisov.
“He has weported himself sick, he’s to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow,” muttered Denisov.
“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 Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.
Just then Zherkov 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, Rostov? 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
Zherkov. 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
Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski, 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 Nesvitski was
treating some officers to pies and real doppelkummel. 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?” Nesvitski
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 Nesvitski. “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.
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stout staff officer, and at Zherkov, 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 Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to
the bridge.
“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostov 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. Rostov watched his enemy,
the colonel, closely- to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, 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. Rostov 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. Denisov rode past him,
leaning back and shouting something. Rostov saw nothing but the
hussars running all around him, their spurs catching and their
sabers clattering.
“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.
Rostov 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.
Rostov 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 Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing
Rostov, 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 Denisov, 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 Vaska Denisov, turning
in his saddle.
Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, 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 Nesvitski; “they are within
grapeshot range now.”
“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the
suite.
“True enough,” answered Nesvitski; “two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well.”
“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the
hussars, but still with that naive 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
Vladimir 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 Bogdanich 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 Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski, 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 Nesvitski 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.
Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 wishing
for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there,” thought Rostov.
“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 Rostov. 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!” Rostov 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 Vaska Denisov just
above his ear.
“It’s all over; but I am a coward- yes, a coward!” thought Rostov,
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 Denisov.
“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denisov. “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 Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov,
composed of the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from
the suite.
“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostov. 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 Zherkov. “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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov at Braunau now separated
from the Russian army, and Kutuzov 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
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Brunn.
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 Dokhturov to Kutuzov, he was sent immediately
with a special dispatch to Brunn. 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 Brunn 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 Kutuzov’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 Kutuzov?” 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 Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance
of his in the diplomatic service.
“Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,”
said Bilibin 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 Bolkonski 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. Bilibin
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.
Bilibin 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 Kutuzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave
promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even
greater extent Bilibin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic
career. He 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. Bilibin’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.
Bilibin 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, Bilibin’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.
Bolkonski, 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.
Bilibin 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, “malgre 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 Bilibin 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 Bilibin, “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 Bolkonski. “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. Kutuzov 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 Schonbrunn, 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, Bolkonski felt that he could not
take in the full significance of the words he heard.
“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilibin 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 Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that
will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilibin
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 Bilibin 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 Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace 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 Bilibin, 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, Bilibin, 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
Bilibin’s study fresh, animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged.
In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With
Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a secretary to the embassy,
Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin introduced him to the
others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin’s were young, wealthy, gay
society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which
Bilibin, their leader, called les notres.* 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 Kuragin 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, Bolkonski, don’t know,” said Bilibin 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.”
Bilibin 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,” Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski.
“Kuragin 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 Bolkonski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.
“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!” said Bilibin, 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 Bilibin, “Bolkonski is my guest in
this house and in Brunn 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. Brunn’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 Bilibin.
“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, Bolkonski! 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
Bilibin, accompanying him to the hall.
“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I the facts, I
can’t,” replied Bolkonski, 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 to him with his long head. But
after it was over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day
ceremoniously informed Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov 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 Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkonski 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 Durrenstein 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 Bilibin’s forecast the news he had brought was
joyfully received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was
awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army
received rewards. Bolkonski 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 Bilibin’s house thinking out a letter to his
father about the battle and his visit to Brunn. At the door he found a
vehicle half full of luggage. Franz, Bilibin’s man, was dragging a
portmanteau with some difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilibin’s Prince Andrew had gone to 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.
Bilibin 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 Brunn 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.”
Bolkonski 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 Bilibin. “Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday,
those gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux,* Murat, Lannes,and Belliard,
mount and ride to 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 Bilibin 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,” Bilibin 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 tete-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 tete-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, Bilibin 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
Bilibin.”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 mackes [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 Bilibin 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
Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very decent town. You and I will travel
comfortably in my caleche.”
“Do stop joking, Bilibin,” cried Bolkonski.
“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 Kutuzov’s whole army.”
And Bilibin 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 Bilibin.
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War,
Bolkonski 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 Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the
heavy baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. 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 armee russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportee des
extremites de l’univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme
sort- (le sort de l’armee 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 Bolkonski,
recalling Bilibin’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 caleche. 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 that 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. Nesvitski’s handsome face looked out of the
little window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed
something, and flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
“Bolkonski! Bolkonski!… Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick…” he
shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski’s usually laughing
countenance.
“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkonski.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked
Nesvitski.
“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 Nesvitski. “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
Nesvitski. “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 Nesvitski.
“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 Kutuzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his
suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the
Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little
Kozlovski 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. Kozlovski’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 Kozlovski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov’s voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him,
the disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the
clerk and Kozlovski 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 Kozlovski with urgent questions.
“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlovski. “Dispositions for Bagration.”
“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 Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the
doorway. Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov 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 Kozlovski.
“One moment, your excellency.”
Bagration, 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 Kutuzov an envelope.
Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”
Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.
“Well, good-by, Prince,” said he to Bagration. “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 Bagration 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 Bagration
kissed him on the neck instead.
“Christ be with you!” Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage.
“Get in with me,” said he to Bolkonski.
“Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to
remain with Prince Bagration’s detachment.”
“Get in,” said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski 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 Bolkonski’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 Kutuzov’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 Bolkonski.
“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’s line of communication with the
troops that were arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov 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
Kutuzov 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
Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat along the road from Krems
to Olmutz, 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’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, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the
Krems-Znaim to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration 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. Kutuzov 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, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road
at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching
Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to
march for some days before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration
with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men would have to detain
for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrunn,
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 Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting Bagration’s weak
detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be Kutuzov’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 av
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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
Bagration a French column that was outflanking us. To the left the
horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration 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 Bagration 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
Bagration 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 Bagration.
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 Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in
command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov 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 Tushin and the battalion
that had been in support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince
Andrew listened attentively to Bagration’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
Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration, 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 Bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of
retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration’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 Bagration, 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 Bagration 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 Bagration’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 Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of
men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to
Bagration, 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 Bagration 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 Bagration.
“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
Bagration 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.
Bagration 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 Bagration, 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
Bagration, 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 Bagration 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,
Bagration looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah- ah!- ah!” rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration 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 Tushin’s forgotten battery, which had managed
to set fire to the Schon 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 Azov and Podolsk infantry and the
Pavlograd hussars- was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by
superior French forces under Lannes and was thrown into confusion.
Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general commanding that left flank
with orders to retreat immediately.
Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse
about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration 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 Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which
Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left
flank had been assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment
in which Rostov 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 Pavlograd 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 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 away through for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Denisov’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, Rostov 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 Rostov felt Rook’s flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov 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 Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
“Hur-a-a-a-ah!” came a roar of voices. “Let anyone come my way now,”
thought Rostov 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. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov 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 Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against
him and looked angrily at him. Bondarchuk’s horse swerved and galloped
past.
“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostov
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. Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov. 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. Rostov 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. Rostov
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
Timokhin’s company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French
unexpectedly. Timokhin, 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. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, 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
Ekonomov 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 Ekonomov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
“Your excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dolokhov, pointing to
the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company.” Dolokhov 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
Ekonomov.
But Dolokhov 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!”
Tushin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of
the action did Prince Bagration, 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 Tushin’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 Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schon 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 Tushin’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. Tushin’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 Tushin, 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, Tushin 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, Tushin 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 Tushin 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 Matvevna!” he said to himself. “Matvevna”* 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”; Tushin 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, Matvevna, 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 Tushin! Captain!”
Tushin 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 Tushin, 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 Tushin’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 Tushin, 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 Tushin. 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 Tushin.
“Well, till we meet again…” he said, holding out his hand to
Tushin.
“Good-by, my dear fellow,” said Tushin. “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 Tushin 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 Zherkov, who had been twice
sent to Tushin’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. Tushin 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 Tushin’s
wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on “Matvevna’s”
carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one
hand with the other, came up to Tushin 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 Tushin. “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,
Antonov.”
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
“Matvevna,” 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 Tushin, approaching the gun on
which Rostov sat.
“No, it’s a sprain.”
“Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?” inquired Tushin.
“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 Tushin’s guns could not move,
and the artillerymen, Tushin, 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, Petrov?” 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 Tushin’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 Tushin,
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. Rostov, 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 Tushin who was sitting
cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Tushin’s large, kind, intelligent
eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostov, who saw
that Tushin 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. Rostov 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 Tushin. “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 Tushin 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.
Tushin 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 with their load.
“Still aching?” Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Your honor, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,”
said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
“Coming, friend.”
Tushin 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 Bagration 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 Zherkov, 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 naive 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
Bagration 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 Dolokhov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his last
interview with the gentleman-ranker- “that Private Dolokhov, who was
reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence
and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,”
chimed in Zherkov, 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 Zherkov’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 Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Tushin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff
officer, with a smile to Bolkonski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.
All were silent. Tushin 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 Bagration, frowning, not
so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom
Zherkov 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 Tushin 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
Bagration 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.”
Tushin 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 Bagration as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not
wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture
to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin 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 Tushin’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 Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkonski, 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 Tushin and his company,”
and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkonski’s emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to
credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.
“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” said Tushin.
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 Rostov, 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,
Sonya’s thin little shoulders, Natasha’s eyes and laughter, Denisov
with his voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with
Telyanin and Bogdanich. 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 immpossible 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. Tushin 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 Rostov. “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!”
Rostov 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 Bagration’s detachment was reunited to Kutuzov’s army.
BOOK THREE: 1805
CHAPTER I
Prince Vasili 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 Vasili
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 Vasili 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 Bezukhov 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 Vasili to him, handing
him a deed to sign for the princess’ benefit.
Prince Vasili 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 Vasili took possession of Pierre’s
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezukhov 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 Bezukhov, 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
Vasili 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 Vasili
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 Vasili 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 Ryazan
estate and will keep it; you won’t require it. We’ll go into the
accounts later.”
By “what was due from the Ryazan estate” Prince Vasili 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 Vasili 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; Dolokhov 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 Vasili’s house in the company of the stout
princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Helene.
Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
Formerly in Anna Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna’s usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
“You will find the beautiful Helene 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
Helene, 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 Pavlovna’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
Pavlovna received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently
relating to the young man’s recent loss by the death of Count Bezukhov
(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
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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 naive 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 Vasili 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: “Voila Marie!”
Princess Mary saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince
Vasili’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 Vasili 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 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Vasili. “It’s not as at Annette’s* receptions
where you always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!”
*Anna Pavlovna.
“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 Vasili, 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 Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince
Vasili 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 Bolkonski while
dressing, and yet the question he was always putting off demanded an
immediate answer. Prince Vasili 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 Vasili.
“Well! How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Glad to see you!”
“Friendship laughs at distance,” began Prince Vasili in his usual
rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. “Here is my second son; please
love and befriend him.”
Prince Bolkonski 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 Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the
sofa and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it
and began questioning him about political affairs and news. He
seemed to listen attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept
glancing at Princess Mary.
“And so they are writing from Potsdam already?” he said, repeating
Prince Vasili’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 pere,” interceded the little princess, with
a blush.
“You must do as you please,” said Prince Bolkonski, 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 Vasili.
“Now you, young prince, what’s your name?” said Prince Bolkonski,
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 Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly
Prince Bolkonski frowned.
“You may go,” he said to Anatole.
Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.
“And so you’ve had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven’t you?”
said the old prince to Prince Vasili.
“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 Vasili’s arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were
alone together, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili in the tone of a
crafty man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so
keen-sighted 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 Bolkonski’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
Bolkonski, 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 mere) 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 mere 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 naive 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 Amelie”
(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 mere 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. Tikhon, 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 Tikhon and began to undress.
“What devil brought them here?” thought he, while Tikhon 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.
Tikhon 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.
Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of
his master’s thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince
Vasili 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 mere; 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 Tikhon’s face and in that of Prince
Vasili’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 Vasili has not
come and brought his pupil with him” (for some reason Prince Bolkonski
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 pere?” said the princess, growing
pale and then blushing.
“How understand me!” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vasili
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, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old
prince; he added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon 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 Vasili, 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 Bolkonski. “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 Kuragin’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 Bolkonski, turning
to Prince Vasili 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 Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.
“Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!” cried Prince
Bolkonski, 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 Vasili 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 Vasili.
“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 Amelie’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 Rostovs 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still
living with the Rostovs.
“My dear friend?” said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry,
prepared to sympathize in any way.
The count sobbed yet more.
“Nikolenka… a letter… wa… a… s… wounded… my darling
boy… the countess… promoted to be an officer… thank God… How
tell the little countess!”
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war
news and about Nikolenka, 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 Mikhaylovna, the latter very
adroitly turned the conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha,
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 Mikhaylovna, that it had
something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was
preparing them for it. Bold as she was, Natasha, who knew how
sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Nikolenka, 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 head long after Anna
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna shook her head.
“You are a little slyboots,” she said.
“A letter from Nikolenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natasha,
reading confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Natasha,crossing herself, “I
won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Sonya.
“Nikolenka… wounded… a letter,” she announced in gleeful
triumph.
“Nicholas!” was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.
Natasha, seeing the impression the of her brother’s wound produced
on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.
She rushed to Sonya, 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
Petya, 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.”
Natasha smiled through her tears.
“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sonya.
“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an
officer.”
“Thank God!” said Sonya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she deceived
you. Let us go to Mamma.”
Petya paced the room in silence for a time.
“If I’d been in Nikolenka’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, Petya, what a goose you are!”
“I’m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,” said Petya.
“Do you remember him?” Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment’s
silence.
Sonya smiled.
“Do I remember Nicholas?”
“No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him
perfectly, remember everything?” said Natasha, with an expressive
gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite
meaning. “I remember Nikolenka too, I remember him well,” she said.
“But I don’t remember Boris. I don’t remember him a bit.”
“What! You don’t remember Boris?” asked Sonya in surprise.
“It’s not that I don’t remember- I know what he is like, but not
as I remember Nikolenka. Him- I just shut my eyes and remember, but
Boris… No!” (She shut her eyes.)”No! there’s nothing at all.”
“Oh, Natasha!” said Sonya, 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.”
Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and
said nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there
was such love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt
anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
“Shall you write to him?” she asked.
Sonya 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?”
Sonya smiled.
“No.”
“And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. 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 Petya, offended by Natasha’s
previous remark. “It’s because she was in love with that fat one in
spectacles” (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new
Count Bezukhov) “and now she’s in love with that singer” (he meant
Natasha’s Italian singing master), “that’s why she’s ashamed!”
“Petya, you’re a stupid!” said Natasha.
“Not more stupid than you, madam,” said the nine-year-old Petya,
with the air of an old brigadier.
The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna,
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
Mikhaylovna’s voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then
silence, then both voices together with glad intonations, and then
footsteps. Anna Mikhaylovna 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. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya
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 Vera, Natasha, and Petya. Besides that, he sent greetings to
Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them
to kiss for him “dear Sonya, whom he loved and thought of just the
same as ever.” When she heard this Sonya 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 Vera. “From all he says one
should be glad and not cry.”
This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha 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 Dmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the
letter each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it
fresh proofs of Nikolenka’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 Denisov 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
Mikhaylovna, 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 Pavlovich, who commanded the
Guards. The Rostovs 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 Pavlograd 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 Boris and Boris was to forward them
to Nicholas. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Petya,
Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, 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, Kutuzov’s active army, in camp before
Olmutz, 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 Olmutz and next morning were to come
straight to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o’clock.
That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him
that the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles
from Olmutz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money
for him. Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all
sorts of tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who
had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.
Rostov, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denisov’s horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Boris’ letter he rode with a fellow
officer to Olmutz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set
off alone to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostov 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 Boris 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. Boris 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. Boris, 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 Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to
obtain a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Boris,
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.
Boris, 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 Rostov. “And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse’s French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.
“Dear me, how you have changed!”
Boris rose to meet Rostov, 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, Boris 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 Rostov, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his
own mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov’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 Boris. “I did
not expect you today,” he added. “I only sent you the note yesterday
by Bolkonski- an adjutant of Kutuzov’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 Boris.
Without answering, Rostov 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 Boris, 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 Tsarevich 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 Rostov. “I say, send for some wine.”
Boris 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.
Rostov 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 Rostov, “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 Boris.
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 Rostov looked at it that his coat had
been noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostov, 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 Bagration which the old countess at Anna
Mikhaylovna’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 Rostov, throwing the letter
under the table.
“Why have you thrown that away?” asked Boris.
“It is some letter of recommendation… what the devil do I want
it for!”
“Why ‘What the devil’?” said Boris, 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 Boris.
“It’s a lackey’s job!”
“You are still the same dreamer, I see,” remarked Boris, shaking his
head.
“And you’re still the same diplomatist! But that’s not the
point… Come, how are you?” asked Rostov.
“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 Rostov, 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 Boris. “He would drink
with you. I can’t.”
“Well, send for him… and how do you get on with that German?”
asked Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.
“He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered
Boris.
Again Rostov looked intently into Boris’ eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov 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 Tsarevich’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 Rostov, smiling.
But Boris 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 Rostov and he began talking about
it, and as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of
his Schon 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Boris 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 Boris, who had
managed to please him the day before, he wished to do what the young
man wanted. Having been sent with papers from Kutuzov to the
Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, 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 Boris a
pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he looked at
Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on the
sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.
Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a
mere stranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, 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 Rostov, from his fighting army point of
view, regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the
newcomer was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and
became silent. Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff,
and what, without indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.
“We shall probably advance,” replied Bolkonski, 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 Boris,
“we will talk of it later” (and he looked round at Rostov). “Come to
me after the review and we will do what is possible.”
And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to
Rostov, 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 Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?”
“I was there,” said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the
aide-de-camp.
Bolkonski noticed the hussar’s state of mind, and it amused him.
With a slightly contemptuo
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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.
Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor’s eyes and heard him, as he was
riding away, say to Czartoryski: “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. Denisov
celebrated his promotion to the rank of major, and Rostov, 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 Schon 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, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and
no less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.
When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten
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, Denisov with his short hand
patted his favorite, Rostov, 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.
“Denisov, don’t make fun of it!” cried Rostov. “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 Rostov 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 Dolgorukov 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
Dolgorukov, 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 Dolgorukov 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 Kutiizov’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, Kutuzov 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 Tolstoy.
Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov 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 Dolgorukov.
“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorukov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilibin. “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 Dolgorukov, 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 Dolgorukov,
looking round at Bilibin with a smile.
“Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov,” 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 Suvorov 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 Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.
“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting
up he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been
foreseen. If he is standing before Brunn…”
And Prince Dolgorukov 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 Dolgorukov 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 Kutuzov’s tonight, though; you
can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorukov.
“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.
“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilibin, 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 Kutuzov, 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 Dolgorukov. “It is not true; there are
now two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a
third, Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak.”
“However, I think General Kutuzov has come out,” said Prince Andrew.
“I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and went out
after shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking
Kutuzov, who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of
tomorrow’s battle.
Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause,
replied: “I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy
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 Kutuzov’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 Bagration, 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov’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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov himself,
Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking
tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration to begin the council. At last
Bagration’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 Kutuzov to
be present at the council, he remained in the room.
“Since Prince Bagration 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 Brunn was spread out.
Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Buxhowden 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
Miloradovich 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 Miloradovich 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 Miloradovich 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.
Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his
hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohkturov, 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 Dohkturov 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, Kutuzov
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 Miloradovich who was near him.
But Miloradovich 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.
Kutuzov 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 Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov’s staff, but he
does everything alone. The next battle is won by him alone. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’s
courtyard. The voices were those of the orderlies who were packing up;
one voice, probably a coachman’s, was teasing Kutuzov’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, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in
front of Bagration’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. Rostov 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 Denisov, 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 Rostov, “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, Rostov 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, Olmutz. 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 Rostov
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… Natasha… sister, black eyes… Na… tasha… (Won’t she be
surprised when I tell her how I’ve seen the Emperor?) Natasha…
take my sabretache…”- “Keep to the right, your honor, there are
bushes here,” came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostov was riding
in the act of falling asleep. Rostov 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! Natasha… sabretache…
saber them…Whom? The hussars… Ah, the hussars with mustaches.
Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with mustaches… I thought
about him too, just opposite Guryev’s house… Old Guryev…. Oh,
but Denisov’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-tasha, 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 Rostov, 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. Rostov
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 Rostov to the hussar
beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”
The hussar did not reply.
“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostov 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 Rostov.
“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s
dark… Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.
Rostov’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. Rostov 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 Rostov.
Rostov, 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 Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov
with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.
“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, “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 Bagration. “I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too….
Officer!” said Bagration to Rostov, “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
Rostov.
Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov’s face
in the mist.
“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.
“Yes, sir.”
Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko 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. Bagration
called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov
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 Rostov 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. Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more
reports followed at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the
fog singing in different tones. Rostov 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 Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop
again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.
“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostov rode up. “They might
retreat and leave the pickets.”
“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said
Bagration. “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 Rostov, 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 Bagration. “Thank you, officer.”
“Your excellency,” said Rostov, “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 Rostov.”
“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”
“Count Ilya Rostov’s son?” asked Dolgorukov.
But Rostov 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 Rostov.
“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
Hollabrunn 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 Bagration’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 Ivan Mitrich, 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 Kurskies 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 Kutuzov
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 Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Miloradovich’s, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszewski’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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov bitterly. “Who told you
that?… Kindly do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My dear fellow,” Nesvitski 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 Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor’s name had the
fourth column advanced into action.
Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to
fall upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov’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 Bolkonski.
“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. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov in the midst
of a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov, 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 Olmutz where Bolkonski 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 Olmutz 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.
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, 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 Brunn. 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 Kutuzov’s cheerless staff with the
galloping advent of all these brilliant young men.
“Why aren’t you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?” said the Emperor
Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same
time at the Emperor Francis.
“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” answered Kutuzov, bending forward
respectfully.
The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had
not quite heard.
“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that
Kutuzov’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 Novosiltsev who was near him, as
if complaining of Kutuzov.
“You know, Michael Ilarionovich, 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 Kutuzov 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 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 Kutuzov’s eye
waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov,
with respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence
lasted for about a minute.
“However, if you command it, Your Majesty,” said Kutuzov, lifting
his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning,
but submissive general.
He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander
of the column, gave him the order to advance.
The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod
and one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.
As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,
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 possibilite,
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.”
Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a
little behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s
presence, passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a
bold, brisk pace.
“Lads!” shouted Miloradovich 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 Apsherons, his comrades
in Suvorov’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 Apsherons.
CHAPTER XVI
Kutuzov 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. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov was standing, a
dense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.
“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,”
thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.
“The Apsherons 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 naive 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. Bolkonski only tried not to
lose touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp
what was happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face,
red and unlike himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not
ride away at once he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov
remained in the same place and wit
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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.
Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin 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 Repnin.
“You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander’s regiment of
Horse Guards?” asked Napoleon.
“I commanded a squadron,” replied Repnin.
“Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,” said Napoleon.
“The praise of a great commander is a soldier’s highest reward,”
said Repnin.
“I bestow it with pleasure,” said Napoleon. “And who is that young
man beside you?”
Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
“He’s very young to come to meddle with us.”
“Youth is no hindrance to courage,” muttered Sukhtelen 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 Repnin!” 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 Rostov returned home on leave.
Denisov was going home to Voronezh and Rostov 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, Denisov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov,
when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had
entered Moscow.
“Denisov! 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.
Denisov gave no answer.
“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has
his stand, and there’s Zakhar 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 Rostov. “Of course, it’s our house! Denisov, Denisov!
We’re almost there!”
Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
“Dmitri,” said Rostov 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 Rostov, fingering his
new mustache. “Now then, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “Do wake
up, Vaska!” he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again
nodding. “Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka- get
on!” Rostov 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 Rostov 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. Prokofy, 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 Prokofy, 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 Rostov, 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!”
Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, 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 Natasha, and which Petya. 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… Kolya,* dear fellow… How he has
changed!… Where are the candles?… Tea!…”
*Nicholas.
“And me, kiss me!”
“Dearest… and me!”
Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, 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.
Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!”
Natasha, 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.
Sonya 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. Sonya 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.
Denisov, who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there
and wiped his eyes at the sight.
“Vasili Denisov, 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 Denisov. “Nicholas wrote us… Natasha, Vera, look! Here
is Denisov!”
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of
Denisov.
“Darling Denisov!” screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,
springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled
and, taking Natasha’s hand, kissed it.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs
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.
Rostov 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 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, Gwiska- my pipe!” came Vasili Denisov’s husky voice.
“Wostov, get up!”
Rostov, 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 Natasha’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 Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had
come to see whether they were getting up.
“Nicholas! Get up!” Natasha’s voice was again heard at the door.
“Directly!”
Meanwhile, Petya, 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. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the
blanket, looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door,
having let Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from
behind it.
“Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natasha’s voice.
“Is this your saber?” asked Petya. “Or is it yours?” he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing
gown, and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just
getting her foot into the other. Sonya, 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. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, 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. Natasha 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.
Rostov 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 Sonya run away?” asked Rostov.
“Ah, yes! That’s a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
her- thou or you?”
“As may happen,” said Rostov.
“No, call her you, please! I’ll tell you all about it some other
time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sonya’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 Natasha’s wildly
bright eyes, Rostov 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.”
Natasha 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 Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that
what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
Rostov became thoughtful.
“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sonya is so
charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.”
“No, no!” cried Natasha, “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.”
Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya 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, Rostov 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 Boris?” he continued.
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Natasha, 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 now?”
“Now?” repeated Natasha, 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, Natasha 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.”
Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom,
felt envious and Natasha 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 Boris?”
Natasha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell
him so when I see him!”
“Dear me!” said Rostov.
“But that’s all rubbish,” Natasha chattered on. “And is Denisov
nice?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed!”
“Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible,
Denisov?”
“Why terrible?” asked Nicholas. “No, Vaska is a splendid fellow.”
“You call him Vaska? That’s funny! And is he very nice?”
“Very.”
“Well then, be quick. We’ll all have breakfast together.”
And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostov met Sonya 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-
Sonya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender
kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natasha’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 Vera, selecting a moment when all were
silent, “that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers.”
Vera’s remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like
most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not
only Sonya, Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who-
dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a
brilliant match- blushed like a girl.
Denisov, to Rostov’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 Rostov had ever expected to see him.
CHAPTER II
On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was
welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their
darling Nikolenka; 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 Rostovs 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 Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya 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 Arkharovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field
Marshal Kamenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate
terms with a colonel of forty to whom Denisov had introduced
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 Rostov’s short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army,
he did not draw closer to Sonya, 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 Sonya, 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 Denisov, 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 Ilya Rostov was very busy
arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration 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 Feoktist, 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 Bagration, 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 entree. Ah, goodness gracious!” he
clutched at his head. “Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,
Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,” he said to the factotum
who appeared at his call. “Hurry off and tell Maksim, 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 Bagration worried himself less
before the battle of Schon 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, Feoktist?” 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 Bezukhob’s, and tell him ‘Count Ilya 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 Rasgulyay- the
coachman Ipatka knows- and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who
danced at Count Orlov’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 Mikhaylovna 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 Bezukhov’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 Boris. Thank God, Boris is
now on the staff.”
The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna’s taking upon herself
one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
“Tell Bezukhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with
him?” he asked.
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Bezukhov! 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 Rostov.
Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.
“Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna’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 Mikhaylovna, wishing to show
her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half
smile betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called
Dolokhov. “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
Bagration, 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 forgathered 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 Rostopchin, Prince Yuri
Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemski- did not show
themselves at the Club, but met in private houses in intimate circles,
and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others- Ilya Rostov
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 Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutuzov’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 Bagration, distinguished
by his Schon 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 Bagration’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 Suvorov. Moreover,
paying such honor to Bagration was the best way of expressing
disapproval and dislike of Kutuzov.
“Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent
him,” said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire.
Kutuzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,
calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.
All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov’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 Rostopchin, 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 Bolkonski, 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 kaftans. 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 Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov- who was
now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The faces of these young
people, especially those who were militarymen, 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.”
Nesvitski 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 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 Rostopchin, Valuev, and
Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how the Russians had been
overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to force their way through
them with bayonets.
Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply
to the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing
close by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently
failed to learn from Suvorov 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 Kutuzov.
Count Ilya Rostov, 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 Rostov
stood at a window with Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made
and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed
Dolokhov’s hand.
“Please come and visit us… you know my brave boy… been
together out there… both playing the hero… Ah, Vasili
Ignatovich… 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.
Bagration 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 Rostov 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 naively festive in his air, which, in conjunction with
his firm and virile features, gave him a rather comical expression.
Bekleshev and Theodore Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the
doorway to allow him, as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration
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 Schon 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 Bagration
over each other’s shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. Count
Ilya Rostov, 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 Ilya, 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 Bagration. On the salver lay some
verses composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagration, 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 Bagration (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!” Bagration 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. Bagration bowed his bead 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, Bagration,
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:
and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading
his verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was
more important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the
rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between
two Alexanders- Bekleshev and Naryshkin- 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 Ilya Rostov presented his son to
Bagration, who recognized him and said a few words to him,
disjointed and awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and
Count Ilya looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagration spoke to
his son.
Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov,
sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre,
beside Prince Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of
the committee sat facing Bagration 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 Ilya Rostov 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!” Bagration also rose and
shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it
on the field at Schon Grabern. Young Rostov’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 Ivanovich Bagration!” 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 Ivanovich Kutuzov:
Russians! O’er all barriers on!
Courage conquest guarantees;
Have we not Bagration?
He brings foe men to their knees,… etc.
As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was
proposed and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more
glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to
Bekleshev, Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the
committee, to all the Club members and to all the Club guests, and
finally to Count Ilya Rostov 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 Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every
time he chanced to meet Dolokhov’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
Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov, 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, Dolokhov had come straight to his
house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled
how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dolokhov’s living at
their house, and how cynically Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov’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. Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were
now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostov 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. Rostov
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 Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov.
“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostov was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!”
“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dolokhov to Rostov.
“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostov.
“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denisov.
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 Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing
leaflets with Kutuzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of
the principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov,
leaning across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre
looked at Dolokhov 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, Nesvitski
and the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.
“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened
voices.
Dolokhov 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 Denisov’s
request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to
be Dolokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements
for the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhov’s second. Pierre went home,
but Rostov with Dolokhov and Denisov stayed on at the Club till
late, listening to the gypsies and other singers.
“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki,”said Dolokhov, as he took
leave of Rostov in the Club porch.
“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostov asked.
Dolokhov 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 Kostroma
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. A demain, mon cher.”*
*Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.
Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the
Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov 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 Dolokhov, 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, Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski (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 to confess.
“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.
“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dolokhov to Denisov (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 Nesvitski’s and Dolokhov’s sabers, which were stuck
intothe 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 Dolokhov.
“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.
Denisov 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. Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov’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. Rostov ran toward him and said something.
“No-o-o!” muttered Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.
“Please,” he uttered with an effort.
Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov
and was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov
cried:
“To your barrier!” and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by
his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov 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 Nesvitski.
“Cover yourself!” even Denisov 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
Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski
closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and
Dolokhov’s angry cry.
“Missed!” shouted Dolokhov, 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.
Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.
Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.
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 Rostov, who was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was
struck by the totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender
expression on Dolokhov’s face.
“Well? How do you feel?” he asked.
“Bad! But it’s not that, my friend-” said Dolokhov 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 Rostov.
“My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,” and
Dolokhov pressed Rostov’s hand and burst into tears.
When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that
he was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not
survive it. He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.
Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov 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 Bezukhov 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
Dolokhov’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 Vasili’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 u
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“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 Bezukhov? And Fedya, 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! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya 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 Fedya not fighting
because he owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you
understand Fedya, 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!”
Dolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov 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 Rostov, who was under his
new friend’s influence.
In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov 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. Vera was a handsome girl
of twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening
flower; Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly
amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostovs’ 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
Rostovs’ household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of
happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was
Dolokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She
almost quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he
was a bad man, and that in the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right
and Dolokhov wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and
unnatural.
“There’s nothing for me to understand,” cried out with resolute
self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov
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 Denisov…”
“Oh, Denisov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that
even Denisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov- “you must understand
what a soul there is in Dolokhov, 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 Sonya?”
“What nonsense…”
“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”
Natasha’s prediction proved true. Dolokhov, 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 Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never
have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time
Dolokhov appeared.
Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs’, never missed a performance
at which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people
which the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sonya
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 Natasha
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.
Rostov noticed something new in Dolokhov’s relations with Sonya, but
he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.
“They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sonya and
Natasha. But he was not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov 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 Rostov 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 Denisov’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 Denisov were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany.
About twenty people were present, including Dolokhov and Denisov.
Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous
atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs’ 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. Sonya,
Dolokhov, and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a
lesser degree Natasha. Nicholas understood that something must have
happened between Sonya and Dolokhov 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 durings the
holidays.
“Nicholas, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natasha. “He
asked you, and Vasili Dmitrich* is also going.”
*Denisov.
“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” said Denisov, who
at the Rostovs’ had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha’s knight.
“I’m even weady to dance the pas de chale.”
“If I have time,” answered Nicholas. “But I promised the
Arkharovs; they have a party.”
“And you?” he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the
question he noticed that it should not have been put.
“Perhaps,” coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya,
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 Dolokhov left
immediately after dinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the
matter.
“And I was looking for you,” said Natasha running out to him. “I
told you, but you would not believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He
has proposed to Sonya!”
Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late,
something seemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov 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
Sonya…. 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 Natasha began again.
“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a
pause, “she told him she loved another.”
“Yes, my Sonya 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 Natasha. “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 don’t know that at all!” said Nicholas. “But I must talk to
her. What a darling Sonya is!” he added with a smile.
“Ah, she is indeed a darling! I’ll send her to you.”
And Natasha kissed her brother and ran away.
A minute later Sonya 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…”
Sonya interrupted him.
“I have already refused,” she said hurriedly.
“If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I…”
Sonya 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 Sonya, 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
Dolokhov’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 Gorchakov 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 Natasha, who was
exceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but
at this last ball only the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka,
which was just coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a
ballroom in Bezukhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a
great success. There were many pretty girls and the Rostov girls
were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and gay.
That evening, proud of Dolokhov’s proposal, her refusal, and her
explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled about before she left home so
that the maid could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was
transparently radiant with impulsive joy.
Natasha 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.
Natasha 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 Sonya.
Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly
patronage at the dancers.
“How sweet she is- she will be a weal beauty!” said Denisov.
“Who?”
“Countess Natasha,” answered Denisov.
“And how she dances! What gwace!” he said again after a pause.
“Who are you talking about?”
“About your sister,” ejaculated Denisov testily.
Rostov 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 Denisov who was also a
former pupil of his.
“No, my dear fellow, I’ll be a wallflower,” said Denisov. “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 Sonya to dance. Denisov 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 Natasha, 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
Natasha, who, though shy, went on carefully executing her steps.
Denisov 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 Rostov 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 Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the
masterly way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to
Natasha:
“Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!” he said.
When it came to Natasha’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 Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was
looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing
though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.
“Please, Vasili Dmitrich,” Natasha was saying, “do come!”
“Oh no, let me off, Countess,” Denisov replied.
“Now then, Vaska,” said Nicholas.
“They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!” said Denisov jokingly.
“I’ll sing for you a whole evening,” said Natasha.
“Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!” said Denisov, 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
Denisov’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. Natasha 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, Natasha 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 Denisov’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. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and
mopping himself with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did not
leave her for the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER XIII
For two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at
Dolokhov’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 Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the
theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once
shown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that evening.
Some twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dolokhov sat
between two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper
money, and he was keeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him since
his proposal and Sonya’s refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought
of how they would meet.
Dolokhov’s clear, cold glance met Rostov 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 Ilyushka will come with his chorus.”
“I called once or twice at your house,” said Rostov, reddening.
Dolokhov made no reply.
“You may punt,” he said.
Rostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once
had with Dolokhov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dolokhov
had then said.
“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dolokhov now asked as if
guessing Rostov’s thought.
Beneath his smile Rostov 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.
Rostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke
with which to reply to Dolokhov’s words. But before he had thought
of anything, Dolokhov, 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?” Rostov asked himself.
“Well, you’d better not play,” Dolokhov added, and springing a new
pack of cards said: “Bank, gentlemen!”
Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by his
side and at first did not play. Dolokhov 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.”
Rostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and
again lost. Dolokhov “killed,” that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov’s
running.
“Gentlemen,” said Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov. “Don’t
stint yourself, we’ll settle afterwards,” he added, turning to Rostov.
The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.
All Rostov’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 Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking
at Rostov, “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.
Rostov 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 Dolokhov’s words, and with
a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov’s
hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostov’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 Dolokhov’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 Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will
certainly never touch a card again.” At that moment his home life,
jokes with Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with
his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the
Povarskaya 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov, 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 Rostov.
“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dolokhov, and he took up the
cards with a smile.
“Aah!” Rostov 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 Dolokhov with a side glance at
Rostov 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 Rostov. 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. Dolokhov was no longer
listening to stories or telling them, but followed every movement of
Rostov’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 Sonya’s joint ages. Rostov, 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?” Rostov
pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov 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
Dolokhov 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. Rostov 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 Dolokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside
and began rapidly adding up the total of Rostov’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 Dolokhov, 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. Rostov
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.”
Dolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov 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 Dolokhov, and stretching
himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting so
long,” he added.
“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostov.
Dolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for
him to jest.
“When am I to receive the money, Count?”
Rostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room.
“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said.
“I say, Rostov,” said Dolokhov 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 Rostov. 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 Dolokhov 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…” Dolokhov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov household that
winter and, now after Dolokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed
to have grown thicker round Sonya and Natasha as the air does before a
thunderstorm. Sonya and Natasha, 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. Vera was playing chess with
Shinshin 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. Denisov, 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 Natasha.
“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natasha. “Another verse, she
said, without noticing Nicholas.
“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas,
glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother
with the old lady.
“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natasha, running up to him.
“Is Papa at home?” he asked.
“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natasha, without answering him. “We
are enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for my
sake! Did you know?”
“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sonya.
“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 Natasha to sing.
“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denisov. “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.
Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to
Denisov’s favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing.
Denisov 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.
Sonya 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 Denisov and the
girls and avoiding their eyes.
“Nikolenka, what is the matter?” Sonya’s eyes fixed on him seemed to
ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha 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, Sonya!” 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, Natasha, 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 Denisov followed her.
“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his
sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?”
Natasha 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 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.
Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing
seriously, mainly because Denisov 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 Dolokhov, and anger, and honor- it’s all
nonsense… but this is real…. Now then, Natasha, 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 Rostov’s soul! And this something was apart from
everything else in the world and above everything in the world.
“What were losses, and Dolokhov, and words of honor?… All
nonsense! One might kill and rob and yet be happy…”
CHAPTER XVI
It was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he
did that day. But no sooner had Natasha 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 feel 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. Natasha 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. Denisov had proposed. To
whom? To this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing
with dolls and who was still having lessons.
“Don’t, Natasha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke.
“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,” said Natasha
indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it
‘nonsense!’”
The countess shrugged her shoulders.
“If it true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell
him he is a fool, that’s all!”
“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha as grown up.
“No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you’ll listen
at the door,” and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing
hall, where Denisov 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.”
“Vasili Dmitrich, 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.”
Denisov 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.
“Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, with an
embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov- “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 Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He
tried to say more, but faltered.
Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She
began to sob aloud.
“Countess, I have done w’ong,” Denisov 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 Natasha.
Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He not wish to stay another day
in Moscow. All Denisov’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 Denisov’s departure, Rostov 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.
Sonya 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 Dolokhov 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
Torzhok 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
Torzhok 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 Sokolniki 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 Dolokhov 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 Torzhok 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 Bezukhov. 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 Bezukhov, 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 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 Bezukhov, 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.
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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 Helene 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 Helene 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 Vasili 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna’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 Auerstadt 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 Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The
“cream of really good society” consisted of the fascinating Helene,
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 merite), a newly appointed maid of honor
and her mother, and several other less noteworthy persons.
The novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that evening
was Boris Drubetskoy, 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 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 Boris, 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 Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic
relations with Austria and the hope of an alliance with her.
Boris, 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 Pavlovna 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.
charge d’affaires from Copenhagen- a profound intellect,” and
simply, “Mr. Shitov- a man of great merit”- this of the man usually so
described.
Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the
peculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris 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 Olmutz 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 Rostovs’ house and of his childish love for Natasha was unpleasant
to him and he had not once been to see the Rostovs since the day of
his departure for the army. To be in Anna Pavlovna’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 Helene 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 charge
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 Pavlovna, “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 alliee sincere.”*
*”Europe will never be our sincere ally.”
After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the
King of Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation.
Boris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his
turn, but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his
neighbor, the beautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those
of the handsome young aide-de-camp with a smile.
Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally
asked Boris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state
he found the Prussian army. Boris, 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 Pavlovna felt that the
novelty she had served up was received with pleasure by all her
visitors. The greatest attention of all to Boris’ narrative was
shown by Helene. 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.”
Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a
conversation with her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the
pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.
“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pavlovna, closing her
eyes and indicating Helene 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 Boris and Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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!”
Boris 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 Pavlovna,
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, Helene who had spoken very little all the
evening again turned to Boris, 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 Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile
with which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene’s
wish.
It seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening
about the Prussian army, Helene 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 Helene’s splendid salon,
Boris 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, Boris 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 Bolkonski,
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 cruelty 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
Savishna 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, Bogucharovo, 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 Bogucharovo, 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, Petrusha 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.
“Petrusha 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 Ivanich 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 Ivanich!” 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
Korchevo- a certain Khandrikov- 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
Petenka- 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 Korchevo 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 Bilibin. He folded
it up without reading it and reread his father’s letter, ending with
the words: “Gallop off to Korchevo 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
Bilibin’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
Bilibin 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. Bilibin 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
Bilibin, “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 Prozorovski and
Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us,
Suvorov-like, in a kibitka, 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 Pultusk, routed: here it
is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done,
and, as you yourself reported to Count Buxhowden 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 Buxhowden,
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 Sedmoretzki, 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.
Buxhowden 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 Pultusk, 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 Pultusk. 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
Buxhowden. 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
Buxhowden 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 Buxhowden. General
Buxhowden 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. Buxhowden pursues us- we scuttle. He hardly crosses the
river to our side before we recross to the other. At last our enemy.
Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both generals are angry, and the
result is a challenge on Buxhowden’s part and an epileptic fit on
Bennigsen’s. But at the critical moment the courier who carried the
news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg returns bringing our
appointment as commander in chief, and our first foe, Buxhowden, 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
Bilibin), 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 Bezukhov’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 70,00 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 Kostroma, 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 naive 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 Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years.
Bogucharovo 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 facade
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. Anton, 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 Anton ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
“A visitor,” answered Anton.
“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 naive, 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 Smolensk
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 Yukhnovna 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
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Alarmed at Denisov’s condition, Rostov 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 Denisov. 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 Denisov. “‘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 Denisov,
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. “Telyanin! ‘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…!’ and I sta’ted fwashing him…
Well, I’ve had a bit of fun I can tell you!” cried Denisov, gleeful
and yet angry, his 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 Rostov. “You’ve
set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again.”
Denisov 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 Rostov’s and
Denisov’s dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully
showed them a paper addressed to Major Denisov 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 Denisov, 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 Rostov’s renewed questions, Denisov 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.
Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov 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, Denisov 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 Platov reconnoitered with two
Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, 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 Denisov 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
Pavlograds did not take part, and after that an armistice was
proclaimed. Rostov, 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 Denisov 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 Rostov 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
Makar Alexeevich 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
Rostov 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 Rostov.
“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makeev 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.”
Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov 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 Denisov,” Rostov said again. “He was wounded at Molliten.”
“Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?” 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.
Rostov described Denisov’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, Makeev?”
“Makar Alexeevich has the list,” answered the assistant. “But if
you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for yourself,” he
added, turning to Rostov.
“Ah, you’d better not go, sir,” said the doctor, “or you may have to
stay here yourself.”
But Rostov 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.
Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell
was so strong there that Rostov 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, Rostov 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,
Rostov 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 Rostov with the same expression of hope, of relief,
reproach, and envy of another’s health. Rostov 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. Rostov
listened and made out the word. It was “drink, drink, a drink!” Rostov
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 Rostov.
“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and
evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.
“Get him to his place and give him some water,” said Rostov,
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 Rostov,
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 Rostov. The man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to
him, pointing at Rostov, 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov 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. Rostov looked at him, trying to remember
where he had seen him before.
“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Tushin, Tushin,
don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon 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 Vasili Dmitrich
Denisov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted.
“Here, here,” and Tushin 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 Rostov,
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.
Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket,
though it was nearly noon.
“Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in
the same voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under
this habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling
showed itself in the expression of Denisov’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 Rostov. What struck him was that Denisov 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 Rostov
spoke of these matters did not listen.
Rostov even noticed that Denisov 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
Rostov’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 Rostov’s attention to the
stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions,
who had gathered round Rostov- a fresh arrival from the world outside-
gradually began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his
answer. Rostov 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 Tushin
still listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of
the reading, the Uhlan interrupted Denisov.
“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostov, “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 Denisov, 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 Tushin, “but that’s not the
point, Vasili Dmitrich,” and he also turned to Rostov. “One has to
submit, and Vasili Dmitrich doesn’t want to. You know the auditor told
you it was a bad business.
“Well, let it be bad,” said Denisov.
“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Tushin, “and
you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he”
(indicating Rostov) “has connections on the staff. You won’t find a
better opportunity.”
“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denisov interrupted him,
went on reading his paper.
Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other
officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of
service to Denisov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward
hasty temper.
When the reading of Denisov’s virulent reply, which took more than
an hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the
day in a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov’s hospital comrades,
who had round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their
stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked
Denisov whether he had no commission for him.
“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denisov, 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 Rostov a large envelope. In it
was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which
Denisov, 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 Denisov’s affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the
Emperor.
On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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 Boris 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, Boris 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.
Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.
Zhilinski, 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 Boris.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski
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, Rostov, profiting by the
darkness to avoid being recognized in civilian dress. came to Tilsit
and went to the lodging occupied by Boris and Zhilinski.
Rostov, 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 Boris. In the army, Bonaparte
and the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger,
contempt, and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Platov’s
Cossack officers, Rostov 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, Rostov had maintained with heat that peace was impossible
between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostov
was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers
in Boris’ 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 Drubetskoy lived there.
Boris, 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 Rostov.
“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however,
coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov 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 a vous,”* he said, answering someone who called
him.
*”In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”
“I see I’m intruding,” Rostov repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris’ face:
having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly
took both Rostov’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes,
looking serenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by
something, as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it
seemed to Rostov.
“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Boris,
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 Zhilinski- le Comte N. N.- le Capitaine S. S.,” said he,
naming his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed
reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris 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 Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the
Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,
addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter
had probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
“No, I came on business,” replied Rostov, briefly.
Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look
of dissatisfaction on Boris’ 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 Boris.
“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 Boris. “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 Boris slept. Rostov, without
sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in
some way) telling him about Denisov’s affair, asking him whether,
through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor
on Denisov’s behalf and get Denisov’s petition handed in. When he
and Boris were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not
look Boris in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one
leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender
fingers of his right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the
report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight
into Rostov’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this
happened Rostov 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!” Rostov almost
shouted, not looking Boris in the face.
Boris smiled.
“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought…”
At that moment Zhilinski’s voice was heard calling Boris.
“Well then, go, go, go…” said Rostov, 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
Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on
Denisov’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 Boris, 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 Preobrazhensk
battalion. The Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when
the latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and
early next morning went away, avoiding Boris. 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 hugh monograms A and N. In the windows of the houses also flags
and bunting were displayed.
“Boris 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 Denisov and certainly not
without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!… He is
here!” thought Rostov, 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 Rostov. “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
Drubetskoy who drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination
he himself did not expect, Rostov 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,’” Rostov 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, Rostov 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
Rostov 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 Rostov’s attention. This man was was
speaking to someone in the adjoining room.
“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing
Rostov, 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…”
Rostov 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 Denisov,” answered Rostov.
“Are you an officer?”
“Lieutenant Count Rostov.”
“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.
Rostov 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, Rostov, 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 Rostov was serving.
Rostov, 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
Denisov, whom the general knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the
general shook his head gravely.
“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”
Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining
Denisov’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 Rostov knew at once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the
danger of being recognized, Rostov 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 Rostov’s soul in all its
old force. In the uniform of the Preobrazhensk regiment- white
chamois-leather breeches and high boots- and wearing a star Rostov did
not know (it was that of the Legion 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 Rostov’s division, smiled and
beckoned to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostov 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 Rostov) 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,
Rostov ran after him with the crowd.
CHAPTER XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a
battalion of the Preobrazhensk 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 Rostov 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, Rostov, 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, Rostov 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 Preobrazhensk battalion and came
straight up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly
found itself so close to the Emperors that Rostov, 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 Rostov, 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 Kozlovski, 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
Koslovski, 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.”
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his
scrutiny.
“Can it be me?” thought Rostov.
“Lazarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the
first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lazarev who
did not know where to go. Lazarev 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 Rostov had
seen the previous evening at Boris’- 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 Lazarev (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 Lazarev’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 Lazarev’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. Lazarev 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 Preobrazhensk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the
tables prepared for them.
Lazarev 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 Rostov.
“What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,” one of them
was saying. “Have you seen Lazarev?”
“I have.”
“Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner.”
“Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension
for life.”
“Here’s a cap, lads!” shouted a Preobrazhensk 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 ‘Napoleon, 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.”
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner
of a house.
“Rostov! 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 Rostov’s face.
“Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostov.
“You’ll call round?”
“Yes, I will.”
Rostov 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 Denisov 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 Lazarev rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He
caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis 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, Rostov 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 or
his actions!”
“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer,
justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov’s outburst, except
on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov 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
Bogucharovo 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 “Bogucharovo 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 of survey 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 Ryazan estates which
had been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche 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 Ryazan estate of
which he was trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, 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 Rostovs’ house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish
cries behind some trees on the right and saw group of girls running to
cross the path of his caleche. 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 Ryazan serfs’ quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so
happy?” Prince Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe 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 Natasha, 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 Rostov), 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 grewsome 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.
“Sonya! Sonya!” he again heard the first speaker. “Oh, how can you
sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
Sonya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never, never
was such a lovely night before!”
Sonya 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 Sonya’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
serics 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
Ryazan 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
a 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 Speranski 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 caleche, injured his
leg, and remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski 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,
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov- whom he himself
in jest had called his Comite de salut public- were taking shape and
being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side,
and Arakcheev 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 Bolkonski’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 Arakcheev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev’s waiting
room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he
had heard
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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 Bezukhov 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 Vasili’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 Alexeevich. 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 Alexeevich 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 Alexeevich, 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 Alexeevich 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 Alexeevich 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 Helene 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
Alexeevich’s letters and recalled my conversations with him, and
deduced from it all that I ought not to refuse a suppliant, 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
Alexeevich. 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 Rumyantsev
and Caulaincourt. In this group Helene, 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.
Helene 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. Bilibin saved up his
epigrams to produce them in Countess Bezukhova’s presence. To be
received in the Countess Bezukhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma
of intellect. Young men read books before attending Helene’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 Helene 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 Helene Bezukhova’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, Boris
Drubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was
the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since Helene’s
return from Erfurt. Helene 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 Boris
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 Boris’ 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 Alexeevich'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 Urusov 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 Boris Drubetskoy 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 Dolokhov, 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 Boris Drubetskoy 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 Alexeevich 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 be 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 Alexeevich’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 Alexeevich 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 Rostovs’ monetary affairs had not improved during the two
years they had spent in the country.
Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was
still serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending
comparatively little, the way of life at Otradnoe- Mitenka’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 Vera and was
accepted.
Though in Moscow the Rostovs 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 Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in
Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country
neighbors from Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters,
Peronskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, 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 Rostovs’ house in
Petersburg were Boris, Pierre whom the count had met in the street and
dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostovs’
and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Vera, 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 Vera Rostova 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 Rostovs’ 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
Rostova; but Berg’s chief characteristic was such a naive and good
natured egotism that the Rostovs 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 Rostovs’ affairs were
seriously embarrassed, as the suitor could not but know; and above
all, Vera 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
fiancee!… 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 Vera 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 Vera. 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 Vera. 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 Ryazan 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 Vera’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 Vera 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
Natasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which
she had counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her
mother, if Boris 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 Boris was a jest or an important, binding
promise tormented her.
Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had had not seen
the Rostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed
near Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.
Sometimes it occurred to Natasha that he 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 Boris was mentioned.
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Rostovs came to
Petersburg Boris called on them.
He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha 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 Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He
had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with
Countess Bezukhova, 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 Rostovs’ drawing room Natasha 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.
Boris remembered Natasha 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 Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous
astonishment. This expression on his face pleased Natasha.
“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the
countess.
Boris kissed Natasha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.
“How handsome you have grown!”
“I should think so!” replied Natasha’s laughing eyes.
“And is Papa older?” she asked.
Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris’ 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.
Boris’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were
all comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha 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, Natasha 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 Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under
her brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris 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 Boris said
to himself that Natasha 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.
Boris made up his mind to avoid meeting Natasha, but despite that
resolution he called again a few days later and began calling often
and spending whole days at the Rostovs’. It seemed to him that he
ought to have an explanation with Natasha 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 Sonya that Natasha was in
love with Boris 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 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 Helene and received reproachful notes from her
every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostovs.
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 Natasha, 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?” Natasha, 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. Natasha 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 Natasha’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 Natasha. “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 Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha’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…”
Natasha put her hand on her mother’s mouth.
“About Boris… 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?”
“Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say
Boris 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.
Natasha 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.
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha.
“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess.
“But if I want to…”
“Natasha, I am in earnest…”
Natasha 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 Natasha.
“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin…”
“I know! Cyril Matveich… but he is old.”
“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natasha, I’ll have
a talk with Boris. 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 Natasha 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.”
Natasha 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 Natasha. “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.
Natasha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nicholas would
understand…. Bezukhov, 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?” Natasha 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.
“Sonya?” 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 Dunyasha the maid to put out the
candle, and before Dunyasha 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 Boris aside and had a talk with him,
after which he ceased coming to the Rostovs’.
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 Rostovs, who
were to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in
the Rostov 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.
Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, 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 Rostovs 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.
Natasha 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 Sonya- should be as well
dressed as possible. Sonya 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 a 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. Sonya was finishing
dressing and so was the countess, but Natasha, 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. Sonya 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, Sonya!” cried Natasha
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!”
Sonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently.
“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was
holding Natasha’s hair.
“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sonya.”
“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 Natasha. “You won’t do it right.”
“But it’s already ten.”
They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had
still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under
which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket,
ran up to Sonya, 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 Natasha’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 Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer
garment up high on one uplifted hand.
“Mavra, quicker, darling!”
“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there…”
“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door.
“Here is here is some scent. Peronskaya 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.
Natasha 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.
Sonya 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 Natasha, 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 Sonya, in a despairing voice as she
looked at Natasha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.”
Natasha 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 Mavra, crawling
on her knees after her young lady.
“Well, if it’s too long we’ll take it up… we’ll tack it up in
one minute,” said the resolute Dunyasha 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 Natasha. “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 Dunyasha.
“What a beauty- a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the
door. “And Sonya! 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.
Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she
had gone through the same process as the Rostovs, 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 Rostovs’
servants had been.
She praised the Rostovs’ 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
Natasha 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 Sonya 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.
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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, “Charme de vous voir,”* greeted the Rostovs
and Peronskaya 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 Natasha. 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 Natasha 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. Natasha 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.
Peronskaya 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 Bezukhova,” said
Peronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. “How lovely! She
is quite equal to Marya Antonovna. 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 Peronskaya. “And
look, here come her suitors.”
“That is Bezukhova’s brother, Anatole Kuragin,” 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, Drubetskoy, 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 Marya Antonovna! 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.
Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the
buffoon,” as Peronskaya 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. Natasha at
once recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it
was Bolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger,
happier, and better-looking.
“There’s someone else we know- Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?” said
Natasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed a
night with us at Otradnoe.”
“Oh, you know him?” said Peronskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait a
present la pluie et le beau temps.”* He’s too proud for anything.
Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speranski, 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 Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came
ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya
diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners and
were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the
polonaise. Natasha felt that she would be left with her mother and
Sonya 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 Peronskaya 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 Natasha’s ears.
She wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the
other end of the room. She and the countess and Sonya 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 Natasha as one looks at a wall. Boris 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 Natasha- as if there
were nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did
not listen to or look at Vera, 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
Rostovs 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 Bezukhova 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 Helene’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. Natasha 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 Rostovs. 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
Speranski 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.
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War and Peace
by
Leo Tolstoy
Part 1 out of 34
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War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi
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
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man
of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her
reception. Anna Pavlovna 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 Scherer.”
“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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna. “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 Novosiltsev’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 Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a
stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer 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 Pavlovna
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 Novosiltsev 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. A 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 emigres, the good
ones. And also the Abbe 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 Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others
were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it
for the baron.
Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna’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
Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak 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
Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna 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 Bolkonskaya.”
Prince Vasili 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 Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov’s and will be here
tonight.”
“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-
slafe wigh 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 Pavlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to Lise,
young Bolkonski’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 Pavlovna’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 Vasili’s daughter, the beautiful Helene, 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
Bolkonskaya, known as la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg,* 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 Vasili’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart,
whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio and many others had also come.
*The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.
To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Bolkonskaya 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 Pavlovna.
“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 Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.
“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” said Prince
Vasili to Anna Pavlovna.
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 Bezukhov, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty’s health.
Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: “Do you know
the Abbe 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 Pavlovna 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
abbe’s plan chimerical.
“We will talk of it later,” said Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 abbe.
Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna
Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna’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 abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the
beautiful Princess Helene, Prince Vasili’s daughter, and the little
Princess Bolkonskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump
for her age. The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna
Pavlovna.
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 Pavlovna was obviously serving him up
as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d’hotel 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 Pavlovna served
up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, 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 Pavlovna,
with a pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in
the sound of that sentence: “Contez nous cela, Vicomte.”
The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness
to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone
to listen to his tale.
“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pavlovna to 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, Helene, dear,” said Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna. Helene 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 Pavlovna, 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 Helene.
“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 effrayee, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 abbe, so she hurried to
the rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe
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 Pavlovna disapproved.
“The means are… the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people,” the abbe 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 Pavlovna 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 abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, 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
Bolkonski, 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 Pavlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned
the whole company.
“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pavlovna.
“General Kutuzov,” said Bolkonski, 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?”
“Andre,” 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Pavlovna.
His daughter, Princess Helene, 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 Vasili seized Pierre’s hand and said to Anna
Pavlovna: “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 Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew
his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili’s. The elderly lady who
had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook
Prince Vasili in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had
assumed had left her kindly and tearworn face and it now expressed
only anxiety and fear.
“How about my son Boris, 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 Vasili 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 Vasili, “but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I
should advise you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn.
That would be the best way.”
The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, 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 Vasili that she had
obtained an invitation to Anna Pavlovna’s reception and had sat
listening to the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasili’s words frightened
her, an embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a
moment; then she smiled again and dutched Prince Vasili’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
Golitsyn 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 Helene, 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 Vasili 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 Drubetskaya’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 Mikhaylovna,” 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 Ilarionovich
Kutuzov… recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at
rest, and then…”
Prince Vasili smiled.
“No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, I don’t promise.”
“Do promise, do promise, Vasili!” cried Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Pavlovna, “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 Pavlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.
“‘Dieu me la donne, gare a 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 Pavlovna 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 Conde
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much
gravity as if she had asked him to do it.
“Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d’ azur- maison Conde,” 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 Pavlovna,
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 Pavlovna, “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 Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna.
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 Pavlovna.
“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 Pavlovna, 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
Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna
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 Pavlovna 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, 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Pavlovna. “It is settled,” she added in
a low voice.
Anna Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna, 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 Scherer? 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 abbe 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 abbe as tutor,
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow
his father dismissed the abbe 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 Vasili, 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 abbe 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 naive 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 Pavlovna’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
Apraksins’ 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, Andre…” (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 naive 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 Bolkonski
who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna’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
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mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and
turning to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”
Natasha, 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 Natasha, “is Mimi a relation of
yours? A daughter, I suppose?”
Natasha 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: Boris, the officer, Anna
Mikhaylovna’s son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count’s eldest
son; Sonya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya,
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 Apraksina. 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. Boris 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. Boris on the contrary at once found
his footing, and related quietly and humorously how he had know 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 Natasha. 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. Boris 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.
Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. 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 Sonya, the niece. Sonya 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 Natasha
and Boris, escape from the drawing room.
“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and
pointing to Nicholas, “his friend Boris 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 Pavlograd 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 Sonya 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 Karagina turned to
young Rostov.
“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkharovs’ 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 Sonya, 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
Sonya.
“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!” said Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Boris already. Just fancy!” said the
countess with a gentle smile, looking at Boris’ 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 Vera, with a smile.
But the smile did not enhance Vera’s beauty as smiles generally
do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore
unpleasant, expression. Vera 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 Vera,” said the count. “Well, what of that? She’s turned
out splendidly all the same,” he added, winking at Vera.
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 Natasha 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 Boris 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 Natasha dashed swiftly
among the flower tubs and hid there.
Boris 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. Natasha, 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. Natasha
was about to call him but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,”
thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears,
and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha 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. Sonya, muttering
to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing-room door. It opened
and Nicholas came in.
“Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?” said he,
running up to her.
“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” sobbed Sonya.
“Ah, I know what it is.”
“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”
“So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like
that, for a mere fancy?” said Nicholas taking her hand.
Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not
stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with
sparkling eyes. “What will happen now?” thought she.
“Sonya! 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, Sonya!” He drew her to him
and kissed her.
“Oh, how nice,” thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.
“Boris, 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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.
“Natasha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but…”
“You are in love with me?” Natasha 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.”
Natasha 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 Boris.
“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 tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood,
Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she
returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna. “There
are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your
friendship.”
Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her
friend’s hand.
“Vera,” 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 Vera 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.
Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses
for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at
the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and
Natasha looked at Vera 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 Vera.
“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
Vera. “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 Natasha and
Boris, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”
“Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?” said Natasha in defense,
speaking very gently.
She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
everyone.
“Very silly,” said Vera. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”
“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natasha, getting warmer.
“We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”
“I should think not,” said Vera, “because there can never be
anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are
behaving with Boris.”
“Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me,” remarked Boris. “I have
nothing to complain of.”
“Don’t, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really
tiresome,” said Natasha 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 Vera, “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 Vera 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 Vera, “I said none
to anyone.”
“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices
through the door.
The handsome Vera, 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 Mikhaylovna, “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 Bory?” 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 Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to
everything, and put the matter before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she
had endured to gain her end.
“Has Prince Vasili aged much?” asked the countess. “I have not
seen him since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs’ 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 Mikhaylovna,
“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 Mikhaylovna,
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 Boris.” 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 Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If he will not assist
his godson- you know he is Bory’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 Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all
alone… that tremendous fortune… and what is his life worth? It’s a
burden to him, and Bory’s life is only just beginning….”
“Surely he will leave something to Boris,” said the countess.
“Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.
Still, I will take Boris 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vladimirovich, 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 Taras distinguishes himself today. He
says Count Orlov never gave such a dinner as ours will be!”
CHAPTER XV
“My dear Boris,” said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as
Countess Rostova’s carriage in which they were seated drove over the
straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
Vladimirovich Bezukhov’s house. “My dear Boris,” 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 Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, 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.
Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without
taking off his cloak.
“My friend,” said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the
hall porter, I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich 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 Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying
here, is he not? Please announce me.”
The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and
turned away.
“Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich,” 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 Vasili.
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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and
perplexed. Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging
the bow turned to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a
movement of the head and lips indicating very little hope for the
patient.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. “Oh, how awful! It
is terrible to think…. This is my son,” she added, indicating Boris.
“He wanted to thank you himself.”
Boris 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
Mikhaylovna,” said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in
tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed
under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than
he had done in Petersburg at Anna Scherer’s reception.
“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing
Boris 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 Boris, 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 Rostova’s,” replied Boris, again adding,
“your excellency.”
“That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina,” said
Anna Mikhaylovna.
“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna with a pathetic
smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov 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 Boris. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that this
fact ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.
Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw
that he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov’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 Pavlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid
of Anna Mikhaylovna.
“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna
Mikhaylovna?” 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
Vasili turned to her.
“Well, how is he?”
“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise…” said the
princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.
“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position
she had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili
to take a seat beside her.
“Boris,” 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 Rostovs’ 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 Boris 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 Rostov’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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Vasili 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 Boris 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 Boris was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten
him, but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the
hand with a friendly smile.
“Do you remember me?” asked Boris 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.
Boris 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 Rostov asks you to come to dinner today,” said he, after a
considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
“Ah, Count Rostov!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his
son, Ilya? 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 Boris deliberately, with a bold and
slightly sarcastic smile. “I am Boris, son of Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, 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 Boris? 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!
Boris 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 Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly,
looking straight into Pierre’s eyes.
“Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,” Boris 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 Boris 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 Boris under the elbow in his quick,
clumsy way, and, blushing far more than Boris, 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 Boris 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 Rostovs’?”
And Boris, 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 Boris’ 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
Boris with a smile.
Pierre saw that Boris 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 Boris- the princess was going. Pierre,
in order to make Boris’ better acquaintance, promised to come to
dinner, and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his
spectacles into Boris’ 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count
Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova 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 saute of game au madere we are to
have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras
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 saute, 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 Dmitri to me!”
Dmitri, 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, Dmitri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing
deeply.
“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmitri. “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 Dmitri 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 Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov’s the money,
all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the
countess’ little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be
ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
“This is for Boris from me, for his outfit.”
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Rostova, 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 Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le
terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but
for common sense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna 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
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, Shinshin, 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 Semenov regiment with whom
Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom Natasha had,
teased her elder sister Vera, 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 tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich,”
said Shinshin, 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’etat;* you want to make something out of your company?”
*You expect to make an income out of the government.
“No, Peter Nikolaevich; 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 Nikolaevich…”
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 Nikolaevich. 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 Shinshin 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 Nikolaevich, 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 Shinshin, 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
Shinshin 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 naivete 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 Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking
his feet off the sofa.
Berg smiled joyously. The count, 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 zakuska,* 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 naively 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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Razumovskis… It
was charming… You are very kind… Countess Apraksina…” was
heard on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.
“Marya Dmitrievna?” came her voice from there.
“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna
entered the room.
All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna 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. Marya Dmitrievna 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?” (Marya Dmitrievna always called
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 dearly 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 Marya
Dmitrievna.
The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, 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
Mikhaylovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling
Julie Karagina 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 Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna
Mikhaylovna 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
Shinshin and the other male visitors on his right. Midway down the
long table on one side sat the grownup young people: Vera beside Berg,
and Pierre beside Boris; 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 Vera that love is not an earthly but a
heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre who the
guests were and exchanging glances with Natasha, 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.
Natasha, who sat opposite, was looking at Boris 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 Sonya, beside Julie Karagina,
to whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya
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
Shinshin. “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 Shinshin’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 Shinshin, puckering his brows and
smiling. “Cela nous convient a merveille.*[2] Suvorov now- he knew
what he was about; yet they beat him a plate couture,*[3] and where
are we to find Suvorovs 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.
Sonya 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?” Marya
Dmitrievna’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, Marya Dmitrievna? 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 Marya Dmitrievna’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,” Natasha’s little brother was saying; “I know you
won’t ask!”
“I will,” replied Natasha.
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 a
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inherit… un batard!”* she added, as if supposing that this
translation of the word would effectively prove to Prince Vasili 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
Bezukhov, 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 Semenovna,” began Prince Vasili
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 Dmitri Onufrich”
(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 Vasili.
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
Vasili, 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 protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him)
was driving into the court of Count Bezukhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna,
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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna. 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 Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna pass
and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.
“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna, 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
Mikhaylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasili and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili’s face so out of keeping with his dignity
that Pierre stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his
guide. Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre
who, hanging his head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna
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 naive 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 Vasili 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 Vasili
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
illness. Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Bezukhov, 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 Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and
all-forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door near the
strange lady. Prince Vasili 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
Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna
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 Vasili left the chair on which he had
been leaning, and- with 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna Mikhaylovna
with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed. Pierre
obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna
Mikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naively
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
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Vasili
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 Vasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. “Go and take something, my poor
Anna Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna 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
Bezukhov’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 Vasili and the eldest
princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a
short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to
bar her path.
“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikhaylovna, 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
Mikhaylovna. 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 Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold
on the portfolio, and changed her grip.
Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna, “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 Vasili.
“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince
Vasili severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”
“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.
Prince Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna, stooping,
quickly caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom.
The eldest princess and Prince Vasili, 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 Vasili 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 Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned
he was fast asleep with his head on his arm.
In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Boris. 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 Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs’ and went to bed. On waking in the
morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezukhov’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 Vasili she spoke disapprovingly, but in whispers
and as a great secret.
CHAPTER XXV
At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski’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 Andreevich
(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 ante chamber 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 Heloise?” 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 Heloise 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 Karagina
who had been at the Rostovs’ 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 Rostov, 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 Bezukhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses
have received very little, Prince Vasili 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 Bezukhov and
possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince
Vasili 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
Bezukhov 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 Bezukhova. But you will understand that I have
no desire for the post. A propos of marriages: do you know that a
while ago that universal auntie Anna Mikhaylovna told me, under the
seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of marriage for you. It is neither
more nor less than with Prince Vasili’s son Anatole, whom they wish to
reform by marrying him to someone rich and distinguee, 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 Apraksins’. 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 Bezukhov’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 Vasili, 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 Vasili 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
Vasili. 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
Ivanovich. 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
Tikhon, 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. Tikhon 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
Tikhon; 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
Tikhon, 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, Tikhon,” 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 Spasski 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 Odyntsova 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, Tikhon 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 Tikhon.
“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the old
man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon 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 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- Tolstoy’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 Tikhon, who
ran after him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of
Sweden? How will they cross Pomera
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Leo Tolstoy
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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 Mitrich, 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 Tsaritsin 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 Kutuzov the
day before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army
of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, 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 Mitrich, 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 Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov with his bluish-gray
uniform.
Dolokhov 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…”
Dolokhov hurriedly interrupted.
“No talking in the ranks!… No talking, no talking!”
“Not bound to endure insults,” Dolokhov 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 caleche, slightly creaking on its springs
and drawn by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped
the suite and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian
general, in a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian
black ones. The caleche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov
and the Austrian general were talking in low voices and Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, 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
Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade Nesvitski, a tall staff officer,
extremely stout, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes.
Nesvitski 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. Nesvitski laughed
and nudged the others to make them look at the wag.
Kutuzov 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, Timokhin!” 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 Timokhin 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski could not help
laughing. Kutuzov turned round. The officer evidently had complete
control of his face, and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a
grimace and then assume a most serious, deferential, and innocent
expression.
The third company was the last, and Kutuzov 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 Dolokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment.”
“Where is Dolokhov?” asked Kutuzov.
Dolokhov, 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?” Kutuzov asked with a slight frown.
“This is Dolokhov,” said Prince Andrew.
“Ah!” said Kutuzov. “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,” Dolokhov 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!”
Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov 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, Prokhor Ignatych?” said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timokhin 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. Dolokhov that I won’t forget him- he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please- I’ve been meaning to ask- how is 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 Timokhin.
“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 Timokhin, showing by his smile
that he understood his commander’s wish.
“Well, of course, of course!”
The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and,
reining in his horse, said to him:
“After the next affair… epaulettes.”
Dolokhov 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
Timokhin 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 Kutuzov 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, Fedeshon!… 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
Kamenski.” This song had been composed in the Turkish campaign and now
being sung in Austria, the only change being that the words “Father
Kamenski” were replaced by “Father Kutuzov.”
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.
Kutuzov 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 Dolokhov 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 Kutuzov’s suite who had mimicked the regimental commander,
fell back from the carriage and rode up to Dolokhov.
Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov
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?” Dolokhov answered coldly. “I am as you see.”
The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dolokhov’s reply.
“And how do you get on with the officers?” inquired Zherkov.
“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 Dolokhov.
“The devil only knows! They say so.”
“I’m glad,” answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.
“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!” said
Zherkov.
“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…”
Dolokhov 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…”
Zherkov 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, Kutuzov 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 Bolkonski came into the
room with the required papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of
the Hofkriegsrath were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread
out.
“Ah!…” said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov.
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 Kutuzov’s suggestion of an
Austrian victory sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew.
“Please have a look at it”- and Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’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 Kutuzov’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, Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.
“Well, Prince?” asked Kozlovski.
“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 Kutuzov?” 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 Kozlovski, 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 Kozlovski, who was
rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.
“The commander in chief is engaged,” repeated Kozlovski 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 Kozlovski, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov.
“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,” he uttered in a broken voice.
Kutuzov’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 Suvorov 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 Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag
Zherkov; they were as usual laughing.
“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew’s pale
face and glittering eyes.
“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkonski.
Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward
them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian
general who on Kutuzov’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 Zherkov,
pushing Nesvitski 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 Zherkov 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!”
Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkov. 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 Zherkov’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.”
Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.
“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkov.
“I am not jesting with you; please be silent!” cried Bolkonski,
and taking Nesvitski’s arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to
say.
“Come, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Nesvitski 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 massacres et l’armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la
le mot pour rire,”* he said, as if strengthening his views by this
French sentence. “C’ est bien pour un garcon de rein 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 Zherkov 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 Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet
Rostov, 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. Denisov, who had been losing at
cards all night, had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early
in the morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov 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, Bondarenko, 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 Bondarenko 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. Rostov 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 Rostov. “Schon gut Morgen! Schon
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 Rostov 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!”
Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and ctied
laughing, “Und vivat die ganze Welt!” Though neither the German
cleaning his cowshed nor Rostov 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 Rostov going to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.
“What about your master?” he asked Lavrushka, Denisov’s orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.
“Hasn’t been in since the evening. Must have been losing,”
answered Lavrushka. “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 Lavrushka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!”
said he. “Now for trouble!” Rostov looked out of the window and saw
Denisov coming home. Denisov 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.
“Lavwuska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off, blockhead!”
“Well, I am taking it off,” replied Lavrushka’s voice.
“Ah, you’re up already,” said Denisov, entering the room.
“Long ago,” answered Rostov, “I have already been for the hay, and
have seen Fraulein Mathilde.”
“Weally! And I’ve been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!” cried Denisov, 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 Rostov.
“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 Lavrushka.
Denisov’s face puckered still more.
“Wetched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in
it. “Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove
the purse undah the pillow,” he said, and went out to the
quartermaster.
Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new
coins in separate piles, began counting them.
“Ah! Telyanin! How d’ye do? They plucked me last night,” came
Denisov’s voice from the next room.
“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s… I knew it,” replied a piping
voice, and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same
squadron, entered the room.
Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little
hand which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been
transferred from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very
well in the regiment but was not liked; Rostov 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 Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)
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 Rostov, 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 Rostov.
“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 Rostov wishing to avoid
Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.
In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the
threshold facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing
Rostov, Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder
with his thumb to the room where Telyanin 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.
Rostov 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
Telyanin.
Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.
“Well there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostov as he
entered.
“Have you told them to bring the horse?” asked Telyanin, getting
up and looking carelessly about him.
“I have.”
“Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about
yesterday’s order. Have you got it, Denisov?”
“Not yet. But where are you off to?”
“I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,” said Telyanin.
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 Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on
the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a
sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov’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 Rostov 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 first day of cweation… Who’s that now? Send
him to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrushka, 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.”
Denisov 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 Rostov.
“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 Lavrushka.
“Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,” said
Rostov, blushing.
“Don’t like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don’t,” growled
Denisov.
“But if you won’t accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some,” Rostov repeated.
“No, I tell you.”
And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.
“Where have you put it, Wostov?”
“Under the lower pillow.”
“It’s not there.”
Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.
“That’s a miwacle.”
“Wait, haven’t you dropped it?” said Rostov, 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 Rostov. “I put it
just here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrushka.
“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 Rostov,
“but I remember putting it there.”
Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and
under the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of
the room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka’s movements, and when the
latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
Denisov glanced at Rostov.
“Wostov, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks…”
Rostov felt Denisov’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 Lavrushka.
“Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!”
shouted Denisov, 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.”
Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled
on his saber, and put on his cap.
“I must have that purse, I tell you,” shouted Denisov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.
“Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,” said Rostov,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused,
thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov 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 Rostov in an unsteady voice, and
went to the door.
“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Denisov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denisov 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
Rostov heard.
Rostov went to Telyanin’s quarters.
“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said Telyanin’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
Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to
it and saw Telyanin’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 Rostov 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 Telyanin 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. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.
“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him
the purse.
“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”
Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in
it, and looked at Telyanin. 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.”
Rostov did not speak.
“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here,” continued Telyanin. “Now then, let me have it.”
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go
of it. Telyanin 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 else’s business.”
“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostov’s eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin’s eyes to
Rostov’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.
“Come here,” said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin’s arm and almost
dragging him to the window. “That money is Denisov’s; you took
it…” he whispered just above Telyanin’s ear.
“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyanin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an
entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostov 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
Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room.
“We must have an explanation…”
“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostov.
“I…”
Every muscle of Telyanin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not
rising to Rostov’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!…”
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’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 Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
“Don’t touch me,” said Rostov, 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 Denisov’s quarters.
“And I tell you, Rostov, 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 Rostov who was crimson with
excitement.
The staff captain, Kirsten, 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 Rostov. “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 Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet
to demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?”
Denisov 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 Bogdanich” (the colonel
was called Bogdanich) “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 Rostov.
“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 Bogdanich 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
Bogdanich 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 Pavlograd
officers!’ But it’s not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denisov?
It’s not the same!”
Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked
with his glittering black eyes at Rostov.
“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 Bogdanich 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 Rostov.
“That’s twue, devil take it” shouted Denisov, jumping up. “Now then,
Wostov, now then!”
Rostov, 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 Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.
“I tell you,” shouted Denisov, “he’s a fine fellow.”
“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, beginning to address
Rostov 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 Rostov 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?”
Denisov began to laugh.
“It’ll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you’ll pay
for your obstinacy,” said Kirsten.
“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 Denisov.
“He has weported himself sick, he’s to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow,” muttered Denisov.
“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 Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.
Just then Zherkov 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, Rostov? 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
Zherkov. 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
Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski, 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 Nesvitski was
treating some officers to pies and real doppelkummel. 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?” Nesvitski
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 Nesvitski. “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.
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stout staff officer, and at Zherkov, 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 Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to
the bridge.
“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostov 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. Rostov watched his enemy,
the colonel, closely- to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, 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. Rostov 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. Denisov rode past him,
leaning back and shouting something. Rostov saw nothing but the
hussars running all around him, their spurs catching and their
sabers clattering.
“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.
Rostov 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.
Rostov 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 Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing
Rostov, 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 Denisov, 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 Vaska Denisov, turning
in his saddle.
Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, 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 Nesvitski; “they are within
grapeshot range now.”
“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the
suite.
“True enough,” answered Nesvitski; “two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well.”
“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the
hussars, but still with that naive 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
Vladimir 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 Bogdanich 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 Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski, 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 Nesvitski 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.
Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 wishing
for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there,” thought Rostov.
“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 Rostov. 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!” Rostov 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 Vaska Denisov just
above his ear.
“It’s all over; but I am a coward- yes, a coward!” thought Rostov,
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 Denisov.
“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denisov. “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 Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov,
composed of the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from
the suite.
“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostov. 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 Zherkov. “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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov at Braunau now separated
from the Russian army, and Kutuzov 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
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Brunn.
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 Dokhturov to Kutuzov, he was sent immediately
with a special dispatch to Brunn. 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 Brunn 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 Kutuzov’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 Kutuzov?” 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 Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance
of his in the diplomatic service.
“Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,”
said Bilibin 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 Bolkonski 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. Bilibin
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.
Bilibin 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 Kutuzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave
promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even
greater extent Bilibin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic
career. He 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. Bilibin’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.
Bilibin 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, Bilibin’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.
Bolkonski, 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.
Bilibin 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, “malgre 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 Bilibin 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 Bilibin, “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 Bolkonski. “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. Kutuzov 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 Schonbrunn, 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, Bolkonski felt that he could not
take in the full significance of the words he heard.
“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilibin 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 Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that
will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilibin
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 Bilibin 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 Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace 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 Bilibin, 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, Bilibin, 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
Bilibin’s study fresh, animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged.
In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With
Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a secretary to the embassy,
Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin introduced him to the
others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin’s were young, wealthy, gay
society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which
Bilibin, their leader, called les notres.* 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 Kuragin 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, Bolkonski, don’t know,” said Bilibin 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.”
Bilibin 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,” Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski.
“Kuragin 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 Bolkonski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.
“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!” said Bilibin, 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 Bilibin, “Bolkonski is my guest in
this house and in Brunn 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. Brunn’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 Bilibin.
“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, Bolkonski! 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
Bilibin, accompanying him to the hall.
“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I the facts, I
can’t,” replied Bolkonski, 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 to him with his long head. But
after it was over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day
ceremoniously informed Bolkonski 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 Kutuzov 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 Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkonski 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 Durrenstein 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 Bilibin’s forecast the news he had brought was
joyfully received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was
awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army
received rewards. Bolkonski 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 Bilibin’s house thinking out a letter to his
father about the battle and his visit to Brunn. At the door he found a
vehicle half full of luggage. Franz, Bilibin’s man, was dragging a
portmanteau with some difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilibin’s Prince Andrew had gone to 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.
Bilibin 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 Brunn 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.”
Bolkonski 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 Bilibin. “Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday,
those gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux,* Murat, Lannes,and Belliard,
mount and ride to 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 Bilibin 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,” Bilibin 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 tete-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 tete-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, Bilibin 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
Bilibin.”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 mackes [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 Bilibin 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
Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very decent town. You and I will travel
comfortably in my caleche.”
“Do stop joking, Bilibin,” cried Bolkonski.
“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 Kutuzov’s whole army.”
And Bilibin 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 Bilibin.
CHAPTER XIII
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War,
Bolkonski 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 Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the
heavy baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. 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 armee russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportee des
extremites de l’univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme
sort- (le sort de l’armee 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 Bolkonski,
recalling Bilibin’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 caleche. 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 that 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. Nesvitski’s handsome face looked out of the
little window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed
something, and flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
“Bolkonski! Bolkonski!… Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick…” he
shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski’s usually laughing
countenance.
“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkonski.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked
Nesvitski.
“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 Nesvitski. “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
Nesvitski. “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 Nesvitski.
“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 Kutuzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his
suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the
Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little
Kozlovski 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. Kozlovski’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 Kozlovski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov’s voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him,
the disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the
clerk and Kozlovski 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 Kozlovski with urgent questions.
“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlovski. “Dispositions for Bagration.”
“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 Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the
doorway. Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov 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 Kozlovski.
“One moment, your excellency.”
Bagration, 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 Kutuzov an envelope.
Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”
Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.
“Well, good-by, Prince,” said he to Bagration. “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 Bagration 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 Bagration
kissed him on the neck instead.
“Christ be with you!” Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage.
“Get in with me,” said he to Bolkonski.
“Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to
remain with Prince Bagration’s detachment.”
“Get in,” said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski 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 Bolkonski’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 Kutuzov’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 Bolkonski.
“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’s line of communication with the
troops that were arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov 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
Kutuzov 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
Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat along the road from Krems
to Olmutz, 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’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, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the
Krems-Znaim to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration 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. Kutuzov 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, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road
at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching
Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to
march for some days before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration
with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men would have to detain
for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrunn,
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 Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting Bagration’s weak
detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be Kutuzov’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 av
War and Peace
by
Leo Tolstoy
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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
Bagration a French column that was outflanking us. To the left the
horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration 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 Bagration 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
Bagration 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 Bagration.
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 Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in
command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov 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 Tushin and the battalion
that had been in support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince
Andrew listened attentively to Bagration’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
Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration, 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 Bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of
retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Bagration’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 Bagration, 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 Bagration 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 Bagration’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 Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of
men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to
Bagration, 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 Bagration 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 Bagration.
“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
Bagration 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.
Bagration 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 Bagration, 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
Bagration, 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 Bagration 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,
Bagration looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah- ah!- ah!” rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration 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 Tushin’s forgotten battery, which had managed
to set fire to the Schon 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 Azov and Podolsk infantry and the
Pavlograd hussars- was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by
superior French forces under Lannes and was thrown into confusion.
Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general commanding that left flank
with orders to retreat immediately.
Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse
about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration 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 Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which
Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left
flank had been assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment
in which Rostov 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 Pavlograd 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 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 away through for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Denisov’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, Rostov 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 Rostov felt Rook’s flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov 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 Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
“Hur-a-a-a-ah!” came a roar of voices. “Let anyone come my way now,”
thought Rostov 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. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov 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 Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against
him and looked angrily at him. Bondarchuk’s horse swerved and galloped
past.
“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostov
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. Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov. 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. Rostov 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. Rostov
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
Timokhin’s company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French
unexpectedly. Timokhin, 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. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, 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
Ekonomov 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 Ekonomov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
“Your excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dolokhov, pointing to
the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company.” Dolokhov 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
Ekonomov.
But Dolokhov 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!”
Tushin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of
the action did Prince Bagration, 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 Tushin’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 Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schon 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 Tushin’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. Tushin’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 Tushin, 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, Tushin 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, Tushin 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 Tushin 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 Matvevna!” he said to himself. “Matvevna”* 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”; Tushin 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, Matvevna, 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 Tushin! Captain!”
Tushin 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 Tushin, 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 Tushin’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 Tushin, 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 Tushin. 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 Tushin.
“Well, till we meet again…” he said, holding out his hand to
Tushin.
“Good-by, my dear fellow,” said Tushin. “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 Tushin 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 Zherkov, who had been twice
sent to Tushin’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. Tushin 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 Tushin’s
wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on “Matvevna’s”
carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one
hand with the other, came up to Tushin 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 Tushin. “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,
Antonov.”
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
“Matvevna,” 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 Tushin, approaching the gun on
which Rostov sat.
“No, it’s a sprain.”
“Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?” inquired Tushin.
“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 Tushin’s guns could not move,
and the artillerymen, Tushin, 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, Petrov?” 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 Tushin’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 Tushin,
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. Rostov, 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 Tushin who was sitting
cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Tushin’s large, kind, intelligent
eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostov, who saw
that Tushin 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. Rostov 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 Tushin. “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 Tushin 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.
Tushin 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 with their load.
“Still aching?” Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Your honor, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,”
said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
“Coming, friend.”
Tushin 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 Bagration 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 Zherkov, 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 naive 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
Bagration 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 Dolokhov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his last
interview with the gentleman-ranker- “that Private Dolokhov, who was
reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence
and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,”
chimed in Zherkov, 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 Zherkov’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 Bagration 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 Bagration 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 Tushin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff
officer, with a smile to Bolkonski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.
All were silent. Tushin 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 Bagration, frowning, not
so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom
Zherkov 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 Tushin 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
Bagration 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.”
Tushin 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 Bagration as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not
wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture
to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin 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 Tushin’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 Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkonski, 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 Tushin and his company,”
and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkonski’s emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to
credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.
“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” said Tushin.
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 Rostov, 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,
Sonya’s thin little shoulders, Natasha’s eyes and laughter, Denisov
with his voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with
Telyanin and Bogdanich. 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 immpossible 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. Tushin 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 Rostov. “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!”
Rostov 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 Bagration’s detachment was reunited to Kutuzov’s army.
BOOK THREE: 1805
CHAPTER I
Prince Vasili 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 Vasili
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 Vasili 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 Bezukhov 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 Vasili to him, handing
him a deed to sign for the princess’ benefit.
Prince Vasili 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 Vasili took possession of Pierre’s
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezukhov 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 Bezukhov, 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
Vasili 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 Vasili
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 Vasili 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 Ryazan
estate and will keep it; you won’t require it. We’ll go into the
accounts later.”
By “what was due from the Ryazan estate” Prince Vasili 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 Vasili 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; Dolokhov 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 Vasili’s house in the company of the stout
princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Helene.
Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
Formerly in Anna Pavlovna’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 Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna’s usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
“You will find the beautiful Helene 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
Helene, 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 Pavlovna’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
Pavlovna received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently
relating to the young man’s recent loss by the death of Count Bezukhov
(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
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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 naive 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 Vasili 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: “Voila Marie!”
Princess Mary saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince
Vasili’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 Vasili 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 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 Vasili 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 Vasili 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 Vasili. “It’s not as at Annette’s* receptions
where you always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!”
*Anna Pavlovna.
“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 Vasili, 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 Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince
Vasili 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 Bolkonski while
dressing, and yet the question he was always putting off demanded an
immediate answer. Prince Vasili 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 Vasili.
“Well! How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Glad to see you!”
“Friendship laughs at distance,” began Prince Vasili in his usual
rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. “Here is my second son; please
love and befriend him.”
Prince Bolkonski 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 Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the
sofa and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it
and began questioning him about political affairs and news. He
seemed to listen attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept
glancing at Princess Mary.
“And so they are writing from Potsdam already?” he said, repeating
Prince Vasili’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 pere,” interceded the little princess, with
a blush.
“You must do as you please,” said Prince Bolkonski, 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 Vasili.
“Now you, young prince, what’s your name?” said Prince Bolkonski,
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 Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly
Prince Bolkonski frowned.
“You may go,” he said to Anatole.
Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.
“And so you’ve had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven’t you?”
said the old prince to Prince Vasili.
“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 Vasili’s arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were
alone together, Prince Vasili 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 Vasili in the tone of a
crafty man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so
keen-sighted 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 Bolkonski’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
Bolkonski, 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 mere) 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 mere 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 naive 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 Amelie”
(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 mere 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. Tikhon, 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 Tikhon and began to undress.
“What devil brought them here?” thought he, while Tikhon 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.
Tikhon 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.
Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of
his master’s thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince
Vasili 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 mere; 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 Tikhon’s face and in that of Prince
Vasili’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 Vasili has not
come and brought his pupil with him” (for some reason Prince Bolkonski
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 pere?” said the princess, growing
pale and then blushing.
“How understand me!” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vasili
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, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old
prince; he added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon 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 Vasili, 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 Bolkonski. “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 Kuragin’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 Bolkonski, turning
to Prince Vasili 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 Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.
“Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!” cried Prince
Bolkonski, 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 Vasili 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 Vasili.
“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 Amelie’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 Rostovs 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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still
living with the Rostovs.
“My dear friend?” said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry,
prepared to sympathize in any way.
The count sobbed yet more.
“Nikolenka… a letter… wa… a… s… wounded… my darling
boy… the countess… promoted to be an officer… thank God… How
tell the little countess!”
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war
news and about Nikolenka, 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 Mikhaylovna, the latter very
adroitly turned the conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha,
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 Mikhaylovna, that it had
something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was
preparing them for it. Bold as she was, Natasha, who knew how
sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Nikolenka, 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 head long after Anna
Mikhaylovna 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 Mikhaylovna shook her head.
“You are a little slyboots,” she said.
“A letter from Nikolenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natasha,
reading confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna, 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 Natasha,crossing herself, “I
won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Sonya.
“Nikolenka… wounded… a letter,” she announced in gleeful
triumph.
“Nicholas!” was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.
Natasha, seeing the impression the of her brother’s wound produced
on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.
She rushed to Sonya, 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
Petya, 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.”
Natasha smiled through her tears.
“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sonya.
“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an
officer.”
“Thank God!” said Sonya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she deceived
you. Let us go to Mamma.”
Petya paced the room in silence for a time.
“If I’d been in Nikolenka’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, Petya, what a goose you are!”
“I’m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,” said Petya.
“Do you remember him?” Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment’s
silence.
Sonya smiled.
“Do I remember Nicholas?”
“No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him
perfectly, remember everything?” said Natasha, with an expressive
gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite
meaning. “I remember Nikolenka too, I remember him well,” she said.
“But I don’t remember Boris. I don’t remember him a bit.”
“What! You don’t remember Boris?” asked Sonya in surprise.
“It’s not that I don’t remember- I know what he is like, but not
as I remember Nikolenka. Him- I just shut my eyes and remember, but
Boris… No!” (She shut her eyes.)”No! there’s nothing at all.”
“Oh, Natasha!” said Sonya, 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.”
Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and
said nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there
was such love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt
anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
“Shall you write to him?” she asked.
Sonya 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?”
Sonya smiled.
“No.”
“And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. 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 Petya, offended by Natasha’s
previous remark. “It’s because she was in love with that fat one in
spectacles” (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new
Count Bezukhov) “and now she’s in love with that singer” (he meant
Natasha’s Italian singing master), “that’s why she’s ashamed!”
“Petya, you’re a stupid!” said Natasha.
“Not more stupid than you, madam,” said the nine-year-old Petya,
with the air of an old brigadier.
The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna’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 Mikhaylovna,
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
Mikhaylovna’s voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then
silence, then both voices together with glad intonations, and then
footsteps. Anna Mikhaylovna 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. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya
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 Vera, Natasha, and Petya. Besides that, he sent greetings to
Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them
to kiss for him “dear Sonya, whom he loved and thought of just the
same as ever.” When she heard this Sonya 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 Vera. “From all he says one
should be glad and not cry.”
This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha 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 Dmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the
letter each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it
fresh proofs of Nikolenka’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 Denisov 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
Mikhaylovna, 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 Pavlovich, who commanded the
Guards. The Rostovs 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 Pavlograd 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 Boris and Boris was to forward them
to Nicholas. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Petya,
Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, 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, Kutuzov’s active army, in camp before
Olmutz, 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 Olmutz and next morning were to come
straight to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o’clock.
That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him
that the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles
from Olmutz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money
for him. Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all
sorts of tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who
had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.
Rostov, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denisov’s horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Boris’ letter he rode with a fellow
officer to Olmutz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set
off alone to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostov 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 Boris 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. Boris 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. Boris, 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 Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to
obtain a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Boris,
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.
Boris, 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 Rostov. “And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse’s French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.
“Dear me, how you have changed!”
Boris rose to meet Rostov, 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, Boris 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 Rostov, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his
own mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov’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 Boris. “I did
not expect you today,” he added. “I only sent you the note yesterday
by Bolkonski- an adjutant of Kutuzov’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 Boris.
Without answering, Rostov 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 Boris, 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 Tsarevich 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 Rostov. “I say, send for some wine.”
Boris 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.
Rostov 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 Rostov, “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 Boris.
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 Rostov looked at it that his coat had
been noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostov, 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 Bagration which the old countess at Anna
Mikhaylovna’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 Rostov, throwing the letter
under the table.
“Why have you thrown that away?” asked Boris.
“It is some letter of recommendation… what the devil do I want
it for!”
“Why ‘What the devil’?” said Boris, 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 Boris.
“It’s a lackey’s job!”
“You are still the same dreamer, I see,” remarked Boris, shaking his
head.
“And you’re still the same diplomatist! But that’s not the
point… Come, how are you?” asked Rostov.
“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 Rostov, 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 Boris. “He would drink
with you. I can’t.”
“Well, send for him… and how do you get on with that German?”
asked Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.
“He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered
Boris.
Again Rostov looked intently into Boris’ eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov 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 Tsarevich’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 Rostov, smiling.
But Boris 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 Rostov and he began talking about
it, and as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of
his Schon 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Boris 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 Boris, who had
managed to please him the day before, he wished to do what the young
man wanted. Having been sent with papers from Kutuzov to the
Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, 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 Boris a
pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he looked at
Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on the
sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.
Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a
mere stranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, 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 Rostov, from his fighting army point of
view, regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the
newcomer was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and
became silent. Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff,
and what, without indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.
“We shall probably advance,” replied Bolkonski, 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 Boris,
“we will talk of it later” (and he looked round at Rostov). “Come to
me after the review and we will do what is possible.”
And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to
Rostov, 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 Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?”
“I was there,” said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the
aide-de-camp.
Bolkonski noticed the hussar’s state of mind, and it amused him.
With a slightly contemptuo
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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.
Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor’s eyes and heard him, as he was
riding away, say to Czartoryski: “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. Denisov
celebrated his promotion to the rank of major, and Rostov, 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 Schon 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, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and
no less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.
When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten
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, Denisov with his short hand
patted his favorite, Rostov, 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.
“Denisov, don’t make fun of it!” cried Rostov. “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 Rostov 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 Dolgorukov 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
Dolgorukov, 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 Dolgorukov 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 Kutiizov’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, Kutuzov 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 Tolstoy.
Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov 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 Dolgorukov.
“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorukov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilibin. “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 Dolgorukov, 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 Dolgorukov,
looking round at Bilibin with a smile.
“Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov,” 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 Suvorov 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 Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.
“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting
up he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been
foreseen. If he is standing before Brunn…”
And Prince Dolgorukov 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 Dolgorukov 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 Kutuzov’s tonight, though; you
can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorukov.
“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.
“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilibin, 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 Kutuzov, 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 Dolgorukov. “It is not true; there are
now two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a
third, Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak.”
“However, I think General Kutuzov has come out,” said Prince Andrew.
“I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and went out
after shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking
Kutuzov, who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of
tomorrow’s battle.
Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause,
replied: “I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy
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 Kutuzov’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 Bagration, 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov’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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov himself,
Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking
tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration to begin the council. At last
Bagration’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 Kutuzov to
be present at the council, he remained in the room.
“Since Prince Bagration 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 Brunn was spread out.
Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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 Buxhowden 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
Miloradovich 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 Miloradovich 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 Miloradovich 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.
Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his
hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohkturov, 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 Dohkturov 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, Kutuzov
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 Miloradovich who was near him.
But Miloradovich 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.
Kutuzov 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 Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov 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 Nesvitski 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 Kutuzov, 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 Kutuzov’s staff, but he
does everything alone. The next battle is won by him alone. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov’s
courtyard. The voices were those of the orderlies who were packing up;
one voice, probably a coachman’s, was teasing Kutuzov’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, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in
front of Bagration’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. Rostov 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 Denisov, 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 Rostov, “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, Rostov 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, Olmutz. 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 Rostov
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… Natasha… sister, black eyes… Na… tasha… (Won’t she be
surprised when I tell her how I’ve seen the Emperor?) Natasha…
take my sabretache…”- “Keep to the right, your honor, there are
bushes here,” came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostov was riding
in the act of falling asleep. Rostov 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! Natasha… sabretache…
saber them…Whom? The hussars… Ah, the hussars with mustaches.
Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with mustaches… I thought
about him too, just opposite Guryev’s house… Old Guryev…. Oh,
but Denisov’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-tasha, 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 Rostov, 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. Rostov
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 Rostov to the hussar
beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”
The hussar did not reply.
“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostov 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 Rostov.
“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s
dark… Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.
Rostov’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. Rostov 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 Rostov.
Rostov, 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 Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov
with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.
“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, “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 Bagration. “I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too….
Officer!” said Bagration to Rostov, “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
Rostov.
Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov’s face
in the mist.
“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.
“Yes, sir.”
Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko 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. Bagration
called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov
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 Rostov 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. Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more
reports followed at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the
fog singing in different tones. Rostov 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 Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop
again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.
“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostov rode up. “They might
retreat and leave the pickets.”
“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said
Bagration. “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 Rostov, 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 Bagration. “Thank you, officer.”
“Your excellency,” said Rostov, “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 Rostov.”
“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”
“Count Ilya Rostov’s son?” asked Dolgorukov.
But Rostov 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 Rostov.
“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
Hollabrunn 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 Bagration’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 Ivan Mitrich, 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 Kurskies 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 Kutuzov
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 Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Miloradovich’s, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszewski’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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov bitterly. “Who told you
that?… Kindly do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My dear fellow,” Nesvitski 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 Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor’s name had the
fourth column advanced into action.
Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to
fall upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov’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 Bolkonski.
“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. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov in the midst
of a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov 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.
Kutuzov, 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 Olmutz where Bolkonski 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 Olmutz 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.
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, 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 Brunn. 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 Kutuzov’s cheerless staff with the
galloping advent of all these brilliant young men.
“Why aren’t you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?” said the Emperor
Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same
time at the Emperor Francis.
“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” answered Kutuzov, bending forward
respectfully.
The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had
not quite heard.
“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that
Kutuzov’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 Novosiltsev who was near him, as
if complaining of Kutuzov.
“You know, Michael Ilarionovich, 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 Kutuzov 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 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 Kutuzov’s eye
waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov,
with respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence
lasted for about a minute.
“However, if you command it, Your Majesty,” said Kutuzov, lifting
his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning,
but submissive general.
He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander
of the column, gave him the order to advance.
The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod
and one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.
As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,
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 possibilite,
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.”
Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a
little behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s
presence, passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a
bold, brisk pace.
“Lads!” shouted Miloradovich 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 Apsherons, his comrades
in Suvorov’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 Apsherons.
CHAPTER XVI
Kutuzov 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. Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov was standing, a
dense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.
“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,”
thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.
“The Apsherons 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 naive 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. Bolkonski only tried not to
lose touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp
what was happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face,
red and unlike himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not
ride away at once he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov
remained in the same place and wit
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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.
Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin 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 Repnin.
“You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander’s regiment of
Horse Guards?” asked Napoleon.
“I commanded a squadron,” replied Repnin.
“Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,” said Napoleon.
“The praise of a great commander is a soldier’s highest reward,”
said Repnin.
“I bestow it with pleasure,” said Napoleon. “And who is that young
man beside you?”
Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
“He’s very young to come to meddle with us.”
“Youth is no hindrance to courage,” muttered Sukhtelen 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 Repnin!” 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 Rostov returned home on leave.
Denisov was going home to Voronezh and Rostov 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, Denisov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov,
when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had
entered Moscow.
“Denisov! 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.
Denisov gave no answer.
“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has
his stand, and there’s Zakhar 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 Rostov. “Of course, it’s our house! Denisov, Denisov!
We’re almost there!”
Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
“Dmitri,” said Rostov 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 Rostov, fingering his
new mustache. “Now then, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “Do wake
up, Vaska!” he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again
nodding. “Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka- get
on!” Rostov 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 Rostov 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. Prokofy, 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 Prokofy, 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 Rostov, 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!”
Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, 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 Natasha, and which Petya. 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… Kolya,* dear fellow… How he has
changed!… Where are the candles?… Tea!…”
*Nicholas.
“And me, kiss me!”
“Dearest… and me!”
Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, 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.
Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!”
Natasha, 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.
Sonya 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. Sonya 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.
Denisov, who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there
and wiped his eyes at the sight.
“Vasili Denisov, 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 Denisov. “Nicholas wrote us… Natasha, Vera, look! Here
is Denisov!”
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of
Denisov.
“Darling Denisov!” screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,
springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled
and, taking Natasha’s hand, kissed it.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs
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.
Rostov 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 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, Gwiska- my pipe!” came Vasili Denisov’s husky voice.
“Wostov, get up!”
Rostov, 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 Natasha’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 Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had
come to see whether they were getting up.
“Nicholas! Get up!” Natasha’s voice was again heard at the door.
“Directly!”
Meanwhile, Petya, 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. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the
blanket, looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door,
having let Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from
behind it.
“Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natasha’s voice.
“Is this your saber?” asked Petya. “Or is it yours?” he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing
gown, and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just
getting her foot into the other. Sonya, 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. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, 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. Natasha 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.
Rostov 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 Sonya run away?” asked Rostov.
“Ah, yes! That’s a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
her- thou or you?”
“As may happen,” said Rostov.
“No, call her you, please! I’ll tell you all about it some other
time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sonya’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 Natasha’s wildly
bright eyes, Rostov 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.”
Natasha 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 Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that
what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
Rostov became thoughtful.
“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sonya is so
charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.”
“No, no!” cried Natasha, “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.”
Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya 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, Rostov 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 Boris?” he continued.
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Natasha, 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 now?”
“Now?” repeated Natasha, 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, Natasha 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.”
Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom,
felt envious and Natasha 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 Boris?”
Natasha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell
him so when I see him!”
“Dear me!” said Rostov.
“But that’s all rubbish,” Natasha chattered on. “And is Denisov
nice?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed!”
“Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible,
Denisov?”
“Why terrible?” asked Nicholas. “No, Vaska is a splendid fellow.”
“You call him Vaska? That’s funny! And is he very nice?”
“Very.”
“Well then, be quick. We’ll all have breakfast together.”
And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostov met Sonya 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-
Sonya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender
kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natasha’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 Vera, selecting a moment when all were
silent, “that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers.”
Vera’s remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like
most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not
only Sonya, Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who-
dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a
brilliant match- blushed like a girl.
Denisov, to Rostov’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 Rostov had ever expected to see him.
CHAPTER II
On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was
welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their
darling Nikolenka; 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 Rostovs 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 Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya 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 Arkharovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field
Marshal Kamenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate
terms with a colonel of forty to whom Denisov had introduced
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 Rostov’s short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army,
he did not draw closer to Sonya, 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 Sonya, 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 Denisov, 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 Ilya Rostov was very busy
arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration 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 Feoktist, 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 Bagration, 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 entree. Ah, goodness gracious!” he
clutched at his head. “Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,
Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,” he said to the factotum
who appeared at his call. “Hurry off and tell Maksim, 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 Bagration worried himself less
before the battle of Schon 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, Feoktist?” 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 Bezukhob’s, and tell him ‘Count Ilya 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 Rasgulyay- the
coachman Ipatka knows- and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who
danced at Count Orlov’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 Mikhaylovna 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 Bezukhov’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 Boris. Thank God, Boris is
now on the staff.”
The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna’s taking upon herself
one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
“Tell Bezukhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with
him?” he asked.
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Bezukhov! 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 Rostov.
Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.
“Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna’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 Mikhaylovna, wishing to show
her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half
smile betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called
Dolokhov. “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
Bagration, 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 forgathered 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 Rostopchin, Prince Yuri
Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemski- did not show
themselves at the Club, but met in private houses in intimate circles,
and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others- Ilya Rostov
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 Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutuzov’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 Bagration, distinguished
by his Schon 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 Bagration’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 Suvorov. Moreover,
paying such honor to Bagration was the best way of expressing
disapproval and dislike of Kutuzov.
“Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent
him,” said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire.
Kutuzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,
calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.
All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov’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 Rostopchin, 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 Bolkonski, 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 kaftans. 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 Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov- who was
now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The faces of these young
people, especially those who were militarymen, 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.”
Nesvitski 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 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 Rostopchin, Valuev, and
Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how the Russians had been
overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to force their way through
them with bayonets.
Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply
to the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing
close by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently
failed to learn from Suvorov 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 Kutuzov.
Count Ilya Rostov, 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 Rostov
stood at a window with Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made
and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed
Dolokhov’s hand.
“Please come and visit us… you know my brave boy… been
together out there… both playing the hero… Ah, Vasili
Ignatovich… 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.
Bagration 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 Rostov 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 naively festive in his air, which, in conjunction with
his firm and virile features, gave him a rather comical expression.
Bekleshev and Theodore Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the
doorway to allow him, as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration
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 Schon 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 Bagration
over each other’s shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. Count
Ilya Rostov, 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 Ilya, 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 Bagration. On the salver lay some
verses composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagration, 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 Bagration (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!” Bagration 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. Bagration bowed his bead 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, Bagration,
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 Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading
his verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was
more important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the
rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between
two Alexanders- Bekleshev and Naryshkin- 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 Ilya Rostov presented his son to
Bagration, who recognized him and said a few words to him,
disjointed and awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and
Count Ilya looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagration spoke to
his son.
Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov,
sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre,
beside Prince Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of
the committee sat facing Bagration 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 Ilya Rostov 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!” Bagration also rose and
shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it
on the field at Schon Grabern. Young Rostov’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 Ivanovich Bagration!” 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 Ivanovich Kutuzov:
Russians! O’er all barriers on!
Courage conquest guarantees;
Have we not Bagration?
He brings foe men to their knees,… etc.
As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was
proposed and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more
glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to
Bekleshev, Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the
committee, to all the Club members and to all the Club guests, and
finally to Count Ilya Rostov 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 Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every
time he chanced to meet Dolokhov’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
Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov, 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, Dolokhov had come straight to his
house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled
how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dolokhov’s living at
their house, and how cynically Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov’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. Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were
now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostov 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. Rostov
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 Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov.
“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostov was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!”
“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dolokhov to Rostov.
“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostov.
“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denisov.
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 Dolokhov, 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 Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing
leaflets with Kutuzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of
the principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov,
leaning across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre
looked at Dolokhov 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, Nesvitski
and the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.
“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened
voices.
Dolokhov 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 Denisov’s
request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to
be Dolokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements
for the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhov’s second. Pierre went home,
but Rostov with Dolokhov and Denisov stayed on at the Club till
late, listening to the gypsies and other singers.
“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki,”said Dolokhov, as he took
leave of Rostov in the Club porch.
“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostov asked.
Dolokhov 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 Kostroma
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. A demain, mon cher.”*
*Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.
Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the
Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov 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 Dolokhov, 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, Nesvitski 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 Nesvitski (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 to confess.
“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.
“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dolokhov to Denisov (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 Nesvitski’s and Dolokhov’s sabers, which were stuck
intothe 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 Dolokhov.
“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.
Denisov 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. Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov’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. Rostov ran toward him and said something.
“No-o-o!” muttered Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.
“Please,” he uttered with an effort.
Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov
and was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov
cried:
“To your barrier!” and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by
his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov 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 Nesvitski.
“Cover yourself!” even Denisov 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
Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski
closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and
Dolokhov’s angry cry.
“Missed!” shouted Dolokhov, 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.
Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.
Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.
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 Rostov, who was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was
struck by the totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender
expression on Dolokhov’s face.
“Well? How do you feel?” he asked.
“Bad! But it’s not that, my friend-” said Dolokhov 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 Rostov.
“My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,” and
Dolokhov pressed Rostov’s hand and burst into tears.
When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that
he was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not
survive it. He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.
Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov 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 Bezukhov 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
Dolokhov’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 Vasili’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 u
War and Peace
by
Leo Tolstoy
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“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 Bezukhov? And Fedya, 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! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya 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 Fedya not fighting
because he owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you
understand Fedya, 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!”
Dolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov 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 Rostov, who was under his
new friend’s influence.
In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov 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. Vera was a handsome girl
of twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening
flower; Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly
amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostovs’ 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
Rostovs’ household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of
happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was
Dolokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She
almost quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he
was a bad man, and that in the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right
and Dolokhov wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and
unnatural.
“There’s nothing for me to understand,” cried out with resolute
self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov
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 Denisov…”
“Oh, Denisov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that
even Denisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov- “you must understand
what a soul there is in Dolokhov, 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 Sonya?”
“What nonsense…”
“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”
Natasha’s prediction proved true. Dolokhov, 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 Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never
have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time
Dolokhov appeared.
Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs’, never missed a performance
at which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people
which the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sonya
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 Natasha
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.
Rostov noticed something new in Dolokhov’s relations with Sonya, but
he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.
“They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sonya and
Natasha. But he was not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov 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 Rostov 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 Denisov’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 Denisov were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany.
About twenty people were present, including Dolokhov and Denisov.
Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous
atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs’ 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. Sonya,
Dolokhov, and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a
lesser degree Natasha. Nicholas understood that something must have
happened between Sonya and Dolokhov 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 durings the
holidays.
“Nicholas, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natasha. “He
asked you, and Vasili Dmitrich* is also going.”
*Denisov.
“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” said Denisov, who
at the Rostovs’ had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha’s knight.
“I’m even weady to dance the pas de chale.”
“If I have time,” answered Nicholas. “But I promised the
Arkharovs; they have a party.”
“And you?” he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the
question he noticed that it should not have been put.
“Perhaps,” coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya,
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 Dolokhov left
immediately after dinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the
matter.
“And I was looking for you,” said Natasha running out to him. “I
told you, but you would not believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He
has proposed to Sonya!”
Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late,
something seemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov 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
Sonya…. 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 Natasha began again.
“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a
pause, “she told him she loved another.”
“Yes, my Sonya 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 Natasha. “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 don’t know that at all!” said Nicholas. “But I must talk to
her. What a darling Sonya is!” he added with a smile.
“Ah, she is indeed a darling! I’ll send her to you.”
And Natasha kissed her brother and ran away.
A minute later Sonya 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…”
Sonya interrupted him.
“I have already refused,” she said hurriedly.
“If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I…”
Sonya 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 Sonya, 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
Dolokhov’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 Gorchakov 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 Natasha, who was
exceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but
at this last ball only the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka,
which was just coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a
ballroom in Bezukhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a
great success. There were many pretty girls and the Rostov girls
were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and gay.
That evening, proud of Dolokhov’s proposal, her refusal, and her
explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled about before she left home so
that the maid could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was
transparently radiant with impulsive joy.
Natasha 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.
Natasha 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 Sonya.
Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly
patronage at the dancers.
“How sweet she is- she will be a weal beauty!” said Denisov.
“Who?”
“Countess Natasha,” answered Denisov.
“And how she dances! What gwace!” he said again after a pause.
“Who are you talking about?”
“About your sister,” ejaculated Denisov testily.
Rostov 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 Denisov who was also a
former pupil of his.
“No, my dear fellow, I’ll be a wallflower,” said Denisov. “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 Sonya to dance. Denisov 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 Natasha, 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
Natasha, who, though shy, went on carefully executing her steps.
Denisov 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 Rostov 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 Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the
masterly way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to
Natasha:
“Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!” he said.
When it came to Natasha’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 Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was
looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing
though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.
“Please, Vasili Dmitrich,” Natasha was saying, “do come!”
“Oh no, let me off, Countess,” Denisov replied.
“Now then, Vaska,” said Nicholas.
“They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!” said Denisov jokingly.
“I’ll sing for you a whole evening,” said Natasha.
“Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!” said Denisov, 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
Denisov’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. Natasha 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, Natasha 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 Denisov’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. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and
mopping himself with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did not
leave her for the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER XIII
For two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at
Dolokhov’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 Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the
theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once
shown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that evening.
Some twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dolokhov sat
between two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper
money, and he was keeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him since
his proposal and Sonya’s refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought
of how they would meet.
Dolokhov’s clear, cold glance met Rostov 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 Ilyushka will come with his chorus.”
“I called once or twice at your house,” said Rostov, reddening.
Dolokhov made no reply.
“You may punt,” he said.
Rostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once
had with Dolokhov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dolokhov
had then said.
“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dolokhov now asked as if
guessing Rostov’s thought.
Beneath his smile Rostov 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.
Rostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke
with which to reply to Dolokhov’s words. But before he had thought
of anything, Dolokhov, 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?” Rostov asked himself.
“Well, you’d better not play,” Dolokhov added, and springing a new
pack of cards said: “Bank, gentlemen!”
Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by his
side and at first did not play. Dolokhov 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.”
Rostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and
again lost. Dolokhov “killed,” that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov’s
running.
“Gentlemen,” said Dolokhov 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 Dolokhov. “Don’t
stint yourself, we’ll settle afterwards,” he added, turning to Rostov.
The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.
All Rostov’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 Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking
at Rostov, “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.
Rostov 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 Dolokhov’s words, and with
a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov’s
hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostov’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 Dolokhov’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 Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will
certainly never touch a card again.” At that moment his home life,
jokes with Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with
his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the
Povarskaya 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 Dolokhov’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 Dolokhov, 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 Rostov.
“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dolokhov, and he took up the
cards with a smile.
“Aah!” Rostov 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 Dolokhov with a side glance at
Rostov 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 Rostov. 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. Dolokhov was no longer
listening to stories or telling them, but followed every movement of
Rostov’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 Sonya’s joint ages. Rostov, 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?” Rostov
pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov 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
Dolokhov 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. Rostov 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 Dolokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside
and began rapidly adding up the total of Rostov’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 Dolokhov, 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. Rostov
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.”
Dolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov 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 Dolokhov, and stretching
himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting so
long,” he added.
“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostov.
Dolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for
him to jest.
“When am I to receive the money, Count?”
Rostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room.
“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said.
“I say, Rostov,” said Dolokhov 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 Rostov. 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 Dolokhov 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…” Dolokhov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov household that
winter and, now after Dolokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed
to have grown thicker round Sonya and Natasha as the air does before a
thunderstorm. Sonya and Natasha, 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. Vera was playing chess with
Shinshin 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. Denisov, 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 Natasha.
“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natasha. “Another verse, she
said, without noticing Nicholas.
“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas,
glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother
with the old lady.
“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natasha, running up to him.
“Is Papa at home?” he asked.
“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natasha, without answering him. “We
are enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for my
sake! Did you know?”
“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sonya.
“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 Natasha to sing.
“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denisov. “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.
Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to
Denisov’s favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing.
Denisov 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.
Sonya 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 Denisov and the
girls and avoiding their eyes.
“Nikolenka, what is the matter?” Sonya’s eyes fixed on him seemed to
ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha 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, Sonya!” 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, Natasha, 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 Denisov followed her.
“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his
sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?”
Natasha 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 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.
Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing
seriously, mainly because Denisov 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 Dolokhov, and anger, and honor- it’s all
nonsense… but this is real…. Now then, Natasha, 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 Rostov’s soul! And this something was apart from
everything else in the world and above everything in the world.
“What were losses, and Dolokhov, and words of honor?… All
nonsense! One might kill and rob and yet be happy…”
CHAPTER XVI
It was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he
did that day. But no sooner had Natasha 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 feel 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. Natasha 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. Denisov had proposed. To
whom? To this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing
with dolls and who was still having lessons.
“Don’t, Natasha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke.
“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,” said Natasha
indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it
‘nonsense!’”
The countess shrugged her shoulders.
“If it true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell
him he is a fool, that’s all!”
“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha as grown up.
“No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you’ll listen
at the door,” and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing
hall, where Denisov 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.”
“Vasili Dmitrich, 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.”
Denisov 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.
“Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, with an
embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov- “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 Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He
tried to say more, but faltered.
Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She
began to sob aloud.
“Countess, I have done w’ong,” Denisov 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 Natasha.
Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He not wish to stay another day
in Moscow. All Denisov’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 Denisov’s departure, Rostov 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.
Sonya 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 Dolokhov 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
Torzhok 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
Torzhok 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 Sokolniki 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 Dolokhov 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 Torzhok 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 Bezukhov. 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 Bezukhov, 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 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 Bezukhov, 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.
War and Peace
by
Leo Tolstoy
Part 11 out of 34
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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 Helene 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 Helene 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 Vasili 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna’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 Auerstadt 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 Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The
“cream of really good society” consisted of the fascinating Helene,
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 merite), a newly appointed maid of honor
and her mother, and several other less noteworthy persons.
The novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that evening
was Boris Drubetskoy, 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 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 Boris, 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 Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic
relations with Austria and the hope of an alliance with her.
Boris, 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 Pavlovna 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.
charge d’affaires from Copenhagen- a profound intellect,” and
simply, “Mr. Shitov- a man of great merit”- this of the man usually so
described.
Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the
peculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris 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 Olmutz 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 Rostovs’ house and of his childish love for Natasha was unpleasant
to him and he had not once been to see the Rostovs since the day of
his departure for the army. To be in Anna Pavlovna’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 Helene 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 charge
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 Pavlovna, “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 alliee sincere.”*
*”Europe will never be our sincere ally.”
After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the
King of Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation.
Boris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his
turn, but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his
neighbor, the beautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those
of the handsome young aide-de-camp with a smile.
Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally
asked Boris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state
he found the Prussian army. Boris, 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 Pavlovna felt that the
novelty she had served up was received with pleasure by all her
visitors. The greatest attention of all to Boris’ narrative was
shown by Helene. 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.”
Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a
conversation with her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the
pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.
“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pavlovna, closing her
eyes and indicating Helene 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 Boris and Anna Pavlovna 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
Pavlovna 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 Pavlovna 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!”
Boris 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 Pavlovna,
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, Helene who had spoken very little all the
evening again turned to Boris, 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 Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile
with which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene’s
wish.
It seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening
about the Prussian army, Helene 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 Helene’s splendid salon,
Boris 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, Boris 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 Bolkonski,
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 cruelty 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
Savishna 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, Bogucharovo, 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 Bogucharovo, 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, Petrusha 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.
“Petrusha 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 Ivanich 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 Ivanich!” 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
Korchevo- a certain Khandrikov- 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
Petenka- 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 Korchevo 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 Bilibin. He folded
it up without reading it and reread his father’s letter, ending with
the words: “Gallop off to Korchevo 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
Bilibin’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
Bilibin 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. Bilibin 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
Bilibin, “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 Prozorovski and
Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us,
Suvorov-like, in a kibitka, 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 Pultusk, routed: here it
is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done,
and, as you yourself reported to Count Buxhowden 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 Buxhowden,
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 Sedmoretzki, 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.
Buxhowden 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 Pultusk, 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 Pultusk. 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
Buxhowden. 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
Buxhowden 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 Buxhowden. General
Buxhowden 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. Buxhowden pursues us- we scuttle. He hardly crosses the
river to our side before we recross to the other. At last our enemy.
Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both generals are angry, and the
result is a challenge on Buxhowden’s part and an epileptic fit on
Bennigsen’s. But at the critical moment the courier who carried the
news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg returns bringing our
appointment as commander in chief, and our first foe, Buxhowden, 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
Bilibin), 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 Bezukhov’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 70,00 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 Kostroma, 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 naive 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 Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years.
Bogucharovo 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 facade
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. Anton, 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 Anton ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
“A visitor,” answered Anton.
“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 naive, 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 Smolensk
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 Yukhnovna 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
War and Peace
by
Leo Tolstoy
Part 12 out of 34
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Alarmed at Denisov’s condition, Rostov 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 Denisov. 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 Denisov. “‘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 Denisov,
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. “Telyanin! ‘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…!’ and I sta’ted fwashing him…
Well, I’ve had a bit of fun I can tell you!” cried Denisov, gleeful
and yet angry, his 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 Rostov. “You’ve
set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again.”
Denisov 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 Rostov’s and
Denisov’s dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully
showed them a paper addressed to Major Denisov 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 Denisov, 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 Rostov’s renewed questions, Denisov 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.
Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov 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, Denisov 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 Platov reconnoitered with two
Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, 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 Denisov 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
Pavlograds did not take part, and after that an armistice was
proclaimed. Rostov, 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 Denisov 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 Rostov 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
Makar Alexeevich 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
Rostov 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 Rostov.
“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makeev 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.”
Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov 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 Denisov,” Rostov said again. “He was wounded at Molliten.”
“Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?” 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.
Rostov described Denisov’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, Makeev?”
“Makar Alexeevich has the list,” answered the assistant. “But if
you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for yourself,” he
added, turning to Rostov.
“Ah, you’d better not go, sir,” said the doctor, “or you may have to
stay here yourself.”
But Rostov 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.
Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell
was so strong there that Rostov 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, Rostov 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,
Rostov 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 Rostov with the same expression of hope, of relief,
reproach, and envy of another’s health. Rostov 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. Rostov
listened and made out the word. It was “drink, drink, a drink!” Rostov
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 Rostov.
“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and
evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.
“Get him to his place and give him some water,” said Rostov,
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 Rostov,
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 Rostov. The man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to
him, pointing at Rostov, 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. Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov 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 Rostov 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. Rostov looked at him, trying to remember
where he had seen him before.
“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Tushin, Tushin,
don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon 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 Vasili Dmitrich
Denisov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted.
“Here, here,” and Tushin 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 Rostov,
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.
Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket,
though it was nearly noon.
“Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in
the same voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under
this habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling
showed itself in the expression of Denisov’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 Rostov. What struck him was that Denisov 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 Rostov
spoke of these matters did not listen.
Rostov even noticed that Denisov 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
Rostov’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 Rostov’s attention to the
stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions,
who had gathered round Rostov- a fresh arrival from the world outside-
gradually began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his
answer. Rostov 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 Tushin
still listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of
the reading, the Uhlan interrupted Denisov.
“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostov, “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 Denisov, 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 Tushin, “but that’s not the
point, Vasili Dmitrich,” and he also turned to Rostov. “One has to
submit, and Vasili Dmitrich doesn’t want to. You know the auditor told
you it was a bad business.
“Well, let it be bad,” said Denisov.
“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Tushin, “and
you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he”
(indicating Rostov) “has connections on the staff. You won’t find a
better opportunity.”
“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denisov interrupted him,
went on reading his paper.
Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other
officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of
service to Denisov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward
hasty temper.
When the reading of Denisov’s virulent reply, which took more than
an hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the
day in a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov’s hospital comrades,
who had round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their
stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked
Denisov whether he had no commission for him.
“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denisov, 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 Rostov a large envelope. In it
was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which
Denisov, 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 Denisov’s affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the
Emperor.
On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy 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.
Boris 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.
Boris 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 Boris 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, Boris 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.
Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.
Zhilinski, 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 Boris.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski
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, Rostov, profiting by the
darkness to avoid being recognized in civilian dress. came to Tilsit
and went to the lodging occupied by Boris and Zhilinski.
Rostov, 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 Boris. In the army, Bonaparte
and the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger,
contempt, and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Platov’s
Cossack officers, Rostov 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, Rostov had maintained with heat that peace was impossible
between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostov
was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers
in Boris’ 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 Drubetskoy lived there.
Boris, 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 Rostov.
“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however,
coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov 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 a vous,”* he said, answering someone who called
him.
*”In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”
“I see I’m intruding,” Rostov repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris’ face:
having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly
took both Rostov’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes,
looking serenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by
something, as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it
seemed to Rostov.
“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Boris,
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 Zhilinski- le Comte N. N.- le Capitaine S. S.,” said he,
naming his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed
reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris 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 Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the
Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,
addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter
had probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
“No, I came on business,” replied Rostov, briefly.
Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look
of dissatisfaction on Boris’ 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 Boris.
“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 Boris. “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 Boris slept. Rostov, without
sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in
some way) telling him about Denisov’s affair, asking him whether,
through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor
on Denisov’s behalf and get Denisov’s petition handed in. When he
and Boris were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not
look Boris in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one
leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender
fingers of his right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the
report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight
into Rostov’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this
happened Rostov 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!” Rostov almost
shouted, not looking Boris in the face.
Boris smiled.
“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought…”
At that moment Zhilinski’s voice was heard calling Boris.
“Well then, go, go, go…” said Rostov, 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
Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on
Denisov’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 Boris, 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 Preobrazhensk
battalion. The Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when
the latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and
early next morning went away, avoiding Boris. 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 hugh monograms A and N. In the windows of the houses also flags
and bunting were displayed.
“Boris 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 Denisov and certainly not
without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!… He is
here!” thought Rostov, 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 Rostov. “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
Drubetskoy who drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination
he himself did not expect, Rostov 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,’” Rostov 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, Rostov 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
Rostov 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 Rostov’s attention. This man was was
speaking to someone in the adjoining room.
“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing
Rostov, 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…”
Rostov 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 Denisov,” answered Rostov.
“Are you an officer?”
“Lieutenant Count Rostov.”
“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.
Rostov 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, Rostov, 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 Rostov was serving.
Rostov, 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
Denisov, whom the general knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the
general shook his head gravely.
“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”
Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining
Denisov’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 Rostov knew at once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the
danger of being recognized, Rostov 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 Rostov’s soul in all its
old force. In the uniform of the Preobrazhensk regiment- white
chamois-leather breeches and high boots- and wearing a star Rostov did
not know (it was that of the Legion 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 Rostov’s division, smiled and
beckoned to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostov 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 Rostov) 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,
Rostov ran after him with the crowd.
CHAPTER XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a
battalion of the Preobrazhensk 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 Rostov 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, Rostov, 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, Rostov 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 Preobrazhensk battalion and came
straight up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly
found itself so close to the Emperors that Rostov, 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 Rostov, 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 Kozlovski, 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
Koslovski, 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.”
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his
scrutiny.
“Can it be me?” thought Rostov.
“Lazarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the
first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lazarev who
did not know where to go. Lazarev 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 Rostov had
seen the previous evening at Boris’- 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 Lazarev (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 Lazarev’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 Lazarev’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. Lazarev 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 Preobrazhensk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the
tables prepared for them.
Lazarev 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 Rostov.
“What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,” one of them
was saying. “Have you seen Lazarev?”
“I have.”
“Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner.”
“Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension
for life.”
“Here’s a cap, lads!” shouted a Preobrazhensk 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 ‘Napoleon, 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.”
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner
of a house.
“Rostov! 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 Rostov’s face.
“Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostov.
“You’ll call round?”
“Yes, I will.”
Rostov 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 Denisov 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 Lazarev rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He
caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis 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, Rostov 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 or
his actions!”
“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer,
justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov’s outburst, except
on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov 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
Bogucharovo 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 “Bogucharovo 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 of survey 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 Ryazan estates which
had been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche 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 Ryazan estate of
which he was trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, 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 Rostovs’ house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish
cries behind some trees on the right and saw group of girls running to
cross the path of his caleche. 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 Ryazan serfs’ quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so
happy?” Prince Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe 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 Natasha, 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 Rostov), 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 grewsome 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.
“Sonya! Sonya!” he again heard the first speaker. “Oh, how can you
sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
Sonya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never, never
was such a lovely night before!”
Sonya 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 Sonya’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
serics 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
Ryazan 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
a 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 Speranski 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 caleche, injured his
leg, and remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski 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,
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov- whom he himself
in jest had called his Comite de salut public- were taking shape and
being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side,
and Arakcheev 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 Bolkonski’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 Arakcheev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev’s waiting
room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he
had heard
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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 Bezukhov 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 Vasili’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 Alexeevich. 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 Alexeevich 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 Alexeevich, 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 Alexeevich 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 Alexeevich 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 Helene 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
Alexeevich’s letters and recalled my conversations with him, and
deduced from it all that I ought not to refuse a suppliant, 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
Alexeevich. 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 Rumyantsev
and Caulaincourt. In this group Helene, 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.
Helene 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. Bilibin saved up his
epigrams to produce them in Countess Bezukhova’s presence. To be
received in the Countess Bezukhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma
of intellect. Young men read books before attending Helene’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 Helene 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 Helene Bezukhova’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, Boris
Drubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was
the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since Helene’s
return from Erfurt. Helene 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 Boris
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 Boris’ 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 Alexeevich'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 Urusov 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 Boris Drubetskoy 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 Dolokhov, 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 Boris Drubetskoy 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 Alexeevich 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 be 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 Alexeevich’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 Alexeevich 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 Rostovs’ monetary affairs had not improved during the two
years they had spent in the country.
Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was
still serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending
comparatively little, the way of life at Otradnoe- Mitenka’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 Vera and was
accepted.
Though in Moscow the Rostovs 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 Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in
Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country
neighbors from Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters,
Peronskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, 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 Rostovs’ house in
Petersburg were Boris, Pierre whom the count had met in the street and
dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostovs’
and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Vera, 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 Vera Rostova 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 Rostovs’ 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
Rostova; but Berg’s chief characteristic was such a naive and good
natured egotism that the Rostovs 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 Rostovs’ affairs were
seriously embarrassed, as the suitor could not but know; and above
all, Vera 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
fiancee!… 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 Vera 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 Vera. 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 Vera. 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 Ryazan 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 Vera’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 Vera 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
Natasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which
she had counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her
mother, if Boris 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 Boris was a jest or an important, binding
promise tormented her.
Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had had not seen
the Rostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed
near Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.
Sometimes it occurred to Natasha that he 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 Boris was mentioned.
Anna Mikhaylovna 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 Rostovs came to
Petersburg Boris called on them.
He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha 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 Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He
had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with
Countess Bezukhova, 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 Rostovs’ drawing room Natasha 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.
Boris remembered Natasha 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 Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous
astonishment. This expression on his face pleased Natasha.
“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the
countess.
Boris kissed Natasha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.
“How handsome you have grown!”
“I should think so!” replied Natasha’s laughing eyes.
“And is Papa older?” she asked.
Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris’ 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.
Boris’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were
all comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha 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, Natasha 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 Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under
her brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris 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 Boris said
to himself that Natasha 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.
Boris made up his mind to avoid meeting Natasha, but despite that
resolution he called again a few days later and began calling often
and spending whole days at the Rostovs’. It seemed to him that he
ought to have an explanation with Natasha 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 Sonya that Natasha was in
love with Boris 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 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 Helene and received reproachful notes from her
every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostovs.
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 Natasha, 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?” Natasha, 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. Natasha 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 Natasha’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 Natasha. “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 Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha’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…”
Natasha put her hand on her mother’s mouth.
“About Boris… 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?”
“Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say
Boris 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.
Natasha 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.
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha.
“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess.
“But if I want to…”
“Natasha, I am in earnest…”
Natasha 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 Natasha.
“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin…”
“I know! Cyril Matveich… but he is old.”
“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natasha, I’ll have
a talk with Boris. 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 Natasha 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.”
Natasha 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 Natasha. “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.
Natasha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nicholas would
understand…. Bezukhov, 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?” Natasha 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.
“Sonya?” 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 Dunyasha the maid to put out the
candle, and before Dunyasha 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 Boris aside and had a talk with him,
after which he ceased coming to the Rostovs’.
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 Rostovs, who
were to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in
the Rostov 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.
Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, 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 Rostovs 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.
Natasha 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 Sonya- should be as well
dressed as possible. Sonya 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 a 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. Sonya was finishing
dressing and so was the countess, but Natasha, 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. Sonya 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, Sonya!” cried Natasha
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!”
Sonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently.
“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was
holding Natasha’s hair.
“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sonya.”
“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 Natasha. “You won’t do it right.”
“But it’s already ten.”
They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had
still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under
which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket,
ran up to Sonya, 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 Natasha’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 Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer
garment up high on one uplifted hand.
“Mavra, quicker, darling!”
“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there…”
“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door.
“Here is here is some scent. Peronskaya 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.
Natasha 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.
Sonya 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 Natasha, 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 Sonya, in a despairing voice as she
looked at Natasha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.”
Natasha 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 Mavra, crawling
on her knees after her young lady.
“Well, if it’s too long we’ll take it up… we’ll tack it up in
one minute,” said the resolute Dunyasha 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 Natasha. “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 Dunyasha.
“What a beauty- a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the
door. “And Sonya! 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.
Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she
had gone through the same process as the Rostovs, 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 Rostovs’
servants had been.
She praised the Rostovs’ 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
Natasha 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 Sonya 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.
Natasha 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 Natasha, 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, “Charme de vous voir,”* greeted the Rostovs
and Peronskaya 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 Natasha. 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 Natasha 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. Natasha 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.
Peronskaya 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 Bezukhova,” said
Peronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. “How lovely! She
is quite equal to Marya Antonovna. 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 Peronskaya. “And
look, here come her suitors.”
“That is Bezukhova’s brother, Anatole Kuragin,” 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, Drubetskoy, 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 Marya Antonovna! 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.
Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the
buffoon,” as Peronskaya 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. Natasha at
once recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it
was Bolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger,
happier, and better-looking.
“There’s someone else we know- Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?” said
Natasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed a
night with us at Otradnoe.”
“Oh, you know him?” said Peronskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait a
present la pluie et le beau temps.”* He’s too proud for anything.
Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speranski, 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 Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came
ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya
diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners and
were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the
polonaise. Natasha felt that she would be left with her mother and
Sonya 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 Peronskaya 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 Natasha’s ears.
She wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the
other end of the room. She and the countess and Sonya 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 Natasha as one looks at a wall. Boris 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 Natasha- as if there
were nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did
not listen to or look at Vera, 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
Rostovs 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 Bezukhova 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 Helene’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. Natasha 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 Rostovs. 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
Speranski 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 cau
gay about the face
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